Bookshop

Scholar of American and urban history Evan Friss guides audiences through a chronicle of the bookshop in New York and across the country, illuminating how these vital institutions have shaped American life. Drawing on oral histories, archival collections, municipal records, diaries, letters, and interviews with leading booksellers, Friss offers an engaging look at this institution over time, from Benjamin Franklin’s first bookstore to local gems like The Strand and Gotham Book Mart, specialty stores like Oscar Wilde and Drum and Spear, sidewalk sellers of used books, national conglomerates like Barnes & Noble, the rise of e-tailers like Amazon Books, and more. Friss shares stories 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.

Evan Friss is a Professor of History at James Madison University. Publications include The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore; The Cycling City: Bicycles and Urban America in the 1890s; and On Bicycles: A 200-Year History of Cycling in New York City.