February Bestseller List from China: International Classics are Bestsellers

The Chinese market can be surprisingly busy with international classics. Last month, for example—when 10 of the 30 top bestsellers were classics—the 1932 Russian novel, Nikolai Ostrovksy’s How the Steel Was Tempered. was at 15 on the overall fiction bestseller list and 10 on the foreign fiction list.

Jules Verne’s ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’

And in fact, in our very first round of these lists last June, some readers were surprised to find Henry David Thoerau’s Walden, Francis Bacon’s Essays, and works by Gabriel García Márquez being avidly read in the Chinese market. In July, Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea surfaced, as did Ernest Hemingways The Old Man and the Sea. In August, here was Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, the next month, we found Ivan Turgenev’s A Sportsman’s Sketches and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels on the lists, and in November, Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express made an appearance. ... [mehr] https://publishingperspectives.com/2018/03/china-bestsellers-february-2018-openbook-trajectory/