Iranian official Mehdi Tabatabaei has said the “world listened to the resounding message of the American people in the Senate and Congress elections,” after the Democrats took control of the US Congress from the Republicans.
This bookstore is famous on social media – but Shenzhen’s actual relationship with books is far more fascinating. And influential
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From unstaffed self-service book-borrowing kiosks open 24-7, to a grand building that has robots fetching paperbacks from its multimillion collection of titles across nine floors, there’s a reason that Shenzhen is known as China’s “city of libraries.” Sure, this may sound kind of boring, but the city in the southern Guangdong province has also just been named as the country’s leader in wealthy entrepreneurs and is the beating heart of China’s AI and tech industry.
Shenzhen was recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2013 as global leader in promoting the value of reading. A decade earlier, in 2003, the city introduced pivotal moves to give everyone – well, Chinese citizens and foreigners aged three and above – a unified library ID number that gave them access to hundreds of borrowing outlets already spread across the developing metropolis. This was known as the City of Libraries initiative.
This week, The Wall Street Journal was the latest news outlet to highlight the dismal statistics of reading across the US. While, with some irony, it’s hard for most people to read this article because it’s behind a paywall, it essentially echoes what The New York Times and The Atlantic have addressed over the last few months: Smartphone scrolling may be the first real sign of the “end of reading.”
Well, in some places.
Because in every subway station and train carriage, in restaurants, on park benches, in airport lounges and throughout the city’s massive malls, Shenzhen residents are also spending a whole lot of time staring at their small screens, no book in sight. And there’s plenty of scrolling of China’s TikTok, Douyin (抖音) to be seen, too.
This pivotal 2026 paper looking at US readers found that people picking up a book – digital or otherwise – has continued to decline each year over the last two decades.What’s more, plans for giving Americans better access to libraries were rolled back in 2025. In the people sampled for this study, only 0.3% reported reading at a library on an average day in 2023, with 0.5% visiting a library for any activity.
This is neither a criticism of the US nor a comparison between a city and a country (with far more differences than number of libraries per neighborhood), because there’s plenty of digital distractions competing for people’s attention in tech-forward Shenzhen. What’s fascinating, though, is how reading culture appears to have developed in step with the geographical and economical growth of the city.
As this translated account from Shenzhen local government details, it was around the time the seeds of the city of the future were planted that its residents seemed to see new potential on a personal level. In the 1980s, people sought out textbooks – math, chemistry, physics – to self-study, which led to a whole new industry of learning. Pretty soon, reading – and libraries – were woven into the city’s development strategy.
“The activity of ‘read more and read good books’ had created a reading craze among Shenzhen’s young employees in the 1980s,” according to the government site. “Themed ‘rejuvenating China,’ it had four major characteristics. First, it had a wide scope. Second, it was diverse, lively and rich in content. Third, the participants had high enthusiasm, realizing the transformation from ‘I have to learn’ to ‘I want to learn.’ Fourth, it was practical and targeted. English and finance classes were also set up, which effectively improved the educational level of the employees.”
In the most recent data gathered, Shenzhen’s public libraries recorded 54.3 million visits and 29.5 million physical book loans according to city-level data compiled moving into 2026.
A recent Hong Kong-Shenzhen report on libraries and engagement cited Xinhua, which reported that Shenzhen adults, on average, read 22 books in 2024.What books is unclear, however. Either way, it’s putting my 2026 Goodreads count to shame.
That same report also noted that in the same year, Shenzhen had 322 24-hour self-service “book bars” that recorded 1.17 million borrows (4.5% of total loans across the city). These spaces are often manned by volunteers to help visitors but are otherwise unstaffed.
And as of 2024, Shenzhen was home to 925 public libraries – some buildings housing millions of physical titles. These spaces, as well as the book bars, hold “68.3 million items.” Interestingly, even though libraries have adopted the technology Shenzhen is famous for, physical book loans rose 12.4% in 2024 compared with the previous 12 months.
Obviously, the success of modern-day Shenzhen is not just because there are plenty of places to borrow books; it’s been just one aspect of the city’s development strategy.
But after visiting the disappointing viral “optical illusion” bookstore – essentially an Instagram background for pensive “candid” photoshoots – I nonetheless have it to thank for leading me down a rabbit hole of a far more interesting story, one where libraries and access to books helped shape Shenzhen, probably better known as the birthplace of Huawei, Tencent, DJI, BYD, just to name a few.
If nothing else, it serves as a nice antidote to the doomy stories about reading’s rapidly approaching extinction event.
Democrats are poised to romp in today’s election — easily winning the House and, according to most forecasts, flipping the Senate, too. Yet the party itself is less popular than the IRS. Even the GOP has a better brand, Axios’ Mike Zapler, Alex Thompson and Holly Otterbein write.
Why it matters: There’s a difference between a blowout and a mandate. Confusing the two could tempt Democrats to overread the results and forget the serious credibility problem they still face heading into 2028
The big picture: Democrats have done a lot of things right to position themselves for a big night.
They recruited candidates who’ve put red-state Senate races within grasp. Many of those candidates vastly outraised their Republican opponents.
But polls across the board still show a lesser-of-two-evils election — or, as one Republican tied to President Trump’s political operation described it, a contest of which party voters hate more. Voters are more eager to disempower Trump than to empower Democrats.
By the numbers: Just 29% of registered voters have a positive opinion of the Democratic Party, compared with 38% who view the Republican Party positively, according to a pre-election NBC News poll.
Yet the same poll shows Democrats leading the generic congressional ballot by 7 points, 52% to 45%.Mail-in ballots are processed leading up to the midterm elections at a USPS sorting facility in Golden, Colo., last week. Photo: Kevin Mohatt/Reuters Zoom in: Many Democrats say they’re determined not to repeat the mistake they made after the 2022 midterms. They defied predictions of a red wave and saw it as an endorsement of Joe Biden and their party.
Voters were actually growing angrier, setting the stage for Trump’s comeback in 2024.
Democrats won the House in 2018 and impeached Trump the next year. This time, likely Speaker Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is steering clear of impeachment talk, and his 100-day agenda is focused on affordability.
Others say the party still lacks a winning pitch. “We have no economic message. And if we don’t get one, we’re not going to win,” Democratic strategist Jim Messina told party leaders and operatives at a Third Way gathering in South Carolina earlier this year.
The bottom line: Many top Democrats believe it’ll take a new presidential nominee — and likely one who wins in November 2028 — to fully repair the party’s damaged brand.
Trump: FAKE ALASKA CANDIDATE DANIAL J. SULLIVAN, JR., IS MISSING IN ACTION! HE HAS TOTALLY DISAPPEARED, GONE! NOBODY HAS BEEN ABLE TO FIND HIM. MAYBE HE HAS BEEN “KIDNAPPED” BY THE CORRUPT DUMOCRAT LAWYERS??? THEY ARE SCARED STIFF OF BEING PROSECUTED FOR ELECTION FRAUD!!!
The history of ancient pools and baths spans thousands of years, evolving from sacred ritual tanks to grand social and engineering marvels…
As people have loved swimming and soaking in water since… well, humans have always loved water, from what historical records show. History of pools is a fascinating story in and of itself. From when pools were invented, who first decided that artificial pools were a great idea, and how the swimming pool has evolved since its early beginnings, the history of the swimming pool is a story worth diving into.
. . .
The earliest man-made pools of note were the Great Baths of Mohenjodaro in Pakistan.Built in 2600 BC, give or take a few centuries, the Great Baths were constructed from plaster-covered bricks, sealed with a tar sealant, and surrounded by terraced decks. While the Great Baths certainly sound like a swimming pool, it’s thought people used them primarily for religious reasons. No one was swimming laps at Mohenjodaro, so while definitely an ancient, artificial pool, the Baths don’t quite fit the modern swimming pool definition.
Historians often point to the Greeks and Romans as the first cultures to build pools designed specifically for swimming. In both cultures, bath houses existed, but like Mohenjodaro, they weren’t exactly swimming pools… or were they? According to Archaeology Magazine, Roman culture prioritized physical fitness. Romans in particular were known to exercise at bath houses, even incorporating games (especially ball games, so beach ball isn’t necessarily such a modern concept!) into their visits. Some baths, such as the natatio in Pompeii, are even visually similar to pools today, complete with tile work and decoration.Interestingly, very word natatio exists in modern languages descended from Latin. Natación is the word for swimming in Spanish, and English has its own similar word – natation, though its use has declined significantly since late 1800s.
After Romans, there’s a bit of a gap in history of swimming pools, at least in Western culture. Turns out wars, plagues, and general unrest of Middle Ages weren’t conducive to advances in swimming facilities. It was back to lakes and oceans for swimming fans until middle of 19th Century. The first public indoor swimming pool in England was a salt-water pool called St. George’s Baths, which opened in 1828. By 1837, London boasted six indoor pools. Of course, one can’t talk about swimming in that era without also commenting on the unique poolside fashions of the era. In Bath, ancient peoples embraced the natural hot mineral springs for relaxation and recreation alike. As English community continued to enjoy the waters, local leaders eventually called for some sort of designated swimwear.
Term bathing suit was born out of this… Early bathing suits were, especially for women, on the cumbersome side. They tended toward modesty, and often were constructed with heavy materials like wool. Of course, women eventually rebelled against this heavy, inconvenient fabric, but we’ll wade into that topic shortly.
/ @johnmearsheimer
/ timesandsundaytimes
/ thetimes
The big picture: Democrats have done a lot of things right to position themselves for a big night.
Mail-in ballots are processed leading up to the midterm elections at a USPS sorting facility in Golden, Colo., last week. Photo: Kevin Mohatt/Reuters
Zoom in: Many Democrats say they’re determined not to repeat the mistake they made after the 2022 midterms. They defied predictions of a red wave and saw it as an endorsement of Joe Biden and their party.