Wentu丨Ouhai
Editor丨Sydney King
All Saints Book Garden has set its reopening on the last day of 2023. This time, it moved into the mall – the new store is a two-storey layout, with a larger area and a wider view of space and views, and the store on the third floor has floor-to-ceiling windows facing east. The Halloween Book Garden is sandwiched between two clothing stores, and about ten meters away, there is a video game city.
On the days when bookstores were closed, booksellers came from all over the country to help pack, load, transport and put shelves back on shelves, and on social platforms where young people gathered, pictures and videos spontaneously shared by users mixed with text poured into the flow of information.
Just as Shakespeare & Company is to Paris, City Lights is to San Francisco, and in Beijing, the Halloween Book Garden is a true cultural landmark and the city's public living room. In uncertain days, people come here in search of some kind of answer or solace.
The bookstore has been open for 30 years, has moved several times, and has repeatedly survived challenges and "lived a decent life". In an age when everything is decaying rapidly, this can almost be seen as a miracle.
Farewell Day
October 31 is the busiest day in the Garden of All Saints. Waves of writers, scholars, and publishers will flock to the bookstore on this day, gather in twos and threes at the nearby Wake Up Coffee, or stand or sit, and talk enthusiastically. The name of the bookstore "Halloween" originally had no deep meaning, just a simple coincidence - the birthday of the owner Liu Suli coincided with the eve of Halloween, and the bookstore was born on this day.
Unlike previous years, October 31 this year is the 30th anniversary of the establishment of Halloween Book Garden, and it is also its last day at No. 59 Chengfu Road. In December, it will move into a shopping mall a kilometre away.
People rushed to say goodbye on the last night. The narrow aisles were crowded with people, and the queue for books stretched from the cash register to the toilet door. The atmosphere is not sentimental. The store is warm and bright with pumpkin-colored paper lanterns, grimaces and spider-shaped paper latte art. Candles, cakes, wine, and various fruits are placed on the long table where the café enters the door with an orange tablecloth with the image of the black cat "Ping'an". Most of the people present were familiar faces, they chatted all over the world, sometimes laughing, sometimes putting on a dignified pose, and pulling Liu Suli to take pictures. The proprietress Zhang Huanping walked back and forth on the side, greeting and hugging friends who had just entered the door one by one, and the corners of her mouth never let go. She was not tall, had a crisp voice, and wore a bright red shirt with a long black velvet skirt. I was really tired, so I leaned against the door, quietly took off a high heel, and stepped on the stone bricks engraved with the words "All Saints Book Garden" to rest.
As bookstore operators, Liu Suli and Zhang Huanping have long passed the legal retirement age, but compared to the bookstore's famous black cat "Ping'an" — 18 years old this year, equivalent to an old man in his 80s — the couple is still very young. Every day before going out, Zhang Huanping would hold "Ping'an" in her arms, put her face on its forehead, and whispered: "Okay, wait for my mother to come back" - she was afraid that when she got home after dark, "Ping'an" left. So she said goodbye silently in her heart, and at the same time planned that on the day of the opening of the new store, she would let "Ping'an" go to meet with new and old readers and clerks again.
Founded in 1993, Halloween Book Garden has a strong "old school" temperament. Here, the book is the real protagonist. There are more than 80,000 kinds of books in the store, but more than half of them take two to three years to sell a single book. Because it specializes in humanities and social sciences books, Wansheng Book Garden is also regarded as the vane of contemporary Chinese academic thought.
The readers who patronize it are mostly intellectuals and a broad elite. Ji Xianlin, He Zhaowu, Wu Liangyong, Yang Zhenning, Tang Yijie, Le Daiyun, Shen Changwen, Luo Xin, Liu Qing, Zhou Lian, Liu Yu, Luo Xiang, Liang Wendao, Ma Jiahui, Xu Zhiyuan...... There are so many familiar names that I can't read them all in one sitting. After a long time, the employees of Xingke understood the taste of Yang Zhenning's coffee, and when they saw him walk in, they directly took a cup of espresso.
Store No. 59 Chengfu Road (Source: Guo Chen)
The bookstore was first opened in Sanyi Temple, West Road of the North Third Ring Road, and there are many colleges and universities nearby, such as the National People's Congress, Beijing Institute of Technology, and Beiwai University. And it really took shape in Chengfu Street. This is a small east-west alley that connects the east gate of Peking University and the west gate of Tsinghua University. The bookstore moved here, opening up the "blood connection" with Peking University and Tsinghua University. Later, it was moved to Chengfu Road, and the Blue Flag Camp community behind it was the teacher's dormitory of Tsinghua University of Peking University. Going around and around, the Halloween Book Garden has never departed from its target group.
Although it is located next to the school, it is almost never discounted. When Dong Fengyun, the founder of the book brand "Oracle", was in college, he would ride his bicycle to visit the bookstore every weekend. The route is generally from the National People's Congress all the way to the north, first passing through Haidian Book City, and then to Wansheng. Most of the time, he went to Halloween just to see, and occasionally bought them, "Some of them are expensive, so I go to Haidian Book City to buy discounted ones." Dong Fengyun vaguely remembered, "Later, I bought about 100 yuan, and there was a ninety-five discount, anyway, the lowest seems to be ninety-fold." ”
Wang Qiang, co-founder of New Oriental, is one of the most book-buying readers at Halloween. In 1996, he came back from the United States to start his own business, and was pleasantly surprised to find that a number of private bookstores close to the concept of foreign independent bookstores had appeared in Beijing. "Since then, he has become a regular visitor to All Saints. At first, I went by bicycle, but then I drove there, and I was like a shopping mall, and I could fill two large bags in one go and stuff them into the trunk every time.
In his cognition, it seems that going to a bookstore is equivalent to going to Halloween.
"A Flowing Feast"
It might be said that Halloween is to the reader what Paris is to Hemingway: if you are lucky enough to be here in your youth, it will be with you wherever you go for the rest of your life. In this sense, All Saints is a "flowing feast." Almost every year, new readers become old readers, and old readers become good friends.
When the bookstore opened in Sanyi Temple, the writer Li Jing was still studying at Beijing Normal University. One day she was riding her bicycle around the campus and bumped into a teacher who taught Japanese literature, "He said he went to Wansheng, the best academic bookstore in Beijing. That was the first time Li Jing knew about Halloween, "At that time, the store was not very big, and the books were very plain. ”
Zhou Lian, a professor at the Chinese People's University, had his first memory of Halloween as a minibus. One weekend afternoon, he went to the famous triangle of Peking University, and saw a minibus in the distance, with a billboard at the door with some book titles written on it. Curious, he slipped in. The minibus was not large, it was full of books, mostly academic works, and the young Zhou Lian bought a copy of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, "published by the Commercial Press, in yellow on a white background." ”
Later, Wansheng moved to a small bungalow on Chengfu Street. "At that time, there were so many poor students who went to Halloween to read books that they died. Xiao Han, an associate professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, said that when he was young, he couldn't afford to buy some books, so he had to stand in the store and read. "All Saints have been open for 30 years, and he has read the book in All Saints for 28 years. In 1995, Xiao Han quit his job in his hometown and went to Beijing to take the postgraduate examination, and lived on Chengfu Street outside the east gate of Peking University, only 50 meters away from Wansheng at that time. "At that time, I was young and energetic, and although I wasn't interested in preparing for exams, I was so interested in reading other books. "Almost every day, he would go to Halloween to read. After a long time, Liu Suli couldn't help but joke with him: "Are you here to take the postgraduate entrance examination, or are you here to study the postgraduate examination?"
In the days when there is no income, whether to go to Halloween or not also requires a mental struggle - to go, there is no money in the pocket, and when you see the books you want to buy, you dare not buy them, "I feel very bad"; if you don't go, you are worried about missing out on those good books, "bookstores are different from vegetable markets." The dishes in the wet market are available every day, and may even be the same. But the books in the bookstore, maybe only a few of each, if you don't buy them today, you won't have them tomorrow. Once, Xiao Han saved up for several days to go, and as soon as he entered the door, he came across the just-published "Outline of National History", he gritted his teeth and bought a set, "At that time, I felt that it would not take a day, and others would buy it out." ”
A corner of the Halloween Book Garden
In the mid-to-late 90s of the last century, Chengfu Street was full of idealism and culture. The Sculpture Time Cafe opposite Halloween often shows some niche and trendy movies, and holds weekly academic salons in the "leisure and occasional mail" across the wall from Halloween.
Out of this street, the whole of Beijing is still gray. In 1997, Dong Fengyun was admitted to Chinese Renmin University from Dali, Yunnan. He recalled that at that time, Beijing was very windy and sandy, and Baiyi Road on the east side of the National People's Congress had not yet been transformed into Zhongguancun Street, and there were no high-rise buildings, "all of them were bungalows, and there were not as many trees as they are now." Although the campus life is beautiful and the students' visions are full, the whole society is still in the aesthetic and atmosphere of the previous era, and the color is gray.
Halloween entered Dong Fengyun's field of vision in this special period. "Isn't this what we've been looking for?" he strongly felt that this bookstore was different from the entire social atmosphere and living atmosphere at that time, "it was ahead of its time and lively", "First of all, it has a different ghost logo, and after entering, it is completely like a bookstore, you want to buy any book at a glance, and you can also stamp a blue stamp after buying the book." "Sometimes he doesn't buy books, and he's willing to go to Halloween.
At that time, several bookstores full of humanistic atmosphere emerged in the Zhongguancun area. In addition to Halloween, there are also national forest winds and wind into pine. Feng Rusong was opened by Wang Wei, a professor in the Department of Philosophy of Peking University, and Zhou Lian remembers very well that it was a basement, and when he walked into the door of the bookstore, he looked up at Heidegger's famous words, "Man dwells poetically." ”
But in Dong Fengyun's memory, the best bookstore is the appearance of Halloween on Chengfu Street. "Maybe because we came that way when we were young, our memories of that time, our youth, all the good things, were left in that little bungalow. ”
"Paranoid" boss
As a public living room in the city, the people received by Wansheng Book Garden include poor students such as Xiao Han and Dong Fengyun in the early years, as well as old gentlemen such as He Zhaowu, Wu Liangyong, and Yang Zhenning. "Xu Zhiyuan opened his own bookstore, but he always bought books from me. Liu Suli said that in addition to Halloween, they are celebrities and Internet celebrities. But in All Saints, all people are equal on a spiritual level, "all readers of All Saints." ”
And that included, of course, himself. Liu Suli's family has a collection of about 50,000 books, and each book was bought from Halloween. Wang Qiang asked him if he still needed to buy books if he owned a bookstore? Liu Suli's answer was yes. As a bookstore operator who abides by the rules of business, he needs to make a clear distinction between public and private.
But in Wang Qiang's impression, Liu Suli has always been less like a bookstore owner and more like a senior reader. He often sees Liu Suli wearing thick glasses and flipping through a book of philosophy or political science in front of the shelves in the deepest part of the bookstore, "You rarely see a bookstore owner like this." Wang Qiang feels that Liu Suli is just like the famous black cat in the bookstore, "always tied in the pile of books, very sculptural." ”
Writer Liang Wendao said in the article that every time he went to Beijing, he had to go to Halloween to report for duty, and he never couldn't find the book he was looking for there. ”
"Suri himself is a crazy reader, so he knows which books to read and which ones don't need to be read, but you have to know which books you can't read for what you pay for. In general, Xiao Han feels that the bookstore owner is still tolerant, "he may not look down on this person's books, and even think that this person's scholarship and character are not good", but out of ideological balance and system improvement, some books will be selected into the bookshelf of Halloween even if they "only have the meaning of parts".
Li Ao's book is an exception. Xiao Han asked Liu Suli why Wansheng didn't have a single book by Li Ao, and the answer he got made him remember it vividly, "I hate him very much, I just don't sell his books." In my impression, this is the only time Xiao Han heard Liu Suli personally say that he doesn't sell anyone's books, and his tone is still very serious, "He may not like Li Ao's style of writing - not kind - and it is not an ordinary dislike, otherwise it would not have reached this point." ”
In Xiao Han's eyes, this is a very stubborn side of Liu Suli's bones. "The fame, scale and symbolic status of all saints that have come to this day are all connected with Suri's character. He is far more than just a book seller, whether you say he is paranoid or persistent, in short, he has endowed all saints with a very special soul. ”
The 2020 store celebration is also the 60th birthday of the boss Liu Suli (Source: Guo Chen)
Most people's first impression of Liu Suli is serious. He speaks slowly and logically, with the tall figure of a Northeast man, and he is not angry and arrogant. In an interview, Liu Suli expressed his attitude as soon as he sat down, "I don't answer the old questions." ”
But when it comes to really chatting, he looks like a cute old man. Because he was born on the banks of the Ussuri River, his parents named him Liu Suli. He was the first college student from Hulin, a county-level city, to be admitted to Beijing. During the college entrance examination, he originally filled in the application of Huaibei Coal Normal College, but he did not expect to receive a telegram from the Ministry of Education after the release of the list, saying that his score could go to Peking University - that year, he took the 13th place in Heilongjiang Province, although he only scored 40 points in mathematics.
He didn't even read the previous questions, so he did the last question, wrote three pages, and finally verified it, and the right angle is equal to the right angle. People who are familiar with Liu Suli joked on the side, "I guess the teacher is also bored with it, give 40 points." ”
list
After graduating from the Department of International Politics at Peking University, Liu Suli was admitted to the Graduate School of China University of Political Science and Law to study political science and public administration. Although he did not become a scholar of his own writings, he has always worked with books.
Li Jing remembers that when Wansheng was on Chengfu Street, one day she went to buy books and saw Liu Suli sitting at the door, talking to a young man who looked like a college student in a serious and serious manner, "The tone is very similar to a strict teacher, and the content is quite academic." At that time, she didn't know Liu Suli, but she felt that this was a "person who mentally positioned himself beyond the owner of a bookstore".
Most people who open bookstores have a bit of an idealistic temperament. What makes Liu Suli special is that he has an extremely keen judgment of books. For most books, he only needs to glance at the author, the topic and the table of contents, and then flip through the preface, and then decide whether the book can be sold or not in a few minutes.
This is how many books go out from Halloween. For example, "Worries in the Depths of History", which is the first work in the writer Linda's "A Closer Look at America" series. At that time, seven or eight thousand copies were printed, and the person in charge of the distribution department of Joint Publishing came to Liu Suli, "Can you help me see if this book can be sold?" Liu Suli flipped through the pages for about ten minutes and said, "This is a good book! This author is amazing!" He purchased 200 copies on the spot -- in 1997, this money put a lot of pressure on the bookstore. But Liu Suli didn't hesitate, "Everyone knows how popular Lin Da has become." ”
A recent example is scholar Li Shuo's "Jian Shang: The Changes of Yin Zhou and the Rebirth of China". This work of history was published in October last year and is one of the new books recommended by Halloween that month. Over the past year, it has topped the Halloween rankings several times, the only time it didn't make the list was when the bookstore closed last December, when almost all of Halloween's employees contracted the coronavirus.
In the publishing industry, Halloween's monthly ranking and "Book of the Year" are extremely authoritative. "The monthly ranking is strictly sorted by sales volume. The only room for Liu Suli to make adjustments is when there is a tie in sales, "For example, in the 20th place, there may be six or seven books, and I can choose one of them." In the end, the bookstore owner's personal will accounts for about 10%-15%, and the rest is "voted by readers." Li Jing also added such a detail: If the author goes to Halloween to buy his own book, no matter how many copies he buys, it will only be counted as one. In Halloween, it is impossible to buy the list.
Halloween Book Garden Ranking 2001-2023 (Source: Xiaohongshu account Halloween Book Garden)
"In the early days, it was inevitable that there would be private goods. Liu Suli was a little embarrassed, "After Mr. Zhang (referring to Zhang Huanping) took over the management, this phenomenon has been eliminated. As for what books to sell and what books not to sell, it is neither the result of following the market trend, nor is it something that Liu Suli's personal taste can influence, but more "depending on whether the subject needs or not". Like building a building, he built a "product system" for the bookstore.
It's not that it hasn't wavered in the middle - for a year or two, academic and ideological books "didn't sell well", Liu Suli explained, "Actually, it's not that they don't sell well, it's because you start to want to sell books in other categories, and when you dilute it, resource allocation is like that." We don't follow the reader's interest, and we don't fail to take care of the reader's interest. It is not so much to take care of the reader's interests as to keep the pulse of society. Later, Mr. Zhang realized that academic and ideological books were still in demand, because the situation in all aspects was getting worse and worse, and people wanted to find answers from books. ”
In recent years, some subtle changes have been taking place in bookstores: two types of books are becoming more and more prominent. One is science and humanities, such as "How Quantum Physics Changes the World", which is always on the list. The other category is the realistic works represented by "Autumn Garden", "these books replace the original commentaries on current affairs." Liu Suli listed them one by one, such as "Doctor Zhang and Dr. Wang" and "Yanzhen", including Luo Xin's "Rebel Who Didn't Do Anything" and "The Long Rest of My Life", "I have been on the list for 9 months, and I have been in the top 10 for many months, and I was scared to death." ”
"Commander-in-Chief"
Before the bookstore's 30th anniversary, the couple made a commemorative book of the book of the year since 1994 and the monthly ranking since 2001. "Ouch, I'm sorry to see some books on the list. Liu Suli pursed his lips, "No way, that reflects the social landscape at that time." ”
On the day of the commemorative album printing factory, Zhang Huanping threw a few photos of the finished product into the WeChat group. Zhou Lian relayed Liang Wendao's words, "I have the impression that only an independent bookstore in the United States has done this, and it is unique in China." "In Halloween, the large and small transactional work of printing commemorative books is basically Zhang Huanping in Zhang Luo.
Liu Suli made an analogy, "Wansheng is like an orchestra, and Zhang is always the chief conductor of the orchestra." ”
The work is tedious, but Zhang Huanping also has a way. She never called employees to meetings, "If there is something to say, what kind of meeting will be held." In Halloween, employees will report their work in the most direct way - every morning as soon as the proprietress enters the store, the staff in charge of cleaning will walk to the corner, stretch out their hands to wipe it, and then put their hands in front of the proprietress and gently shout "Mr. Zhang", without a superfluous word. Zhang Huanping responded with a smile, "Okay, you can."
The employees of Wansheng are not highly educated, they are eighteen or nineteen years old when they come, and they graduated from high school or technical secondary school. Although Zhang Huanping is strict, she rarely loses her temper. If an employee makes a mistake, as long as they can raise their hand to admit it, it is not a mistake. She also doesn't allow employees to be flattering, so Halloween doesn't have the so-called office politics. Privately, there's nothing she doesn't care about. When an employee is sick, talking about marriage, having a child, his parents are dying, and even his family is arrested, she is worried about it. Most regular employees have been working for 15 or 6 years, and those who have left will return on time on October 31 every year. Some employees left Beijing and returned to their hometowns, and Zhang Huanping sent money to each other to buy piglets during the Spring Festival.
For most Halloween employees, the boss, Liu Suli, is more of a vague spiritual symbol. Zhang Huanping may not be so dazzling and famous, but everyone knows that without this boss, Halloween cannot become what Halloween is today.
Liu Suli often wears thick glasses and reads in bookstores (Photo: Li Beikui)
Liu Suli also admitted that Wansheng has lived to this day and lived a decent life, and Zhang Huanping contributed a lot. For example, many people think that Xingke Coffee has always kept Halloween, "In fact, it has not earned Halloween since the first day of opening." Before the opening of Xingke, Zhang Huanping proposed that bookstores and coffee are two different businesses, each with its own business. I'm afraid the only connection between the two is in the matter of naming the coffee - the method is very simple, pick some good titles from the Halloween ranking, such as Zhou Lian's "You Can Never Wake Up a Person Who Pretends to Be Asleep", and when it is moved to the menu of the waking guest, it is called "pretending to be asleep", "If Zhou Lian and Liu Yu (the two of them) have books on it, buy two cups and get a discount." ”
In the eyes of friends, Zhang Huanping is straightforward, capable, enthusiastic, eloquent and humorous, in short, a lively person. She opened a window into Liu Suli's serious and deep world. In the commemorative album, Liu Suli originally wrote some "sensational" words to express gratitude to his wife, but they were finally deleted by Zhang Huanping. She said she didn't need a compliment. "All Halloween is a tree, and I am responsible for watering it properly. She positions herself as a professional manager, doing what she likes, and is not Xi or willing to speak "in the name of Halloween", "I don't have that much energy, so I have a lot of energy when I fight with Suri, hahaha." ”
Both of them have opinions, and it is inevitable that there will be disputes, but it does not affect the relationship at all. In the book "Bookstore Things", Korean publisher Kim Yan-ho excerpted a passage from Zhang Huanping's diary on December 31, 2014:
"Mom-and-pop shops are easy to open, couples who work and live together 24 hours a day, who are not crazy, either have warm men or simple wives. We both have strong personalities. Liu Suli's masculinity, I, the 'brainless' who was forced out, have experienced how much forbearance, so I won't mention it. Fortunately, Suri is a reflective person. For example, when he finds out that he can't manage money well, he doesn't care about it anymore. In daily life, we often quarrel because our personalities are too strong, but strangely, we rarely disagree at work and in dealing with public affairs. We have a clear division of labor, he is in charge of procurement and 'external propaganda', and I am in charge of other matters, and we do not interfere in each other's internal affairs. Liu Suli and I both believe that the 'victory' and 'sheng' of all saints are in books, and we only understand books and can't do anything else. So all saints have come to this day, and the books are still so abundant. ”
There are always people who are young
"Did the cat have dinner?" said 10-year-old Cuckoo on the evening of farewell day, caring about the cat in the bookstore. She is the daughter of Zhou Lian and Liu Yu, with big eyes, two braids, and her height is about to catch up with Liu Yu on the side. Just now, while everyone was sharing the cake, the new shopkeeper got out of the table and slipped away from the cuckoo's feet.
In the Garden of All Saints, the cat element is everywhere – printed on tablecloths and canvas bags, hung on the wall, and Zhang Huanping's WeChat avatar is also a thinking cat.
The black cat "Heian" is one of the most famous cats in the Halloween Book Garden. It was only two months old when it came. It happened to be Christmas Eve that day, and Zhang Huanping blurted out the name "Ping'an". In the days that followed, "Ping'an" grew faster than other cats, and everyone began to call it "Dapingan".
Zhang Huanping mentioned a detail in his diary, "After arriving at the store with Suri, I usually look at the data at the cash register, and he goes to the office to turn on the computer." Of course, I'll touch the peace on the desk first and tell it, 'Go see Daddy, Daddy is here.' Ping An often whispered, paced the cat's steps, and walked through the long bookshelf passage to the office to inspect. It knew that his father had come to the store to make a book order, and it was hard to insist on it for many years. It knows how to comfort people, and it knows that it is more effective to go than to go to the mother at this time. I often hear from Suri's office, 'Oh, we're safe, Daddy's peace!' ”
Hardships and troubles are not without experience. During the epidemic, people couldn't go out, and bookstores had fewer readers. In the most difficult days, Liu Suli was reluctant. Two years ago, friends made an appointment to go to the suburbs to "let off steam", and in the evening everyone gathered in the courtyard for a barbecue, and he probably said a few frustrating words. "We all urged him not to close the door at the time, so many readers have followed you for so many years, no matter how difficult it is, you have to persevere. If there is a problem with funding, we can crowdfund. Zhou Lian remembers that Liu Suli was very resolute at that time, and crowdfunding was impossible to crowdfund, "This is not a very healthy relationship between bookstores and readers." ”
Late at night on October 31, 2023, the clerk stroked the shopkeeper Liu Cong
After "Ping'an" retired, he was succeeded by a small cat "Cong Cong" who looked like a pirate. It's younger, it's lazier, and in Liu's words, it's "lazy to get home." The night before the move, the queue in front of the cash register was uninterrupted, and it was close to midnight, and most of the people who were hovering and refusing to leave were nearby students. At this moment, Cong Cong had collapsed to the ground, allowing the clerk to stroke and fiddle with at will.
Business hours have long passed, and there are still people rushing to the bookshelf. It was a young girl with long, light green hair and a pair of glasses on her nose. Zhang Huanping stopped her at the door and said apologetically, "I'm sorry, the store is closed." The girl was stunned for a moment, turned around and walked away, and after a while, she ran back with her mobile phone, as if she was about to cry, "Can I just look for this book?" Zhang Huanping's heart softened, "Let's go in", and beckoned the clerk to help the girl find the book.
There are more and more young readers. This change began with the last relocation of the bookstore. At that time, Wang Qiang was running behind the scenes for this matter - the lease of the previous store site expired, and if he couldn't find a suitable place, the worst plan was to close the store. When Wang Qiang heard this, he immediately expressed his position at the dinner table, "Although I don't open a bookstore, let's see if I can do something." At the end of 2012, the bookstore moved 198 steps east, from 123 Chengfu Road to 59.
Those two years coincided with a nationwide wave of independent bookstore closures, many of which closed on the grounds of "seeking a new address", but rarely actually reopened. Afraid that readers would be worried, Zhang Huanping "live-streamed" the moving process on Weibo, and posted a few photos every few days to report the progress of the renovation. "At that time, Weibo was still the most lively, and those so-called big Vs drove a group of new readers who didn't know about Halloween before. ”
Since then, the proportion of readers over the age of 40 has dropped from 70 percent to 30 percent, while senior white-collar workers, professional managers and IT entrepreneurs in their 30s who earn money have become the bookstore's main customers. In 2016, Konishi, the author of self-media, was appointed by the unit at that time to study at Peking University. One evening, he was taken to Halloween by his classmates, the lights were dim, the bookshelves were full, and he could even smell the smell of books, "like the scent of wood." Konishi felt like she had walked into the "Ollivanders Wand Shop" from Harry Potter. He pulled out a copy of Galileo's Dialogue on Two New Sciences from the bookshelf and read it in one sitting.
"I felt like this book was my magic wand. That was the first time Konishi realized that Galileo was not only an astronomer, but also a "great writer of literature." After that, every Friday, he would go to Halloween, "any book you read, there will always be a little inspiration." Sometimes it's just a cursory walk around and "getting in touch with the most cutting-edge (academic) trends." Konishi felt that this was a perspective that the library could not provide.
"The theme of the information age is selection, and it is necessary to select effective information and knowledge from a large number of complex information, and if you meet a knowledgeable bookstore owner and help you filter some books, it will greatly save your time. In Konishi's view, Wansheng gave the answer to the question of "whether people still need physical bookstores".
On October 31, 2023, after the closure of Halloween Book Garden
Recently, Halloween Book Garden has opened accounts on some emerging social platforms. In October, Liu Suli also did three live broadcasts.
Liu Suli said that they have always wanted to find a channel to sell books with the characteristics of Halloween - they do not want to learn from traditional e-commerce, "it is said that traditional e-commerce is now backward and belongs to the grandmother level", and they do not want to shout, "like some small businesses rely on discounts". In this way, the emergence of new social platforms has become an opportunity, "After a few days of wandering, I found that its gameplay is a bit like Weibo, and I have experience in this." He smiled, "We'll have to wait and see." ”
At the moment, what he is most worried about is the cat. The new store is in a shopping mall, and it may no longer be feasible to have a cat in a bookstore, "which may be the biggest regret in the end, and we are still negotiating." As for the future of the bookstore, he felt that there was nothing to worry about. On the last night of No. 59 Chengfu Road, it was almost midnight, and there were still some young people gathered at the door, reluctant to leave.
【Copyright Notice】The copyright of all contents of this article belongs to Phoenix Weekly Fir RECORD, and may not be reproduced, excerpted or used in other forms without permission.