Staying Grounded

February 14, 2017

Staying Grounded

Remembering My Roots:

Hello Everyone!

I thought I would come on today and chat with you about how reading has kept me grounded and invested in my past an present, as well as what has impacted me the most. As you will all know if you have been following the blog recently, life has thrown a few curveballs my way recently. In dealing with these hardships and changes I have spent a fair amount of time reflecting on the past and how it has shaped me and helped me get through recent events. I have a few overarching themes that always make my life a little brighter, including friends, family, and the pets I have and of course books! The friends and family have always been a constant help to me getting throughout the hard times, however in the light of recent events my passion for reading has helped more than I thought it would.

When and why did I start this reading catharsis you may ask? It has been three years since I began this journey to explore my passion for literature, and all things related to the bookish world, I owe this whole journey to the wonderful Jenna Clare! I had been a long time viewer of many BookTuber's channels though I did not have a camera, editing software or the patience to join in that community. This exclusion from the bookish community ceased when Jenna posted her music video for "Bookish Empire"; this song inspired me to take the leap and start this blog with its optimism and vitality laced through my posts. The name also caught my eye and gave me the motivation to begin, which I of course asked Jenna if it was okay to use her name choice given she gets credit, which clearly she said yes to, at which point I launched the site. From the day I played this song I was intrigued and driven to share my thoughts about the many books that I read. Thank you again Jenna for inspiring this passion from me.

The reading which was done in the early days of this blog included many recommendations from my local librarians and those incredibly influential BookTube channels that I watched. Each of the first five channels that I watched in the beginning will be listed below. However as I began to read more and more I found that I was drawn to the stories which were fantastical in nature, as each page was a new adventure that I sadly would never experience on my own. This joyous escapism did not mean much to me in the beginning though I must tell you all, as schooling advanced I did not hang out with many people so to fill my life with interest and variation I picked up each book I could find. Books in this sense helped me through the gap in out of school friends that I experienced in Middle school and High school; now they are my relaxation vice and my emotional confiants.

Reading, it has shaped me in to the quick witted and quirky man I am today. I am thankful for everything that has happened along the way, even the bad events as each event changed me for the better by forcing me to reach for my coping mechanisms, family and the written word. This choice to read and blog as a hobby has changed into something something so much more than I ever expected it to become! I have made friends around the globe whom I speak with on a regular basis and I have begun to reach out and work with publishers to bring you many of the reviews that you see here. Reading, Lindsey Stirling music, friends, and family have stood in my corner for as long as I can remember and I want to thank you all aswell for hanging in there and seeing where this crazy whim filled blog will take us.

This post as I said was inspired due to recent difficult events, however I urge you all to take the time to remember why it is that you do the things that you do regardless of the monetary value attached to an event or job, just reflect on why you do what you do. I found this experience to be soothing and enlightening to see just how many of the events in my past have directly impacted the choices that I have made in my short life.

The First Five BookTubers: