First, the camera pans across eight books arrayed with hundreds of sticky tabs, flaunting that they have been closely read and meticulously annotated. Next, a description runs across the screen: “Books I would sell my soul to read again for the first time.” The music crescendoes, and a manicured hand reveals the books’ covers in time with the beat, featuring authors including Simone de Beauvoir, Elena Ferrante and Sally Rooney.

The user, who is called “buryme.withmybooks”, does not say why she likes them, but that does not matter. On TikTok, hyperbole is the name of the social media game. Around 9.3 million people have watched the video and almost 400,000 people have saved it for future reference.