Chongqing is not usually described as a bookish city - it is known for hotpot, hills and industry - but it has a real reading culture and an unusually strong bookshop trade for its size. The commercial bookstores are large and busy, the city is the birthplace of one of China's best-known independent chains, and in the older districts there are small shops and reading cafes where the stock is chosen rather than supplied by a warehouse.
The big shops
The largest bookstores occupy several floors in the main shopping districts, with sections for literature, history, art, children's books, stationery and gifts, plus a cafe and seating on the upper levels. They stay open late, they are air-conditioned refuges in the summer heat, and they are full of people reading standing up, which is the normal Chinese bookshop custom. These shops carry a small foreign-language section - usually English classics, business titles and children's books - and they are the easiest place to buy a map, a guidebook or a novel in Chinese to practise with.
The independent end
The more interesting shops are smaller and sit in the old residential districts, in converted ground floors and upper rooms, with shelves selected by the owners, second-hand stock, art and design books, and a cafe attached. A home-grown chain founded in the city in the 1990s pioneered the model of the bookshop as a place to sit, and its stores are still the most comfortable in town. Some of the independent shops host readings, film screenings and small exhibitions, and they are the best places to find out what is happening in the city's cultural scene.
Practical notes
Shops generally open in the late morning and close around nine or ten; the big stores in shopping malls keep mall hours, which are longer. Payment is by mobile app or card. Because the terrain is difficult, it is worth grouping bookshops with the district you are already visiting rather than making a special journey. Second-hand and antiquarian material is limited compared with Beijing or Shanghai, so if you are looking for old editions, the second-hand markets and the stalls around the university districts are a better bet than the shops.
