Farewell, The Books That Made Us!

And hello to something new

Salutations, bibliophiles.

A little over a year ago, I posted this note:

The response was overwhelming — or at least, it was for the time, back when Notes was much smaller! — with dozens of people joining the thread and excitedly talking about their foundational books. In fact, I found the conversation so fun and interesting I decided to create an entire newsletter to explore the concept further. Thus,

The Books That Made Us

was born.

In the fifteen months since, we have featured just under eighty essays exploring the books that have had a profound impact on a group of writers as diverse as the books they’ve discussed. We’ve been on a bibliographic journey through classic novels, children’s books, poetry collections, encyclopaedias, magazine collections, and even an academic textbook. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading about how these books have helped our contributors through all the ups and downs of life — through the coming-of-age years, through divorce, bereavement, break-ups, coming out, through mental health struggles, and dealing with first love. At the same time, I was incredibly happy to learn that these guest features were resulting in new readers for these brilliant writers too.

I’d just like to take the opportunity to say a heartfelt thank you to all of our guest writers; if it was the books that made us, it was you who made BTMU.

However, sadly, it seems that there can be too much of a good thing. For in truth, though I believe every single piece we’ve posted here has been of the utmost quality, engagement has been slowly but surely declining. I can’t say for sure, but I suspect we may have slightly overplayed the format, and thus interest in each new piece has steadily waned, even though the quality has not. We can see this reflected in the leaderboard on the BTMU homepage: almost all our top essays were posted in 2023, despite the fact our overall readership has increased since then.

With that in mind, I have decided, with some regret, that it’s best to retire the format as it exists now. This is farewell, The Books That Made Us.

But this is not the end.

Out of the ashes of BTMU shall rise a new newsletter with an expanded scope. One which I’m sure will appeal to a literature-loving community such as this one.

I don’t want to give too much away at this stage, so I shall restrict myself to saying what will stay the same: there will be discussions of literature, though not exclusively; there will continue to be monthly roundups of subscriber writing for our paid supporters; and, of course, the opportunity to guest post shall remain.

But other than that, we will be heading in a new direction. One with greater flexibility for our guest features, one with more experimentation, and one that celebrates a genre that is particularly close to my own heart: short story fiction.

As BTMU began with a note, it’s feels fitting the new substack should too:

Until next time, bibliophiles esoterics.

---