Tuesday, August 18, 2009

That's Hot

How do you make a hundred-year-old novel appealing to today's readers? Japanese publisher Bunkasha is putting music stars on their covers, and they credit the stars with a ten-fold increase in sales. Natsume Soseki's novel Botchan, about a Tokyo teacher who moves to rural Japan and runs smack into the countryside's oldfashioned sterotypes and prejudices, got the 90210 treatment, complete with a winsome photo of Yuko Oshima of the pop group AKB48 (at right).

The full story is here.--David E

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