The other day, I was getting lost while walking around as usual, and stumbled upon this new-looking facade on Weihai Road. To be honest, the building caught my attention because it looked like my grandma’s nursing home. Peeking in through the windows, I saw shelves upon shelves of neatly-stacked books, and table after table of sparkling clean tables and comfortably cushy couches.

What is this wondrous place, this Jing’an Book Club? I wander inside past the 85 Degrees on the right (a bakery chain all over Shanghai), past some store detectors, and peruse the aisles. Well okay, they were all brand new Chinese books, a little too difficult for my level. They had the Pelican Brief in Chinese, and thousands of others that I was too lazy to try and interpret.

“Is this a library?” I ask the frail attendant hanging out by the doorway (in Chinese, duh).

“No.”

“Is this…a book store?”

“No.”

“Oh. Okay…… what is this place?”

“It’s a book club.”

He continued to look at me as if I was a martian from Saturn. It’s painfully obvious that I’ve never been to a book club.

So after some more questions, now I know! You can come here and sit and read books all day, or, should you decide to buy a book, you can pay for it and take it home.

Oh, and there’s no smoking allowed inside. YESSS.

Jing’an Book Club, 870 Weihai Lu (close to Yan’an Xi Lu). About 10 minutes from the Jing’an Line 2 Metro. Maybe.