Sadly, my local second-hand English bookshop in Tokyo - the Blue Parrot - is no more. It has ceased to be. Bereft of life it rests in peace. It is an ex-bookshop. I can’t say it’s a great surprise: the last couple of times I’ve been in I got the feeling that business was grim. If they hadn’t nailed it to the perch it would have been pushing up the daisies a while ago. (That’s enough Monty Python. Ed.)
Anyway, I will miss the clustered charm that the Blue Parrot brought to the Takadanobaba area, but then as an Amazon customer and e-book reader, like one of the characters in Murder on the Orient Express (spoiler alert) in effect I had my hand on the knife too. Bookshops are in trouble pretty much everywhere these days, and one of the little reported consequences of the online and e-publishing revolutions is how they have transformed the purchasing of books by those who live in countries where the native language is not their own. The old model was that we English-speakers in Japan had no option but to trek across town to one of the small number of Japanese bookshops with a decent foreign language section - and there are only a handful even in Tokyo - where we were met with a fairly limited range of books and prices twice those charged back home. But these days we have access to the whole of Amazon, and even with postage our purchases are at most no more expensive and are often less costly than those from a local bookshop. The bricks and mortar outlets are under pressure for similar reasons everywhere, but the changes are particularly acute for English booksellers in places like Japan. So the Blue Parrot’s demise may foreshadow many more English language book retailers in non-English speaking countries kicking the bucket. Indeed, I read just recently that the main such outlet in Paris is to shuffle off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and join the choir invisible. (I’ve warned you. Ed.)
I remember the Kinokuniya bookshop in Osaka fondly (still there I believe), which was not only somewhere to buy reading material but also a great place to bump into Western friends and strangers in Japan’s second city. Something will be lost if these places go, but it’s important to recognise that a lot has also been gained; the reading options for those outside of a native language environment have improved immeasurably. If English-language bookstores in non-English speaking countries do go the way of the Norwegian Blue it will be a shame, but hypocrisy should be avoided. There is no point pining for the fjords. (Right, that’s it. Ed.)
Anyway, I will miss the clustered charm that the Blue Parrot brought to the Takadanobaba area, but then as an Amazon customer and e-book reader, like one of the characters in Murder on the Orient Express (spoiler alert) in effect I had my hand on the knife too. Bookshops are in trouble pretty much everywhere these days, and one of the little reported consequences of the online and e-publishing revolutions is how they have transformed the purchasing of books by those who live in countries where the native language is not their own. The old model was that we English-speakers in Japan had no option but to trek across town to one of the small number of Japanese bookshops with a decent foreign language section - and there are only a handful even in Tokyo - where we were met with a fairly limited range of books and prices twice those charged back home. But these days we have access to the whole of Amazon, and even with postage our purchases are at most no more expensive and are often less costly than those from a local bookshop. The bricks and mortar outlets are under pressure for similar reasons everywhere, but the changes are particularly acute for English booksellers in places like Japan. So the Blue Parrot’s demise may foreshadow many more English language book retailers in non-English speaking countries kicking the bucket. Indeed, I read just recently that the main such outlet in Paris is to shuffle off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and join the choir invisible. (I’ve warned you. Ed.)
I remember the Kinokuniya bookshop in Osaka fondly (still there I believe), which was not only somewhere to buy reading material but also a great place to bump into Western friends and strangers in Japan’s second city. Something will be lost if these places go, but it’s important to recognise that a lot has also been gained; the reading options for those outside of a native language environment have improved immeasurably. If English-language bookstores in non-English speaking countries do go the way of the Norwegian Blue it will be a shame, but hypocrisy should be avoided. There is no point pining for the fjords. (Right, that’s it. Ed.)
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