Fun Bookish Things You Can Do At Home

Hi everyone. Hope you’re all doing well.

You’d have to be living under a rock to not know the current state of the world, most of us are restricted to our homes as our countries go into lockdown or issue stay at home orders. A lot of us are anxious and probably looking for distractions and sometimes regular reading just isn’t cutting it anymore. So here’s a list of fun bookish things you can do at home.

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Attend a virtual book event

This could be a book festival, book launch party, book reading, or even just a virtual gathering of fellow book lovers. Book events are fun ways to interact with fellow book lovers and authors. Several in-person book events have been moved online and although it’s because of terrible circumstances, it has made such events more accessible to folks from all over the world and I hope that when this is all over, they can find ways to keep it this accessible.

Authors are also moving their book launches online, this is a great way to gain access to your favourite authors and celebrate their launches with them. So if your fave author is publishing a book, check to see if they’re having an online book launch. Several publishing houses and organizations are coming together to create virtual events to connect and encourage book lovers from all over the world.

Watch a book to TV/movie adaptation

When I’m not in the mood to read, I love watching Book to TV adaptations. Yes, we all know that most times the book is better but seeing the characters and the world in the books come to life on TV is nice as well. You can watch the classics, re-watch old favourites, and dive into the recent adaptations.

Here are some that I’m currently watching/planning to watch.

• Haikyuu! (anime adaptation of Haikyuu! manga)
• Itaewon Class (A good number of Kdramas are adaptations of novels and web comics, just in case you need an excuse to watch more of them lol)
• The Willoughbys (On Netflix)
• Locke & Key (adaptation of Locke & Key graphic novel)

You can check out more book to film adaptations in this post by Jenn @ The Bibliofile.

Join a virtual book club

If you’re looking for some bookish company while you’re stuck at home, joining a virtual book club is a great way to go. You can chat about books with other members through Zoom, Skype, Discord, Twitter, even WhatsApp, depending on how many you are.

You can check if there’s one in your area or you can start one with your friends. A simple google search can also help you find virtual book clubs to join.

Bored? Here's a list of fun bookish activities that you can do at home. Share on X

Create a book journal/scrapbook

Journaling is quite popular nowadays and for many it’s a relaxing and therapeutic exercise. A book journal gives you a place to scribble down all your bookish thoughts, favourite quotes, your bookish pet peeves, favourite authors, book lists, mini-reviews, anything you want to be honest. It’s yours so have fun with it.

You can create one from scratch with any notebook or free printables available online, it doesn’t have to be elaborate or fancy as long as it works for you or you can buy one. There are several nice ones on Etsy.

If you need some help with starting one, here’s a short post to help, a list of book journaling prompts and some book journaling supplies if you want to jazz it up.

Cook or bake a dish from a book

Now this is an activity that’s fun and also delicious #winwin. You can pick any book character and make their favorite dish, or just pick any dish that’s mentioned in a book. Of course it could be a totally fictional dish so you might have to get crafty to make an edible real life alternative/version.

It doesn’t also have to be complicated, you can look for a simple dish to make and spend your time indoors munching away. You could make the chocolate cake from Matilda, blue waffles and blue eggs from Percy Jackson and so on and so forth. Go wild and have fun.

Record a reading vlog

I hate being on camera so I can understand if you do as well. But this can also be a fun bookish activity for your eyes only. You can record yourself reading at home using your phone, camera, or even your laptop webcam. You don’t need to edit it or share it with others if that makes you uncomfortable. It could just be a fun creative project for you which you can look back at as a memory.

Read an interactive book/novel

Throw a little spice in your reading life with an interactive novel or chose your own story book. Interactive books allow you to be part of the story in different ways and make choices that steer the plot towards several endings.

Here’s a few to get you started;

• Lost in Austen: Create Your Own Jane Austen Adventure
• Meanwhile: Pick Any Path
• You Are a Cat! (Pick-a-plot!)

You can also check out this book list for more interactive books for adults.

Match books with objects

If you’re on book Twitter, you’ve probably come across the #booksasoutfits trend where people match their books with clothes. It’s a fun way to play around and dress up since most of us are indoors nowadays. You can match your books with anything; curtains, tiles, doors, even the trees in your backyard, the sky is the limit. You don’t have to share the pictures online, just have fun and see just how many things in your house match your favorite book covers.

Make book art

I know, if you’re not at all artistic you’re probably shying away from this one. But remember we’re doing this for the fun of it. Book art covers a wide range of things, from doodling on the front page of a book, to painting the edges of books to creating bookmarks, and even knitting book covers.

So there’s something in there for most people. You could paint the edges of books, if you’re scared you might mess up, use an old book, or a book you don’t mind defacing. Here’s a good tutorial on painting book edges. Here’s another one for creating folded book art. If you’re into baking, you could make a cake with a book cover icing decoration on it, trust me it counts as book art and its yummy, a win-win in my opinion.

These are just some of the fun bookish things you can do at home. I hope you enjoyed reading this post. What fun bookish things (besides reading) do you do at home? Let me know in the comments. Stay safe.

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