What Cow Books is known for
Cow Books is an independent bookshop that opened in September 2002 beside the Meguro river in Nakameguro. Its founders were book critic Yataro Matsuura and Setsumasa Kobayashi. The two thousand or so titles have no fixed genre and are chosen for what they stir in a reader, alongside vintage magazines and a small line of cow-logo goods. Coffee is served at a long wooden table under the statement Everything for the Freedom.
Cow Books opened on 14 September 2002 beside the Meguro river in Nakameguro, Tokyo. Its founders were the book critic Yataro Matsuura and Setsumasa Kobayashi of the neighbouring label General Research. Matsuura selects the stock, more than two thousand titles at any time, and the staff add their own voices to the choice. The shop has no fixed genre. It is built instead around books that stir something in the reader, from Beat Generation writers and photography anthologies to vintage magazines such as old copies of Brutus. Since opening it has carried the statement Everything for the Freedom. Before the shop existed the founders ran a travelling bookstore from a truck, an idea that survives as the occasional Traveling Cowbooks. Inside there is a long wooden table where customers read over coffee. Outside, wooden benches line the front of the shop and the river. A small line of original goods carries the cow logo. The shop still trades from 1-14-11 Aobadai in Meguro-ku, in the neighbourhood the founders already called home when they opened.
How ORBIS reads this city
Best for — Out-of-print books and vintage magazines, read over coffee by the Meguro river
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Where next
- Buchhandlung zum Wetzstein — Germany
- Cappelens Forslag — Oslo
- C. Hagelstam Antiquarian Bookstore — Helsinki
Hand-curated for ORBIS · no paid placement