Fantasy and adventure novels were the most popular genre for book borrowers in Taiwan’s public libraries last year, accounting for 16 of the 20 most borrowed titles, a survey shows.
The survey, released by the National Central Library last week, shows that book borrowers especially favored fantasy and adventure novels with a historical backdrop.
The Fate Hunter series by Taiwanese novelist Giddens Ko (柯景騰) topped the list of the 20 most-borrowed books compiled by the library, with more than 21,000 borrowings.
Also on the list are three books by Chinese writer Yue Guan, about modern men who are reincarnated and return to China’s past dynasties and ancient periods, where they undergo a string of adventures.
British author J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series and Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians series also made it to the list, ranking fifth and sixth.
Close to 30 percent of the authors on the list got their start writing on the Internet, including Ko, who has written about 60 books since he published his first online in 2000.
His autobiographical film You Are the Apple of My Eye (那些年,我們一起追的女孩) released in Taiwan last year, grossed more than NT$410 million (US$13.86 million) at the local box office and became the highest-grossing Chinese-language movie in Hong Kong’s history.
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