Tokyo New City Guide (ISBN 0804819645)

The most useful guide to Tokyo:
This book made our trip to Tokyo very memorable and enjoyable. The history portion written of each district helped us appreciate Tokyo, the maps were very useful and helped us find some very out of the way places. The fact that they included place names in English AND Japanese characters was extremely helpful in practically locating places (most places in Japan are not labelled in English as most guidebooks are). The restaurant recommendations were very good and reliable. A must buy for Tokyo travellers.

Very useful....however.....:
The choice of stores are great and descriptions themselves are a fun read. The directions for finding locations are flawless. Maps in the back are extremely useful and prevented lots of unnecessary backtracking. A great book! Here are a few comments for the author and publisher - the book is heavy to carry around. I would split it into a 2 piece volume - sightseeing/shopping/neighborhoods and then arts/history/culture so then you only have a carry one at a time. Also the writing tends toward fairly dry - just the facts, ma'am. Although I guess dry and accurate is better than clever and shallow. Also, wish they would update the book more frequently - I have bought 2 editions now and for a city like Tokyo, you really need a new edition every 5 years or even less.

Info Outdated!:
The information is not current, 1996! Some of the places that they have recommended are no longer around. I also did not like the lay out of the infomation. I just got back from visiting Tokyo yesterday.

THE Tokyo guide book:
This is one of the most complete and easy to use guidebooks for Tokyo. Whether you are going to Tokyo for an extended stay, a vacation, or a quick business trip, this should be the first book you buy and the one you take with you. It is packed with accurate, practical information and a number of pleasant surprises.

Excellent guide book:
On several trips to Japan between 1990 and 2001, this guidebook (and it's first edition) is the guidebook I found to be most useful, most complete, and still small enough to carry around. The current edition is from 1996 and no doubt is a bit out of date. However, it still served me well in 2001.