The pie charts compare the proportion of five book genres sold by a bookseller in 1972, 1992 and 2012.
Overall, by 2012, there had been a clear shift in buyers’ reading preferences, with fiction for adults and children respectively becoming the most and second most popular genres. This stands in contrast to the declining popularity of other genres, including biography and travel.
In 1972, the five kinds of books constituted comparable proportions, with adult fiction, children’s fiction, and biography each accounting for 20%. Meanwhile, travel was slightly lagging behind with 15% and other books together made up a quarter of sales.
By 1992, the distribution had been shifted slightly, with the figures for adult fiction and children fiction increasing to 25% and 22%, making them the most popular and second most popular types. Travel books also rose by 3% to 18%, while biographies fell notably to 15%, leaving other genres with 20%.
The popularity of adult’s fiction continued more pronouncedly two decades later, as the percentage of books in this category nearly doubled, reaching 45%. Children’s fiction also saw an increase, albeit marginal, to 25%. These increases correlated with significant reductions in other kinds of books, whose figures dropped by half to around 10% each.