Readers of leaders

Chinese are devouring APEC leaders' biographies ahead of the Beijing meeting. Xing Yi reports on the trend.

APEC leaders' biographies are selling well in China before the heads of state come to Beijing for the key Asia-Pacific meeting next month, with books on Russian President Vladimir Putin and South Korean President Park Geun-hye topping the list.

More than a dozen books on Putin - he hasn't written an autobiography - are selling well at Beijing Xi Dan Books Building, one of China's biggest book stores. More than 60 titles on the Russian leader, such as Putin's Iron Fist, Putin: Perfect Man in Women's Eyes and The Charming King Putin, come up in searches on the country's biggest online bookstores, such as amazon.cn and dangdang.com.