Meet this week’s featured Bookstagrammer, @annmariereads! Ann Marie’s Bookstagram account is bright and colorful, much like the bookish content that she presents her followers with.
This week we’re welcoming our Bookstagrammer of the Week, Ann Marie of @annmariereads! Ann Marie weaves her wide range of recommendations into a vibrant pattern on her Bookstagram account that holds nothing back. She’s giving us the inside scoop on how she created a welcoming and bookish environment for her fellow book lovers.
Why did you start your Bookstagram?
“My husband is actually a Bookstagrammer. He’d been trying to get me to do it all through 2019, but finally, it was the new year of 2020. And I decided to create my Bookstagram account as a new year’s thing. Luckily, well not luckily but, it was kind of nice to have when the pandemic first started to have a community to turn to. I’m one of the weirdos on Bookstagram in so much that I’m an extrovert, so it was hard to go on lockdown, but it was a new way to meet folks.”
What’s your special approach to your content?
“I really like bright colors, so I surround myself with it. And I love reading, ever since I was a kid, like hardcore. When I first started the account, you know, I just took a book picture. Then it occurred to me that, ‘hey I could put my own personal aesthetic on this,’ and that’s when I really started having fun.”
How would you describe your aesthetic or Bookstagram theme?
“I mostly try to take colorful, sweet pictures of books that I want people to know about or maybe look out for.”
How often do you post?
“I used to post every single day, religiously, no matter what. But now? Probably like four to five times a week. I gave myself permission that I don’t have to post every day. Like, calm down, especially in the winter because it’s so dark. So many of my pictures are taken in the sunlight with good lighting. But, during the winter, I come home from work and it’s pitch black outside.”
What does Bookstagram mean to you?
“Oh man, I’ve really enjoyed it. I’ve gotten to meet some really nice people on Bookstagram. Things like joining a virtual book club, especially during the election and the pandemic. It was so nice to have a group of friends from Bookstagram to talk to online as well as my in-person friends.”
Ann Marie’s Favorite…
Author
“Honestly, my favorite author right now is Chelsea Bieker. She wrote Godshot: A Novel and she just came out with Heartbroke. And I really like Samantha Irby, she writes essays and she’s hysterical. Basically, if a funny girl writes a book of essays, sign me up. And I love an unlikeable female protagonist when there’s a tough female protagonist that get’s stuff done. When they don’t feel like I don’t have to be a certain way, and they don’t have to perform like everyone else wants me to.”
Books
Me Talk Pretty One Day – David Sedaris
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith
The Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan
What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat – Aubrey Gordon
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
Book Cover
“Oh, I 100% judge books by their covers. Putting that out there because if it’s cute then I know somebody at that publisher made that book cover cute to get my attention. I’m attracted to really bright colors. I love The Vanishing Half: A Novel by Brit Bennett, Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner, Pizza Girl: A Novel by Jean Kyoung Frazier, and then like the book Milk Fed by Melissa Broder that came out last year. It’s basically got a big boob on the front and it’s hysterical to me. We read it in my book club and half of us said that it was a donut and the other half said, that’s a titty.”
On-Screen Adaptation
“I just finished Station Eleven on HBO Max. Even though it wasn’t super faithful to the book in a lot of ways, it was definitely in the spirit of the book. I thought it was a really good adaptation.”
Bookstore
“We have a local bookstore here, it’s called Light Trap Books. We’ve gotten to be really good friends with the owner, Lauren. My second favorite is Parnassus Books in Nashville, and it’s run by Ann Patchett, she’s a really great author too. Me and my husband get to Nashville and Memphis pretty frequently. We also like The Bookshop in Nashville, they even stayed open during the pandemic for thirty-minute appointments. We felt like we were celebrities who shut down the bookstore.”
Fellow Bookstagram Accounts
“There are so many people that I love to follow on Bookstagram. I like to follow people who post colorful stuff and that I have similar book tastes too. If I see that they post something, then I know I need to pick it up, as I trust you.”
Will of @buckleysbooks
Meryl of @merylmakreads
Cayla of @bookitqueen
Mariah of @thekneadtoread
Cat of @catreadthat
AJ of @readingwithglamour
Vici of @vicireads
Bookstagram Moment
“Last year, I was at my local bookstore and I happened to look over, while fully masked up, I recognized a girl from Bookstagram! She recognized me and we screamed and then had lunch together after talking for an hour straight in the bookstore. We already had so much in common because we had met through Bookstagram, it was like soul sisters or something. Little connections like that, and I’m actually getting coffee with a girl I’ve met and she lives in the town over from me. The town I’m in has less than 2000 people in it, really rural and so to find somebody so close, I’m like ‘girl, let’s get coffee.’ I’m so excited for it.”
Fictional Character Crush
“Well, your girl goes way back. I loved reading Anne of Green Gables when I was little, so Gilbert Blythe. Oh gosh, I even liked reading all the Babysitter’s Club and all the girl’s boyfriends.”
What’s on your current TBR list?
“There are a couple that are about to come out that I’m really excited about. The Candy House by Jennifer Egan, she wrote the book A Visit from the Goon Squad. I’m excited about Ottessa Moshfegh’s new book, Lapvona. There’s this book called Can’t Even by Anne Helen Petersen and it’s about how millennial language has changed society and as an elder millennial, I need to be kept aware of these things.”
What publisher would you have supply you with a lifetime of books?
“Catapult Publishers. They have the best contemporary literary fiction. There’s a girl who works at Catapult named Nicole Caputo, I basically stalk her Instagram for books because she has the best covers. They’re so pretty! Other than that I would say Penguin because they have so many imprints.”
Fun Fact About You
“My husband and I collect copies of Sense and Sensibility. We’re up to about seventy different copies now. We’ve had a lot of fun collecting those. Our oldest copy is from 1911. We found some really cool ones from the 30s and 40s, but most of them are from the last fifteen years. Last year, I found one in Russian and one in Spanish, and of course, the Russian one was super trippy because they have such a crazy different alphabet.”
What author would you like to take a selfie with?
“Samantha Irby, no doubt. She’s really funny and she’s written three books. I would take the selfie with her and then I would charm her, and we would become best friends. That’s the plan. My best friend from college just moved to the town that Samantha Irby lives in, so now we’re plotting our accidental meeting.”
What’s your toxic trait when it comes to books?
“Oh, I can’t stop reading about cults. Obviously, judging books by their cover, but I really can’t stop reading about cults. My husband’s starting to get scared. They’re fascinating. I’m reading one right now that’s called Sex Cult Nun by Faith Jones and I didn’t even read the back of it, I just said take my money.”
Do you have any advice for aspiring Bookstagrammers?
“Just do it, like if you’re thinking about it, just go for it. You might kinda stink at it at first, but there’s not really a way to do Bookstagram and a way not to do it. I know, at first, all my pictures were super blurry and I just said terrible reviews, like three sentences of ‘hey, this is cool.’ Go ahead and get started.”
Any additional bookish things that you want to share with us?
“My license plate. I live in Tennesse and one of the specialty license plates that you can get is for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library and so I’ve got a big Dolly Parton license plate. All the money goes to the Imagination Library which is her reading program and both my nephews are in it, as well.”
You can find more articles about Bookstagrammer’s of the Week here.