I love a whole menagerie of YouTube creators. I've even done some YouTube homage videos on a few of them (Julie Nolke, Ryan George) (Standard Story Company).
Two favorite YouTube creators are Eleanor Morton and J. Draper, both from the British Isles, and both of them have written a book for the first time.
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Eleanor Morton is a Scottish comedian with a unique minimalist style. It's just her, against a white wall, in a headshot for an iPhone a couple feet away. On this minimalist palette, she creates a wide range of characters, who come alive for 60 or 90 seconds and make one hilarious remark after another. Typically she plays them in a deadpan style. Find her here:
https://www.youtube.com/@EleanorMortonable
Her book, "Life Lessons from Historical Women" (Radar Books) was released in the US on August 15, 2024, as hardcover, ebook and audiobook (here). I'm enjoying the sync'ed ebook-audiobook version. (Seven audio hours with Eleanor Morton.)
https://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Historical-Women-Eleanor-Morton-ebook/dp/B0D1N3HLH8
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J Draper describes herself as a London tour guide, and she's created a wonderful second career as a YouTube creator speaking on historical and offbeat topics. Find her YT channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/@JDraper
She's produced a multiple-biographies book, too, to be released in 2025. It's called, Mavericks: Life Stories and Lessons of History's Most Extraordinary Misfits. Find it at Penguin Random House here:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/773388/mavericks-by-jenny-draper/
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Regular Websites
https://eleanormortoncomedian.com/
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Eleanor Morton and J Draper are among my online favorites. The multiple-biographies format they use goes back to medieval "Lives of the Saints" versions, but Morton and Draper, as Brits, are probably well placed into the tradition that goes back to "Eminent Victorians" by Lytton Strachey.
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I would mention also Strachey's contemporary Stefan Zweig, who wrote an engaging book of capsule biographies well-known in German, "Sternstunden der Menschheit" [lit., Star-Hours of Humanity], less known in English as "Decisive Moments in History" or "Tide of Fortune," both clunker titles that probably sank from sight quickly. (Strachey 1880-1932; Zweig 1881-1942).
