China has released this year’s stats for book sales, and the results are somewhat surprising. Pretty much all of the cities that made the top ten list of most literary cities were third or second-tier cities located in the south of China.

Shi Jianjun, vice-president of Amazon China, speculates that this may because life in the big city is much too hectic to take time off to read, and that residents of big cities like Shanghai and Beijing have much greater access to information than the smaller cities do.

The Top Ten Most Well-Read Cities in China:

1) Suzhou: The Journey of Flower, Criminal Minds, Amoeba Operating

2) Hefei: Gods and Heroes of Ancient Greece, High School English Grammar Version, A Brief History of Time.

3) Kunming: Secret Garden, The Miracle of the Grocery, The Storied Life of AJ Fikry

4) Jinan: Xinghuo CET-4 past exam papers, Xinghuo CET-6 past exam papers and mock test papers

5) Ningbo: Secret Garden, The Miracle of the Grocery, The Storied Life of AJ Fikry

6) Chongqing: The Miracle of the Grocery, Wolf Totem, Secret Garden

7) Zhengzhou: Kite Runner, Wolf Totem, Your Loneliness, Glorious Defeat

8) Changsha: Secret Garden, The Miracle of the Grocery, The Storied Life of AJ Fikry

9) Foshan: Secret Garden, The Miracle of the Grocery, The Storied Life of AJ Fikry

10) Hangzhou: Secret Garden, The Miracle of the Grocery, The Storied Life of AJ Fikry

The Top Ten Most Popular Books in China of 2015:

1. The Secret Garden

2. The Miracle of the Grocery

3. The Storied Life of AJ Fikry

4. The Willpower Instinct

5. Zero to One: Notes on Startups or How to Build the Future

6. Kite Runner

7. Good, Momo Tou

8. Ordinary World

9. My First Strength Training Book (我的第一本專注力訓練書)

10. Wolf Totem

By Stanley Yu