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Summary and Reviews of The Bookshop by Evan Friss

The Bookshop by Evan Friss

The Bookshop

A History of the American Bookstore

by Evan Friss
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  • Aug 6, 2024, 416 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

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 reading to understand how these vital institutions have shaped American life—and why we still need them.

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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

The Bookshop is utterly charming, and Friss's love for his subject is evident on every page. What makes it really work, though, is that his emphasis isn't on the actual shops; he highlights the people that took a leap of faith to create these remarkable establishments. Each one comes across as passionate about their field (Ann Patchett, he notes, didn't plan to make a profit when she opened her bookstore — "It was more about protecting an endangered species" — i.e., the indie bookstore). They're people who cared about creating safe spaces for others to meet and discuss ideas as well as a place to purchase books. Under the author's venerating pen, each one is heroic...continued

Full Review Members Only (782 words)

(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).

Media Reviews

BookPage
[An] entertaining romp through history... . More than anything, Friss is a storyteller. Each chapter introduces us to fascinating, dedi­cated booksellers.

New York Times
Browsing is a pleasure in this history of the bookstore ... A spirited defense of this important, odd and odds-defying American retail category.

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

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Marvelous... . The Bookshop is a paean to those magical places and is a must-read to understand why bookshops have been such an integral part of American life for so long, and why they—even in an age of social media—remain an 'influencer' today.

Town and Country
If you love books, and bookstores, you're absolutely going to love Evan Friss's The Bookshop.

Lit Hub
Attentive and thoughtful... . Evan Friss is the companionable guide we all deserve on this trip to bookstores throughout time, offering a treasure trove of information and anecdotes, and bittersweetly reminding us all how important these institutions are, how necessary to our culture and communities and how we must do everything in our power to protect them.

Shelf Awareness
The Bookshop argues persuasively that not only are these institutions a crucial part of U.S. social and political history, but that they are also worth fighting for in the face of a new generation of technological and financial threats.

Washington Post
Serious browsers will love this history of American bookstores ... both entertaining and informative.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Eye-opening... . A thoroughly engaging, delightful excursion into the wondrous world of books.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)
[A]n entrancing deep dive into the book industry, reports of whose death have been greatly exaggerated.

Author Blurb Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author and owner of Books Are Magic
Bookstores are such idiosyncratic expressions of the humans who run them, and it is a delight to wander through the bookstores of American history in this warm, generous book. I find myself in excellent company amongst the featured booksellers—all fully dedicated, driven by passion, and slightly mad. It's a wonderful business we're in.

Author Blurb Glenn Adamson, author of Craft: An American History
Is there anything better than a bookshop? Perhaps, just perhaps, a book about bookshops. This is what Evan Friss has given us, and like its subject, it is a portal to endless discovery. The histories and personalities, the challenges and pleasures, everything happening behind the scenes—all come alive in his marvelous account.

Author Blurb Paul Yamazaki, City Lights Bookseller and Publisher
This bookseller read Evan Friss's The Bookshop with the greatest delight. Friss's history of the independent bookshop in the United states is very much like his subject—deeply authoritative, very personal, and very engaging.

Author Blurb Stephen Sparks, owner of Point Reyes Books
Evan Friss has written a charming, deeply researched history of the understated but vital role that booksellers have played in forging the American identity. Rich in incident and richer in the colorful characters who have sold—or tried to sell—books to a reliably intractable public from the days of the Old Corner Bookstore till today, The Bookshop is an absolute delight.

Reader Reviews

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Beyond the Book



The Women's National Book Association

Black and white photo of Madge Jenison sitting at a table in her bookstore readingIn The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore, Evan Friss talks about one of the few women in the book trade in the early 20th century: Madge Jenison, who opened The Sunwise Turn bookshop in Manhattan in 1916. A year later, she joined 20,000 other women in a protest for women's suffrage, marching with her fellow female booksellers. "The contingent was small," the author writes, "in part because there weren't many of them and in part because they weren't well connected. Membership in the American Booksellers Association was all male…" This inspired the women to create the Women's National Book Association (WNBA), a group still active today.

Thirty-five women in the book trade were invited to the first meeting, on October 29, ...

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Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

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