Book club celebrates its 5th anniversary

Sinan Book Club celebrated its fifth anniversary on Saturday, with a special event — “Reading the World in Sinan” — followed by discussions on why we still need to read the classics.

The club has invited more than 800 guests for its 285 events, including prominent authors and philosophers from all over the world.

Launched in February 2014, the weekly event was originally an extension of the international book events held during the city’s annual book fair in August. Every Saturday, organizers invited authors, publishers and scholars from both home and abroad to discuss their books, their writing and their reflections on reading, literature and current events.

It soon became a favorite among readers in the city, expanding to more special events, a weekly book bazaar, a biweekly literature journal, temporary “flash” bookshops and finally a permanent Sinan Bookstore in 2018.

“I have been coming here every once a while since the club started in 2014, now almost becoming a habit,” a young woman surnamed Lin told Shanghai Daily as she waited for friends before the anniversary event. 

“The development of the club seems to be coinciding with the comeback — maybe incremental but certain — of literature, culture and bookstores in the city,” she added.

Not long before the club held its first event, there was concern that people weren’t reading any more and bookstores were becoming extinct.

While those concerns are still valid to some extent, great improvements have been witnessed in the city.

Bookstores have come back with new business models, as statistics suggested that the number of bookstores is on the rise again, more specialized and stylized. More reading clubs spanning different genres are springing up. Reality shows, podcasts and books about literature and traditional culture are gaining popularity across platforms — slowly and steadily.

Five years on, it is intriguing to see where Sinan Book Club and the city’s readers go next.