Vampire novel Twilight by Stephenie Meyer and Prince Harry’s memoir Spare are some of the most discussed books on YouTube, the platform has revealed.
Celebrating its burgeoning community of literary content makers, accessed under the #booktube hashtag, parent company Google has unveiled a list highlighting the popular books featured in videos from 2012 to 2023.
Dubbed BookTube’s Ultimate Reading List Through The Years, it was extrapolated from the more than 636,000 videos featured with the hashtag. YouTube told The National that, combined, these garnered more than 350 million streams in 2024 alone.
The reflective initiative is even highlighted by YouTube’s first-ever "Yoodle" – a graphic atop the YouTube website similar to the Google Doodle.
Book titles are presented chronologically according to the year they were most featured on the platform (rather than their print release date) and many have been dissected by the community’s leading content creators. Highlights include a variety of genres, from popular and young adult fiction to hard-hitting literary works, but YouTube is yet to provide as explanation as to why the years 2017 and 2022 were omitted from the round-up.
YouTube Mena's partnerships manager, Tanya Khoury, says the listed books also resonated with regional BookTubers. She cites the growing popularity of Saudi Arabia’s Dupamicaffeine (5.87 million subscribers) and Egypt's Nedal Reads (398,000) as indicative of a dynamic online book-loving community taking shape in the Arab world.
"BookTubers have started a very influential and inspiring community on YouTube for over a decade now. In Mena, we’re seeing a similar trend with more and more creators joining this journey of appreciating books, and sharing their own analysis,” she says.
“We are grateful for all BookTubers in Mena and globally, who share their passion every day to make reading a cultural event and to bring people together to think, brainstorm and share ideas.”
What are people reading on YouTube?
Big-selling titles are featured throughout the collection, but often not in the year they were originally published. A trend emerged as literary works saw a BookTube peak as their film adaptations hit theatres.
Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games, which was popular in 2012, was published four years earlier. Its online popularity can be attributed to the first instalment of the film franchise, which was released that year. The same is also true of 2008’s Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, another BookTube favourite in 2012. This was the same year the five-part film series it spawned ended with The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2.
BookTubers are also unaligned to the timeline of bestsellers lists, with some titles becoming talking points years after publication. Junot Diaz's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, hit bookshelves in 2007, but caught fire on BookTube in 2014. The same goes for Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's stunning 2013 novel Americanah, an online favourite in 2019.
As for 2023's Spare by British royal Prince Harry, BookTubers were on the pulse, with the memoir being the most discussed of that year.
Check out the full list below:
BookTube’s Ultimate Reading List Through The Years (2012 - 2023)
2012
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
The complete Harry Potter series by JK Rowling
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
2013
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
2014
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
2015
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
2016
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas
2018
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Be
2019
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey
2021
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Normal People by Sally Rooney
2023
Spare by Prince Harry
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The specs: 2018 Chevrolet Trailblazer
Price, base / as tested Dh99,000 / Dh132,000
Engine 3.6L V6
Transmission: Six-speed automatic
Power 275hp @ 6,000rpm
Torque 350Nm @ 3,700rpm
Fuel economy combined 12.2L / 100km
Brief scores:
Toss: Pakhtunkhwa Zalmi, chose to field
Environment Agency: 193-3 (20 ov)
Ikhlaq 76 not out, Khaliya 58, Ahsan 55
Pakhtunkhwa Zalmi: 194-2 (18.3 ov)
Afridi 95 not out, Sajid 55, Rizwan 36 not out
Result: Pakhtunkhwa won by 8 wickets
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Most sought after workplace benefits in the UAE
- Flexible work arrangements
- Pension support
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ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
SERIES SCHEDULE
First Test, Galle International Stadium
July 26-30
Second Test, Sinhalese Sports Club Ground
August 3-7
Third Test, Pallekele International Stadium
August 12-16
First ODI, Rangiri Dambulla Stadium
August 20
Second ODI, Pallekele International Stadium
August 24
Third ODI, Pallekele International Stadium
August 27
Fourth ODI, R Premadasa Stadium
August 31
Fifth ODI, R Premadasa Stadium
September 3
T20, R Premadasa Stadium
September 6
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: SimpliFi
Started: August 2021
Founder: Ali Sattar
Based: UAE
Industry: Finance, technology
Investors: 4DX, Rally Cap, Raed, Global Founders, Sukna and individuals
Bharat
Director: Ali Abbas Zafar
Starring: Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Sunil Grover
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
SPECS
Nissan 370z Nismo
Engine: 3.7-litre V6
Transmission: seven-speed automatic
Power: 363hp
Torque: 560Nm
Price: Dh184,500
House-hunting
Top 10 locations for inquiries from US house hunters, according to Rightmove
- Edinburgh, Scotland
- Westminster, London
- Camden, London
- Glasgow, Scotland
- Islington, London
- Kensington and Chelsea, London
- Highlands, Scotland
- Argyll and Bute, Scotland
- Fife, Scotland
- Tower Hamlets, London
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Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
