The Hindu Business Line : What's on the bestseller list this year?

THE truth (or not) about Jesus Christ, living life with courage, grace and joy, management and money matters, self-help, good old English grammar ... The subjects of many of this year's bestsellers show most readers are moving away from fiction to management and self-improvement, and expressing an interest in travel as well.

Going by the Chennai-based books, music and gifts store, Landmark's bestseller list, the top bestsellers (both old and new) this year included the blockbuster The Da Vinci Code, Sidney Sheldon's Are You Afraid of the Dark, Now Discover Your Strengths, The Monk who Sold His Ferrari, C. K. Prahalad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, de Bono's How to have a Beautiful Mind, Who Moved My Cheese, High School English Grammar by Wren & Martin, Angels and Demons (also by Dan Brown, the author of the Da Vinci Code) and Word Power Made Easy.

Ms Hemu Subramaniam, Partner, Landmark, says that books on management and self-improvement are selling more than those read purely for pleasure. The sales of business magazines have gone up too, she adds, stating that this category of books and magazines do well whenever the economy does well. Within the management and finance categories, there have never been so many sub-divisions as in recent times, she says. For instance, marketing, branding and advertising were not really distinct categories earlier; they are now.

In the management category, the bestsellers this year included old favourites as well. Good To Great, Guts, The Future of Competition, A Bias for Action, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, Trump: How to Get Rich, What I learned from Sam Walton: How to Compete and Thrive in a Wal-Mart World, Warren Buffet: An Illustrated Biography of the World's Most Successful Investor, Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings are the top sellers. Wiley Classics on investment and Rich Dad, Poor Dad are other bestsellers as well.

This year's releases that are expected to do well include the latest edition of A Random Walk Down Wall Street, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness, What's This India Business?, and Five Point Someone, the book about IIT students by Chetan Bhagat.

Constant bestsellers are the Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action, books on the Six Sigma principles, Principle-Centred Leadership, The Art of Profitability, The Art of War, the Dilbert series, Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch, Liar's Poker, Monkey Business: Swinging Through the Wall Street Jungle and Technical Analysis Explained by Martin J. Pring.

Ms Subramaniam says that all books on options and futures are selling in good numbers, as also a range of books on human resources.

The other category which has really widened over the years is the children's segment.

Not only is there a variety of fiction for them, there is much choice in each age group. Also, "crossover authors", who write for adults as well as for for children are a growing group, she says.

As for travel books, it's not only the Lonely Planets and the Rough Guides which sell but the travelogues which have become "hugely popular" in the last five years. Pico Iyer is one of the favourite authors in this segment, which is taking off because Indians are doing the same (travelling more).

Other books that are doing well are Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, Digital Fortress (Dan Brown), Penguin-Landmark Quiz Book, You Can Win, Learn Tamil in Four Weeks, Ignited Minds and Wings of Fire by the President, Dr A. P. J Abdul Kalam, Barrons GRE Guide, V. S. Naipaul's Magic Seeds, the complete works of Shakespeare, the Sherlock Holmes omnibus and, even after all these years, Gandhiji's The Story of My Experiments with Truth (which is "a really nice thing," as Ms Subramaniam puts it).

According to Mr Gautam Ramchandani, Chief Operating Officer, Corner Bookstore Company, which has a chain of 27 stores across India (and one in Sri Lanka), "Individual betterment is the driving force of book reading. Serious fiction and reality-based work is also popular," he adds.

According to him, research has shown that there is a 30 per cent increase in customers visiting bookstores every year.