The Bookshop

A History of the American Bookstore

By: Evan Friss

Narrated by: Jay Myers

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Goodreads Choice Award Winner in History & Biography

One of Time’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2024

"A spirited defense of this important, odd and odds-defying American retail category."—The New York Times

"It is a delight to wander through the bookstores of American history in this warm, generous book."—Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author and owner of Books Are Magic

An affectionate and engaging history of the American bookstore and its central place in American cultural life, from department stores to indies, from highbrow dealers trading in first editions to sidewalk vendors, and from chains to special-interest community destinations

Bookstores have always been unlike any other kind of store, shaping readers and writers, and influencing our tastes, thoughts, and politics. They nurture local communities while creating new ones of their own. Bookshops are powerful spaces, but they are also endangered ones. In The Bookshop, we see the stakes: what has been, and what might be lost.

Evan Friss’s history of the bookshop draws on oral histories, archival collections, municipal records, diaries, letters, and interviews with leading booksellers to offer a fascinating look at this institution beloved by so many. The story begins with Benjamin Franklin’s first bookstore in Philadelphia and takes us to a range of booksellers including the Strand, Chicago’s Marshall Field & Company, the Gotham Book Mart, specialty stores like Oscar Wilde and Drum and Spear, sidewalk sellers of used books, Barnes & Noble, Amazon Books, and Parnassus. The Bookshop is also a history of the leading figures in American bookselling, often impassioned eccentrics, and a history of how books have been marketed and sold over the course of more than two centuries—including, for example, a 3,000-pound elephant who signed books at Marshall Field’s in 1944.

The Bookshop is a love letter to bookstores, a charming chronicle for anyone who cherishes these sanctuaries of literature, and essential listening to understand how these vital institutions have shaped American life—and why we still need them.

©2024 Evan Friss (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“A pleasure. . . . A spirited defense of this important, odd and odds-defying American retail category."—The New York Times

"Serious browsers will love this history of American bookstores . . . . Lively. . . . [Friss] has produced a work of popular history that is both entertaining and informative.”—The Washington Post

"Fascinating. . . . A heartfelt, essential love letter to the literary sanctuary of bookstores and the people who run them."—People magazine, "Book of the Week"

Fun if you like book stuff

Well organised and good snapshots of the evolving book trade. Neat anecdotes and stories that kept the story moving along

A very well-researched cultural history presented with humor and lack of pomposity.

Though they are certainly part of the story, the chapters on ideological and movement bookstores stand apart from the main story of where general readers in America buy books.

Final chapter is worth the price of admission 📚📚📚

This book really does cover the history of American bookstores, starting way back in the 1700's with folks like Benjamin Franklin. For me the book got a whole lot more interesting once it got to the 1920s and forward. There were some truly groundbreaking bookstores, and groundbreaking female booksellers, that changed the industry starting in that era, and continuing for decades.

Which brings us to the last chapter in the book which is dedicated to Parnassus Books, and it's extraordinary owner, Ann Patchett. She's not the first successful author to open a bookstore, but she really stands out from the pack. Not only is her store wildly successful, and her staff happy and well paid, but Ms Patchett dedicates a lot of her time promoting other authors, and other independent bookstores, elevating the success of the entire industry in the process. Lots of authors own bookstores now, the final chapter in this book show you how Ann Patchett did it, and when, and why, it makes for great reading.

If you have interest she also has a YouTube channel and every Tuesday Ann and three of her staff, and her dog Nemo, film something called The Laydown Diaries in the store, to let people know about what new books are dropping. I never miss it.

research and information about book shops’ history

I was totally captivated by the history of book shops! So much learned and shared. I’m impressed by the detailed research on the history of book selling.

Bibliophiles rejoice!!!

A book about Bookstores. What’s not to like?! From Franklins bookstore prior to the American revolution to Parnassus books in Nashville in 2011.

Fascinating History of American Bookstores

This is history through a sociological lens and vice versa. The book accentuates bookshops’ roles in not only enriching communities but also building them.

I never knew

What a fantastic book. So much history lies (unknown by many) about bookshops and those who ran them and why they opened them. Very eye opening, educational and fun.

I like first half not so much second

I really enjoyed the first half the second half was very liberal and very one-sided. That’s why I only gave it three stars.