When we look at the top 10 bestsellers analyzed by major online bookstores in Korea for the second week of 2021, half of them were from Economics & Business Administration. This implies that it has not lost its strong influence in the Korean book market. For example, <My First Investing Lesson Vol 1, 2> scored high from the moment of its pre-order period. Investor Kim Jung-Hwan, the writer of this book, is a major value investor in Korea. He has been gaining public fame across the nation, which is well-reflected in his Youtube performance of recording 450K subscribers in 5 months. The book turned into an issue in the market as the news spread that he has put secrets to investment, which he said he only taught his daughter, in two volumes of a book rather than in a video.
While books about economics and business administration are at the center of the bestsellers, the novel <Pachinko> has joined the bestsellers’ list. Published in 2018, the book is gaining popularity once again as Korean celebrities Lee Min-Ho and Yoon Yuh-Jung, who has won an award for the film “Minari,” joined the cast of its drama adaptation scheduled to be produced by “Apple TV Plus” in the United States. <Pachinko> is a full-length novel by Lee Min-Jin, who moved to the US when she was seven. She has vividly manifested the desperate life of Koreans living in Japan into letters. The literary value of the book has already been recognized by several news outlets, including “10 Best Books” selected by the New York Times, “USA Today,” and “Book of the Year” chosen by BBC.
Meanwhile, <The Little Prince (Gyeongsang-do Dialect)> has joined the bestsellers’ list eight months after its publication. This book is a translation of the globally famous classic <Le Petit Prince>, special in that it was translated into the Gyeongsang-do dialect in Korea. The unique point of this book reinterpreted by a Korean dialect is that its 300 copies were first published in Europe in June last year. After being widely popular among Korean fans living overseas, it was published in Korea in October last year. <The Little Prince (Gyeongsang-do Dialect)> began when Choi Hyun-Ae, a Korean writer in Singapore, met a German publisher that publishes <Le Petit Prince> in unique languages in each country at the Singapore Writers Festival (SWF). With love and support from readers across the world, it is scheduled to be translated into various Korean dialects such as Chungcheong-do, Jeolla-do, and Jeju-do dialects.