Hongdao is a private bookstore brand in Hunan, founded in 1993. The Wuhan store is located in the interior of the mall, and the business style is slightly similar to Sisyphus.
Hongdao has an L-shaped layout, with bookshelves and booths lined up. The cool colors fill the main area, the wood color of the floor and bookshelves is uniform, and the bookshelves are arranged with warm yellow spotlights and light strips, which have a sense of focus from a distance, and can meet the lighting needs of reading in the near distance. The coffee bar is infused with stainless steel elements, with a tough style, and there are Chinese characters painted in pieces near the ceiling and bookshelves, which is quite individual.
The two rows of bookshelves in the middle of the bookstore are the most valuable. Although they are literature, history, and philosophy books, the selection is not the pursuit of quick sales, mainly with the books of the Ideal Country, Sanlian, and the Commercial Press as the main force, and many of them are translated into English and Japanese. The low bookshelf next to it is the center of the store, and there are original books in English, Japanese, and German, as well as books from Taiwan and Hong Kong, which are interesting and rare.
The cultural and creative area is full of literary and artistic sense, and most of the products are stationery brands such as Shidelou, Kaweco, Kailandi, and ONLINE. The store details the characteristics and history of the product through a large number of illustrations and handwritten texts, and the content is clear and easy to understand, and also popularizes the structure of the fountain pen. Handmade cultural creations such as Japanese KAKU 3D paper art and Ruo State puzzles are used for space transition, and are all displayed in the children's book area next to it, adjacent to the picture books.
Hongdao is not a rigid bookstore, and its operation is individual. The clerks have their own reading habits, and if they come across a good work, they will draw their own sticky notes and paste them on the shelves. The descriptions and illustrations of each stationery brand are also drawn and written, bringing a little "craftsman feeling". The Wealth of Nations is a historical work on economics, considered to be the forerunner of the idea of the market economy in some views, born in the 18th century, for most people, its content seems to be related to life, but not down-to-earth enough, Hongdao placed it in the philosophy book area, which is also intimate. "Calling the Soul" and "The Classic of Mountains and Seas" stand side by side in the recommendation area, the former detailing a witchcraft oolong incident in the Qing Dynasty from a nuanced perspective, and the latter is a picture book of traditional cultural gods.
Hongdao Bookstore is only a few hundred square meters, and its area is on the small side. The constant noise from the mall across from the bookstore and the limited number of free seats make Hongdao not suitable for reading, which is the biggest drawback.
