Where to buy Japanese pattern books? (& see my collection!)

Dear mine, I didn’t notice that I have such a great collection of Japanese books.

It’s funny, I don’t know how to read Japanese, but, I can somehow recognize some Kanji , because they are mainly derived from Chinese.

Moreover, Japanese knitting and crocheting patterns aren’t that hard to understand.
we have a good helper : ABCs of knitting

And actually, when you look up the pattern inside, you can see diagrams more than words, so , even though you don’t understand Japanese, it’s fine, you can read the diagram. And no guessing is needed, because in the ABSs of knitting site, they also provide the meaning of the knitting symbols.

But why I bought them? and where did I buy them?

REASON: their patterns are great, beautiful and very neat!!
WHERE TO BUY: unfortunately, I can’t find any bookstore in Toronto that sells Japanese Knitting books, but, those knitters who live in San Francisco are really lucky, because I knew that there is a Japan Town in the city, and of course, they have a bookstore over there. You can simply buy the books from the bookstore. There are few more Japanese bookstore in the States:1) http://www.kinokuniya.com/

2) http://www.sasugabooks.com/

If you are living in the States, the shipping is much cheaper than those who live somewhere else.
So, if you are not living in the States, you can go to Amazon.co.jp to find the books that you want. However, even though it says that you can switch the site to ENGLISH, they don’t have translation on books’ title and content. So , that means you have to guess what’s inside from their covers.

I sometimes buy the books from Amazon, I love their service, they use DHL for delivery, although it’s quite expensive, but it’s safe!

If you know how to read CHINESE, there is another good bookstore site for you to think about it:

博客來 books.com

(This site is operated by Taiwanese)

When I knew that they carry Japanese books, I wanted to SCREAM out, because they are actually selling a better price than AMazon, because if you calculate the shipping cost, they cost you less.

However, they don’t have “ENGLISH” version for the website.

Another site that I did buy the books once is : Yesasia.com
Their shipping cost is less for North Amercians, however, they don’t carry too many Japanese craft books, but still good to take a look of them if you are curious.

I think I really put lots of useful information on where to buy Japanese books, are you being tempted to visit those websites and treat some for yourself?

here are the books that I already own: (knitting books)

(if you click the picture above, it will link to my flickr site, and you will see a long number above the picture, that’s the ISBN number of the book. It’s for you convenience to enter the ISBN number for searching purpose in the bookstore sites. )

Tags: amazon, japanese, Japanese knitting, online store, pattern books, YesAsia