Picture: With the arrival of World Reading Day, various reading themed activities are held in different places\ Xinhua News Agency

Before the popularization of the Internet, where you live is more important than anything if you want to read, study and look up information. For example, in the early 1950s, Zuo Shunsheng went to more than 40 bookstores in Hong Kong and could not find a decent collection of Du Fu's poems. If there are few bookshops and libraries nearby, or you can't find the books you want to read locally, you have no choice.

In retrospect, I spent my youth in Haidian and Zhongguancun of Beijing in the 1990s, bathed in the sunset of paper books. I could eat all kinds of books, and my lifelong knowledge structure and way of thinking benefited a lot. It was a great fortune in life.

Haidian District of Beijing is the place where universities and national scientific research institutes gather. Peking University, Tsinghua University, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Renmin University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, as well as the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Academy of Forestry Sciences... There are countless, which are four connected buildings of the old book store. When the building of Haidian Book City was completed, I was in the middle school when I was thirsty for knowledge. Out of the west gate of Peking University, the Book City is on the left, my middle school is on the right, and my home is straight ahead, all within walking distance. Of course, I become a regular visitor of the Book City. There are dozens of publishing houses and bookstores in Jihailou, and I am familiar with them. On the first floor, the entrance is "Aerospace Publishing House", which is gilded by Marshal Nie Rongzhen; Going inside is the "Nine Chapters Mathematics Bookstore". The store name written by Mr. Su Buqing is Fangzheng, which specializes in selling advanced mathematics books. The "staplers" often fill half of the store. The stairs leading to the second floor and the third floor are high and wide, which can accommodate seven or eight people. If you go upstairs, you will return to the corridor. The winding road leads to secluded places. If you are not careful, you will get lost in Taoyuan.

About three years later, the same tall Haohai Building was built opposite the Jihai Building. In addition to many independent bookstores outside the Jihai Building and Haohai Building, the whole Haidian Book City has a slightly grand scene of the bookstores in Kanda and Shenbao Town, Tokyo. Among them, there is a "national forest style" with a large facade, bright lights, and spacious shelves. It is good to find new books of humanities and social sciences. Chinese bookstores selling ancient books and old books are full of thread mounted lithographs and old engraved ancient steles. There are also long lines of the Twenty Four Histories with light green covers and the light yellow Zizhi Tongjian on the shelves. Not far away, go up to the second floor and enter the "Eryou Hall". It is deep and elegant, full of obscure literature, history and classical poetry. The master said: There are two mountains in Yuanling, Hunan Province, namely Dayou Mountain and Xiaoyou Mountain. There are thousands of volumes of books in the mountain. The predecessors have studied here. Later generations call the book collection rich "the secret collection of the Dayou Mountain", and the reading is often called "learning from the Dayou Mountain". At the intersection of Tiger Cave (the place name has disappeared under the elevated road crossing it at the beginning of this century) is a foreign language bookstore, and there is a "wind into pine" near the south gate of Peking University. These large and small bookstores are like a cluster of black holes, which have absorbed my pocket money and spare time.

In Haidian and Zhongguancun, people often come out to sell their old collections. Spread a cloth on the roadside, set up a spring bed, throw a pile of books on it, and a group of book lovers will immediately surround it. A few days before the senior high school entrance examination, I saw Zhu Yuanzhang's Romance (1982) published by China Drama Press and Selected Works of Mayakovsky (1984) published by People's Literature Press at a stall in Tiger Cave. Four thick books, with simple binding and printing unique to the 1980s, are clean and neat, with excellent appearance. The price is only four or five yuan. During the exam, Youyayaoya read the story of Zhu Yuanzhang and all the heroes fighting against the world to rest her mind. She still got the first place in the class and successfully entered the university.

The family style and style of study in Haidian area are elegant and good at reading. At that time, I read too much and bought too much, relying on the support of my parents, teachers and friends. I once saw Zhu Shenghao's translation of the complete works of Shakespearean drama in a small bookstore at the entrance of Haidian Book City. There were four volumes in hardcover and they were very expensive. My mother did not hesitate to buy them for me. In the second year of high school, a teacher who just graduated from Beijing Normal University lent me all her college textbooks to read. One day I talked philosophy with her at school, and she recommended Jostan Judd's Sophie's World. After I left, I went straight to "National Forest", where Sophie's World was waiting for me. I often exchange books with my classmates. From Life by Lu Yao, Six Chapters of Cadre School by Yang Jiang, Paradise Lost by Milton, and Love of Life by Jack London, there are all famous Chinese and foreign works. Sometimes, when the teacher found out that he was secretly reading a masterpiece in class, he laughed it off, and two of them even praised it. Some students know that I like Gu Minqiu. His grandfather left a complete set of Selected Materials of the History of Chinese Philosophy published in the early 1960s. Without this style of study, bookstores will not prosper for a while, and prosperous bookstores provide great convenience for students to seek knowledge.

It was common to buy books and read books wantonly. I don't know when the Haidian Book City declined. The old place is revisited, the door is deserted, the "Eryoutang" is nowhere to be found, and the "national forest" is safe today? However, online book buying and e-reading have completely subverted the hegemony of geographical location, helping all studious people to jump out of the constraints of the region. "Know the world without leaving home." Knowledge and culture have been popularized on a larger scale. Only when paper and books dominated the world, they could not be loved. As long as it is reading, it is beneficial to open the "scroll", whether it is parchment scroll, paper book or LCD screen?

Now I read more than 100 books every year, and more than half of them are e-books. The new touch-screen Kindle is light, easy to draw key points, take notes and fold books, and has a first-class reading experience. And before you go out, you don't have to wander in front of the bookshelf to figure out "which books to take", just pick up the all inclusive little Kindle. As for buying books, although the fun of shopping in bookstores, improving your eyesight, and searching for old books is not as good as before, new books, old books, and even unorthodox and partial books will be immediately transferred to the reader through the search engine, clicking the mouse or the screen, saving the trouble of searching everywhere. How can you imagine when paper books are the only choice?

In the past, when the Book City was in its heyday, there was a holy land for countless book lovers in the corner of Haidian. The tangible book store has declined, and the invisible e-book store is like flowers on the Internet. Countless e-books are in everyone's mobile phone and e-reader, waiting for someone to touch the screen, just like newly bought paper books on the shelf, always waiting for someone to open the front page. The old days are like flowing water and falling flowers. The only thing that remains unchanged is the love of books and learning and the memories of the scholarly figures in youth