Gulou, Yihe Road and Xinjiekou · 32.053°N 118.768°E
Pay as you consumeClosure day
A 3,680-square-metre bookshop in a converted underground car park - originally a civil-defence shelter - under the Wutaishan sports centre, reached down a ramp off Guangzhou Road. It opened here in 2004, and the ramp with its painted double yellow line, the blue-green striped sign at the bottom of it and the wall of writers' portraits are why foreign media kept calling it China's most beautiful bookshop. Two things have changed and no guidebook has caught up: the blue-green shopfront sign came down on the night of 22 June 2025 for a redesign, and the large black cross that hung at the end of the ramp was removed in a refit in January 2026 and replaced by a lit shop logo.
Address173 Guangzhou Road, Gulou District, Nanjing - in the basement car park under the Wutaishan gymnasium, opposite the Grand Hotel (南京市鼓楼区广州路 173 号五台山体育馆地下车库，古南都饭店对面)Secondhand sourceNavigate ↗
EntranceThe way in is a vehicle ramp off Guangzhou Road; the shop's name board came down in June 2025 and a Thinker statue now stands where it was; Wutaishan station on metro Line 5 is about 300 m east, and Shanghailu is about 1 km south
Last verified 2026-09-24Source: platforms and press
How to book
None; walk in
Paying on site
Retail. Pay at the till; signal underground is unreliable, so cash is a sensible backup
Language
There is a foreign-language section; no English service is advertised