A RECENT report based on university libraries’ 2017 lending lists has started online discussions of such topics as how much and what young people are reading.

The report by the Chinese academic-resources platform Chinese and Foreign Academic Information, includes nearly 20 Chinese universities such as Peking, Tsinghua and Zhejiang universities.

The books and genres vary according to whether the respective university emphasizes arts or science. But trends still emerge.

Literary books are especially popular with students and account for about 30 percent of total lending, the report shows. The most frequently checked-out books are from the mystery and romance genres. Some best-selling novels are also popular.

The novel “Ordinary World” by contemporary Chinese writer Lu Yao appeared more often than other titles on the list. It’s a realistic story that describes the changes in contemporary urban and rural society over the years through a family’s stories.

Online fictions like “The Grave Robbers’ Chronicle” by Xu Lei, who is better known by his pseudonym, Nanpai Sanshu, and “Things in the Ming Dynasty,” a collection of semi-historical stories by online writer Shi Yue, were also prominent on the lists.

The data also show foreign fiction is particularly popular among college students. Several works by Japanese writer Higashino Keigo, who’s known for such mystery novels as “The Devotion of Suspect X,” are among the most borrowed books.

Titles by such foreign authors as Haruki Murakami and Gabriel Garcia Marquez also enjoy huge popularity.

The report’s results suggest Chinese students have different interest from U.S. university students, who favored “The Republic” by ancient Greek philosopher Plato and “The Clash of Civilizations” by U.S. political scientist Samuel Huntington as shown by data collected by the Open Syllabus Project in 2015.

A recent survey of over 900 university students by the China University Media Union finds 31 percent read less than half an hour a day; 42 percent read between half an hour and an hour and a half a day; and less than 10 percent read more than two hours a day.

(China Daily)