A simple glass shed was temporarily set up outside the large shopping mall next to the office to sell books, called a short-term book fair.
This company, which sells books, will rent this space for about a month in a few months. The previous time was in April and May, under the name of "Reading Day" "Flag. Among them are the varieties that were originally sold for ten yuan and five yuan or weighed by the pound, which can also be called the public reading category. Some of them also make brands. For example, there are a large number of books in the shed made by a company called "Jintie Books". I have never heard of it. I went to the website to check it out. It covers all popular reading brands and is very large. big. There are no pirated books in the shed, so I probably wouldn’t dare.
Many of these books are of the patchwork type, and some are also practical (such as "Knowledge of Chinese and Foreign Celebrities", "Encyclopedia of Astronomical Observation and Search", "Comprehensive Book of Medicines, Food and Health" and various recipes), some are republished from public editions (the four major classics, world classics, ancient novels, classics and history collections), and there are many children's education titles. These books don’t need activities or promotion, they have a quality of selling themselves.
The owner of the shed sells it at a high discount, it can even be said to be quite expensive, but there are still many people buying it.
These are books that most "readers" have no interest in reading, and most "ideal" editors have no interest in doing. But these books actually have huge appeal to the largest number of readers. Its charm comes from the nature of books themselves. Some people always say who needs to read paper books now that there are e-books, but if you look at the middle-aged people buying groceries from the supermarket or the elderly taking their grandchildren for a walk, you will understand that if they want to read novels, or as a It is simply impossible to learn some knowledge in "Five Thousand Years of China" for fun, and there is no need to buy a kindle. cell phone? Eyes also age.
As a physical object, books, like clothing, mobile phones, and electrical appliances, also need to be displayed. Xiaomi wants to open offline stores, but books also need them.
Nowadays, high-end bookstores that sell drinks, food, and handicrafts to make a living are all opened in the corners of large shopping malls or emerging business districts. Xinhua Bookstores that were originally scattered across the city have also retreated. It has become a large bookstore in every city (and is gradually being upgraded to sell drinks and handicrafts). "Normal" bookstores are rare on the streets. Books basically have no place to display in daily and urban life. For a large part of the public readers For example, the activity of reading also withdraws from life and is forgotten.
I am nostalgic again. I have stopped being nostalgic for a long time because it is useless and often meaningless. But the nostalgia for bookstores is hard to fade. When I was making a documentary about Paul’s Pocket Bookstore in 2012, I dedicated a chapter and followed the bookworms Lao Lu, Xiao Han, and Bi Jian teachers from Hefei to visit the remaining market bookstores in Hefei. Most of them are probably gone now. (Documentary "Pocket Year Zero" entry/subject/25766647/)
In Hefei more than ten years ago, it was easy to find various small bookstores on the streets, each selling their own products. The most diverse categories include general public books, as well as social science and academic books, teaching aids, discounted books, and second-hand books, all of which belong to different stores, which is very rich. Their facades are the same as small clothing stores and small grocery stores, without any interesting decorations. They remove all thresholds that block readers. No matter how sloppily you dress, you can always walk in directly from the street without feeling out of place. In the longer term, Xinhua Bookstore has sales departments in every urban area, with a comprehensive range of products, serving the community, and serving the same function as a non-staple food store.
The so-called "short-term book fairs" in glass sheds are actually a brief resurrection of the market bookstores of the past in another form. It provides a display of books in daily life (such as after buying vegetables, dish soap, diapers and other items from the supermarket below the mall).
The glass shed cuts out a space in the otherwise empty shopping mall square. The book is silent behind the transparent glass, but the colorful and noisy cover is different from the gray The square forms a strong contrast with the building, and its revealed spiritual power secretly attracts readers. The bright stickers on the glass sheds such as “10% off, 25 yuan a book, and the smell of books” stimulate the mentality of picking up bargains (but the actual price is not cheap at all). No one shouted, but it was sold easily.
In one month, the glass shed will be dismantled and disappear. The square space will be restored and given over to other activities, and the books will also disappear. The boss can find the next square, reassemble the glass shed, and cut out a transparent space, and these books will appear in the eyes of new citizens. It seems like a wandering ghost.
To a certain extent, this is the kind of bookstores that should appear more in today’s urban environment (the profits are obviously not low, and it is a good business). Those exquisite beverage bookstores have struggled to revive bookstores in another way, but these bookstores place too much emphasis on the taste of book selections that match their exquisite decoration, and thus reject a large number of readers. The Glass Shed Bookstore has inherited some of the functions of the original Shijing Bookstore and Xinhua Bookstore, restoring the original purity of the bookstore: selling books. The books in this shed are obviously not "high-end", but who wants to read such high-end books anyway?