A couple of days ago I got a YouTube notification about a video from Draxtor:
ATTENTION BOOKSTERS: SL Book Club Archipelago is closing = we do a last walkthrough
Linden Lab are closing the islands that hosted the Second Life Book Club shows, that started April 2020 and finished November 2024, tomorrow (Friday 11th July 2025).
In Draxtors words:
“The Second Life Book Club Islands, which were a gift from Linden Lab. The agreement was that I would get these islands to conduct a weekly event. Author interviews, celebrations of the art of writing, and the joy of reading. And it was really awesome. We started in April 2020. And we concluded November last year. And now is the time to take these down because there really is no event anymore.”
Transcribed from this video.
I got up early this morning to try and follow Drax around as he did the last possible walkthrough of Island #4.
You can watch the different island walkthrough videos on his YouTube channel and all the episodes of the Second Life Book club in this playlist.
I attended many of the bookclub shows between 2021 and 2022 and watching some of the walkthroughs brought back fond memories. I have a large collection of snapshots I took at the shows, some you can see in this Flickr Album, but I will try to sort through the rest adding appropriate author and show details and make them available somewhere.
The Second Life Book Club should never be forgotten. It was a prime example of the use case for virtual worlds. Of course you can have a book club anywhere, but only in a virtual world can you create a discussion space that resembles a setting from or inspired by the book and avatars that resemble the characters…every WEEK!
If you don’t watch any of the videos linked above,(some are quite long and everyones busy) just watch the clip embedded below; It’s the last 15 minutes of this mornings walkthrough in which Drax shares a few pearls of wisdom and a suggestion about reading that I think everyone should consider.
(Apologies to Draxtor for my avatar being a background distraction for a few minutes, before I realised I was in his camera shot.)
Ava thank you for this write up. I hope people understand the urgency of engaging with art, especially reading, in the age of AI and algorithms colonizing our minds. RESIST folks, RESIST!