When Norwegians buy books for the summer holidays they prefer romance, eroticism and crime.

Jojo Moyes is tops bestseller list for June with the book “After you.” Two seat farther down is belonging to “A whole half a year” also by Moyes as it did in June last year. The year before it took “A whole half years” both first and second place on the list in two different versions.

The publisher Bastion said it has sold 1.1 million copies of the popular author books, written by Dagens Næringsliv.

– She is a worldwide phenomenon. The books are easy to read and fun but also of high quality. Although she is commercial, she also is most preferable by reviewers. She is pioneering the genre, said Publishing Director Anja Marheim.

Professor Cecilie Naperville at Oslo and Akershus University College is a researcher working on literature sociology and literature policy. She is not surprised that there is much mystery and romance of the bestseller lists. She believes bestseller focus in the industry has increased especially after the traditional industry agreement was terminated in 1997.

– After 1997 bestseller started to focus on taking over the industry and has reached a peak in 2016. Now we read increasingly crime and called cursive literature, she said, and then displays the books with the title in cursive often with soft colors and romantic content which chosen mainly by the female audience.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today