Long-established Bookshop popular between Kyoto intellectuals

“A 30㎡ small bookstore has its own way to survive.”

It is very difficult to answer to the question, “what is this store expertized in?”

Kyoto-Syoinn, Shinshindo and Sawaya-Syobo – it was once known as unique bookstores located in a famous bookstore area between Kawaramachi street and Teramachi street. These 3 stores are already closed, but Sangatsu-Shobou established in 1950 is still in business on the Teramachi street.

It looks like a secondhand bookstore from the appearance, however, it is a bookstore selling new books. There are no fancy displays to show the book covers and everything is placed simply into bookshelves.

There are a broad range of genres – modern Tanka poetry, literature, paperbacks, sociology, etc… Tatsuo Shishido is the third generation owner of the store, keeping such a unique bookstore up and running.

Our strength is the narrow and deep bookshelves compared to Amazon

Most bookstores have very similar selections because they all tend to sell new published or popular books delivered from distributors.

However, Sangatsu-Shobou’s bookshelves look very different – books published a few years ago, books written by the leading experts, etc. The books are carefully and specially selected to be stocked there.

“I have a list of books that I won’t stock in my store. Study-aids, medical, nursing, engineering, computer, TV talent and TV related books, bestsellers, and books imitating bestsellers – which is about 90% of distributed books. It is said that minimum of 90㎡ is needed for a bookstore, but if you choose not to carry those 90%, 30㎡ is enough.”

Sangatsu-Shobou’s strength comes from Tatsuo’s elaborate research and the communication with the publishers. When a book is sold, he orders the author’s books from the past and bibliographies for further sales and all the information is shared as “sales report” to publishers.

“I’ve been aiming for the often overlooked area – like privately published books or books from small publishing companies – in the industry for over 30 years. Amazon has started to fill the gap from about 10 years ago, but since it is still a large mesh my store is still competitive. Amazon’s ‘Customers who bout this item also bought…’ is not perfect yet.”

Intellectuals of Kyoto – a never straightforward “yes” and “no” expressions

The bookshelves are arranged by the elimination method, following the “do not stock list” rather than “want to stock list”. There are many customers who are a fan of Tatsuo’s style of proposing a narrow but deep source of knowledge, leaving the space for customers to be able to discover through freely instead of being pushy. It is not difficult to find customers who have been coming to the store for over 10 years.

“It’s not that I stock my favorites, nor I read through all of them. So it is very difficult to answer to the question, ‘what is this store expertized in?’. If the customer wants a calligraphy book I would introduce Bunendou, if they need Buddhist or architecture books I would introduce another place. We are not expertized in anything.”

You will easily get lost if you try to understand Tatsuo’s story by the spoken words. The way he never simply says “yes” is just like the intellectuals of Kyoto – they are never straightforward. His “no” comes from the confidence in his knowledge and the strong intention to go against the ordinary publishing structure.

Sangatsu-Shobo is definitely one of the places representing the city of literati – Kyoto.