Instagram is a favourite among the selfie queens, travellers, beach beauties, foodies. But it is also becoming a platform for readers and bibliophiles to express their love for the books.
Books have an intrinsic beauty to them. Whether it is an old classic hardbound copy, or a dog eared second hand paperback, they all seem to have a story, beyond the one on their pages.
Some book may remind you of the times when your parents used to gift you books, and some book may remind you of the times when the written word helped you during a heartbreak. Some book tells the story of when your first mentor referred you to it, and some book may be the unfulfilled attempt as you found it too boring to complete but your OCD self could not admit that you actually did not finish reading it from cover to cover.
Whatever the nostalgic story that each book holds, every book is beautiful. And this is an accepted fact among the bookstagrammers.
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They are a unique tribe on Instagram who not only read the books, but share their experiences with it. It began simply, but now it they are a growing tribe, who talk about book aesthetic, arrange books by colour, visit the book fairs with more gusto than an Indian wedding. Like any other creative form of expression, they share a comradery that other muggles may not understand.
Whether it is a bookmarked copy on a park bench, or a handheld copy on a coffee table, they take pictures and share them with pride. They have more book pictures, than selfies in their phones.
Unlike their ‘influencer’ counterparts in the fashion and wellness spaces, they may not get paid big bucks by brands with deep pockets. But sometimes they’ll get an early review copy of a book, and they are often funding their reading habits on their own and running their blogs and accounts on the side.
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They revel in the aesthetics of books. From striking covers, beautifully arranged shelves to glorious libraries, they walk the extra mile to make the world a more beautiful place with printed pages.
Though they say never judge a book by its cover, the bookstragrammers have made it into an art. The #bookstagram tag is a modern phenomenon, literally judging books by their covers, and it has been used over 17 million times till date, and the number is growing every day.
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With books going digital, some were anxious for the hard copies, but bookstragrammers may be able to save the day. A Kindle provides little opportunity to garner followers to your page. But the hard copy turns any boy into Mr. Darcy, and any girl into Lizzie Bennet. A walk through a busy urban street feels like Lizzie running through the farm on her way home, if you have a book tucked into your bag.
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A quick look at the shelves in bookshops shows that publishers are trying to emphasise the unique aspects of the physical book. Hardbacks of the classics are embossed with beautiful decorative patterns and typography, while contemporary fiction now happily uses imagery and styles from visual arts. This is why #bookstagram is so culturally significant; it uses the digital medium to celebrate the very material substance of the book itself.
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[…] BUT, amidst all of this doom and gloom about the ‘death of the book’ in our social networking era, it seems that our love of printed books has not been erased, and may in fact be revived. […]