"Booktok", posts about literature on Tiktok, is being embraced by the book industry as the miracle that has got young people to read books. Jasmine Darban reads as many novels as her studies on the law program allow. Later this spring, she will also start publishing books for young adults and adults on Fenix, a new imprint she has started with Bonnier Carlsen.
Among this year's re-reads, she is stuck on:
"White Nights" by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A short novel from 1848 that unexpectedly became a hit on Booktok. It's a very short love story that Jack Edwards (Booktok profile from England) brought forward as the most beautiful depiction of love he had read – after that, it became a phenomenon on the app, everyone started reading this ancient story.
"Alice in Wonderland & Alice Through the Looking-Glass" by Lewis Carroll
American author RF Kuang's new novel "Katabasis" (dark fantasy in an academic setting) is coming this summer, and she has said that she got a lot of inspiration from "Alice in Wonderland". If you go on Booktok, you'll see a lot of people making videos where they prepare by reading different books about Greek mythology. This will be my little preparation.
"Funny story" by Emily Henry (English)
She's a very skilled romance author. The settings are often summery. The novels deal with heavy subjects like loss, finding yourself again, but with beautiful descriptions that still give a very warm feeling."
"Wild eyes" (English) by Elsie Silver
She writes romance series that take place in a specific town, and each book is about different characters. This is the second book in the Rose Hill series. The first, "Wild love", has just been released in Swedish. Elsie Silver has almost reached Emily Henry's status as a romance author on Booktok.
"The Vegetarian" by Han Kang
I started reading it because I was asked to comment on the Nobel Prize on SVT. The little "push" sparked an interest in a new authorship, it was unusually easy to read for a Nobel laureate, open to different interpretations, and very fun to discuss afterwards.
