Tokyo bookstores

A book I bought entitled “Japan’s Small Bookstores” which I would like to plan an entire trip around

On my recent trip to Tokyo, I visited as many bookstores as I could but didn’t even scrape the surface. There’s something special about any city that has as many bookstores as Tokyo—small kiosks just outside the train station, cat-themed bookstores (with cats in residence), bookstores that you can stay overnight in, mammoth bookstores that will have everything on your list, curated bookstores, a whole neighborhood dedicated to used bookstores… And Japanese authors seem to love writing about books and bookstores, if the shelves of books on this theme are anything to go by. Although my city is home to Powell’s, which purports to be the world’s largest independent bookstore, that claim seems less impressive after my week in Tokyo.

The first bookstore I went to was B&B (which stands for beer and books) in Shimo-Kitazawa, a small bookstore in

B&B in Shimo-Kitazawa; Source: Shimirubon

which everything seems to have been carefully selected—the perfect place to find books and zines you won’t find elsewhere. They also had a shelf dedicated to Banana Yoshimoto, who has lived in Shimo-Kitazawa for decades and describes it with great affection in her novels and essays.

I also visited the bookstore just down the street from the house we had rented, not expecting much, but I was reminded that unassuming neighborhood bookstores here are far better than the chain bookstores that are all most suburbs in the US have (if they’re lucky). I found Kyoko Nakamura’s latest book, a novel in which the Imperial Library is the main character (of course), and also the latest edition of the magazine 自遊人, which just happened to be a special edition on books.

Tired after traipsing through parks and crowded streets one day, my friend led me to Wired Tokyo 1999, a café on the seventh floor of a building just across the street from Shibuya Station. The walls are covered with records, books and magazines, and best of all, once your legs have recovered, you can walk down from the café straight into Tsutaya Books. My assumptions about chain bookstores were again debunked because, among other finds (including a book of essays called 「オタク中年女性のすすめ」, recommending that middle-aged women find themselves an obsessive hobby), I scored a signed copy of Misumi Kubo’s latest book of short stories.

Not ready to get back on the crowded trains late one night, I checked to see what bookstores might be nearby, and found Maruzen & Junkodo just a few blocks away. Although totally lacking in atmosphere, it was still open at 10pm (not at all unusual for bookstores in Tokyo) and actually had the elusive copy of 文藝 (Bungei) I’d been searching for ever since my plane landed. This edition, which is about 500 pages of essays, interviews and stories based on the theme of “South Korea, feminism and Japan,” sold out so rapidly that the publisher ordered a reprint, only for all copies to be sold out before they even arrived in stores. A second reprint was then ordered, the first time this has happened in over 80 years.

I also managed to nab a copy of the latest Akutagawa Prize-winning novel (むらさきスカートの女by 今村夏子), which had been sold out in most stores, when I just happened to walk past Kinokuniya in Shinjuku. I do realize that Tokyo is one of the most population-dense cities in the world, but surely the ratio of bookstores to people is unusually high?

“Afternoons are for Walking, Nights are for Reading” by Atsushi Miura

I visited Bunkitsu early one morning when I needed to work and figured working while surrounded by books would take the sting out of it. This bookstore has gotten quite a bit of press since it opened because you are charged a 1,500 yen fee just to enter, but they have free drinks and great places to read or work—everything from bean bags and sofas to tables and desks with lamps. Bunkitsu only has one copy of each book, which might sound intriguing in theory but is quite annoying in practice when you set something aside only for it to disappear. The selection is small but deep, and I made some really good finds, including a book of letters written by a couple (both writers) who begin writing letters recommending books to each other in the hope that this will help them understand each other better (「読書で離婚を考えた」). I also found a book of essays (「昼は散歩、夜は読書」 by三浦展 ; “Afternoon is for Walks, Nights are for Reading” by Atsushi Miura) that I bought based on the cover and the title. In the preface, the author, a journalist, describes his day: “These days I start work at 7am, deal with visitors at 11am, have lunch, and then go out to do research. My research basically consists of going to some neighborhood and walking around. And in my ideal day, in the evening I go to the neighborhood’s public bath and have a drink at an izakaya.” I figured I couldn’t go wrong in the hands of an author like that.

The new Daikanyama Tsutaya is also worth a visit, especially because it opens at 7am and closes at 2am and

Source: Village Vanguard

has great cafes and other reading spaces. I found the layout a bit confusing because it is spread out through three separate buildings, which makes browsing difficult. This was a very sophisticated, glossy bookstore, but I felt more at home at the Village Vanguard in Shimo-Kitazawa, where the staff all seemed to have angular haircuts in impossible colors. The shop is bright and packed with kitsch and character goods, with books of all sorts lining the shelves in between to create a sort of mad confusion. The staff write enthusiastic recommendations on yellow cards and attach them to books, so this is another bookstore that is perfect for unlikely discoveries.

All in all, if you only have time to go to a few bookstores, just head to Shimo-Kitazawa and go to the B&B and Village Vanguard. But if you have a long list of books you’re searching for, you can’t go wrong with Junkudo in Ikeburo—10 whole floors of books!

Some of the books I bought while in Japan