Lately a popular eight-floor bookstore in Hefei, Anhui province, has risen to fame because it becomes the world’s first shared bookstore, in a move meant to encourage more reading among Chinese citizens.

It comes to people’s attention as more than 200,000 visitors flooded the store on its first day as a shared bookstore on July 16 this year, a record high since it was reopened to the public in 2013. Some 4,000 books were brought home on the first day, Thepaper.cn reported.

Customers are allowed to borrow up to two books valued under 150 yuan per visit after registering with an app and paying the 99 yuan deposit fee(押金)。

All books on sale in the bookstore are available for sharing. Returned books that are damaged are sold at a discount. The bookstore also provides a bonus for bookworms. People who finish reading 12 books in three months receive eight percent of their deposit back, and members can be rewarded one yuan for every book read.

“We want to bring down the cost of reading so people could read more books,” Xu Xinwei, who helps run the bookstore, told Thepaper.cn.

Some parents buy a lot of books for their children, but they usually end up collecting dust as their children grow up. Similarly, some popular novels for young people also fall out of fashion, according to Xu.”Books are more effectively circulated when they’re shared.”

For too many years now, the teaching of the English language in our grammar and high schools has been uninspiring, leaving an entire generation with only unclear ideas about how to write and speak clearly and well. Now The Handbook of Good English, a comprehensive, easy-to-use guide to modern grammar, punctuation, usage, and style, puts the best available advice about writing and using the English language at your fingertips.

Intended to replace Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style and a host of other desk-reference books on careful writing, The Handbook of Good English is organized for both rapid reference to check specific points and for leisurely study to improve personal and professional writing.

This comprehensive book explores syntax, punctuation, style, organization and tone. Edward D. Johnson does more than issue the rules; he gives examples, exceptions, and, more important, clear, easily understood explanations of why grammar has the rules it does. He also gives full attention to styling, the important matter of giving consistent treatment to numbers, abbreviation, generic terms, forms of address, foreign terms, etc., in good writing.

A special feature of this book is the combined Glossary/Index (词汇表/索引), arranged from A to Z, to give instant answers to the most commonly asked questions about misused words, phrases, and constructions, and cross-referenced to the text of a longer explanation is desired. For the novice, the professional, for anyone who cares about the language, The Handbook of Good English is the crucial guide to proper communication.

“The Handbook of Good English fills a real need for a basic and strict handbook of standard English grammar, punctuation rules and conventions of editorial styling. Because grammar has been taught so carelessly for the past 20 years, Johnson takes pains to explain reasons for and relationships between grammatical rules,” comments Booklist, a book-review magazine.

I’ve been reading 100 books per year on average during the past decade. So obviously I get the usual question of what books I recommend. Well, here’re my top 4 favorite books of all times, which influenced me into who l am today.

1. Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

One of the biggest bestsellers of all times. Napoleon Hill spent two decades analyzing over 500 successful men like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and John D. Rockefeller to discover how they did it. The result of Hill’s research is in Think & Grow Rich —13 steps to achieve your goal, whatever it is. All other self-help books are just copies of Hill’s book first published in 1937.

2. Psychocybernetics by Maxwell Maltz.

Another bestseller and the only self-help book you’ll need next to Think Grow Rich. Maxwell Maltz was a plastic surgeon who was amazed that some patients still felt ugly after surgery (外科手术). That’s when he discovered they also needed reconstruction work inside—their “self-image”. Everything about how to use the “mind-body” connection to achieve your goals, and how to feel confident about your body is inside this book.

3. Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin.

This book drives the point home that success in any field is not determined by genetics or talent but deliberate practice. Colvin uses examples from world class achievers like Tiger Woods, Jack Welch, Warren Buffet, Mozart to prove that they all got theirs through years of practice—the 10,000 hours rule. You’ll reexamine your beliefs about what it takes to succeed and supercharge your motivation after reading Colvin’s book.

4. Mastery by George Leonard.

This book also stresses that practice is the secret of success in anything. Leonard explains that mastership never ends—you will never have perfect technique and be able to stop. Instead you’ll keep learning, improving, and hitting plateaus (瓶颈期). The big point in Mastery is that plateaus are vital for improving your skills and that you therefore must start enjoying them instead of getting impatient or quitting like most guys do.