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I'm a senior editor and the Shanghai bureau chief of Forbes magazine. Now in my 14th year at Forbes, I compile the Forbes China Rich List, Hong Kong Rich List and Taiwan Rich List. I was previously a correspondent for Bloomberg News in Taipei and Shanghai and for the Asian Wall Street Journal in Taipei. I'm a Massachusetts native, fluent Mandarin speaker, and hold degrees from the University of Vermont and the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

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Amid Fast-Paced Life, Chinese Still Find Time To Read More Books

China for three decades has enjoyed some of the world’s best economic growth, giving life in the country a quickness that’s hard to match anywhere.    Increases in travel and car purchases keep many successful denizens on the move, and ever-expanding mobile communications also leave people more glued to their smart devices than ever.

Yet amid all of that, Chinese still find time to read growing numbers of books. Some 8.8 billion books were read here in 2013, an increase of 600 million from a year earlier, according to a new survey released by the Chinese Academy of Press and Publication, the government-run China Daily reported on Tuesday. The academy published its 11th National Reading Survey on Monday.

China’s book market is worth about $7.3 billion annually, the newspaper said. The average Chinese reads 7.25 books a year, about one third in a digital format.

Top-sellers include literary and lifestyle titles, the paper said.

–Follow me on Twitter @rflannerychina

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