BookTok: Why is everyone suddenly obsessed with salt?

BookTok’s latest fascination, Salt: A World History, has everyone intrigued, with the book exponentially gaining popularity… but why?

It is a well-known fact among authors and writers that no one is in the profession to make money. 

It is also accepted by most authors that their work is not going to become the next ‘great American novel,’ and instead you should lower your expectations. 

The writing industry teaches members to assume the worst: no one cares about your book, and no one will read it. 

However, if you’re lucky, some authors do manage to achieve great success with their books – and not just among literary circles. 

Immense popularity

Once in a blue moon, a book achieves immense popularity among the general masses, where even non-readers feel that they must get hold of a copy. 

And if you are really fortunate, a book that you wrote and published years ago may receive an unexpected surge in popularity as a new generation of readers stumble upon it. 

So is the case for Mark Kurlansky, whose work Salt: A World History has suddenly gone viral on the internet over two decades since it was published. 

Salt: A non-fiction

“I read a 500-page book about salt, and it has altogether ruined my ability to have a normal conversation.”

Kurlansky’s non-fiction book was first published in 2002, providing a deep dive into how salt has played a pivotal role in how civilization has evolved into what it is today. 

The book went viral thanks to creator Wyatt Derman’s (@wyattderman) Instagram reel, which he posted to his now 374K followers, sharing his review.

“At first the facts were fun and casual,” Derman describes in his video. “[But] there’s more, and it gets worse, and I couldn’t stop.” 

How empires rose and fell due to a common kitchen instrument 

Derman goes on to share some snippets from the book, outlining how much of our world’s history is intertwined with the unassuming mineral. 

He describes how many English words share an unexpected etymology with ‘salt ’, such as ‘salad’, ‘salami’, and ‘soldier’. 

But Derman doesn’t stop there. 

He goes on to share how salt has started political movements, wars, and how the control of salt production and trade routes was the key to the rise and fall of ancient empires.

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Salt skyrockets

“I picked up a book about the most boring object I could think of,” says Derman. “And it turned out to be about the secret history of the entire world…”

The video has since received nearly nine million views to date, including by the author himself. 

“[I’m] glad you read it…whenever it was,” captions Kurlansky (@codlansky) on his own Instagram post in response to the book’s unforeseen popularity 24 years after its release.

A special anniversary edition of Salt: A World History will be released on October 20, featuring a new cover and a foreword by British-American journalist Simon Winchester. 

The book is available for pre-order. 

Kurlansky is the author of 41 books, the latest titled To Catch a Fish, which was released earlier this year.

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