Chinese writer Shi Yifeng Photo: GT/Li Hao

Editor's Note:

In an age of information overload, reading remains a necessary channel to invigorate the mind, provide inspiration and cultivate virtue. Whether it is the childhood enlightenment or the pursuit of continuous learning in adulthood, everyone's reading journey carries unique emotions and life experiences. 

The Global Times launches the "100 Avid Readers" series, inviting guests from various fields to share their connections with books, stories of growth and sparks of thought. 

In this installment, Chinese writer Shi Yifeng, winner of the Lu Xun Literary Prize with the novel There is No Longer Chen Jinfang in the World, shared his experience and understanding on reading with the Global Times. In his view, reading books, especially literary works, is a kind of aesthetic enjoyment that provides irreplaceable pleasure.

Chinese writer Shi Yifeng's most deeply felt experiences with reading are often accompanied by the rumbling of train wheels, the announcements of stations, and the hum of passengers asking for directions. This is because much of his reading time takes place on public transport, be it the subway or high-speed rail. 

Over time, Shi has developed some insights: Public transportation truly puts a book's readability to the test.

Shi believes that the books one can become absorbed in while riding the subway are exactly those that contain the kind of emotions and wisdom shared by most people in real life. On occasion, the reading of particularly engaging books has even caused Shi to miss his subway stop, prompting him to reflect: If literature could be categorized into works suited for public transport and for one's study, he, as a writer, would much prefer his own works to belong to the former - those that might make readers miss their subway stops without realizing it.

Such readability, he feels, represents the joy of reading. "Literary reading is first and foremost an enjoyment. Language as an artistic medium offers an aesthetic experience," Shi told the Global Times. And this unique pleasure, he believes, requires each reader to reflect on their own life to seek it out and savor it for themselves.

Enjoy your reading life

Shi's relationship with books reveals a relaxed sensibility. As both a novelist and the editor of a literary magazine, he does not choose the rituals often associated with literary seriousness - he is not one to annotate novels or maintain meticulous reading logs. Instead, he regards reading as a simple pleasure, a companion to daily life, and an enjoyable pastime rather than a duty or an academic exercise. Reading, in his eyes, is much like watching a film after a long day: something to look forward to, something that draws him into a story for the sake of delight.

Shi's approach to reading now is shaped by his dual identity as a literary editor and a writer. Unlike editors in technical or academic fields, he finds his work to overlap naturally with his personal tastes. Both in and out of the office, his reading is a source of entertainment and satisfaction.

Shi has also developed the habit of reading wherever he finds a gap in his schedule - on subways, trains, or even taxis - and finds that the ultimate test for a book is whether it can absorb him under such conditions. If a novel still manages to captivate amid the distractions of daily life, then it has proven both its literary merit and its relevance. 

Shi told the Global Times that for him, an engaging story must offer something fresh, and not merely repeat what has already been heard countless times, regardless of whether the prose is straightforward or intricate. Literary works are never just about literature; they reflect all aspects of society, and reading them can help people see life from different, new perspectives, he said.

How reading inspires writing

Over the years, he admits, his tastes have evolved. Classics retain their significance for him, and he often returns to well-loved titles such as Catch-22 by American writer Joseph Heller or The Razor's Edge by English writer William Somerset Maugham. Each re-reading offers something previously overlooked - a deeper appreciation for complex characters, or a new understanding of storytelling techniques. He believes that a mark of truly great literature is its ability to reveal new layers of meaning with each encounter, sometimes offering relevance only after years of growth and change in the reader's own life.

However, when it comes to fueling his own creativity as a writer, it is contemporary authors who provide the strongest stimulus. He notices that seeing his peers confront present-day issues or experiment with form inspires him to pursue new directions in his own writing. The classics, while admirable, often feel distant because they are tied to different eras and societies. Modern novels, by contrast, speak directly to the concerns of his own life.

Throughout his career, Shi has come to believe that reading widely - especially fiction - deepens a person's understanding of human complexity. Literary characters, he observes, are lessons in perception: Different authors see different shades in people. With time, he has become more attuned to the sorrow, depth, and contradictions in even the secondary or initially unsympathetic figures found in great works. 

He points out that in a novel like the Chinese classic A Dream of Red Mansions, maturity and experience radically change one's understanding of its characters; figures he once dismissed or misunderstood in his youth now strike him as profoundly tragic or multifaceted.

In Shi's view, reading should fit naturally into the rhythms of modern life. There is no place, he said, for demanding ritualistic devotion, nor for policing the habits or preferences of others. He dismissed nostalgia for a supposed golden age of uninterrupted, studious reading; what matters is that reading is enjoyable, no matter the format or length.

For the writer, reading is neither a task nor a performance. It is, above all, an enduring source of happiness - a quiet, individual journey, ready to begin again each time a new book is opened.