Andy Weir's science fiction novel "Project Hail Mary" topped the overall bestseller list in the first half of this year. The book market in the first half saw strong sales of novels, while books on personal finance and artificial intelligence (AI) gained popularity, with teenage readers continuing to enter the market.
According to data compiled by online bookstore Yes24 on Wednesday covering book sales from January through May this year, "Project Hail Mary," the original novel behind the namesake film released in March, claimed the top spot on the overall bestseller list. Sales of the book surged about 58-fold from the same period last year following the film's release. It marks the first time in 12 years that a foreign novel has topped Yes24's overall list, since "The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared" was named the annual bestseller in 2014. "Project Hail Mary" ranked first in both print and e-book sales.
By genre, five novels made the top 10. "Goethe Said It All" (No. 2), "I Said Goodbye" (No. 3), "Grapefruit Apricot Club" (No. 9) and "Contradiction" (No. 10) all placed in the upper ranks, continuing the strength of fiction. Of the books that ranked in the top 100 overall bestsellers in the first half of this year, 22 were novels, more than four times the figure from the first half of 2024 (five). The first-half novel market was led by "screen-sellers." "Project Hail Mary" topped the "Novels, Poetry and Drama" category for 11 consecutive weeks, and Park Min-gyu's "Pavane for a Dead Princess" also saw sales surge 112-fold from a year earlier following the release of the Netflix film "Pavane." "The Man Who Lives with the King," which became the second-highest-grossing Korean film of all time, sparked readers' interest in King Danjong, boosting sales of Lee Kwang-su's century-old novel "The Sad Tale of Danjong" about 1,000-fold.
As the stock market rallied with the KOSPI breaking through 8,000, books on investment and personal finance also sold briskly. The number of titles published in the investment and personal finance category in the first half rose to 467 this year from 296 last year, and sales increased 45% from a year earlier. Notably, sales of books on domestic stocks surged 278%.
In the first half of this year, more than 1,500 AI-related books were published and sales rose 24%, continuing an upward trend. The AI bestseller list featured many practical books combining AI with investing, including "Tenbagger Portfolio" (No. 2) and "Gemini Stock Investing" (No. 3).
Philosophy and classic books pursuing "humanity" in the AI era also drew attention. Amid a wave of interest in Nietzsche's philosophy, "Übermensch" stayed in the top 10 of the humanities category for 22 weeks since the start of the year, and "Nietzsche's Transcendent" maintained its ranking for 15 consecutive weeks. In addition, Eastern and Western philosophical and classic works such as "Minimum Romance of the Three Kingdoms," "The Art of War" and "Schopenhauer's Life Lessons" took top spots on the humanities bestseller list.
The flow of teenage readers into the book market also continued, with book purchases by teen readers on Yes24 in the first half rising 85% from a year earlier. The top bestseller among teenage readers in the first half was "Grapefruit Apricot Club," a novel by singer-author Hanroro, followed by "The Man Who Lives with the King: The Screenplay" at No. 2. Teenagers accounted for 9% and 14% of purchases of the two books, respectively.
