BookTok, a corner of TikTok largely dominated by young women that is dedicated to reviewing, recommending, and reacting to a wide range of texts, is a driving force for book publishing and marketing. BookTok has become one of the “commanding forces in adult fiction,” helping “authors sell 20 million printed books in 2021” and increasing sales an additional 50 percent in 2022.”[1] BookTokers define not only what books should be read, but how they might be properly experienced and valued, and invite questions both literary and sociological: what forms and language do BookToks rely on? What do BookTok creators value in novel reading? How do BookTokers perform the experience of reading?
Tag: popular culture
Under Your Skin: A History of the Necronomicon and Skin-Bound Books
The absence of evil books in real life hasn’t stopped us from imagining them in all manner of genres both past and present. And we love a good evil book, don’t we? Whether it’s Mister Babadook demanding entry into your home, the King in Yellow bringing carnage and ruin to the stage, or the Spirit grimoire manipulating a young magician in The Care Bears Movie, our fascination with malevolent tomes and nefarious publications continues to thrive. One of the more popular, if not the most popular, versions of this trope is the Necronomicon, a book as notorious as it is fictitious.
Pentiment: An Interview with Josh Sawyer
Pentiment (Obsidian 2022, $19.99, Xbox and Steam), the new narrative game from Obsidian, is a piece of media that gets…
The Pulp Magazines Project
The Pulp Magazines Project. Patrick Belk, Nathan Madison: 2011. <http://pulpmags.org/> The first generation of cooperative, open-access libraries were text-based transcriptions…
Barbara Ryan and Milette Shamir, eds. Bigger than Ben-Hur: The Book, Its Adaptations, and Their Audiences
Barbara Ryan and Milette Shamir, eds. Bigger than Ben-Hur: The Book, Its Adaptations, and Their Audiences. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University…