Chinese book named world's 'most beautiful'

Chinese book "Order: Fangyuan Story" has won the title of the world's most beautiful book at an annual event held in Germany recently, the media reported on Friday.

The "world's most beautiful book" competition is held every March in Leipzig, organised by Stiftung Buchkunst, a German book art foundation.

Competition judges examined about 600 works from 32 countries to select the most beautiful book of the year. Fourteen books from eight different countries won prizes.

The winning book, Order: Fangyuan Story, written by Lu Chonghua and designed by Li Jin, tells the story of a 33-year-old private bookstore, Fangyuan.

Li Jin and Lu Chonghua both graduated from the Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts. Li Jin became a professor at the academy. Lu Chonghua began to manage the bookstore owned by his family. On every book order, Lu painted caricature portraits with different emotions to record his feelings.

Another Chinese book, "Insatiable Desire to Learn", won the bronze prize.

It was the second time that China has been honoured with the title since Mei Lanfang's opera portfolio picture book won the gold prize in 2003.