My Ten All-Time Favorite Books

May 14, 2014 · by Susan Diffenderfer | in The Necessity of Reading | tagged book galleys, Bookseller, children's books, Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, Eloise by Kay Thompson, favorite book list, lifelong reader, Little Women by Louise May Alcott, Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, Nazis in Amsterdam, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone, The Diary of Anne Frank, the Secret Annex, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott | 18 Comments

Receiving this post via email? Please click on the title to read it in your browser. Thinking back over the (many) decades of my reading life, I decided it might be fun to take a look at my reading history and compile a list of favorite books. As my average number of books per year […]

‘Just Can’t Wait to Get on the Road Again’: Book Distribution in the U.S., Part 2

March 12, 2014 · by JS Epstein | in The Story of Books | tagged 19th Century US Population Growth, 19th Century US Urban Migration, book distribution, Book Jobber, Book Trade Shows, Bookseller, History of Book Publishing, Media Mail, Steam Engine, System of Railways, US Industrial Age, US Post Office, Wells Fargo | 2 Comments

The first installment on U.S. book distribution examined early methods for book sales and delivery, including traveling peddlers to rural areas and stationary peddlers in metropolises. With the advent of steam-powered transportation, the book distribution network in the U.S. was about to undergo its first major shift. What follows is an introduction to the impact […]