Chinese books gains worldwide popularity

Popular worldwide

Nowadays, one can easily find in U.S. e-commerce giant Amazon's "China Bookstore" translated versions of almost all popular Chinese books such as Wolf Totem, The Tibet Code, The Flowers of War, Zhu Rongji Meets the Press, The Deng Xiaoping Era, and A History of Chinese and Foreign Civilizations.

The "China Bookstore" provides 110,000 types of books about Chinese celebrities, society, culture, and other aspects. This online bookstore had only 10,000 types of books when it was first launched in September last year.

Hawthorn Tree Forever has been translated into 13 languages, and its copyright has been exported to countries and regions include Norway, Sweden, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. Its entry into Norway and Sweden, the two Northern European countries that are particularly picky about cultural products, marks a breakthrough in the export of Chinese literary books' copyrights.

Classics live forever

A biography of Mao Zedong has long been No.1 on the China-related books sales chart of Waterstones, the most famous book retailer in the United Kingdom. Biographies of Chinese leaders such as Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping sell particularly well in Trang Tien Bookstore, the largest of its kind in Vietnam. Selected Poems of Mao Zedong can be found in many Indonesian bookstores.

Another type of bestsellers is Chinese learning materials. The best-selling books in Vietnamese bookstores are books for Chinese learning. There are two full shelves of books for Chinese learning on the second floor of the century-old Foyles flagship bookstore in London. Xinhua Dictionary, the most authoritative Chinese language dictionary, also sells well in Xinhua Bookstores in New York City.

Traveling to China is also a hot topic. There are two major English-language picture albums China as well as Beijing: Then and Now in the travel books section on the third floor of the Helsinki bookstore in Finland. The best-selling China-related books in Borders and Barnes & Noble, two major book retailers in the United States, are China travel guide books and travel notes of tourist trips to China.

Tastes differ

China's children's books, language reference books, and martial arts fiction are particularly popular in Southeast Asian countries where there are many Chinese migrants. Chinese story books for children and Classical Chinese Literature Illustrated Edition are popular in Singapore and Malaysia. A Thai publisher bought the Thai translation rights to Ming Xiaoxi's Angel Will Love You on Behalf of Me and complete two-volume Blazing Fire Like a Song. More than 15 of Chiung Yao's romance novels are placed on a shelf beside a cashier's desk in Trang Tien Bookstore, which also sells The Deer and the Cauldron, a martial arts novel by Jin Yong, in its Chinese literature section. The popular Chinese comic book Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf has also been translated into Vietnamese.

Some of China's neighbors prefer traditional Chinese literary books and those about China's development. Japan and South Korea imported such books as The Classic of Mountains and Seas Illustrated Edition, A Brief Introduction to Chinese Philosophy, A History of Buddhism in China, Syndrome Differentiation of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and A Dictionary of Chinese Medicine Diet from China. In addition, South Korea showed great interest in 100 Years: Deng Xiaoping, a book published in commemoration of the centenary of Deng's birth.

Europeans and Americans are full of curiosity about traditional Chinese culture and cuisine. Germany imported Tibet Scenery, Traditional Chinese Internal Medicine, and Chinese Herbal Handbook. Italy imported Chinese Art of Pottery and Painting and The Mystery of Longevity. France imported Documents on Turpan from Dunhuang. Chinese cookbooks are very popular in the United Kingdom. Suomalainen Kirjakauppa's flagship branch in Helsinki, the largest bookstore in Finland, sells such China-related books as Traditional Chinese Medicine, Acupuncture and Point Selection Techniques, and Tongue Diagnosis. Chinese Tea Book has been reprinted three times in Finland since its initial publication in the country. Professor Yu Dan Explains the Analects is among the bestsellers at the Virgin Megastore on the Champs Elysees in Paris.

Furthermore, the United States, Germany, Britain, and South Korea have also imported some high-quality science and technology books from China such as Theory and Application of Solitons and Super Strong Rare-Earth Permanent Magnets.