Tokyo Shinjuku Bookstore “Book 1st”

December 29, 2023 346 Views

During my recent trip to Tokyo, I explored several bookstores in Shinjuku. I visited the main store of Kinokuniya, a prominent bookstore in Shinjuku, and explored various other bookstores in the vicinity. On the second day of my journey, I also visited the Kanda Bookstore District, where I could browse through stores selling used and rare books.

The reason behind exploring multiple bookstores was my British friend who accompanied me on the trip. He was looking for books that are only available in Japanese bookstores, so we visited several bookshops together to find the titles he was searching for.

Tokyo Shinjuku Kinokuniya Main Store: Kinokuniya Bookstore Main Store in Tokyo Shinjuku

“Diverse Bookstores in Shinjuku”

Shinjuku boasts a variety of bookstores. While there are large-scale bookstores like Kinokuniya due to the high population density in the area, you can find several other mid-sized bookstores scattered around.

During this visit, one of the places I explored was a bookstore named “Book 1st,” located west of Shinjuku Station.

“Bookstore in Shinjuku, Book 1st”

The store had two floors, a basement floor, and the ground floor, and it was quite spacious while maintaining a neat and organized atmosphere. Despite the significant size of the bookstore, finding bookstores of this scale throughout Shinjuku gave me the impression that the publishing industry in Japan is still thriving compared to South Korea.

However, similar to most bookstores in Japan, the majority of the books were in Japanese, with a small corner dedicated to English books. Unfortunately, even in this store, we couldn’t find the books we were looking for in English.

Nevertheless, it provided an opportunity to experience the atmosphere of a Japanese bookstore by exploring nearby bookshops one by one. Although the trip wasn’t solely focused on Japanese bookstores, it turned out to be a concept-driven journey.

It was an opportunity to get a glimpse of the atmosphere in Japanese bookstores, which, while not vastly different from those in South Korea, offered a unique experience.

“Japan, Tokyo, Shinjuku BOOK 1ST”