An ideal day of relaxation is me tucked in bed, glass of red wine in tow and deeply immersed in a good book. If I somehow had the magical powers of controlling the weather, it’d be raining too. Books are my go-to method for escaping the stress and ennui of daily life. There’s just something cathartic about living alongside the characters and experiencing their stories with them. But as much as I love reading, I love speaking and connecting with other bibliophiles even more and thanks to the internet, these connections are happening a lot faster and easier than before. Gone are the days where communities were simply bound and defined by geographical locations. Now, we’re able to defy traditional communication barriers of time and space to connect with people who share the same interests as us.
The name “bookstagram” is used to describe a niche community on Instagram who are interested in sharing book-related content on their Instagram feeds. It first started off as a hashtag to indicate what books people read on their personal pages but quickly morphed into stand-alone accounts solely dedicated to the love of books. As with any community formed on Instagram, which is a visually oriented platform, they tend to be formed through content creation that revolves around specific aesthetic themes. On bookstagram, the desired aesthetic is a page filled with carefully curated book content. From book stacks to “shelfies”, bookstagram accounts are well-versed in stylizing books to make them visually appealing and attractive. Adding to this visual curation are the different challenges that happen within the bookstagram community, encouraging people to show off their creative side. The #bumbleestack challenge, for example, encourages stylized images of black and yellow books, and the #nameinbooks challenge asked bookstagrammers to spell their names out with the titles of books.
But it’s not all challenges and stylized photo-ops, bookstagram has led to a democratization of voices in the literary world, and has led to an influx of individuals flocking to these accounts to hear directly from people they trust about their reviews. It has connected literary communities and challenged the gatekeepers of these communities. In particular, the bookstagram accounts in Africa have risen up to the challenge of being pushed out of these traditionally white and Western spaces, using their bookstagram pages to speak about the publishing world and books, as well as linking it to the socio-economic realities they face.
FEMME MAG sat down with 3 Nigerian bookstagrammers to catch up with the books they’re currently reading, what’s on their shelfie and what inspired them to join this virtual community of fellow book lovers.
1. @tattie_reads
What book are you currently reading?
I just finished reading Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi and I’m now about to start Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Honestly, it was COVID-19 that really pushed me over the edge but at the beginning of 2020, one of my new year’s resolutions was to read more books and eventually fill up my entire bookshelf (almost there, yay!). Also, my cousin had started up a group challenge of reading 52 books in 52 weeks before 2020 is up and whoever reads the most amount of books wins N5,000 each from every other member of the group.
For this group challenge, I had read all the books I had bought the previous year and that was only 6 books. I didn’t know 46 other books I wanted to read and where to get them. I stumbled upon “bookstagram” – a completely new phenomenon to me- and got all sorts of book recommendations by BIPOC authors I’d never heard of before. It was really like being a kid in a candy store. Then coronavirus hit and all sorts of things started going wrong for me. I couldn’t find peace of mind anywhere but in books.
There were a couple of bookstagram profiles I’d just scroll through for hours just because the aesthetics of their feed calmed me down so I just thought to make my own bookstagram as a safe space for me to take my mind off all things STRESS as well as to visually document my progress with the group reading challenge. But now, it has become so much more than I’d thought it would ever be and I’ve made more friends than I thought I would ever have. It’s just an amazingly positive and pleasant community, which is the kind of energy & vibes I need to get through this year that has been completely horrific for us all.
What’s your fav quote from a book you’ve read?
This one is quite long and it’s not really classified as a “quote”. It’s from my just concluded book, Kintu.
“Buganda, unlike the rest of Africa, was sweet-talked onto the operating table with praises and promises. Protectorate was the plastic surgery to set the sluggish African body on a faster route to maturity. But once under chloroform, the surgeon was at liberty and did as he pleased. First, he severed the hands then cut off the legs and he put the black limbs into a bin bag and disposed of them. Then he got European limbs and set upon grafting them on the black torso. When the African woke up, the European had moved into his house.
– Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Book V – Misirayimu (Miisi) Kintu, p. 306-307
It’s my favourite quote for now until the next one in another book comes along. This particular quote just put into layman’s terms how Europe and the rest of the Western world has taken advantage of African resources & its workforce (forcefully might I add) and not done anything substantial to help the African people. And it just so happened that I read this quote on Nigeria’s Independence day yesterday where I had also watched a video with Ghanaian author Ama Ata Aidoo talking about this exact issue 33 years ago (1987) and still no change in site for Nigeria 33 years later. So I guess, the compounding all of these just made the quote resonate with me on a different level than it would have at any other time. It triggered feelings of anger, sadness and fear that are powerful combination together.
What books are on your current wishlist?
Omg. How can I possibly condense this wishlist that grows exponentially by the day? Okay, I’m going to mention only 10 (and even that is hard!). So here you go:
- All Buchi Emecheta’s books
- New Waves by Kevin Nguyen
- Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta
- All Octavia Butler’s books
- Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
- When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole
- On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
- Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo, Jamie Chang
- His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie
- The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
2. @thatothernigeriangirl
What book are you currently reading?
Book(S)! I am an avid polygamist reader so I rarely ever read one book at a time. Right now, I’m still reading Ties that Tether by Jane Igahro, The Deep Blue Between by Ayesha Harruna Attah and I’m re-reading Manchester Happened by Jennifer N. Makumbi.
Why did you start up your own bookstagram?
The first Bookstagrammer in Nigeria (she’s no longer active now). Her name was @Zaynabtyty. I remember at the time when bookstagram was just gaining worldwide momentum, she was the only one active highlighting Nigerian and African books so I was able to resonate with her. Her actions paved the way for reigniting my interest in African literature.
What’s your fav quote from a book you’ve read?
I don’t have a fav quote at the moment But I do enjoy annotating my books whenever I come across a quote that resonates with me.
What books are on your current wishlist?
This is a tricky question because I have a lot! But I do want to get every book in the Jacaranda #Twentyin20 campaign. It’s a campaign where they publish and promote 20 books by Black authors and so far, I’ve read one of them: The Space Between Black and White by Esuantsiwa Jane Goldsmith.
Another book I’m keen on getting is Not Just Another Interlude by Lara Kareem, also a Nigerian bookstagrammer (naijabookbae).
3. @thelagosreview
What book are you currently reading?
I’m currently reading Mr Loverman by Bernadine Evaristo. She recently just won the Booker Prize for Girl, Woman, Other which I completely am in awe of so I decided to read another of her titles.
Why did you start up your own bookstagram?
I was inspired to start up my bookstagram page when I realised that a lot of the book accounts I followed at the time shared books by predominantly white authors. I wanted to share books that I loved to read which didn’t necessarily always correspond with the books that these accounts were reading and sharing. At the time, I was reading a lot of books by Black authors and I was keen to share this with a wider community. I did regular reviews of the books I was reading and shared them on my page because I wanted to show that Black authors have range – they can write bestsellers in romance, fantasy/sci-fi, thrillers, contemporary fiction and many more. I’m glad that people are beginning to see this now; that Black characters can exist outside the confines of the stereotypes that they have historically been placed within publishing.
What’s your fav quote from a book you’ve read?
“But home isn’t where you land; home is where you launch. You can’t pick your home any more than you can choose your family. In poker, you get five cards. Three of them you can swap out, but two are yours to keep: family and native land.”
-Tayari Jones, An American Marriage.
I like this quote because it speaks to two very important factors in our lives that we have absolutely no control over. Despite this, our family and native land can serve as a starting point and springboard to all the places we want to go and all the dreams and desires we want to see accomplished. No one is born better than the other, we are all part of a birth lottery in some way. We cannot pick where we are born or into which family but we can try as hard as possible to use what we have and start where we are to get to where we want to be.
What books are on your current wishlist?
My current wishlist is LONG! But I am looking forward to reading Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi which I think is on almost everyone’s reading list. Also, Caleb Azumah Nelson’s forthcoming novel, Open Water as well as Buki Papillon’s An Ordinary Wonder.
