I don't have a beautiful bookshelf background or library aesthetic going on in my videos. I actually only own five physical books and I lived my life in this way for many years now. I see a lot of new booktubers do bookshelf tour videos and I want to spend some time today going over why it is I only own five books and start my very first bookshelf in a very long time with you all. Going up I did have a bookshelf. It was eclectic and chaotic but it was mine. When you grow up or like I did, there is a lot of pride in the physical objects that you can own and for me, my books were a source of pride. I carried those books with me into my early 20s and then into a long-term relationship in a shared home. At the time I genuinely thought we were soulmates as you do with young love until the trajectory of our lives rapidly changed and then circumstances culminated into one day waking up and me realizing that I needed to leave. I packed what I could in my compact car, including my dog and made the 16 hour journey back to my parents house. The books, among many other things, were some of these sacrifices I made to leave as quickly as possible. It was hard to leave what I had envisioned as my forever life and while I have forgiven what I've needed to at that time, I think I've continued to carry with me this feeling of not wanting to get to attach to things. That nothing is certain that my identity can be suddenly taken from me by the circumstances of life and having a career where I've had to move every couple of years has sort of reinforced this feeling. I've bought other physical books over the years, mostly second hand, only to give them away to people I love, if they're stories I love, or donating them to thrift shops, little libraries, or giving back to the buy-nothing communities that have taken care of me over the years. I like to borrow books from friends, I have a strong preference for the library and have been fortunate to have access to a library, no matter where I've lived, whether that's in person, or through library apps like Libby. If you've goters have been absolutely life-changing for me too. I know that there's this ongoing conversation about the superiority of physical books, and while I definitely understand the preference, e-books have given me peace of mind that no matter where I go, I can have access to a library on a single device and it's transferable. I can't overstate how valuable this has been for me, as someone who's been afraid to collect too many things in fear that I will have to someday leave them behind. Not to mention e-books in my experience generally are cheaper and more often go on sale than physical books. Part of why I'm making this video is to anyone out there who feels like they also don't look the part when it comes to being a reader. I might not have an aesthetic book backdrop, but not having this gigantic, beautiful, physical library hasn't stopped me from being able to read hundreds of books in the last five years, most of them virtually for free. So I want to spend some time actually going over the five books that I do own. The first is the profit. So this is a little book that I picked up in a thrift store while I was in Maryland for some work. It is a collection of poetry fables, and I was just drawn to the compactness and the cover. This is an advanced reader edition that I got from my father. So my father worked for a couple of years in a local bookstore at my hometown, and he had gifted me this book. He also gifted me this signed copy of this Nicholas Barks book, The Wish. So the fourth book that I own is Upstream by Mary Oliver. I purchased this book while I was in California visiting Yosemite, and I remember seeing this cover and thinking it fit the aesthetic of my trip. And then the last book is a book that I actually haven't read yet that my sister-in-law gifted to me. She said that this had a profound impact on her, so I'm very excited to give this a read. Well, I've only been a booktuber for a couple months now. I've been a consumer of book content for much longer, so I am also inundated by the extensive book halls and massive TBR lists. And I just don't think that I'll be creating those sorts of videos. I generally don't buy books that I don't plan on immediately reading, and I don't want that to change. I'm a mood reader with ADHD and demand of weight ins tendencies, so I don't want reading one of my favorite self-care activities to feel like another to-do list in my life. Even the BookTube channel has been wonderful, exciting, and scary, and has required a level of vulnerability that I wouldn't have been ready to face in the previous chapters of my life. And there's magic in that realization that I have come a long way from that girl who felt like she left her entire life behind. I've dreamed and still do of having a gorgeous physical library, and I feel ready to start collecting books again. That being said, I don't want to lose sight of who I am or the way that I approach books, just because I create book content now, even though my platform is microscopic. I've been comfortable with not looking like a reader. I also think there's something to be said about stepping back from excessive consumerism, and I want to be mindful of that too. Moving forward, my hope is that the books I physically purchased for my bookshelf are books I love, or no I will most likely love and plan to reread. And if a book I buy doesn't bring me joy, I want to be okay with letting it go, because ultimately, that is the biggest lesson I've learned in all of this. On starting over and letting go, I am more than my physical library. A lack thereof doesn't represent personal failure. I am more than the things I have or the things I've left behind, and so are you.