Seneca, Hesse, Nietzsche... Literature and Humanities Dominate Bookstores This Chuseok [fn Book Briefing]

[Financial News] Ahead of this year’s Chuseok holiday, readers turned their attention to literature and humanities books. The two categories accounted for 44 titles among the 100 books on YES24’s overall best-seller list. From books featuring the ideas of Seneca and Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche to novels by Hermann Hesse, classics and philosophy took prominent places on readers’ holiday reading lists.
According to YES24 on the 25th, fiction, poetry and drama titles accounted for the largest share of the overall top 100 during the week before Chuseok, from Sept. 14 to 20, with 26 titles. Humanities books followed with 18 titles, while children’s books, essays and business and economics books each accounted for 12.■ 44 Literature and Humanities Titles... Seneca and Nietzsche Rank HighComics and light novels accounted for 10 titles, while self-help books accounted for six. These figures count the number of titles included in the top 100, not the number of copies sold by category. Combined, literature and humanities accounted for more than four out of every 10 books in the overall top 100.
The overall No. 1 title was "Seneca: Life Is Not Short." The book selects key ideas from five dialogues by the Roman philosopher Seneca and reconstructs them as 55 short pieces. The adapted translation was produced by Hawaii Mansion.
It explores attitudes toward lives pressed for time, rest and happiness. The book is well suited to a holiday break, when readers can step away from their busy routines and reflect on how they use their time.
Hermann Hesse’s "Siddhartha" ranked third, while "Nietzsche’s Transcendent One" ranked fourth. Kim Cheol adapted and edited 77 pieces selected from Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche’s various works. The book examines how to live by one’s own standards beyond the gaze of others, suffering and indolence.
The top 10 included two humanities titles and three books from the fiction, poetry and drama category. The strength of literature and humanities books is evident not only in the success of the No. 1 title but also in the overall makeup of the upper ranks.■ From Korean Literature to "Cosmos"Korean literature also secured spots near the top. Jo Jung-Rae’s "Frost Flower Set" ranked seventh, while Kim Ae-ran’s "I Wrote So" ranked eighth. Choi In-seo’s "Korean History Anomaly Research Institute" took 10th place.
The children’s comic "Heunhan Nammae 23" ranked second. "The Vocabulary of the Heart" ranked fifth, followed by "One Page a Day, A Bountiful Daily Calendar 2027" in sixth place. "Charlie Munger Bible: Complete Edition" ranked ninth.
Long, substantial books that require an extended reading period also attract attention during holiday breaks. YES24 cited Carl Sagan’s "Cosmos" as a representative example.
The book rose from 64th in the overall best-seller rankings during the Chuseok holiday in 2023 to 55th in 2024 and 38th last year. That was a rise of 26 places from 2023. YES24 explained that it reflects a trend of readers using the holiday to tackle books they had postponed because of their length. This year, "Cosmos" ranked 75th in the week-before-Chuseok tally and was chosen alongside philosophy books made up of short pieces.
[email protected] Jang In-seo Reporter