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A History of the American Bookstore
by Evan Friss
Book Reviewed by: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.
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
(782 words)
(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).
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. 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. 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. 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.
In 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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These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves
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