June 21st, 2009

The O2Sun bookstore chain may not make a list of China’s top seven biggest bookstores — in China, size definitely matters — but it’s impressive nevertheless. The chain has 30 stores in four cities throughout the country. The branch we visited opened in 2003 and is in the Central Business District of the city, not far from the (in)famous Rem Koolhas  CCTV tower.

It was modest sized — I would guess 2,000 sq. ft. — with books spread over two floors. A small cafe was on the top floor, overlooking the street and it wouldn’t be out of place in Europe. The clean lines and signage remind me of a mini Japanese Kinokuniya store.

The manager who gave us a tour explained that the store attracts some 2000 people a day (5% foreigners). He continued to emphasize that the store’s philosophy is to emphasize the “joy of reading” — and on this Sunday afternoon, there were plenty of people, mostly women it seemed, standing in front of the racks of books reading.

As you might expect, business books were top sellers and there were plenty in evidence. Literature rated pretty low on the sales list, though it appeared that Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight was selling well, as was Tom Friedman’s Hot Flat and Crowded. Both were among the store’s top ten sellers.

The first thing I notice while when boarding the 13 hour flight from Newark Liberty

International airport to Beijing is the surprising number of Kindles I see sitting in people’s laps: least three in addition to the Kindle 2 I’ve got in my own bag. It’s almost shocking! And just like the Kindle

watchers have stated, it’s not young hipsters with the devices, but middle aged men, all of who appear to be leading tours for high school students or groups of Christian missionaries.

I am traveling with a Kindle 2 that Amazon has generously loaned me to try. I own a Kindle 1, but gave that to my arthritic 72-year-old mother. She loves that she doesn’t have to drive to a bookstore to buy books, as well as that she can make the font bigger. The Kindle 1 as opposed the 2 is also much easier for her to use, with its child-sized buttons.

What surprised me is for all of Amazon’s touting of the number of titles available for the Kindle, I wasn’t able to find a single guidebook I wanted to buy, nor many of the nonfiction books I was hoping to take with me.

I did end up buying Lost on Planet China by J. Maarten Troost, which is very entertaining, but wasn’t able to buy Jung Chang’s controversial biography Mao, which is what I really wanted. There’s a double blow to the book: It’s both banned in China and not available for the Kindle.

So, what am I using for a guide? The always reliable Lonely Planet Beijing and DK’s Top Ten Beijing. My favorite guidebooks, Wallpaper’s City Guides, didn’t have an updated edition to the city. The latest available for Beijing was dated from 2007. What gives? I suppose this may have somethign to do with the global economic downturn — what’s the point of updating guidebooks to far-flung destinations when “staycations” are still all the rage.

A joke: Why did the Beijing chicken cross the road? He didn’t. He got run over by a taxi and then turned into dinner.

Hi, my name is Edward Nawotka and I’m Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives, a new news site for the global publishing industry, as well as a staff writer for Publishers Weekly in the US.

I’m blogging this week from Beijing, where I’m participating in a trip for journalists sponsored by the Frankfurt Book Fair in preparation for China’s participation as Guest of Honor at this year’s Fair. All week we’ll be meeting with publishers, authors, literary critics, agents and others in China’s burgeoning literary scene.

Follow each day as I and my colleagues battle jet lag, manage the language gap, quaff exotic foodstuffs, and try to cope with Beijing driver’s total disregard for pedestrian life.

(I Love Beijing Logo, courtesy, Nod Young via Flickr)