介绍:
24 Hour Book stores are rare sight in this digital age, but Beijing is now home to one of them. The Beijing Sanlian Taofen bookstore is now first official book store to open in Beijing.
Sanlian Taofen bookstore is just north of Dongsi in the Meishuguan area. It offers a relatively comprehensive selection of books -- particularly those dealing with philosophy and art. The store also organizes occasional lectures and has a good magazine selection. Most of the there books are in Chinese, but a decent selection of English titles and translations are available as well.
I decided to pop down to the Sanlian Taofen book store and mingle with Beijing's bookworms.
I have just arrived at the Sanlian book store in Dongsi, when I was standing outside the building it looked tiny. I thought it was going to be really small inside because the building does not look very grand from the outside.
But there are actually three floors in here so it is bigger than I expected. I am at the first floor now. They have got more than just books here. I am looking at wide collection of books, magazines and Music CD's. Their music collection includes the soundtrack for Alice in Wonderland, Alan Netrobeko, Katherine Jenkins, and in terms of Chinese music, they have much CDs such as Forever and loss of culture. I have not really been to a record sale in China so it is nice to see what is on sale and what is popular here.
In terms of books on the first floor it is a bit like a travel shop. I can see a guide to America and a book about London, I would love to have a read of that book and see how accurate it actually is.
The second floor of the Sanlian book store offers a quality selection of artist biographies, books on painting, calligraphy, photography, sketching, sculpture, architecture, graphics, fashion, home and furniture design, as well as comic books. Floor number two also houses a small cafe with a number of tables and couches to lounge in alongside windows that line the wall.
It is very quiet here; when I went to the Wangfujing Book store it had a very lively atmosphere. The first floor does feel very casual. I think I am going to go down to the second floor and see what they have got on offer.
Now I am at the lower floor of the books store. There are just books here. I can see the Language section, the Literature section and the Arts Section. There is a lot more heavy reading on this floor. I wish I could read, no I am joking I can read, moderately well. Because the book store open recently I did think it would be a bit more lively and there would be a few more people here, it does seem like all the people here are serious readers. So it is a bit quieter.
I am now looking an auto biographies by foreign writers. Let's see what they have got, there is channel, playboy, a book about France. I am just going to talk to this gentleman and see if he can tell me a bit more about the book store.
"This book store is very quiet but it should be quiet, it is a book store! San Lian is a good book store; it is very famous and has a strong history. It is an old book store and is very traditional. It is the only book store of its kind in Beijing."
So, Wow, this is a really hardcore bookstore; this is not commercial. As soon as you get to the lower floor the atmosphere is really serious. It reminds me a bit of the book store I used to go when I was a student and I really needed to find strong references for my work. The general atmosphere, it is not a leisure center; it is a place where people come to seriously read.
Reflecting back on my experience at the Sanlian Taofen bookstore it was not as exciting an experience as I first anticipated. This maybe because I didn't attend the establishment at the stroke of midnight. It was still a great experience for people who want to be on their own and immerse themselves into a book. I would definitely go to the Sanlian Taofen bookstore if I wanted to relieve myself from the pressures of the world.
