You have the urge for a quick snack, there's a convenient store in the neighborhood at all hours.

You need to buy medicine, there's a pharmacy 'awake' 24 hours a day.

You feel like grabbing this latest novel by your favorite author at past midnight, well, Beijing residents can now go to a bookstore that never closes shop.

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The Sanlien Taofen Bookstore located in Beijing's Dongcheng district has extended its business hours to 24 hours.

Voracious readers can also find a peaceful luxurious sanctuary at the bookstore if neighbors are too noisy to enjoy reading.

One must have the passion to explore the world through words at all times in order to enjoy this latest innovation of the SDX Joint Publishing Company (SJPC), owners of the Sanlien Taofen Bookstore.

The bookstore has a floorspace of 1,500 square meters and boasts of nearly 80,00 book titles.

The President of SJPC, Fan Xi'an, borrowed the 24-hour bookstore concept from the Taiwanese book retailer chain.

Fan was inspired by the number of readers he encountered at night inside one Eslite Bookstore during a visit to Taiwan in 2010.

The entrepreneur realized that Beijing, the cultural capital of all China, has no venue for readers to indulge in their passion to read at anytime of the day, and this inspired him to propose to his board the Eslite concept. Lack of funds delayed Fan's project until this year.

The  funds came when the city government of Beijing decided to sponsor the project, which includes a national subsidy for 55 other stores that SJPC plans to open across the country.

Fan is grateful to the city of Beijing and to the national government for the boost on his project.

SJPC was given an exemption from value-added tax (VAT) to the amount of US$14.52 Million (90 Million yuan), that will be sufficient to support all 56 stores.

The 24-hour concept is an innovative plan to encourage citizens to read the traditional way instead of via electronic downloads.

Fan laments that most consumers are no longer into serious book reading. Others borrow books and photocopy pages while others search for book titles in traditional bookstores and buy digital copies instead, through the internet.

Based on a national survey on readers in 2012, people with ages from 18 to 70 read only an average of 4.39 books a year, or only 15 minutes a day.

SJPC is banking on consumers who look for light entertainment other than going to nightclubs or bars, and hopes to encourage reading more than generate profit.