 Hello, denizens of the internet! I am Kim, and I was tagged by Hummingbird Books to do her fresh face booktuber tag. That's a tongue twister. Away we go! Question number one, why did you name your channel Dustmoats in Velikor? So there's a lot of debate about whether or not Velikor is a real word. I put that term in air quotes because it seems that the people who use that term don't seem to understand that at any point in history words were made up. Language is a societally constructed concept. So the concept of made up words is a concept I generally disagree with, but that was a tangent. Let's get back to the point. I'm fairly certain that the word Velikor originated in 2013 on a website created by a man named John Koenig, and the website is called The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, and I just love that. That's amazing. It was created to give us something tangible to express things that we don't really have words for, to communicate the uncommunicable, the things that we know exist but don't really talk about. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows defines Velikor as the strange wistfulness of used bookstores which are somehow infused with the passage of time, filled with thousands of old books you will never have time to read, each of which is itself locked in its own era, bound and dated and papered over like an old room the author abandoned years ago, a hidden annex littered with thoughts left just as they were on the day they were captured. And dust notes just seemed like a thing that you would find in such a place. The original title was going to be Velikor and Metacognition, which is thinking about thought, which is what books make me do, but I was worried that if I named my channel title Velikor and Metacognition that people would think that I think that I am smarter than I am, which I do not. I do not. I just, I really like good words, words that you can chew on, words that feel good when you say them, words that, that communicate the incommunicable. It was created so that you would know more about me, but now I feel like you know too much about me. Hi. Okay, we're moving on. Question two, what inspired you to start a booktube channel? I had been thinking about making something to talk about books for a while, a blog, a newsletter, just something because I find that a lot of the people who live where I live, I live in LA, and a lot of people don't really care for novels, interestingly enough. I'm never going to get down on someone for reading books of any kind, like whatever your motivations, just read books. I love, I love reading books. I find, however, that people in LA read books on acting technique, which is a genre I detest. They read books on how to be successful, because everyone here has amazing ambitions and I really, I want to support that, but you know, like I also want to talk about, you know, novels. And the other struggle is that so often people will read novels to find the next thing that they can browbeat into a TV show format. And I really respect that. Like that is a career. Like that is a well-paying career. Don't get me wrong, these are all worthwhile pursuits, but I love books for their own sake. For the worlds within their pages and the lessons they can teach us, the things they make us think about and the way they change our view of the world and life and each other. And yes, I would love it if some of my favorite book series become TV shows. Shadow Hunters is excellent and Raven Boys is possibly coming to TV. I don't know, but Maggie Steve Otter tweeted about it, and I was hyperventilating for a solid like half hour there, when that happened. But if you are reading a book solely to create profit from it, then you won't love it as much as you could, as much as you should, as much as you need to if you're going to adapt it to another medium. Too long didn't read. I started my channel to talk to people who love books for their own intrinsic value, because books are amazing and everybody should love books. Third question, what was the last book you read and what are you currently reading? Does manga count? I'm blasting through Attack on Titan, so technically the last book I read was Attack on Titan Volume 16. Volume 17 is taking a really long time to get to me from the library and I don't know why. I don't know, but the end of this one is so crazy and I need to know what happens next. But if manga does not count, then the last book I read was Traders Kiss by Erin Beatty, which I loved and everyone should read it. I'm probably going to do a review on it when I get back from vacation. And I am currently reading Spindle's End by Robin McKinley, which I love. I read Hero on the Crown and I read The Blue Sword when I was really young and I honestly, I don't think my library had any more of her work, because I was under the impression that Robin McKinley hadn't really written anything else. And then I found this one in the library in LA and I was like, wait a minute, when did this happen? This book came out in 2000 and I didn't know about it, which is just so... Question four, do you have a favorite bookmark? Usually I just use the yellow hold slips from the library, but honestly, really, I use whatever's on hand receipts, ones I use to pack a gum. And if I don't have a bookmark handy, I'll just remember what page I'm on and I'll have to say it out loud and then later I'll flop the book up and be like, what... what page was I on? Question five, where is your favorite place to read? I will read anywhere. I will read anywhere where there is enough light in order to read. Sometimes I will read in places where there is not enough light in order to read and I really should have gotten glasses several years ago, but my vision is still fine. Weirdly. Question number six, do you prefer physical books or ebooks? That little girl in that commercial looks like, we're focused, we're focusing, we're focused. Question number seven, do you have a favorite book that is not hyped enough on booktube and you wish it was? That would be The Queen of Atolia by Begginwheel and Turner. Read The Thief and then read The Queen of Atolia and prepare to have your heart raped out of your body and your brain stuck in a blender and then both of them like put back into their respective places but at slightly lower levels of functionality. Boom. Question number eight, how did you come across booktube? Actually, my roommate is a lot better at the whole like social media-y thing than I am so I was talking about like making a website, making like a Twitter or a blog or something about books and she was like, oh yeah, you should make a booktube channel and I'm like, what? What is booktube and why did I not know it existed? Like this is baffling. This is just baffling and it is a relatively small corner of the internet but like it's such a wonderful corner. Anyway, I will be forever grateful to my roommate Leah for introducing me to this. Question number nine, who are some of your favorite booktubers? I really love um a Clockwork Reader because she recs books that I always end up loving. Just always. Hands down. Like if it's in my genre, I will read it and then it's like, oh my gosh, she was so right. This book is amazing. I also love A Book Utopia because Sasha is just adorable. Okay, she's just adorable and like I'd read Outlander before I found her but then like I had to read Outlander again because she loves it so much and she's so right. Question number 10, where can we find you? I'm on Twitter, I'm on Tumblr, I'm on Goodreads, the links to all of which are in the doobly-doo as well as the link to the original video for this tag. With the powers vested in me by the hummingbird books who tagged me in this video, I hear by tag anybody who wants to do it. Anyway, I'll be in though.