Representatives of the nation's leading publishing houses were joined by members of the local literati in the auditorium of Taipei's Red Theater (紅樓劇場) early last week, as Taiwan's largest bookstore chain, Kingstone (金石堂), dished out prizes and celebrated the most influential books of 2004 at its annual book awards ceremony.
Now in its 22nd year, the annual awards ceremony has not only become one of the nation's leading literature-related events, but is also seen by many in the publishing industry as the most significant indicator of the nation's reading habits.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF KINGSTONE
"It was a very diverse year for publishers last year. More books about more topics were sold, which indicates that Taiwan readers have matured. Unlike 20 years ago when reading habits were predictable, they have become more diverse in recent years," said Kingstone's Director Chou Chuan-feng (周傳芳).
Taiwan's readers may have become more open-minded, but once again it was the international bestsellers that outsold works by local authors and, if you choose to believe Kingstone's polls, proved to be the most influential reads of 2004.
"It's not that works by local authors don't sell; they do. But Taiwan's readers are becoming more international in their outlooks. Because of this people in Taiwan not only want to read good books, but at the same time they want to discover more about the world and in so doing get a more global view of things," said Kingstone's Lu Yu-chia (盧郁佳).
Last year Taiwanese read more books than in 2003. And although the bookstore chain closed 10 of its branches, according to Kingstone's Neil Peng (馮光遠), sales increased by 17 percent and the bookstore giant enjoyed total sales upward of NT$36 million.
For the first time in three years best-selling children's author JK Rowling didn't steal the show. The British author was instead beaten to the post by Dan Brown's worldwide hit, The De Vinci Code, which sold over 300,000 copies in Taiwan.
Rowling remained one of the favorites, however. Both the original English-language edition and the translated version of the latest Harry Potter adventure, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, continued to prove hugely popular and clocked sales of nearly 200,000 copies.
The other top-selling international books of 2004 were Margaret Atwood's Negotiating with the Dead, Yann Martel's Life of Pi, Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan's Confronting Reality, Clayton Christensen, Michael Raynor's The Innovators Solution, Ron Clark's The Essential 55 and John B. Miller's QBQ! The Question Behind the Question.
The top Chinese-language books were led by Acer Group Chairman and CEO Stan Shih's (施振榮) guide to better management: Transformation Management for New Acer and the Millennium (宏的世紀變革).
This was followed by Logy Dog's comedic and surreal look at modern life in The Most Famous Bird in Taiwan (羊肉爐不是故意的) and by Zhang Yihe's (章詒和) controversial account of political upheavals in China since the founding of the PRC: The Past Doesn't Disappear Like Smoke
(
The prizes for the Most Influential Figures in the local publishing world went to author Luo Yi-chun (駱以軍) for his many achievements as one of Taiwan's leading authors of short stories and to Kuo Chung-hsing (郭重興), founder of the Republic publishing house
(
Along with books, the bookstore also released the results of its best-selling magazines for last year. The gossip magazine Next Magazine (壹週刊) continued to proved hugely popular and scored the top spot in the weekly category.
The gossip magazine was closely followed by the financial advisory weeklies My Money (錢潮), Marbo Weekly (萬寶) and Business Weekly (商業周刊). And once again the fashion magazines Sugar (甜心), Beauty (美人誌) and Elle came out winners in the monthly magazines top-10 category.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist