Reading race hopes to spur on bookworms

HANGZHOU - More than 7,000 Chinese bookworms in the Yangtze River Delta region took part in this year's reading marathon, or "readathon", on May 25 to promote reading among the public.

The event has gained popularity in China over the past few years, with this year's iteration attracting 1,400 teams who competed in 115 public libraries across Shanghai, and those in Jiangsu, Anhui and Zhejiang provinces.

All participants were required to collaborate with their team members to finish the same book in six hours before they had a closed-book test on what they had read.