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This lesser known 1848 Dovstoesky novella is suddenly going viral on TikTok – and it’s just £3
Forget fantasy books, White Nights is the unlikely title to be praised on the app
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Your support makes all the difference.Whether you’re after a recipe, a lesser-known holiday destination or skincare recommendations, TikTok is home to every niche you could think of. But “BookTok” is a phenomenon in its own right.
Largely led by authors like Colleen Hoover and Sarah J Mass, this corner of TikTok sees users sharing, reviewing and opening up about their favourite books. It’s had a democratising impact on the publishing industry, with books in the fantasy, YA and romance genre sitting alongside literary fiction in the bestseller lists.
In fact, Sarah J Mass single-handedly boosted Bloomsbury’s sales in 2024 thanks to her hugely popular A Court of Rose and Thorns series (think fairies, shape-shifting wolves and smut).
But there’s one unlikely book that’s gone viral in the last year: Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 1848 novella White Nights. Yes, a seminal 19th-century Russian writer is now brushing shoulders with Hoover and J Mass. Garnering more than 40 million views on the app, it’s become the fourth most-sold work of literature in translation in the UK.
With themes of loneliness and isolation, it’s struck a chord with the social media generation. Plus, it’s only 80 pages long, helping readers beat their target on GoodReads before the end of the year. Here’s everything you need to know about Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s White Nights – and where to buy it for just £3.
‘White Nights’ by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, published by Penguin Classics: £3, Amazon.co.uk
Published in 1848, White Nights is set in St Petersburg, Russia, during the summer, when the evenings are known as “white nights” because the sky doesn’t fully darken. Told in first person by a nameless narrator, the lonely young man is a keen reader and often lives in his head, rather than in reality.
By chance, he meets a young woman one white night. She is pining after her lover who promises to contact her after returning from Moscow. Over more nights, they meet again and again, and he falls in unrequited love with her. After more conversations with her, he begins to imagine and romanticise their life together while she continues to wait for her lover.
A 19th-century take on “main character syndrome”, TikTok users praise the themes of alienation, pining and devastating young love, as well as solitude and loneliness. One user said: “I warmed by heart, and then it broke my heart into teeny tiny pieces”. If you’ve been BookTok influenced, you can pick White Nights up for just £3.
Looking for more reading recommendations? These are the best new releases for 2024