Expo in Taiyuan boosts efforts to promote reading

The 25th National Book Expo in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, displays 265,400 titles.[Photo by Xu Lin/China Daily]

Hundreds of publishers from around the country gathered in northern China's Shanxi province last weekend for the 25th National Book Expo.

The exposition, which was held in provincial capital Taiyuan, is among several events that are being organized to encourage reading among Chinese in today's digital era.

It is also listed as a central government goal in the Work Report since the past two years.

"The annual book expo not only promotes reading among Chinese, but also helps develop the culture of a host city," says Yan Xiaohong, the deputy director of State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.

The top regulator for the sector and the provincial government jointly organized this fair, where 265,400 titles were exhibited, with more than half being new books.

With the country celebrating the 70th anniversary of the victory of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45), the year is of significance to Shanxi because the province was an important Communist revolutionary base during the war.

The exposition included academic discussions, new releases, talks by authors and recitation contests. Most of the events were held at the China Coal Transaction Center in Taiyuan, where some 290,000 people visited the fair over three days, and more than 120 million copies of books were sold.

Datong, Changzhi and Yuncheng cities in the province also held some related activities.

The exposition also presented awards to "top 10 outstanding readers", who according to Yan, were selected from the grassroots as role models.

One of them is Xu Baihui, 47, a sales clerk at a Xinhua Bookstore in Qingxi town of Southwest China's Chongqing city.

Over the past three decades, she has carried about 1 million free books to some 180,000 impoverished students in the town's mountainous areas.

As a teenager, she used to help her father, Xu Chengzhong, take books to a remote primary school. After his retirement from the same bookstore where she now works, Xu decided to carry on with the job.