In a world dominated by digital gadgets, it seems hardly anyone has the time to open a book these days - which makes it all the more remarkable that some are going further and opening bookshops.

Among those bucking the trend is Mephisto, which opened in Shanghai last year.

Han Jian, Wu Zhichao and Lu Yi set up this unusual hybrid business in an apartment on Huaihai Middle Road in October after being laid off by Shanghai magazine The Bund.

Zhuang Jianguo sorts books at Rhino Library. Yang Yang / China Daily

The one-room, ground-floor apartment is designed for two businesses - the sitting room is Mephisto, which has about 10,000 secondhand books, and the bedroom is registered on Airbnb (about $60 a night).

The bookstore is named after Mephistopheles, the demon from the Faust legend who convinces the protagonist to sell his soul in exchange for pleasure.

"To some extent, it is Mephistopheles who urges Faust to continue exploring himself and the world," Han says. "This is also what we want from the shop. We hope it will be able to give both our readers and us such an urge. You can explore the inner and outside worlds through this bookstore."

Wu and Lu, both in their 40s, have collected secondhand books for many years. Each has a collection of more than 10,000. Many of the books in the shop come from their collections, with others purchased at flea markets.

"We'd been looking for a place to set up the business, and in October we found this," Han says. Unlike Wu and Lu, Han has found a new job and looks after the bookstore when she has free time.

Rent for the premises is 6,000 yuan ($920; 820 euros) a month, and to keep costs to a minimum they decorated it with secondhand furniture. The income from the room on Airbnb generally covers the monthly rent.

"Many guests book the room because they love the idea of staying in a bookshop," Han says.

At the beginning, most customers were friends and acquaintances, but as word of the shop has spread, the clientele has grown.

At least a dozen bookshops opened in Shanghai last year, but Han says it was not a matter of follow the leader. "It was a personal choice we made, partly because of the declining media industry in which we used to work. The print version of the magazine we worked for is gone, and we did not want to stay in an industry on which the sun is setting. Instead, we wanted to realize this long-held, expensive dream of running a bookshop."

Zhuang Jianguo, 27, has a similar dream. The seed was sown when he was in high school on Meizhou Island in Fujian province.

"One day I didn't finish my homework and the teacher chucked me out," he says, sitting at the bookstore in Shanghai's Liyuan Road that he opened with friends in October. "I dared not go back home since there was still one class to go before lunch."

Instead, he went to the school library, which was not open to students. A teacher was sorting out books and Zhuang offered to help, so he was allowed to borrow some books.

After graduating from high school, he worked in bookstores and says he aspired eventually to have his own. In 2007, he starting working for Rhino Bookstore, but under the pressure of rising costs and falling sales it closed the next year.

"If I hadn't worked in that shop I wouldn't have opened my own," he says. "It was there that the seed of my dream began to grow."

As a tribute, when Zhuang opened his shop, he and his two partners decided to name it Rhino Library. The 40-square-meter space houses more than 5,000 secondhand books. "We set up a library because, apart from wanting to sell books, we're keen on keeping the books we love here.

"Business is just one part of the library. I don't want it to be all about business."

Apart from books on the shelves there is a desk on which stand calligraphy brushes, ink, a stack of rice paper and an ink stone. "Anyone can write down anything they like," Zhuang says. "We don't have a cash desk. When anyone comes in, I go outside and have a smoke, leaving the place to them. I hope they'll find the books they like here and that we can meet some interesting people."

He works full time in the shop, while his two partners have jobs elsewhere. The three of them also run an online bookstore, but say sales barely cover the rent for the shop. "Taking my salary into account, we definitely lose money," he says.

Online, Zhuang puts a short description in brackets after the name of the bookstore: "A clean, well-lit place."

"I love Ernest Hemingway, and it's the title of one of his short stories. It's my dream to run a clean, well-lit place that will warm everyone who happens to come in."

The bedroom that Mephisto lets via Airbnb. Artists gather at Mephisto on a Sunday afternoon. Photos by Yang Yang / China Daily

(China Daily European Weekly 04/01/2016 page17)