From Harbor Warehouses to an Attic of Used Books: A Bookstore Tour of Takamatsu
Among travelers bound for Japan, one city keeps coming up in conversation lately: Takamatsu, the capital of Kagawa Prefecture on the island of Shikoku. Takamatsu is best known as Japan's udon capital, and plenty of visitors come for nothing more than a bowl-by-bowl tour of its noodle shops. Others use it as a launching point for the small islands of the Seto Inland Sea. Yet there is another way to know this city, one that has little to do with noodles or ferries. Takamatsu rewards the traveler who walks it by way of its bookstores. In this column, this writer introduces three of them: Umie (ウミエ), a book café that looks out over the sea; Lunuganga Books (本屋ルヌガンガ), a neighborhood bookstore shaped by the discerning eye of its owners; and Natasyo (なタ書), a secondhand bookstore that opens its doors by reservation only.
Umie Offers the Sea and a Shelf of Books in a Former Grain Warehouse
The first stop is Umie, a book café tucked inside Kitahama Alley (北浜alley). Kitahama Alley is a cluster of harborside grain warehouses, built in the early Showa era (the late 1920s and 1930s), that have been renovated into a small hub for shops and culture. The bones and weathered character of the old buildings remain intact. Today they house cafés, a gallery, a bar, a hair salon, and interior design shops.
Umie sits on the second floor of one of these buildings. The way up is lined with retro odds and ends, so the atmosphere of the old warehouse district carries straight through into the café. Step inside and a spread of magazines and books greets you at the entrance. More books are scattered throughout the room, so that somewhere between sips you find yourself opening one.
Umie's greatest charm is the sea, which fills the front windows in a single sweeping view. Take a seat by the window and you can sip a drink, watch the water, and linger over a book for as long as you like. For anyone who wants Takamatsu's sea and a good book in the same place, Umie is the ideal place to begin.
Umie · 3-2 Kitahamacho, Takamatsu, Kagawa 760-0031 일본
★★★★☆ · 카페
www.google.co.kr
Lunuganga Books Shows Where the Neighborhood Bookstore Is Headed
Anyone who loves independent bookstores knows the particular atmosphere they carry. In Takamatsu, that spirit is fully alive at Lunuganga Books. Yusuke and Ryoko Nakamura, a husband-and-wife team who both once worked as booksellers, opened the shop in 2017 with the aim of building what they call "the neighborhood bookstore of the future." The name itself invites curiosity. Lunuganga is also the name of the country estate and garden cultivated by the Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa.
The defining feature of Lunuganga Books is one it shares with the best independent shops everywhere: the owners choose every title themselves. Japanese bookstores commonly rely on distributors to decide what arrives on their shelves. The Nakamuras skip that system and select and order their own stock. As a result, the shelves are anchored not by buzzy new releases or bestsellers but by books the owners have personally curated. The main sections cover literature, the humanities, everyday living, and picture books.
For visitors who don't read Japanese fluently, picture books are the section this writer especially recommends. They are written in relatively simple Japanese, and the illustrations alone carry much of the story. More than that, a book encountered through images offers a different kind of pleasure from one encountered through words. Lunuganga is a lovely place to rediscover the world of picture books after years away.
The warmth of the space is as memorable as the curation. A red-toned brick facade and potted plants at the entrance greet visitors first, and that warmth carries unbroken into the shop. At the very back, a reading nook invites you to sit down with a book you've just bought and read for a while before moving on. Lunuganga Books shows what a neighborhood bookstore can and should be.
Lunuganga · 11-13 Kameicho, Takamatsu, Kagawa 760-0050 일본
★★★★★ · 서점
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Natasyo Gives Each Guest an Attic of Used Books All to Themselves
Walk through Takamatsu's covered shopping arcades and you will come across secondhand bookstores large and small without much effort. Among them, Natasyo draws book lovers from across Japan and beyond. Even its name is unusual. It weaves the three scripts of written Japanese into a single playful word: the hiragana な (na), the katakana タ (ta), and the kanji 書 (sho, meaning "book" or “writing").
Natasyo's most distinctive feature is that it operates by reservation only. This writer booked by email before visiting. For the length of your reservation, the entire shop is yours to browse. If you wish, the owner is glad to talk, whether about the neighborhoods of Takamatsu or whatever else comes up. During this writer's visit, the conversation yielded a list of other bookstores around the city worth seeking out.
What leaves the deepest impression is the space itself. The owner renovated the interior of an old building by hand, creating a world entirely unlike its modest exterior. Stepping inside feels like entering the used bookstore of a Studio Ghibli film, or an attic crammed with books. The interior is divided into several small rooms and corners, so every few steps bring a new mood. That singular space has lately made the shop a sought-after filming location as well.
The shelves range across art, thought, and philosophy, along with practical guides and children's books, so there is something to discover in nearly every genre. As with any secondhand shop, condition varies from book to book. A few practical notes are worth knowing before you go. At the time of this writer's visit, guests who browsed without buying paid a space fee. For those who bought, the fee was built into the price, so even a used book cost about the same as a new copy. Even so, if you want to experience a truly one-of-a-kind secondhand bookstore with the feel of a Ghibli film, Natasyo is a must.
なタ書 · 2-chome-9-7 Kawaramachi, Takamatsu, Kagawa 760-0052 일본
★★★★☆ · 중고 서점
www.google.co.kr
Takamatsu Is a City to Travel by Book, Beyond Udon and Islands
Mention Takamatsu and most people picture a destination for sampling every style of udon, or a base for hopping between the surrounding islands. Takamatsu is indeed the home of udon and a gateway to the islands. Yet it is just as much a city where book cafés, neighborhood bookstores, and secondhand shops, each with a character of its own, put a remarkable range of books within reach. For readers who count a good bookstore among the quiet gifts of common grace, and who want their travels through small-town Japan to feed the mind as well as the appetite, Takamatsu deserves a place on the itinerary for the next trip.
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