Last month a new concept in bookselling was launched in Nanjing, China. Located in a popular square in the city’s Baixia district, the “Honesty Bookshop” operates without a cashier or onsite staff, because customers pay for their purchases by dropping cash into a lockbox. With just 1,500 titles to start, the bookshop is an experiment in bookselling. But the project’s organizer reported that he sold more than 300 books on the first day alone and that patrons paid the posted prices for each title. I have my doubts that this model would fly in the U.S.; maybe someplace like Iceland or Finland would work.

h/t to Maggie Wong for the story