The nation’s publication figures last year dipped to a five-year low, with 38,807 books having been published, a National Central Library report showed, with the number of publishing firms falling below 5,000.
According to the report, 9,490, or 24.45 percent, of the books published were language learning books, with social sciences coming in second at 6,233 and applied sciences in third at 6,214.
Art books ranked fourth with 6,014 books, and children’s literature came in fifth with 3,094 books.
Novels, children’s books, humanities, history and geography book, as well art and social sciences books, dominated the market, the report said.
Inspirational or self-help books and books that help people improve their handwriting were also popular, the library said, adding that four inspirational books were among the top 10 best-selling books in large bookstores, such as Books and Kingstone.
There were eight books on how to improve handwriting skills on the annual sales lists of large bookstores, while children’s books saw a significant growth of 473 compared with 2015, the library said.
The census found that 9,716 books were translated from foreign languages including English, Japanese and Korean.
Comics were the most commonly translated books, with novels coming in second, followed by children’s books, medical books and inspirational books, it said.
There were 2,002 electronic books last year, a decline of 145 compared with 2015, the library said.
It said the nation’s publication sector was chilly, but still has a chance of seeing a turn for the better.
This year’s Taipei International Book Festival attracted more than 580,000 visitors, with 621 domestic and foreign publishers, the library said, adding that the figures show that print materials are still popular.
The publishing industry should implement innovations while meeting the needs of different people to attract readers, the library added.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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