
The Bookshop
A History of the American Bookstore
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Narrated by:
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Jay Myers
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By:
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Evan Friss
About this listen
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 reading to understand how these vital institutions have shaped American life—and why we still need them.
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Reads like fiction!
- By Leslie on 10-05-24
By: Ashley Spencer
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The Editor
- How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America
- By: Sara B. Franklin
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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When twenty-five-year-old Judith Jones began working as a secretary at Doubleday’s Paris office in 1949, she spent most of her time wading through manuscripts in the slush pile and passing on projects—until one day, a book caught her eye. She read it in one sitting, then begged her boss to consider publishing it. A year later, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl became a bestseller. It was the start of a culture-defining career in publishing. Legendary editor Judith Jones finally gets her due in this intimate biography.
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Gorgeous writing, perfect reader
- By Erin on 06-11-24
By: Sara B. Franklin
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How the Light Gets In
- A Novel
- By: Joyce Maynard
- Narrated by: Joyce Maynard
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Following the death of her former husband, Cam, fifty-four-year-old Eleanor has moved back to the New Hampshire farm where they raised three children to care for their brain-injured son, Toby, now an adult. Toby’s older brother, Al, is married and living in Seattle with his wife; their sister, Ursula, lives in Vermont with her husband and two children. Although all appears stable, old resentments, anger, and bitterness simmer just beneath the surface. How the Light Gets In follows Eleanor and her family through fifteen years (2010 to 2024).
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The story was heartbreaking, but the politics were much too woke.
- By Josh on 05-08-25
By: Joyce Maynard
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Papyrus
- The Invention of Books in the Ancient World
- By: Irene Vallejo, Charlotte Whittle - translator
- Narrated by: Sophie Roberts
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Long before books were mass-produced, hand-copied scrolls made from Nile River reeds were the treasures of the ancient world. Emperors and pharaohs, determined to possess them, dispatched emissaries to the edges of the known world to bring them back. Exploring the deep and fascinating history of the written word, from the oral tradition to scrolls to codices, internationally bestselling author Irene Vallejo shows that books have always been a precious and precarious vehicle for civilization.
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Great read
- By Hunter Pechin on 12-15-22
By: Irene Vallejo, and others
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Fair Play
- A Novel
- By: Louise Hegarty
- Narrated by: Andrew Wincott, Aoife McMahon
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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A group of friends gather at an Airbnb on New Year’s Eve. It is Benjamin’s birthday, and his sister Abigail is throwing him a jazz-age Murder Mystery themed party. As the night plays out, champagne is drunk, hors d’oeuvres consumed, and relationships forged, consolidated or frayed. Someone kisses the wrong person; someone else’s heart is broken. In the morning, all of them wake up—except Benjamin. As Abigail attempts to wrap her mind around her brother’s death, an eminent detective arrives determined to find Benjamin's killer.
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Can’t believe I spent my credit on this
- By Tess on 05-15-25
By: Louise Hegarty
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Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop
- By: Hwang Bo-reum, Shanna Tan - translator
- Narrated by: Rosa Escoda
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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Yeongju did everything she was supposed to, go to university, marry a decent man, get a respectable job. Then it all fell apart. Burned out, Yeongju abandons her old life, quits her high-flying career, divorces her husband, and follows her dream. She opens a bookshop. In a quaint neighbourhood in Seoul, surrounded by books, Yeongju and her customers take refuge. From the lonely barista to the unhappily married housewife, and the writer who sees something special in Yeongju - they all have disappointments in their past.
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cozy contemplations on life
- By brittany on 02-22-24
By: Hwang Bo-reum, and others
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Anita de Monte Laughs Last
- A Novel
- By: Xochitl Gonzalez
- Narrated by: Jessica Pimentel, Jonathan Gregg, Stacy Gonzalez
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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1985. Anita de Monte, a rising star in the art world, is found dead in New York City; her tragic death is the talk of the town. Until it isn’t. By 1998 Anita’s name has been all but forgotten—certainly by the time Raquel, a third-year art history student is preparing her final thesis. On College Hill, surrounded by privileged students whose futures are already paved out for them, Raquel feels like an outsider. Students of color, like her, are the minority there, and the pressure to work twice as hard for the same opportunities is no secret.
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Thoroughly enjoyed every minute of this book.
- By Ulissa on 03-14-24
By: Xochitl Gonzalez
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How to End a Love Story
- A Novel
- By: Yulin Kuang
- Narrated by: Katharine Chin, Andrew Eiden
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Helen Zhang hasn’t seen Grant Shepard once in the thirteen years since the tragic accident that bound their lives together forever. Now a bestselling author, Helen pours everything into her career. She’s even scored a coveted spot in the writers’ room of the TV adaptation of her popular young adult novels, and if she can hide her imposter syndrome and overcome her writer’s block, surely the rest of her life will fall into place too. LA is the fresh start she needs. After all, no one knows her there. Except…
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very good story
- By Jessi Johnson on 06-01-24
By: Yulin Kuang
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The Extinction of Experience
- Being Human in a Disembodied World
- By: Christine Rosen
- Narrated by: Suzie Althens
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Extinction of Experience, Christine Rosen investigates the cultural and emotional shifts that accompany our embrace of technology. In warm, philosophical prose, Rosen reveals key human experiences at risk of going extinct, including face-to-face communication, sense of place, authentic emotion, and even boredom. Considering cultural trends, like TikTok challenges and mukbang, and politically unsettling phenomena, like sociometric trackers and online conspiracy culture, Rosen exposes an unprecedented shift in the human condition, one that habituates us to alienation and control.
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Terrible robotic narration
- By Anonymous User on 11-06-24
By: Christine Rosen
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The Ministry of Time
- A Novel
- By: Kaliane Bradley
- Narrated by: George Weightman, Katie Leung
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.
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More than the sum of its parts but…
- By L. Williams on 05-17-24
By: Kaliane Bradley
A very well-researched cultural history presented with humor and lack of pomposity.
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Fun if you like book stuff
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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.
Final chapter is worth the price of admission 📚📚📚
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research and information about book shops’ history
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Bibliophiles rejoice!!!
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I never knew
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Fascinating History of American Bookstores
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I like first half not so much second
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