The Latest Breaking News from BookTok

Ten years of A Little Life – what’s behind the enduring popularity of Hanya Yanagihara’s ‘trauma porn’ novel?

Hanya Yanagihara’s second novel A Little Life, released ten years ago, has become a contemporary classic – with notoriety and acclaim boosting its profile in equal measure.

The Conversation · Mar 25, 2025

Romantasy, Bridgerton, audio porn apps: it’s a great time for horny ladies

For fans, sexy, female-centered entertainment is a welcome escape from reality

The Guardian - US · Mar 18, 2025

Amazon’s Goodreads builds community, but breeds division. Indie rival StoryGraph is playing it safe – and gaining ground

Reading, once a largely private activity, has become more public and communal with the emergence of book-centred social media spaces. But while the “BookTok” and “Bookstagram” communities are often in the news, Goodreads, founded in 2006 and estimated to have 150 million users, was arguably the first digital network to…

The Conversation · Feb 26, 2025

In China, social media apps are changing how people buy and read books – selling more than physical bookshops do

While the Australian book market was down 3% last year, genre fiction – popular on BookTok – was among the rare categories that grew.

The Conversation · Jan 19, 2025

I wanted to hate this romance-fantasy book series, but I’m converted

Sarah J Maas’s series is a global bestseller, combining fantasy, romance and action

The Independent UK · Jan 15, 2025

Fyodor fever: how Dostoevsky became a social media sensation

White Nights, the author’s 1848 novella, sounds an unlikely candidate to go viral, but the story of lovelorn loneliness is now a favourite among TikTok and Instagram users

The Guardian - UK · Dec 17, 2024

Microsoft, TikTok and AI are ‘disrupting’ book publishing. But do we want their effortless art?

Publishing is one of many fields poised for disruption by tech companies and artificial intelligence (AI). New platforms and approaches, like a book imprint by Microsoft and a self-publishing tech startup that uses AI, promise to make publishing faster and more accessible than ever.

The Conversation · Dec 4, 2024

TikTok owner ByteDance to publish print books

8th Note Press, an imprint launched by ByteDance, will print novels in genres popular on BookTok including YA and contemporary fiction and ‘romantasy’

The Guardian - UK · Nov 22, 2024

Life is Strange: Double Exposure Is A Murder Mystery Game Tailor Made For True Crime Fans

Okay, true crime heads and Booktok shippers, have I got a game for you. The Life is Strange series has a brand new entry, serving up another murder-mystery plot scored to a banger indie soundtrack. In Life is Strange: Double Exposure, you once again play as Max Caulfield several years…

Pedestrian.tv · Oct 29, 2024

‘I love the whole atmosphere and can spend hours browsing’: how did bookshops suddenly become cool?

A new survey suggests that young people are shunning AI algorithms and online retailers to experience the joy of visiting bookshops

The Guardian - UK · Oct 11, 2024