Libraries are busting out all over. We’ve blogged about the Little Free Library in Cambridge as well as Sam and Leslie Davol’s uni, which got invited to Kazakhstan — not to mention a library housed in an unused pay phone shelter.
Now it seems that a subway system in China is getting into the act.
Writes Zhang Kun at China Daily, “Shanghai’s Metro Line 2 is turning a new page with a library taking literally an online approach. Passengers will be able to select a book at one station, and return it to any of the other stations with customized bookshelves.
“Readers do not have to pay a deposit or any rent for the books and magazines they take. Instead, they are encouraged to donate 1 yuan (16 US cents) to charity at the bookshelf.
” ‘Now you can read a real book, rather than staring at the cellphone through the metro ride,’ said Zou Shuxian, a spokeswoman for the Aizhi bookstore, which initiated the project jointly with Hujiang.com” and the Metro Line.
“The Chinese Academy of Press and Publication released a survey recently that said the general public between the ages of 18 to 70 read 4.39 books in 2012, much fewer than in Western countries.”
The library “has been a resounding success with office workers. Waiting lines have developed during rush hour. … All the books have green tape on the cover to inform people about the program [and] to remind people it is borrowed and should be returned.”
I myself find it essential to have a book with me whenever I take the subway, but that’s largely because I ride the oldest system in America and it’s always breaking down.
My husband, who lived in Shanghai for about a year, says subways there are fast and efficient. I don’t think book lovers will have time to finish their books before their last stop. A lot of green tapes will be going home with commuters. You can’t keep a book lover down.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
This is the coolest thing I have ever heard of! I absolutely love it, what a fabulous idea. Long live the library.
The book is not dead. Even if we have to memorize books to preserve them as they did in the movie “Farenheit 451,” people will treasure books.
I love this story. I won’t forget the impact the local bookmobile made on this country kid’s summer!
Getting lost in a book is one of the best ways I know to feel better if you are down. I really got into chapter books around age 10 with a gift of “Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s Magic,” Dan Wickenden’s “The Amazing Vacation,” and C.S. Lewis’s “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.” But sometimes I overdosed on Nancy Drew, and even now I have to break up my mystery-book binges with something literary or a nonfiction book.
My first chapter book was at about 10, too. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Farmer Boy–that farm was about 30 miles from my house. I still regularly OD on mysteries and, like you, sprinkle the other genres in!
I read that series to Suzanne, and John listened in. We all loved it.