16/01/2026

LYFE FRIDAY | JAN 16, 2026

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T OWERING accordion steps and a fantastical spiral staircase of a bookshop in Tianjin greet visitors, testament to its striking interior being a bigger draw for selfie snappers than scholars. Sales of hard-copy books across the country have failed to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels, data shows, despite authorities’ efforts to boost domestic consumption and stimulate an e-commerce boom. Yet in recent years the number of physical bookshops has “maintained steady growth”, the head of a publishing industry group said last January. “A wave of bookshops with unique characteristics” has surfaced, Ai Limin said. Tianjin’s Zhongshuge, which opened in September 2024, draws comparisons to Harry Potter’s gothic Hogwarts on social media. “The photos come out looking o China’s picturesque bookshops bring selfie snappers

really beautiful,” said graduate student Li Mengting, who stepped inside to snap some pictures when visiting the city with a friend. But the 24-year-old, wearing a fuzzy cropped parka and a matching shoulder bag, struggled to find the perfect spot because there were “truly a lot of people inside”, she said. Tourists wielding selfie sticks and tripods thronged the central cobalt coloured stairs, which extend into gigantic three-storey columns that arch onto the ceiling. Faded prints that read “The Best Spot for Photos” were plastered on the ground. Renewed shelf life Some bookshops in China now invest in creating interiors meant to be photographed, said Beijing-based architect Zheng Shiwei. “This has become relatively mainstream,” Zheng, whose firm known as China Architecture Design and Research Group is also involved in bookstore projects, said. But, he warned, “that might lead to a lot of people going not just for the purpose of reading, which may result in some unintended consequences”. Last June, a bookshop in the

People visiting a bookshop in Tianjin. Its striking interior is a bigger draw for selfie snappers than scholars.

eastern city of Nanjing that had become a tourist hotspot posted a notice banning flash photography, tripods, loitering and photoshoots staged without permission. The nonstop photoshoots at Librairie Avant-Garde “interfered with reading,” said finance worker Yuan Jia, who is from Nanjing and an

On social media, Tiajin’s Zhongshuge draws comparisons to Harry Potter’s gothic Hogwarts.

Towering accordion steps and a fantastical spiral staircase greet visitors.

order tea. “Books bring in relatively low profit,” said founder Juli Hu, who opened the outlet in 2024. She said she welcomes people who take photos to post online and frequently sets up new cultural displays. “Selling books definitely cannot be the core of what sustains an entire bookstore. There must be other things,” Hu said.

avid reader. But Zheng, the bookshop’s architect, said bookshops curating picturesque spaces should be encouraged. “At least people are at bookshops, right? Instead of being elsewhere,” Zheng said. At a former Taoist temple converted into a bookshop in Beijing, dozens of travellers strolled in to browse tables of trinkets and

TikTok drives ‘bizarre’ rush to Prague library’s book tower installation PRAGUE has long been a tourism hub thanks to its Baroque architecture and deep cultural history, but its latest draw – a statue of thousands of books made famous on TikTok – has blindsided officials in the Czech capital. ‘Bizarre’ mania Library spokeswoman Lenka Hanzlikova said that at peak times like Christmas and Easter, The Idiom daily draws about 1,000 tourists who queue for up to two hours, as a consequence of TikTok algorithms that made it a hit in late 2022.

The Idiom , a statue by Slovak artist Matej Kren, is a cylindrical tower of 8,000 books with a tear shaped entrance and mirrors at each end, creating the impression of an endless tunnel. Prague’s Municipal Library installed it in its entrance hall in 1998, where it quietly sat until three years ago, when it suddenly became a social media hit. “I found it on social media and wanted to take a photo,”Thai tourist Pattapol Thongsaard said after queueing for an hour with 100 other tourists, partly in the street, on a chilly evening. He took a selfie peeping into the book pile before posing next to it with friends for another picture to post on TikTok and Instagram, he said.

“We’ll have to deal with it in some way because working with tourist crowds requires a completely different service from that we have provided up to now,” she said. “Most readers say it’s bizarre and laugh about it, but we have had people who wanted to return books and joined the queue,” Hanzlikova added. The library has allocated one of its five entrances for tourists and it is contemplating charging fees and employing custodians to organise them. Kren said he had exhibited The Idiom, to symbolise the infinity of learning in several cities worldwide, before selling it to the library. The statue also appeared in

Tourists take a selfie in front of The Idiom art installation made from 8,000 books. – ALL PICS FROM AFP

Lonely Planet guides and on the cover of Science magazine, but the current mania is “striking”, he said. “I thought it would fall into oblivion, it was not designed for a mass presentation like this. I had no intention of creating a tourist attraction,” said Kren.

Ghazal Nour, an Iranian living in Italy, hailed The Idiom as “beautiful” after queueing for over half an hour, but she also thought the interest was exaggerated. “It was very interesting, but not worth the line and the cold that we went through,” she said. – AFP

A visitor looks inside The Idiom art installation made from 8,000 books by Kren, which is placed in the foyer of Prague’s Central Library.