In Japan, Books Are Windows to the World

By ANDRÉ SCHIFFRIN

Osaka is not even Japan's second city. But its biggest bookstore dwarfs anything in New York, Los Angeles, or, indeed, Chicago. Like all Japanese cities, Osaka is filled with the most modern, and postmodern, skyscrapers. In one of the largest, in the middle of town, the first three stories are taken over by the Junkudo bookstore, which contains some 600,000 titles. That is far more than at the largest Barnes & Noble superstore.

The

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