Isseido Booksellers
一誠堂書店 · Isseido Booksellers
- Ward
- Chiyoda
- Price
- a few hundred yen~tens of thousands of yen
- Hours
- 10:00-18:30 (holidays 10:30-18
- Closed
- Sun
- Getting there
- 1 min walk from Jimbocho Stn
- Founded
- 1903
- Founded 1903 and regarded as the root of the Jimbocho book trade
- The stone staircase and shelves rising out of reach make it look forbidding
- Closed Sundays — as are most Jimbocho bookshops, which leaves the whole quarter quiet
We do not republish copyrighted photographs. Use the links below to see the actual venue.
Obvious to locals, invisible to visitors
There is a simple reason guidebooks leave this out: to the people who live here it is too obvious to be worth explaining.
Founded 1903 and regarded as the root of the Jimbocho book trade — a great many dealers on this street trained here. It burned down in the 1913 Kanda fire and reopened almost immediately under the name it still carries.
The stone staircase and shelves rising out of reach make it look forbidding, but browsing is perfectly fine. Ask staff to fetch anything on the high shelves.
Closed Sundays — as are most Jimbocho bookshops, which leaves the whole quarter quiet. Plan any book-hunting for a weekday or Saturday.
What it is
Chiyoda is a ward where government offices meet the old-book quarter. You will not find what you came for, but something else will end up in your hands. That is routine here. Prices start in the hundreds of yen — easy enough to pick up one thing. Around two in the afternoon, once the lunch peak has passed, is the quietest window. If you want photos, just ask first — permission is usually given readily. This is one of those places that beats its photos. People often arrive with low expectations and leave surprised.
What to order
Why locals keep coming
The depth of stock from years in one niche is different in kind — items you could not know existed via search. The owner's knowledge functions as the catalogue; ask and you get information beyond the stock itself.