Best-selling books are guaranteed by a rich history, culture and experience in many countries around the world. The ‘Best seller’ was originally a term referring to the books that readers chose to buy the most and then gradually became an important measure of the value and influence of the work as well as the reading tendency of readers.

Many best-selling works are displayed at the Fahasa bookstore. Photo: K.H

Criteria for choosing good books

Anyone who regularly comes to the Fahasa bookstore located at 300 Le Duan Street can easily see that this bookstore earmarks a separate space, in a prominent position (on the right side of the main gate leading into the bookstore) for the display of best-selling books. In November and December 2023, the book “No death, no birth, no fear” by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh was ranked as the best seller here due to good sales (dozens of books/month). Before hitting bookstore shelves, this book went viral in the internet when it was highly-recommended by many famous people on social networking sites.

The phrase ‘best seller’ is no longer strange to those who love reading. Buying or hunting for best-selling books has now become a habit for people who love reading. Being labeled as with the best seller or being in the top best selling books’ list by week/month/year is considered to be a ‘certificate’ showing the success of the book to a certain extent. Normally, if a book is labeled as the best seller on the cover, it also makes readers curious and gets more attention than others.

Affirming that best-selling books are always among her top choices every time she wants to buy books, Ms. Nguyen Hoang Amy, 32, residing on Y Lan Nguyen Phi Street, Hai Chau District,  Da Nang said, before deciding to a best-selling book, Amy will research information online with criteria such as the title being mentioned a lot, being recently published and supported by critics; the title of the book being attractive and strange; outstanding book cover, and of course, additional headlines like "best seller" or awards, all of which are an indispensable part.

However, according to many readers, the decision to buy a book depends on the ‘taste’ of each region and each country. Not to mention that everyone's tastes and preferences are different.

“A book labeled with the best seller can attract people’s attention in the first minutes but the choice to buy it or not depends on the introduction and summary on the cover, along with other impressive elements such as the title and cover design.”, said Mr. Do Quy Su, 30, an office worker in Son Tra District, affirmed.

In recent years, bookstores and publishing branches have quickly caught up with the trend of best-selling books. Translated editions of best-selling books written by foreign authors with prestigious advertising lines printed on the cover such as ‘The New York Times Best Seller’, ‘International Best Seller’, ‘Best Seller of France’ reach a wide range of readers. Surveys from major bookstores in the city show that skill-teaching, history and culture-themed books have dominated over the past three years.

Analyzing the appeal of the best-seller book line, Ms. Dao Mai Ly, the Head of Communications Department of the ‘Tre’ (Youth) Publishing House, one of the top publishers in Viet Nam in terms of turnover, said that best-seller books have a guarantee from a rich history, culture and experience in many countries around the world. 

The ‘Best seller’ was originally a term referring to the books that readers chose to buy the most and then gradually became an important measure of the value and influence of the work as well as the reading tendency of readers. Some reputable brands in voting for best-selling books by month/year include The New York Times Book Review and amazon.com.

From another perspective, Mr. Doan Thanh, the Director of Fahasa Da Nang Bookstore, affirmed best-selling books are books that sell well in the top 10 systems for several weeks in a row, demonstrate the reading trend of the majority, and are heavily promoted on social networking forums.

There are also special cases under which best-selling books earned their berths in the top best seller list continuously for many years such as ‘Dac Nhan Tam’ (How to Win Friends and Influence People) and ‘Nha Gia Kim’ (The Alchemist). In the Da Nang market, in recent years, the demand for customers looking to buy best-selling books has been quite large.

In 2023 alone, the most chosen books were those related to economics, religion, psychological skills and comics for children.

It is undeniable the role and important contributions of best-selling books in contributing to leading and shaping reading trends and promoting the development of reading culture. However, if we only look at the advertisements to buy books, is it true that accessing reading culture is just to follow the trend.

Besides, the phrase ‘best seller’ seems to be abused and almost every new book displayed in bookstores is labelled with “best seller”, but is that really the case? Explaining this issue, Ms. Dao Mai Ly said, up to now, in Viet Nam, there has not been a general synthesis to produce a relatively objective best seller list, accurately reflecting the situation of the Vietnamese book market.

If foreign best sellers are divided into specific categories such as literature, economics and politics and the literary field is also divided into many genres such as fiction, children's, psychology, and history, the best sellers in the country today still combine them all into one list.

As for the domestic literary book genre which provides readers with great values in terms of human outlook, aesthetic thinking, multi-layered culture, and intellectuality, it still holds a modest position, without many truly excellent literature books for readers to choose from and become a best seller of the book industry, or the Tre Publishing House in particular.

But the good sign is the appearance of more and more young writers, continuously producing works in the past few years. “If we talk about literature in general, it is true that it is currently weak, there are not many truly excellent literary works for readers to choose from and become best sellers in the book industry in general or of Tre Publishing House in particular," Ms. Ly admitted frankly.

In the period after 2019, COVID-19 broke out, so as mentioned above, readers are interested in skills and self-development books to help them overcome difficult times, while also valuing the books support work, and light entertainment books are needed. Those are also books that Da Nang readers respond to.

In the same point of view, reader Huynh Quy Hung, the CEO of C.V.N Co., Ltd., Lien Chieu District revealed that he likes to collect best-seller books because of the advantages of novelty and sensitivity to changes in times. But to spend from a few dozen to millions of VND to buy a book or a set of books is not only to follow the trend but also to rely on the criteria of popularity, the author's name, and the intellectual value of the book.

With the strong development of the internet and social networks, readers have the opportunity to quickly update reading trends in the world through self-study in forums, newspapers, researching books before buying also becomes more thorough.

Reading culture is always an important story in every country. Almost everywhere people love to read books, there is a high level of education and development ability. Best-selling books with their appeal as well as their honored true values have been making an important contribution to making the eternal values of books, increasingly penetrate the cultural and spiritual life of society. The love of collecting best-selling books has also contributed to sparking the reading movement among people of all walks of life, especially the majority of young people.

Reporting by KHANH HOA - Translating by A.THU