By John Siefer
In the United States, there are quite literally thousands of places to buy books. The stores themselves have as much variety as the books they sell. You can find bookstores on just about every corner of the major US cities, and almost every smaller town has at least one place to buy books in their community.
There are even specialty bookstores that cater to certain types of reading materials or subject themes, such as English language learning. If that weren’t enough, there are also all the online bookstores available to order books from. You don’t even have to leave the comfort of your own home to build your personal book collection.
Generally, the bigger chains of bookstores sell newer books. Recent bestsellers, popular authors, and all major genres of books can be found in these American bookstores. Most of the major bookstore chains in the USA began as physical bookstores and have grown into having a large online presence.
Barnes & Nobel (http://www.barnesandnoble.com) has been one of the largest book stores in the USA. If it is a book that has been written in the past few years, or is a classic, you were most likely find it here. There has been a Barnes & Nobel bookstore in a large percentage of malls in the USA for years, where you could walk in and browse their collection of books, with friendly staff more than willing to help you find and order a book if they don’t carry it in-store. B Dalton Booksellers was acquired by Barnes & Nobel in 1987, adding their mall presence to that of the already existing Barnes & Nobel market. But in mid-2010, Barnes & Nobel put itself up for sale after big retailers such as Wal-Mart took a lot of Barnes & Nobel’s share of physical book sales. Barnes & Nobel has also been fending off competition from electronic books sold by Amazon.com (and more recently Apple).
Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com) has ventured into the physical book sales business also, although they maintain mainly an online presence. At Amazon.com, you can find most recent books, as well as bestsellers and classics, at affordable prices. Amazon.com ship directly to your home. Amazon.com is also one of the leading vendors for the Kindle, an electronic book reader. With the Kindle, and the electronic format books (ebooks) that you can purchase from Amazon.com, you can buy a new book from the store from the comfort of your own home, and begin reading it in seconds. Ebooks don’t take up any physical space, so you can have as many as you want in your small bedroom without having it look like a library.
A unique book shopping experience is in Portland, Oregon. Powell’s Books (http://www.powells.com) is a large bookstore on Powell Street in the heart of Portland, and also maintains a large web presence for its online book sales. Walking into Powell’s is like walking into a library where all of the books are for sale. They have several sections, which include new books and bestsellers, of course. Powell’s Books also pride themselves in their collection of out-of-print books, as well as their selection of used books. In the back part of the store there is a room where you can buy a cup of coffee, sit down, and enjoy reading most of the books they have on their shelves. You get a chance to see if the book you are looking at is going to be interesting enough to warrant purchasing it, or if you should look for another book to buy. One of the subsections of Powell’s Books is their technical bookstore. Here, you can find a huge collection of books devoted to technology, focusing mainly on today’s Internet technology.
Reading begins when you are young. In an effort to help promote good reading habits, many toy stores, such as KB Toys (http://www.kbtoys.com) and Toys R Us (http://www.toysrus.com), are stocking books in their inventory. You can find books geared toward the younger generation of readers here. Anything from fuzzy pop-up books and “Little Golden Books” for the toddler to books aimed at older teenagers can be found in the book section of your favorite toy store. Toy stores also have a good selection of educational books to help your child excel in school, or even learn things that aren’t generally taught in schools today.
Even in the grocery stores in the United States, you can find a book section. Stores such as Safeway (http://www.safeway.com), Albertsons (http://www.albertsons.com), and Fred Meyer (http://www.fredmeyer.com), have a section devoted to some of the most recent books written in each of the major fiction genres, usually the top 10 bestsellers, and even a small selection of non-fiction books. They are geared toward the quick shopper, who might see something that interests them in passing, but not necessarily for the book browser.
One of the more interesting places to buy books in America is the corner newsstand. In major cities like New York and Los Angeles, you can find a selection of popular books sold in corner newsstands and even convenience stores. They cater to the bestsellers, and books that are immensely popular at the moment. These stores are for the walker who may want to pick up a quick book or fun read to read in the park, or for the hurried business man who picks up a book to read through during breaks at work, or for the last-minute book for Christmas or book for Fathers Day. Besides the bestsellers, you can find some relatively obscure books at these venues. You might find here an interesting author that you wouldn’t ordinarily read.
For the traveler, there are places set aside especially for you. Most people, preparing for a trip, tend to have all of that last-minute packing. Knowing that they are going to be taking a 3-hour flight, or a train trip of several days, they know they are going to need something to keep them occupied, such as a good book, but forget to throw it in their bags due to all of the stress of getting ready. In most travel centers in America, such as airports, train stations, and bus stations, you can find a small store that sells those items that many travelers forget to pack, such as toothpaste, shampoo, and yes, books. Although they generally don’t have a large selection of books to choose from, they do have some popular authors as well as a few books that aren’t as well-known. This is another good venue to find books that you wouldn’t normally think of buying for yourself when you go shopping for books.
America is the world leader in Capitalism. Taking a close look at the consumables of Americans, perhaps no business illustrates this more than the bookseller. Located everywhere from small stores on the street corner to stores that do a huge multi-million-dollar-a-year business, you won’t run into any difficulty finding books in the United States. No matter what your reading style, fiction or non-fiction, bestsellers or obscure titles, hardback books or paperback books, you can find a store in the United States that will help you acquire the reading material that satisfies your tastes.
This brief list has only touched the tip of the iceberg of bookstores in America. Just look around to see any of the thousands of places in America to buy books, pick up a book that appeals to you, and curl up and enjoy!