Chinese readers snap up Jobs biography

The Chinese version of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' eagerly awaited biography sold out in many book stores within hours of its launch this week, the publisher said Tuesday. The book, titled simply "Steve Jobs", went on sale in more than 20 cities in China on Monday, the same day it hit US bookstores and less than three weeks after Jobs died at the age of 56 following a long battle with cancer. "It sold extremely well. We sold the book in 21 cities with 30 stores and most of them sold out yesterday," said Kong Yan, director of marketing for CITIC Press in Beijing. The Apple brand is hugely popular in China, where diehard fans queue for days to get their hands on the latest products. At Shanghai's largest bookstore, people stood in line for hours to get their hands n a copy with the entire stock of 1,000 books, priced at 68 yuan ($10.70) each, selling out by midday, the China Daily newspaper said. Bookstores in the capital Beijing and the southern city of Guangzhou also reported brisk sales. Although the book paints a candid portrait of a technology visionary who could be as bruising as he was brilliant, Chinese readers expressed unstinting admiration for Jobs. "I felt like he was talking to me face-to-face," said Da Peng Peng on China's most popular microblog service, Sina Weibo. "I've been touched by his astonishing honesty and absorbed in meditation over his ideas." Written by Walter Isaacson, a former managing editor of Time magazine, the book is the result of 40 interviews Isaacson conducted with Jobs since 2009 and with over 100 family members, friends, business rivals and colleagues. The authorised biography was initially scheduled for release in early 2012 but its publication date was moved up to November and then to October 24 following Jobs's death on October 5.