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[Asia Economy Reporter Park Byung-hee] Two films have caused a stir in the bestseller book market.

Following the news of the film Parasite winning four Academy Awards (Oscars), sales of the Parasite screenplay & storyboard book surged. Amid the Parasite craze, the film Little Women has also been praised as a masterpiece. Coinciding with the release of Little Women, a newly published complete translation of the original novel featuring movie stills entered the bestseller rankings.

However, the Parasite craze could not quell the ongoing "Yang Joon-il craze" sweeping bookstores. Yang Joon-il’s essay Yang Joon-il MAYBE: Your and My Code Words maintained its number one position.

Asia Economy selected bestsellers from books sold between the 13th and 19th of this month. The rankings were compiled by referencing sales data from major online and offline bookstores such as Interpark, Yes24, and Kyobo Bookstore, combined with ratings from our culture department reporters to produce a comprehensive score.

Previously, on the February 7th report, Yang Joon-il MAYBE: Your and My Code Words had reached number one through pre-orders alone, and it retained the top spot this time as well. The book was officially published on the 14th. Yang Joon-il’s sincere story of persevering through repeated failures without giving up has touched the public deeply. It includes his personal and family stories, and through the lyrics he wrote, readers can glimpse his worldview.

The second place was taken by the Parasite screenplay & storyboard book set. Written and illustrated by director Bong Joon-ho himself, the Parasite screenplay & storyboard book set was published on October 21 last year. Although it had not received much attention until then, sales surged after Parasite swept the Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film awards at the 92nd Academy Awards ceremony held on the 10th (Korean time) at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.

Online bookstore Yes24 reported that on the 10th, the day the award news was announced, sales of the Parasite screenplay & storyboard book set increased about 26 times compared to the previous day, selling approximately 1,110 copies. Parasite had also won the Best Foreign Language Film at the 77th Golden Globe Awards on the 6th of last month. However, on the day the Golden Globe win was announced, sales of the Parasite screenplay & storyboard book were only 16 copies.

Little Women, a novel by 19th-century American novelist and poet Louisa May Alcott (1832?1888) published in 1868, also entered the bestseller rankings following the release of the film adaptation of the same name. Greta Gerwig’s film Little Women was released on the 12th. On the same day, RH Korea published a new complete translation of Little Women. RH Korea included movie stills in the book under a licensing agreement with the film’s production company, Sony Pictures.

Little Women is an autobiographical story of Alcott. Like the novel’s content, Alcott was born as the second of four sisters. The novel became a bestseller at the time of publication. Since then, it has been regarded as a classic and has been adapted into film seven times, including the current release. The film is praised for excellently translating the masterpiece into a visual medium, which appears to have helped book sales as well.

Little Women is also the first novel to enter the Asia Economy bestseller rankings this year. The last novel to enter the bestseller rankings was Hermann Hesse’s (1877?1962) Demian in the December 26th report last year.

Other new entries into the bestseller rankings this time include the 7th place book When I Don’t Even Know What I Want, written by Jeon Seung-hwan, who runs the "Man Who Reads Books" channel on social networking services (SNS) such as Facebook and Instagram. The book contains comforting words to soothe the body and mind weary from busy life. The Secret of Harvard’s Top 1 Percent also newly entered the bestseller rankings.

Due to the Parasite craze, Common Siblings 3, which ranked second in the previous report, dropped to third place. Eight also fell one rank. The humanities and general knowledge books Wide and Shallow Knowledge for Intellectual Conversation: Zero Edition and One Page a Day, The Shortest Liberal Arts Class in the World 365 swapped their rankings from the previous report.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.