It's midnight in Taiwan.While some people are slowly walking home through the busy streets,or getting ready to hit the club scene,others are on their way to a more unusual place—a bookstore.The Eslite store in central Taipei opens 24 hours and has more visitors than most Western bookstores could dream of during their daytime hours.Here,young and old sit sidebyside on small steps or around reading tables,deeply absorbed in literary worlds.Others stand and some sit on the floor,all reading in silence as soft classical music flows out from the speakers.
The Eslite Group,which runs the fivestory store,opened its first branch in Taipei in 1989.Today,25 years on,the company runs 42 stores in Taiwan,one in Hong Kong and has powerful plans to expand in Chinese mainland.The chain's rise comes at a time when bookstores in the United States and Europe are struggling to survive,with some forced to wind__up due to growing pressure from online competitors like Amazon.In the United Kingdom,a third of all independent bookstores have closed down in the last decade.
And the last major book seller in the U.S.—Barnes & Noble—is shutting stores as its management struggles to meet the challenges from its digital competitors.Eslite has hit upon an idea to avoid this—making the store as much a place for books as it is for design,fashion and home styling,small cafes and restaurants.It reported revenue (收入) of around $425 million in 2017,with books accounting for some 40 percent of sales.
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