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| Blue Parrot: Takadanobaba | |||
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For the dedicated Tokyo bookworm, a Saturday afternoon can have no finer start than with a subway ticket to Jimbocho. Its cheek-by-jowl assortment of bookshops is as permanent a feature as any in this ever-shifting city. But elsewhere secondhand bookshops are rather more transitory creatures.
Blue Parrot started in November 2002 and moved to Takadanobaba in April 2004, and it's a welcome opening for those in search of a cheap English. Though its expanding stock of around 3,500 books might not be the biggest in town, the staff at Blue Parrot (obviously named by a "Casablanca" fan) are a friendly lot and mercifully without the attitude you sometimes get in secondhand English bookshops in Tokyo. In terms of general content, the Parrot offers no big surprises. About half the titles are novels. There are the usual sections on biography, cooking, health, travel, business, psychology, New Age and, of course, Japan. Except for a few bilingual titles, almost all the books are in English. Also on sale are a few cuddly toys, a hangover from the early days when Blue Parrot sold "curios" in addition to books. An attractive feature of this cozy little shop are the several Y100 sections, one of which is trustingly out on the street. The books here tend to be rather more dog-eared, but there are some interesting finds. Along with the expected offerings by Tom Clancy, Sidney Sheldon and Jeffrey Archer and titles like "Know Your Erogenous Zones," there are books by Graham Greene, Dostoyevsky, Simone de Beauvoir and Ben Okri. You can sell books here, and the shop operates a trade system. If it's a good, cheap read you're after, you won't find too many places offering a better deal than the Parrot. As of January 2005, they've also got a branch in Akihabara. by David Capel |
Blue Parrot
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