奇速英语

合肥现全球首家共享书店

A popular bookstore in Hefei, eastern China’s Anhui Province, has become the world’s first shared bookstore. It wants to encourage more reading among Chinese citizens.

The Sanxiaokou Xinhua Bookstore first rose to fame in 2014. Now it is back in the spotlight, as more than 200,000 visitors flooded the store on its first day as a shared bookstore on July 16, a record high since its opening in 2013. Some 4,000 books were brought home on the first day.

Customers are allowed to borrow up to two books valued under 150 yuan per visit after registering with an app and paying the 99 yuan deposit fee(押金). All books on sale in the bookstore are available for the service. Returned books that are damaged are sold at a discount. The bookstore also provides a bonus for bookworms. People who finish reading 12 books in three months receive eight percent of their deposit back, and members can receive one yuan for reading a book. “We want to reduce the cost of reading, so people read more books,” Xu Xinwei, who helps run the bookstore said.

Some parents buy a lot of books for their children, but they usually end up collecting dust as their children grow up. Similarly, some popular novels for young people also fall out of fashion, according to Xu. He said, “Books are more effectively circulated when they’re shared.”