Read Another Book

Submission 43,007

Part of a series on Harry Potter. [View Related Entries]

About

Read Another Book is an expression used to criticize the overreliance on comparisons to Harry Potter in mainstream politics, particularly by Resistance Twitter users. It can also be used similarly as a catchphrase intended to criticize people who use the Harry Potter series to compare real-world events to that of the books, frequently appearing as a hashtag in such posts across a number of social media platforms online, often by members of the Anti-Harry Potter crowd.

Origin

The use of this catchphrase appears online as early as 2016, though the exact origins are unknown. On November 12th, 2016, one of the earliest examples of such use appears in a tweet from Twitter^[1] user imbadatlife (seen below). The tweet, which uses “READ ANOTHER BOOK” alongside several examples of comparisons between Harry Potter and real-world political events, received over 16,300 likes and 7,400 retweets.

Spread

On May 31st, 2017, The Washington Post^[2] published an article titled, “If you’re going to use books to resist Trump, pick better ones than ‘Harry Potter,’” which addresses the issue of such overreliance on these comparisons, and also includes the use of the phrase, “Perhaps you could read another book?”

On September 20th, 2017, the Facebook^[3] page i’m begging you please read another book was created under the description:

We dunk on people who refuse to get over Harry Potter even though they're actual fucking adults. This includes but is not limited to: comparing current events to the plot of the books, sorting politicians into Hogwarts houses and/or comparing them to characters, hijacking posts with unrelated Harry Potter references, and absurd crossovers. While it's primarily about Harry Potter, it's also a group to post about other books people need to let go of. No, not everything is like 1984, and if you're an adult and exclusively read YA you're no better than Harry Potter stans.

The term was added to Urban Dictionary^[4] on June 4th, 2018, by user Martin Luther Cream (shown below), where it received 147 likes and 44 dislikes for the definition, “The appropriate response to any stupid political analogy that uses material from the Harry Potter books as a reference point.”

Several media outlets also covered the trend in 2018, including The American Spectator^[5] who published an article on July 12th, 2018, titled, “Harry Potter and the Reason to Read Another Book.” On December 17th, 2018, The Odyssey^[6] also published such an article called, “To The People That Equate 'Harry Potter' Books To Modern Day Politics, Please Read Another Book.”

On Reddit, two different subreddits were created referencing the catchphrase, with r/readanotherbook^[7] created on February 7th, 2018 (17,500 members), and r/ReadADifferentBook^[8] on April 20th, 2018 (2,100 members).

Twitter users can also be frequently seen using the hashtag #ReadAnotherBook in such posts mocking Harry Potter comparisons. On March 25th, 2018, Twitter^[9] user Angelheartnight tweeted an example of this (seen below) and received 307 likes and 93 retweets.

On August 22nd, 2019, Vox^[10] published an article in opposition to the “Read Another Book” supporters under the title, “In defense of reading the same book over and over again,” which poses the question, “Is it really that bad to read a single book or watch a single show over and over and over again?”

On May 5th, 2020, Redditor^[11] GashcatUnpunished posted a meme version under title, “Read another book,” to the r/PoliticalCompassMemes sub (shown below), where it was upvoted 774 times and commented on 76 times.

The Instagram^[12] account potterliberals is another example of meme-related content surrounding Read Another Book, posting memes that reference the topic. On May 26th, 2020, one such example depicting J.K. Rowling was uploaded (seen below).