He continues: "Although I study physics, I've loved painting since childhood. My love for it motivated me to do more research. I hope my book will inspire people to take up interdisciplinary studies more and come out with new observations about things that they are familiar with."

Other winners of this year's Wenjin award have also made important observations across a range of subjects.

For example, in Ten Lectures on Chinese Characters and Chinese Culture, the author Wang Ning tries to trace how Chinese culture spread overseas over the course of history through the writing system and its derivative fine art forms of calligraphy and seal-cutting.

Studies of Pictorials in the Late Qing Dynasty, written by Chen Pingyuan, takes readers through more than 300 pictorials from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. The book is put in the context of the communication between China and the West at that time, and offers glimpses of early modern newspapers, missionaries, feminism and other social trends.

"The success of pictorials depended on their news value," Bu, the book reviewer, says. "They provide a much broader view of that period in history. They document the changes taking place then."