Books Kinokuniya

As any bibliophile will tell you, bookstores ain’t bookstores - especially now so many readers have succumbed to the eBook. And though Sydney can proudly boast some world-class bricks and mortar booksellers, Books Kinokuniya remains among the best.

In fact, Kinokuniya reckons it has the single largest range in Sydney, with over 300,000 titles on offer. Artlovers, design geeks, illustrationists and photography buffs float blissfully around the store, sampling stately folio hardcovers and delicately rough small-run prints.

For those fixated on the comic arts - be it superhero, manga, indie, or the increasingly-respectable graphic novel - you’re among friends; if there’s a larger selection of books with words and pictures we’ll eat our signed edition of Chris Ware’s Building Stories.

If you’re one of those quaint nostalgists who prefers their literature composed purely from printed letters on paper pages, there’s something for you here too: the fiction section is wide but surprisingly deep, and those who insist on reading about non-pretend things can luxuriate in the enormous history, science, philosophy and, uh, sports sections. For all the poetry nuts, there’s a very respectable selection of both Australian and international collections, with some hard-to-find editions dotting the shelves.

Once you’ve blown all your pay on comics and cookbooks, you can pore through them at the in-house cafe (or, as we suggest, next door at the profoundly delicious Ichiban Boshi - perhaps Sydney’s best ramen shop).