This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. To mark the occasion, we are publishing a series of reports celebrating the city's achievements in different aspects over the past four decades.
The 21st Shenzhen Reading Month will be held three months from now, presenting a monthlong cultural carnival for citizens.
Since its establishment in November 2000, Shenzhen Reading Month has held 8,083 reading and cultural activities of various kinds, donated books worth more than 25 million yuan (US$3.59 million), and invited more than 100 famous writers and scholars such as Wang Meng, Mo Yan, Zhou Guoping and Bai Yansong to give lectures.
The annual event has attracted about 150 million book lovers and was selected as one of the "top 10 cultural activities loved by the public," according to Shenzhen Economic Daily.
Since the establishment of the Shenzhen Reading Association in 2012, which is the first reading union in China, more than 130 reading organizations have been developed in Shenzhen. Mo, a Nobel laureate, once commented that "Shenzhen Reading Month has set off a wave of culture in Shenzhen."
Nowadays, Shenzhen has 959 public libraries (rooms) and 170 bookstores, of which five are large bookstores with an area greater than 10,000 square meters.
More than 98.4 percent of Shenzhen residents think that reading is important to their life. According to statistics, Shenzheners read 7.23 paper books and 11.21 e-books annually. On average, 51 reading activities are held in different parts of the city every day.
Named by UNESCO as a global model for the promotion of reading, Shenzhen ranked first in the city reading index list in the 16th national survey on Chinese people's reading habits released last year.