The Spring Wind Book List is released in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province, on Saturday. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The Spring Wind Book List was released in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province, on Saturday to coincide with World Book and Copyright Day that falls on April 23 every year.

Nine award-winning and 10 recommended books were announced at the awarding ceremony, where renowned contemporary Chinese writer Feng Jicai's Artists was crowned with the platinum prize.

Renowned contemporary Chinese writer Feng Jicai addresses the awarding ceremony. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Feng's award-winning book looks into the life story and creation process of artists in the past six decades or so, and was praised as "the history of life, soul and artistic pursuit of one generation" by Li Jingze, deputy chairman of the China Writers Association and one of the judges.

As the Communist Party of China celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, the newly-launched classic prize went to Kindling: The Search for China's Road to Rejuvenation by Party and military historian Liu Tong, featuring the germination and infancy of the Party from 1900 to 1929.

In addition, another new kind of prize was added for youth's efforts in reading promotion since more and more young people are promoting reading via new media. Prize winners included a video blogger nicknamed "Duliangdushu" on short video-sharing platforms Douyin (known as TikTok overseas), blogger Zhuang Zexi on Zhihu, a Chinese Q&A forum akin to Quora and an internet celebrity nicknamed "naive and sentimental novelist" on video-sharing site Bilibili.

The annual event selected a shortlist of 66 books which were recommended by major publishing houses and institutions at the end of March before the final awarding ceremony.

Under the guidance of the Publicity Department of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, Zhejiang Daily Press Group and Zhejiang Publishing United Group the book list was co-sponsored by Zhejiang Xinhua Bookstore Group and Qianjiang Evening News.

According to a report issued on Friday, Chinese adults read on average 4.7 physical books last year, slightly higher than 4.65 in 2019. The survey, conducted by the Chinese Academy of Press and Publication, showed that 11.6 percent of Chinese adults read 10 or more physical books last year.