Books by women on display at Eslite in Suzhou Industrial Park. [Photo by Yang Yang/China Daily]

"These days, who reads books?"

I have just made myself comfortable at a table in a cafe in People's Square in Shanghai on a recent warm Saturday evening when Hua Chun, 27, started griping about how superficial the world is.

Earlier she had taken a stroll along Huaihai Middle Road with a girlfriend. But no sooner had they entered the huge Muji bookstore, said to be the largest bookshop in the Chinese mainland, they were hightailing it out of there.

"It was too crowded, and I didn't see many books in there, just a few scattered among clothing and other products, so we headed back to Shanghai-Hong Kong Sanlian Bookstore," Hua says.

When they arrived at that shop four minutes later it was almost deserted.

"What a contrast," Hua says, adding that "these days, most young people are keen on seeking pleasure in food, drinks and other entertainment rather than reading books".

Hua is a serious reader, a lover of classic English fiction and of bookstores. That day she bought two books from Sanlian, Women in White and Selected Short Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Tracy Zheng, 32, of Nanjing, buys all her books online. She is studying for a doctorate in English language and literature at Nanjing University. When we meet at Librairie Avant-Garde, a 15-minute walk from the university, she says that in the month since the Spring Festival she has talked to no more than five people in the flesh and has not been into a bookshop for about seven years.