Too beautiful to be a bookstore:visit zhongshuge in Suzhou / 美的不像书店：探访苏州钟书阁

A new concept of bookstore has appeared in recent years, the classical representatives are nanjing pioneer bookstore and suzhou eslite bookstore which I have ever been to. In my view, they are out of the category of traditional bookstore, and are more likely to be an integration of reading, drinking tea, coffee shop and meals. No matter how much you love reading books or not, you could spend a whole day inside, and enjoy the low pace of life, which is so interesting. Last year, Suzhou opened a new concept bookstore, called Zhongshuge. The name of the bookstore is elegant and chinese classical which has a scholarly atmosphere.So we went from Shanghai to suzhou during an idle weekend to visit this "non-mainstream" bookstore.

近几年掀起一股新概念书店的热潮，前有南京先锋书店，后有苏州诚品书店，我都有去过，感觉已经脱离了传统书店的范畴，更像是读书、饮茶、咖啡、餐食于一体的生活店，爱书的人不爱书的人，都可以在里面呆上一天，感受都市少有的慢节奏生活，别是一番趣味。去年，苏州又新开了一家新概念书店，名曰钟书阁，名字起的就颇为雅致，有书卷气。于是趁着一个空闲的周末，我们从上海去往苏州，探访这家“非主流”的书店。

When you came to suzhou industrial park, the most eye-catching architecture was the Eastern Gate, also known as "long Johns building", which was a two-tower building.

来到苏州工业园区，最引人注目的莫过于东方之门，又名“秋裤楼”，是一座双塔连体门式建筑，恢弘大气。

Zhongshuge was located in suyue square. We could see the entrance of zhong shuge from far away. The transparent vitreous gate with grind arenaceous and character, the black plaque with character zhong shu ge, the downy lamplight projecting over, made the entrance more classical.

之后来到苏悦广场，钟书阁就坐落其中。远远就能看到钟书阁的入口，全透明的玻璃大门，磨砂的花纹和文字，再配上黑色的牌匾，上书钟书阁三字，柔和的灯光投射过来，颇有些书卷气息。

There was also a piece of purple glass on one side of the gate. In the middle of the glass was a circle with the three characters "zhongshuge" printed on it, surrounded by various languages.

在大门一侧还有一块紫色的玻璃，玻璃正中间是一个印有“钟书阁”三个字的圆圈，周边环绕着各国文字。

The store created a unique reading experience.There was an area of firefly cave, walking inside is like shuttling in the light of firefly dots, which was really a dream!

店内营造了独特的阅读体验。有一块萤火虫洞的区域，走在里面就好像在星星点点的萤火虫光亮中穿梭，实在梦幻！

Go inside again, there was a long corridor, called "rainbow valley" reading corridor, when looking up, the roof was like a piece of wavy multicolored lingling, the heart of passers-by was also set off colorful.

再往里走，有一个长廊，名为“彩虹山谷”的阅读长廊，远看过去，屋顶就像一片片波浪形的五彩菱，把过往行人的心也映衬的五彩斑斓。

Not many people were reading in the bookstore, but there were a lot of tourists who took pictures and sat down to have a coffee.It seems that the business model of bookstores was not selling books, but tourism revenue.

书店内看书的人并不多，倒是拍照的游客来来往往，累了就坐下来喝一杯咖啡。看来，书店的商业模式并不是卖书，而是旅游收入了吧。

All photos without marking sources in this article were taken by me.
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