Updated

Updated · EL PAÍS USA · Aug 14

Kurlansky's 'Salt' Rejoins NYT Best-Seller List After 25 Years as Viral Video Revives 2002 Book

Updated

Updated · EL PAÍS USA · Aug 14

Kurlansky's 'Salt' Rejoins NYT Best-Seller List After 25 Years as Viral Video Revives 2002 Book

2 articles · Updated · EL PAÍS USA · Aug 14

Nearly 25 years after its first run, Mark Kurlansky’s 2002 book “Salt: A World History” has returned to the New York Times weekly best-seller list.
Wyatt Derman’s viral video — opening with his claim that a 500-page book about salt “ruined” normal conversation — sent new readers to the book by turning its quirky historical facts into a social-media obsession.
Kurlansky called the comeback “comforting” and said it suggested books can endure, while Penguin publicly thanked Derman for helping drive the renewed interest.
The revival reflects a wider appetite for deep, niche subjects as readers seek an analogue break from fragmented online content; Kurlansky’s book uses salt to trace world history, from empire and trade to food preservation and protest.

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How did a brief video about a common kitchen spice resurrect a decades-old history book to the top of the bestseller lists?

Are short-form social media algorithms secretly becoming the ultimate marketing weapon for long, deeply researched historical nonfiction?

What other ordinary household items hold hidden, empire-toppling histories just waiting to be uncovered by the internet generation?

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