Book Off And Bingo Set For Shibuya

[Mulboyne]

Book Off will move into the building on Shibuya's Centre Gai which houses the well-known music venue Club Quattro. Owner Parco earlier this year closed down the boutiques which occupied the lower floors leading to speculation that Quattro might be set for an imminent renovation or closure. Through an affiliate, Book Off also started a new brand called Bingo which sells used clothing. The first store was opened in Jijugaoka last year and the plan is to open a second outlet in conjunction with the main Book Off store. The opening day is set for the 9th August.

[Mulboyne]

Book Off stores are not especially good places to buy foreign language books: a lot of the outlets don't even have any in stock. That's perhaps not too surprising since the company doesn't buy in second hand overseas books in great numbers. The Shirokane branch on Meguro Dori is a different story however. It opened last September and is an upscale oulet with a coffee shop inside and a layout more like a new book store. English language Japan guidebooks are on sale next to new copies of magazines like Time and The Economist while the selection of novels and non-fiction titles is much larger than a normal bookshop of that size. Well, they have just expanded the section from last weekend and now claim to have 40,000 English language books in stock across a wider range of genres. Book Off say there are a number of embassies and consulates near the store and have received requests to increases their selection. They also note that 1 in 10 residents of Minato-ku are foreigners. They claim they will be buying the books from their overseas stores and shipping them directly to Japan. Book Off is also thought to be considering a bailout of Aoyama Book Centre and Random Walk bookshops which have a wide selection of English books so they may also have access to that stock.