Most reading groups, whether they meet in someone’s living room on a Tuesday night or exist entirely as a comment section on a BookTok video, tend to orbit the same titles. A hot debut book. Over the course of two weeks, the memoir was reviewed everywhere. The algorithm persisted in pushing this thriller until everyone you know had either read it or felt somewhat guilty about not doing so. All of this is perfectly acceptable. The way social pressure and reading have become so intertwined that deciding what to read next feels more like a membership requirement than a personal choice, however, is something worth looking at.
This is where the argument for reading books that people in your social circle wouldn’t understand starts—with that subtle pressure. Writing for Providence Classical School, Alicia Williamson put it simply: choosing to read challenging and unfamiliar work is almost an act of resistance in a time that increasingly prioritizes ease over effort. It’s possible to extend that observation further. When everyone in your immediate world is reading the same things, you are all, to some degree, thinking about the same things — in the same terms, with the same reference points, arriving at roughly the same conclusions. It isn’t a conversation. This is a loop.
Dense, obscure, or intellectually demanding books — whether they are classical philosophy, untranslated European literature, niche academic histories, or novels that never made it onto any list — require you to engage with material that your social world cannot pre-digest for you. Nobody in your feed has read it. There are no hot takes to absorb before you form your own. You come to the text by yourself, and you leave it with something that is truly, obstinately your own. In 2026, when the typical reader is surrounded by opinions about books before they have even opened the cover, that is less common than it might seem. Among other things, reading something that people in your social circle have never heard of can reveal your true thoughts.
What these books do to the mind when read is another question. Williamson compares it to physical activity, and the analogy is valid. Reading a challenging work of philosophy, such as Plato’s Republic or Dante, is very different from reading a book that has been designed for ease of reading and speed. Rereading a paragraph, sitting with a sentence that won’t go away, or tracking an argument across dozens of pages are examples of slower, more laborious engagement that develops a type of cognitive stamina that lighter reading doesn’t need. When one spends time in serious bookstores or university libraries, it is difficult to ignore the fact that the readers who appear most comfortable with challenging content are also the ones who appear least alarmed by challenging concepts in general. It’s not a coincidence.
Additionally, the vocabulary question merits careful consideration. You are exposed to registers of expression in demanding books that are unmatched in modern popular fiction, such as Milton’s syntax, Aquinas’ precision, and a serious poet’s condensed imagery. This isn’t being snobbish. It makes sense. People who read widely outside of the mainstream have a tendency to express ideas with a specificity that others find difficult to match—not because they are inherently more articulate, but rather because they have access to more resources. Your ability to think is shaped by the words you have access to. One way to limit your inner vocabulary is to restrict your reading to what is socially acceptable.
All of this is met with the predictable criticism that reading incomprehensible books isolates you from other people and reduces your relatability at dinner parties. On the surface, the objection is true. However, Josh Guilar made a noteworthy observation in his essay on reading as a social activity: while reading itself is solitary, the conversations it fosters are not. The type of social connection you seek out is altered when you read an obscure text, but it doesn’t eliminate it. Rather than talking about what everyone else is talking about, you take the lead and introduce something truly new to the group. That is perhaps a more intriguing form of social presence.
In terms of culture as a whole, it’s still unclear if the BookTok era will eventually lead to a decrease in or increase in reading habits. The hopeful interpretation is that it has introduced a significant number of new readers to books as a medium, and that some of those readers will go further in the future. The skeptical interpretation holds that the algorithm is too adept at maintaining people’s comfort zones and that the social reward system of reading—likes, recommendations, and shared references—actively discourages the kind of solitary, unverifiable intellectual inquiry that leads to genuine development. Both likely have some truth to them.
The books that are most likely to actually alter your perspective are rarely the ones that people in your social circle are already discussing. The books that have endured over time, as well as many of those that haven’t even made the list, provide a viewpoint that is developed independently of the demands of the present, which is something that trends by definition cannot. One does not reject community by reading them. It’s a methodical, quiet dedication to reaching your own thoughts.
Chloe Olliver is senior editor at vclib.org, where she leads editorial coverage of literary criticism, political commentary, cultural analysis, and the evolving relationship between literature and public life across New York City and beyond. With a career spanning the intersection of literary journalism, political commentary, and educational publishing, Chloe brings both rigorous research discipline, in-depth knowledge, experience, and an accessible editorial voice to subjects that most readers find thought-provoking and culturally significant.