Ready to Read! Where to Get Your Book Fix in Beijing

Recently, we celebrated World Book Day, by discussing how to take advantage of the Kindle Unlimited book offer to get access to over a million free titles for kids, young adults, and parents alike. But it also got us thinking, now that the venerable Sanlitun institution The Bookworm is gone, how else can Beijing booklovers get their fix of physical books? Luckily, if you know where to look, there are a range of great reading resources in the capital for adults and children alike. Let’s take a look…

Here are some of our favorite go-to bookstores in the capital, broken down by neighborhood.

• Sanlitun: Multi-level Page One is hard to beat, with kids and young adult books on the 2nd floor. The newly opened Jetlag Books in Taikooli North is also worth a peek. 

• Shunyi: Roundabout has a nice selection of second-hand and loved books. They are not open right now, but you can browse using their new online shopping app.

• Xicheng: Xidan Books has been serving the book-hungry crowd in this western district for ages, and has a decent range of English language books. Meanwhile, bookstore chain Zhongshuge just opened a new location in Galleries Lafayette with a seriously eye-catching interior design.

• Dongcheng: The obvious starting point is the mega Wangfujing Bookstore, then just down the road the Foreign Languages Bookstore. Then, or the more graphically minded, we can’t go past WBcomics.

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Aside from the library at your child’s school, the National Library of China has the largest collection of English books in the country and is a beautiful, quiet place to read or study. It also has dedicated children’s and foreign language collections, and foreign ID cardholders can register for membership. In Chaoyang District, Capital Library also allows foreigners to borrow books, although their foreign language collection is smaller. Scholastic Children’s Library has multiple locations in the city, however they are still awaiting approval from the government to reopen. Meanwhile if you’re after books in other languages, organizations such as the Alliance Française de Pekin (French) and Goethe-Institut (German) also large collections of books for all ages.

Yes, you can order English books via Taobao, but be warned that the quality tends to vary quite a lot: think cheap paper and smudged print. Amazon, usually the go-to in other countries, don’t have a great range of titles in the Chinese version, due to the market dominance of other online shopping platforms. Therefore, one of the best and reputable services is The Book Depository. Just expect your orders to take a couple of weeks to arrive.

And of course, there is always WeChat. There are more ‘second-hand stuff’ groups of WeChat than you can shake a stick at, and books are always on offer, especially during ‘moving season’. Ask around in your community to be added to some, and keep your eyes peeled, as good quality books in Beijing are a hot commodity!

Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments, or drop us an email directly at editor@beijing-kids.com.

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Images: Johnny McClung (via Unsplash), giphy