Tokyo is a great, great city for used books, like this store in Jimbocho.

natasha nakamura's diary

The case for living in Tokyo is simple. It is a complete and very congenial city. We have the magazines, the books, the food, the music, the design, the fashion, the little and big theater (like the Spanish National Ballet the other night), and the galleries that New Yorkers, Londoners, and Parisians think is their special province. It is true that we do not have the architecture of those cities (because the city was leveled during WW2, but we do have our own brand of patchy, quirky architecture and many world-class buildings are now being built).  We don't have political discussions in our cafes or little drinking places (because Japan has essentially no politics)--Tokyo  talk is a familiar tune hummed together, not a chess game. But we have here things the strident cities of the West don't  have because nobody abroad calls for them, like hand-carved toothpicks and a police box in every neighborhood to answer questions and give directions, that make Tokyo the city it is…