By Faith Manalili, Laila Hulatt, Megan Levick, Mollie Boardman
We dive into the ways TikTok’s bookish community, BookTok, is transforming bookshelves and helping young people become more engaged with reading.
TikTok x National Literacy Trust Initiative
In May, the National Literacy Trust partnered with TikTok to provide bookshelves for young people with low literacy levels. The Trust found that one in twelve young people aged five to eighteen don’t have a single book to call their own. They also discovered that when children reach secondary school, there is a twelve-month language development gap between children who have access to lots of books and those with fewer than ten.
Limited access to books is a concern not only for their academic development but also for their personal development. For the initiative, the Trust sought out the locations where books were needed most: Birmingham, Blackpool, Bradford, Doncaster, Manchester, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Nottingham, Peterborough, Stoke and Swindon. These books, funded by TikTok, not only get these children engaged in reading perhaps for the first time but also provide them with a sense of escapism from their everyday challenges.
We also researched the retailers which have specific ‘BookTok recommended’ displays.
Blackwell’s Online Bookshop
If you prefer to browse for fun new reads online, look no further. Blackwell’s has curated an online list of all their current favourites from BookTok. Here you’ll find a broad selection of YA (Young Adult), romance, literary fiction, fantasy, dystopian fiction, non-fiction and more.
The online shop also has a page for the TikTok Book Awards 2023 - an award launched by TikTok to spotlight books loved by readers, authors and content creators on the app. There are some subcategories of this award on Blackwell’s site. One shelf includes the longlist for BookTok Book of the Year 2023 in the UK and Ireland. Another shelf, titled Best BookTok Revival, sports a few backlisted titles that regained popularity amongst the BookTok community in the same year. For a follow-up on the TikTok Book Awards 2024, see Bookshop.org for the longlist.
The Works
The Works is well-known in the BookTok community for housing some of the latest trending reads. Their shelves stock a vast selection of great-value books priced at as little as £1.50. Boasting a large section of BookTok recommended reads, it’s hard to resist the titles from your For You page. Recently in their Durham store, we managed to find some hard-to-come-by titles by Lisa Jewell for only £4 each, including The Truth About Melody Browne and After the Party. They even stock both of the most trending five-book box sets of Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses series and Elle Kennedy’s Off-Campus series. There are even sprayed edge editions of some books, which are exclusive to The Works.
Waterstones
On their website, Waterstones say, “It is no exaggeration to say that BookTok has revolutionised the way many of us consume literature.” Waterstones has also dedicated a curated section of their online shop to BookTok reads. You can find books categorised by popular BookTok genres such as crime & thrillers, romantasy, horror and dark academia, and you can also find exclusive editions of popular titles, including Dolly Alderton’s Everything I Know About Love and It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover.
WHSmith
Well-known for being easily accessible while travelling and stocking commercial bestsellers, WHSmith is a staple bookshop for readers on the road. Both their online and physical stores offer a variety of curated lists for recommended genres, prize lists and trends. One such list is their BookTok recommendations. WHSmith stocks the latest books that BookTok users are talking about, from popular and beloved series to hot-off-the-press bestsellers, with most of the selection being discounted. They even have sublists for BookTok YA recommendations and TikTok readers’ must-reads for those new to the BookTok community.
So, if you’re travelling and want to check out that one book you’ve been really interested in reading since you saw it on BookTok or want a brand-new recommendation similar to your past favourites, pop into a WHSmith bookshop at a train station, service station or airport to check out their BookTok section and see what all the fuss is about.
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