Evidently whole-grain bread, and not cheese, is the key to success.

Pictured here is one of six Chinese books on the management and motivational bestsellers list. Who Are You Working For? (#8), by Chen Kaiyuan, reveals "the mentality of outstanding workers esteemed by Fortune 500 companies." Also on the list is The Fisherman and Business Management (#10) by Chen Junyi, an examination of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea as a motivational text. Chen is the author of Boiling the Three Kingdoms and Sun Wukong is a Good Employee, which borrowed their lessons from classic Chinese novels. Its stated publication date is 1 August, so its presence on the charts this week must be due to advance orders.

For something less derivative, there's An Unstoppable Trend (#5), Steven Chang's story of how he founded Trend Micro and built it into the global company it is today. It's being billed as "the first rags-to-riches saga written by a Chinese businessman." Way of the Wolf (#4) tries to distinguish itself from dozens of other wolf-inspired books by appealing to a similar nationalism; the book's cover blurb reads "China's 3000-year winning system of using weakness to defeat strength. The rules underlying the pursuit of a happiness in life and success in business."

On the other hand, the passion of Chinese MBA-types for western motivational books - any western motivational book, regardless of the fame of its author - is well documented in the literature. The remaining four motivational texts are translations from English, but this week they all happen to be real, well-known western authors - Drucker, Welch, Covey, and Rath & Clifton.

The management and inspirational bestseller list for the week of 7/23--7/29 (There is no guarantee that any of these are authentic; the Machine Industry Press, publisher of #1 and #8, has issued books under fraudulent names in the past, and among the scores of books with "wolf" in the title, China Textile Press's offering may or may not be genuine):

1. (2) The Effective Executive by Peter F. Drucker. (德鲁克, 《卓有成效的管理者》)
2. (3) Winning by Jack Welch. This (and other books by Jack) has been on and off the overall bestsellers list throughout this season, most recently last month. (韦尔奇,《赢》)
3. (1) Short Stories, Great Truths edited by Ya Qin: 500 classic parables. Drops off the overall list this week. (雅琴,《小故事，大道理》)
4. (5) Way of the Wolf by Luo Yu: subtitled The wolf-like principles of life. (罗宇, 《狼道》)
5. (-) An Unstoppable Trend by Steve Chang. (张明正, 《挡不住的趋势》)
6. (7) The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven R. Covey. (柯维, 《高效能人士的七个习惯》)
7. (8) How Full Is Your Bucket? by Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton Ph.D. (拉思、克利夫顿, 《你的水桶有多满》)
8. (9) Who Are You Working For? by Chen Kaiyuan. (陈凯元, 《你在为谁工作》)
9. (4) Detail is the key of success by Wang Zhongqiu: Business-related self-help book which has expanded into a lecture series available on VCD. Also on the overall bestseller list recently. (汪中求,《细节决定成败》)
10. (-) The Fisherman and Business Management by Cheng Junyi. (成君忆, 《渔夫与管理学》)

The overall bestseller list for the week of 7/23--7/29:

1. (1) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling: British version. (J.K. 罗琳, 《哈利·波特与混血王子》)
2. (2) Harry Potter #6 American version.
3. (3) The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown: For the past few months this novel has been a best-seller shared by the mainland, Taiwan, and the United States. Digital Fortress is a perennial on the fiction list, too. (丹·布郎,《达·芬奇密码》)
4. (4) Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong: Another long-running best-seller, this loosely-plotted novel is being made into a movie (mentioned earlier on Danwei). (姜戎,《狼图腾》)
5. (7) Light for a Book-Dream edited by Liu Haitao: subtitled One hundred stories to motivate middle school students. Similar to the popular A Night With No Adults (#10). (刘海涛, 《书梦的灯》)
6. (5) Initial D: The Movie Book. Pictures are available on QQ.com. (《头文字D电影写真书》)
7. (6) About Going to Work by Zhu Deyong: The author is a cartoonist from Taiwan whose earlier work was the inspiration for the incredibly popular television series Pink Ladies. A sample of Work is available on Sina. (朱德庸,《关于上班这件事》)
8. (8) Modern and Contemporary History of Three East Asian Countries: The new textbook jointly edited by scholars from China, South Korea, and Japan. Danwei recently reviewed the book. (《东亚三国的近现代史》)
9. (10) Rush to the Dead Summer by Guo Jingming (Danwei previously translated the title as 1995-2005 Not Yet Summer Solstice): Novel is serialized on Sina. Danwei has previous stories on Guo Jingming. (郭敬明,《1995-2005夏至未至》)
10. (-) A Night With No Adults edited by Liu Haitao. (刘海涛, 《没有大人的夜晚》)

Bestseller rankings are taken from the Friday Book Review section in The Beijing News, which compiles its data from the city's major online and brick & mortar bookstores.