Japan's Book Week begins on October 27 and lasts until November 9 each year. As the days grow shorter and nights longer, and hot summer days give way to the refreshing air of autumn, an inkling stirs in the hearts of many Japanese to huddle up with a good book. Many countries all over the world have similar events. In Japan, Book Week began in 1947, modeled after the United States' National Children's Book Week. The first Book Week was just one week long, held from November 17 to 23. But it went so well that beginning the following year it was extended to two weeks and the dates were changed so that Japan's Culture Day ( November 3) would fall in the middle, and it's been that way ever since. During Book Week, a reading promotion council made up of publishing companies and library associations organizes a variety of activities aimed at raising public interest in reading. Exhibitions, lectures, book review contests, and award ceremonies for enthusiastic readers' clubs are held throughout Japan. The number of books published in Japan is fifth in the world, after Britain, China, Germany, and the United States. In 1996 some 60,000 titles were published. But with more and more people becoming absorbed in television, video games, and other new media, fewer people are reading books. According to a nationwide poll conducted by the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper in October 1997, 62% said that the time they spend reading has decreased over the past few years; over 50% said that they hadn't read a single book in the month prior to the survey. Reversing this decline in readers is an important theme for Book Week. Image: 1998 promotional poster for Japan's Book Week. (Japan Council for Promotion of Book Reading)

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