The pie charts indicate various types of book sold by a bookseller from 1972 to 2012.
Overall, the sales of children’s fiction and adult fiction saw an upward trend, especially adult fiction gained tremendous popularity over time, beating its counterparts by a wide margin, while the opposite was true in the case of biography, travel, and ‘others’.
In terms of fiction for adults and children, whose figures increased over time. In 1972, the percentage of adult fiction and children’s fiction was identical, both comprising 20%. After increasing slightly to 25% in 1992, adult fiction’s share subsequently more than doubled to end at 45% after four decades. Children’s fiction followed a similar pattern, albeit more modest, reaching 25% by the end of the period.
In comparison, the remaining categories generally displayed contrasting tendencies, in 1972, individuals were mainly interested in other types of book as their share accounted for the highest figure at 25%, followed closely by biography’s percentage at 20%. However, over 40 years, the sale of ‘others’ declined by more than half to finish at 12%, while biography’s sales dipped by 12% to reach 8%. Meanwhile, the share of travel underwent a negligible increase, from 15% in the first year to 18% in the following year before falling significantly to 10% in the final year.