In this article

  1. Why BookTok and projector ambience are the perfect crossover
  2. Best book-inspired scenes to project
  3. How to create the perfect reading nook
  4. Budget projector recommendations
  5. Best YouTube ambience videos for reading
  6. Getting the lighting right for reading
  7. Creating your own BookTok content
  8. FAQ

Why BookTok and Projector Ambience Are the Perfect Crossover

If you've been anywhere near BookTok in the past year, you've seen the reading ambience videos. Fairy lights draped over a headboard, a candle flickering on the nightstand, a stack of paperbacks artfully arranged. It looks lovely. But there's a new version of this that's taken the whole thing to another level entirely -- and it involves a mini projector.

The idea is simple. Instead of decorating around your reading spot with static props, you project an ambient scene onto the wall in front of you. Suddenly your bedroom wall becomes a rain-streaked window looking out onto a fantasy city. Or the view from a woodland cabin. Or the starlit skyline of Velaris. You're not just reading about these worlds anymore. You're sitting in them.

The Washington Post ran a feature on this exact trend in January 2026, and creators like @jesnerdingout and @jess.ricci have been posting reading ambience setups that are racking up millions of views. The overlap between the BookTok audience and the cosy projector ambience audience turned out to be almost a complete circle -- people who love immersive fiction also love immersive environments. Who knew.

Why it works: BookTok has always been about the reading experience, not just the books. The aesthetic, the mood, the ritual of settling in. A projector takes that ritual from "nice" to "I never want to leave this spot." It's the difference between reading in a room and reading inside the story.

The trend is growing fast because it's surprisingly cheap and absurdly effective. A mini projector costs less than a hardback collector's edition. The ambience videos are free on YouTube. And the result -- a wall-sized fantasy landscape glowing softly while you read -- is the kind of thing that stops people mid-scroll when they see it on TikTok. If you're new to projector ambience in general, our complete ambience guide covers the basics. This article is specifically about building the ultimate reading setup.

Best Book-Inspired Scenes to Project

The magic of this setup is matching your projected scene to whatever you're reading. Different genres call for completely different vibes. Here are the best pairings, starting with the genre that's driving the entire trend.

Romantasy (ACOTAR, Throne of Glass, From Blood and Ash)

Romantasy is the beating heart of BookTok, and it's the genre that works most spectacularly with projector ambience. These books are built on vivid, atmospheric worlds -- and those worlds translate brilliantly to a projected scene.

A Court of Thorns and Roses -- Night Court / Velaris

The Night Court is the single most requested ambience scene in BookTok. You want deep midnight blues, scattered starlight, and the warm glow of a fantasy city below distant mountains. The best YouTube videos for this have twinkling lights that drift slowly across the scene, almost like fireflies. Project this onto your wall, dim the lights, and reading the Rhysand chapters hits completely differently.

ACOTAR Night Court ambience Velaris ambience 4K starlit fantasy city ambience

A Court of Thorns and Roses -- Spring Court

For the earlier parts of the series, you want something warmer and more enchanted. Think golden light filtering through ancient trees, petals drifting in the air, and the sense of a magical woodland just outside your window. Enchanted forest ambience videos capture this perfectly -- particularly the ones with warm afternoon light rather than dark, foreboding woods.

enchanted forest ambience fairy garden ambience warm magical woodland window

Throne of Glass -- Adarlan / Terrasen

Sarah J. Maas's other series needs something with more edge. For the Adarlan scenes, a dark castle ambience with flickering torchlight and stone walls works beautifully. For Terrasen and the wilder settings, search for mountain fortress or northern kingdom scenes. The best ones have snow falling past a window with firelight reflecting off the glass.

dark castle ambience firelight mountain fortress ambience snow medieval fantasy study ambience

Percy Jackson / Mythology

Greek mythology ambience is an entire sub-genre on YouTube. For Percy Jackson, you want either an ancient temple with warm torchlight and distant ocean sounds, or -- for the Camp Half-Blood vibe -- a lakeside cabin at dusk with crickets and a campfire. The temple scenes project especially well because the warm stone tones look incredible on a wall.

ancient Greek temple ambience Camp Half-Blood ambience mythology library ambience

Sci-Fi (Dune, Murderbot, Project Hail Mary)

Sci-fi readers, you haven't been forgotten. The projector ambience community has produced some stunning futuristic scenes that pair perfectly with space opera and hard sci-fi.

Dune -- Arrakis

Desert scenes with vast dunes and twin sunsets. The best ones have a gentle heat shimmer and warm amber tones that make your whole room feel like you're inside a stillsuit. For the Fremen cave scenes, search for desert cave ambience with distant sandstorm sounds -- genuinely atmospheric.

Arrakis desert ambience sci-fi desert landscape ambience Dune sandstorm ambience

Space Station / Murderbot Vibes

For anything set on a spaceship or station, the "spaceship window" ambience videos are perfect. Stars drifting slowly past a viewport, the occasional nebula, gentle engine hum. It's exactly what you want when you're reading about Murderbot trying to watch its soap operas in peace. These scenes also work brilliantly for Project Hail Mary and The Expanse.

spaceship window ambience space station viewport stars sci-fi cabin ambience

Cottagecore (Legends & Lattes, Howl's Moving Castle, The House in the Cerulean Sea)

The Cosy Cottage Window

This is the one that started the whole projector ambience trend, and it's still the best match for cottagecore reading. A rain-streaked cottage window with a garden outside, warm interior light, maybe a kettle steaming somewhere off-screen. It's the visual equivalent of a warm cup of tea, and it turns any reading of Legends & Lattes into an actual experience. Our free ambience video guide has dozens more scene recommendations like this.

cosy cottage window rain cottagecore cabin ambience English countryside window rain

Dark Academia (The Secret History, Ninth House, If We Were Villains)

The Candlelit Library

Dark wood bookshelves, candlelight flickering across leather-bound spines, rain hammering against a Gothic window. Dark academia ambience videos are absolutely everywhere on YouTube and they're tailor-made for projector use. The warm amber tones of candlelight project beautifully, and the slight movement of the flames gives the scene life without being distracting. If you're reading Donna Tartt by the glow of a projected ancient library, you're living your best life.

dark academia library ambience Oxford library rain ambience Gothic study candlelight ambience

Pro tip: YouTube's algorithm is your friend here. Search for "[book title] ambience" and you'll almost always find something purpose-made. The ambience community is huge and covers nearly every popular book series. For the full list of our favourite channels and scenes, see our 50+ free ambience videos guide.

How to Create the Perfect Reading Nook: Step by Step

Right. You're sold on the idea. Here's exactly how to set it up, from choosing your spot to settling in with a book. The whole process takes about fifteen minutes the first time and sixty seconds every time after that.

Step 1: Choose your reading spot

You need a comfortable place to sit or lie down that faces a blank wall. The wall is your canvas -- it's where the projector will cast the scene. Best options:

The wall should be as light-coloured as possible. White or cream is ideal. Light grey works. If your wall is dark, a white sheet hung flat does the job perfectly. Our no screen needed guide goes into detail on wall surfaces.

Step 2: Position the projector

Place the projector 1.5 to 3 metres from the wall, aimed at roughly where a window would be. On a nightstand works perfectly. On a bookshelf works. The key is that it should point at the wall you're facing, not at you. If you need help calculating the right distance for your room, the projection calculator will give you exact numbers.

Most mini projectors have keystone correction to square up the image if the projector is slightly off-angle. Set it once, leave it. This isn't something you fiddle with every reading session.

Step 3: Connect a video source

Three options, all easy:

Step 4: Pick your scene

Match the scene to your book. Reading ACOTAR? Night Court ambience. Throne of Glass? Castle firelight. Legends & Lattes? Cosy coffee shop window with rain. See the genre sections above for specific YouTube search terms.

Set the video to loop or pick one that's several hours long (most ambience videos are 3-8 hours). You don't want the scene ending mid-chapter.

Step 5: Set up your reading light

This is the bit people get wrong. The projector is for ambience -- it doesn't produce enough light to read by (nor would you want it to). You need a separate reading light. More on this in the lighting section below.

Step 6: Add audio

Most ambience videos include sound -- rain, crackling fire, distant thunder, forest sounds. You can play it through the projector's built-in speaker (adequate), but a small Bluetooth speaker placed near your reading spot sounds significantly better. Keep the volume low. You want it as background texture, not a soundscape that competes with the words on the page.

Step 7: Settle in

Overhead lights off. Projector on. Reading light on. Book open. That's it. The wall in front of you is now a window into another world. The ambient sound fills the quiet. Your reading light illuminates the pages. Everything else disappears.

The sixty-second version: After the first setup, your nightly routine is: turn on projector, select scene, turn on reading light, open book. It becomes as automatic as making a cup of tea before reading. Except your wall now looks like the Night Court.

Budget Projector Recommendations for Reading Ambience

You're reading in a dark room. This is the one scenario where cheap projectors genuinely perform. You don't need 4K. You don't need blinding brightness. You need a pretty picture on a wall in a dim room, and even the most budget-friendly projector delivers that. For the full detailed reviews, see our best mini projector for ambience guide.

Best Budget: Yaber V2

~£50

The starter pick for anyone trying this for the first time. In a dark room, the image quality is genuinely impressive for the price. Warm colour tones that suit ambience scenes perfectly. The built-in speaker handles quiet rain sounds well enough. You'll need to manually adjust keystone, but once it's set, you leave it.

Best for: First-time projector buyers. Testing whether you'll actually use it. Tight budgets.

Check price on Amazon →

Best Value: Elephas W13

~£80

A step up from the absolute budget picks. Slightly brighter image, which helps if your room isn't completely dark (say you want a reading lamp on). Bluetooth connectivity built in, so you can send audio to a Bluetooth speaker without extra cables. The colour reproduction is noticeably better than the sub-fifty options, which matters for those rich ACOTAR purples and blues.

Best for: Regular readers who want better colour. Rooms that aren't pitch black.

Check price on Amazon →

Best Premium: XGIMI MoGo 2 Pro

~£300

If you've tried the budget route and you're using it every single night (you will be), this is the upgrade. Auto-focus, auto-keystone correction, built-in Android TV so you search YouTube directly on the projector -- no phone or Fire Stick needed. The image is sharper, the colours are richer, and the built-in speakers are actually decent. It's the "set and forget" option.

Best for: Daily use. People who hate fiddling with settings. Anyone who wants the best image quality.

Check price on Amazon →

Best Portable: Anker Nebula Capsule 3

~£350

The size of a tall drinks can. Built-in battery so no power cable needed. This is the one for people who want to take their reading nook to different rooms, bring it on holiday, or set it up in the garden on summer evenings. Android TV built in, surprisingly good sound for its size, and it looks like a premium gadget rather than a cheap projector. Perfect if you read in different spots around the house.

Best for: Portability. Reading in different rooms. Travel.

Check price on Amazon →

Honest advice: Start at fifty quid. Use it for a week. If you're turning it on every time you read (and you will), then upgrade. The difference between a fifty pound projector and a three hundred pound projector in a dark reading nook is smaller than you'd expect. Start cheap, upgrade with confidence. See all our picks on the links page.

Best YouTube Ambience Videos for Reading Sessions

The ambience community on YouTube is enormous, and a huge chunk of it is specifically tailored to book-inspired scenes. Here are the search terms and channels that consistently produce the best results for projector reading setups.

Channels to follow

Search terms that find the best results

Copy and paste these directly into YouTube:

Tip: Always add "4K" to your search. Higher resolution ambience videos look noticeably sharper when projected, especially on larger wall areas. Most quality channels upload in 4K by default, but adding it to the search filters out the lower quality uploads.

Getting the Lighting Right for Reading

This is the section that separates a good reading ambience setup from a genuinely brilliant one. The projector handles atmosphere. But you still need to see the words on the page. Here's how to balance both.

The wrong way

Overhead room light on. Projector on. Result: the projection looks washed out, you can see fine, but there's zero atmosphere. You've just got a faint image on a well-lit wall. Pointless.

The right way

Overhead lights off. Projector on. A small, warm-toned reading light illuminating only your book. The room is dark except for the projected scene and the glow on your pages. The scene on the wall dominates your peripheral vision. The reading light keeps your focal point -- the book -- perfectly visible. Atmosphere and practicality, both sorted.

Best reading lights for the setup

The critical thing is colour temperature. You want warm light (2700K or lower) for your reading lamp. Cool white or daylight bulbs will clash horribly with the warm amber tones of most ambience scenes and ruin the mood. Warm light from your lamp blends seamlessly with the warm glow of the projection. If you're setting this up in a bedroom, our bedroom setup guide has more detail on lighting and projector placement.

Creating Your Own BookTok Content With This Setup

If you're a BookTok creator -- or thinking about becoming one -- the projector reading nook is an absolute cheat code for content. The projected scene makes your background look like a film set. Here's what the successful creators are doing.

The "reading vlog" format

Camera positioned to show you reading with the projected scene behind you. The scene does all the work -- it creates depth, colour, and movement in the background without you needing ring lights, LED strips, or complex setups. Film in the evening with the projector on and your reading light visible. The warm glow looks incredible on camera.

Scene-matching transitions

One popular format: show the book cover, cut to you in the reading nook with a scene that matches the book projected behind you. ACOTAR cover into Night Court ambience. Dune cover into desert landscape. The transition gets engagement because viewers want to see how the scene matches the story.

The "what I project while reading" listicle

Simple, effective, highly shareable. Film clips of different scenes projected onto your wall, overlay the book title each one pairs with. These videos consistently perform well because they give viewers actionable ideas they can copy immediately.

For creators: Film at the highest quality your phone supports. The projected scene has subtle movement -- rain, flickering light, drifting stars -- that compression can destroy. Good lighting plus good resolution equals content that stands out in the feed. Use our scene finder to quickly match books to their ideal ambience scene.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the BookTok projector ambience trend?

BookTok creators are using mini projectors to cast book-inspired ambient scenes onto their walls while reading. Instead of just fairy lights and candles, they project fantasy landscapes, rainy cityscapes, or cosy cabin windows to match the mood of whatever they're reading. It creates a fully immersive reading nook that looks incredible on camera and feels even better in person.

Do I need an expensive projector for a reading ambience setup?

No. Because you're reading in a dark or dimly lit room, even a budget projector around fifty pounds produces a beautiful image. The darkness does the heavy lifting. A cheap mini projector plus a free YouTube ambience video is genuinely all you need. You can always upgrade later if you use it every day, which -- fair warning -- you probably will.

What are the best projector scenes for reading ACOTAR?

For A Court of Thorns and Roses, search YouTube for "ACOTAR Night Court ambience", "Velaris ambience", or "starlit fantasy city ambience". These give you the deep purples, blues, and twinkling lights that match the Night Court aesthetic. For the Spring Court scenes, try "enchanted forest ambience" or "fairy garden ambience" with warm golden tones.

Can I read comfortably with a projector on?

Absolutely. The projector creates ambient background light, not direct illumination. You still need a reading light -- a warm-toned book light clipped to your pages or a small lamp beside you works perfectly. The projector provides atmosphere while your reading light provides the actual visibility. The two work together beautifully.

Where do I find book-specific ambience videos?

YouTube is the best source. Search for the book title plus "ambience" -- for example, "ACOTAR Night Court ambience", "Throne of Glass ambience", or "Hogwarts library ambience". Channels like Ambient Worlds, ASMR Weekly, and Fantasy Ambience create high-quality scenes specifically matched to popular book series. Most are free, available in 4K, and several hours long.

Will the projector fan noise disturb my reading?

Budget projectors have a gentle fan hum, but it's quiet enough to disappear once your ambience audio is playing softly. Many readers actually find the white noise element helpful for concentration. If you're particularly noise-sensitive, pair the projector with a Bluetooth speaker playing the ambient soundtrack -- the rain or fireplace sounds will completely mask any fan noise. Check our troubleshooting guide if you run into any issues.

What's the best room setup for a BookTok reading nook?

The ideal setup is a comfortable reading spot -- bed, armchair, or window seat -- facing the wall where the projector casts its image. The projector goes behind or beside you, pointing at the wall you face. Add a warm reading light, a cosy blanket, and a Bluetooth speaker for ambient sounds. The scene on the wall becomes your view while you read, as if you're sitting beside a window looking out onto whatever world you choose. Our start here guide walks through the basics if you're completely new to projector ambience.

The Reading Nook You Didn't Know You Needed

Here's the thing about the BookTok projector ambience trend: it sounds like a gimmick until you try it. Then it becomes the way you read. Every single person I've shown this setup to has gone from "that's a bit extra" to "where do I buy one" in about ninety seconds flat.

The cost of entry is laughably low. A fifty pound projector, a free YouTube video, a reading light you probably already own. The result is a reading experience that makes your local Waterstones' "cosy corner" look like a waiting room. You're not just reading about Velaris or the Shire or a space station orbiting Jupiter -- you're sitting inside a version of it. The scene moves. The rain falls. The stars drift. And the words on the page hit differently when the world around you matches the world in the story.

Start cheap. Pick up a budget projector, search for an ambience video that matches whatever's on your currently-reading shelf, turn off the lights, and settle in. You'll understand why this trend is taking over BookTok. And you'll wonder how you ever read without it.

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