I want to hear stories of others who also were touched by reading in this way. I guess I'm looking for some hopeium lol.

Reading opened my mind from a young age and made me less susceptible to manipulation, I think. I was able to leave a controlling religion and I credit that to books and the critical thinking a lot of stuff I read led to. There's a couple of family members of mine who are only now coming into their 20s and are also turning into big bookworms. I find myself comparing our tastes in reading from afar on social media (they post on booktok publicly) as they've shunned me for a few years now. It hurts to be estranged from the family I grew up with but I always hope that their love for literature will help take them away from that abusive place eventually. I like to imagine that maybe someday we can all read booktok slop together and not be kept apart due to religious differences and abusive leaders...

Please share your stories so I don't feel like I'm crazy for thinking this could be a possibility. Thank you. 💔

Hey everyone!

I just finished grad school and I want to give my curiosity an outlet, so I came up with an idea to learn a bunch of new things and kind of check them off a list.

As the most curious group of people I know, I come to you for ideas.

I'm basically making little challenges I get to check off and they can be more experiential, more scholarly, bookish or otherwise.

For example: If I want to learn about rocks I'd complete certain tasks, including reading certain books and maybe going out and identifying some rocks.

If I want to learn about art history, I'd go read certain books and look into certain art pieces, etc.

I'm compiling a list of interesting things to learn, and I'm opening the floor to you all to share things you think it would be cool to learn, because I know you'll have great ideas.

Thanks! ❤️