Let's Talk Bookish; Bookish Trends of 2025

It's Friday, which means it's time for yet another Let's Talk Bookish post courtesy of Book Nook Bits and Dinipanda Reads and today's topic is trends of 2025.

Here's the further prompts for today's discussion.

Looking back on the past year, what bookish trends have you noticed? Are certain tropes, types of blogging, or other book-related content becoming more popular? If you did this post last year (Bookish Trends of 2024), do you notice any trend changes from that post? What changes do you foresee in 2026? What bookish trend would you most want to see become popular, or come back?

I'll probably speak more of the more recent years in general and not only 2025 as I don't always pay that much attention to bookish trends or for that matter, keep track of when they started, so please bear with me. Anyway, a few trends I've noticed, for better and for worse, includes romantasy, blending different genres into one book (such as the mentioned romantasy), books that's so poorly written they shouldn't have been published, books with cosy vibes, South Korean literature, Substack, long-form content (BookTube and blogging), dark academia, sprayed edges, and a bunch of other trends.

While not a trend in that sense, but I wish went back to when books had to have good quality in order to actually become published. In the last few years, I've read many books that's so poorly written they feel more like a first draft than a finished/polished one, and it's basically the bookish version of fast fashion. Can we please leave the sloppy writing in 2025 and bring on good quality books?

Long-form content is something I hope continue into 2026, as I've noticed several people being tired of the shallowness that's TikTok and Bookstagram (there's of course exceptions to the rule). I doubt BookTok and Bookstagram will go away anytime soon, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's plenty of people who gets a bit sick and tired of social media for whatever reason and crave more meaningful content.

As South-Korean literature has become more popular, I hope it's a trend that will continue, combined with readers discovering books from non-western countries in general. There's something special about diving into a different kind of literary tradition, culture, and what-not, and considering how the world is at the moment, I suspect it's very much needed.