Shakespeare and Company, an English-language bookshop in Paris

Bookselling is the commercial trading of books, the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers or bookmen.

Bookstores today[link]

A bookshop in Bormio, Italy

Bookstores may be either part of a chain, or local independent bookstores.

Bookstores can range in size offering from several hundred to several hundred thousands of titles. They may be brick-and-mortar stores or internet only stores or a combination of both. Sizes for the larger bookstores exceed half a million titles.

Bookstores often sell other printed matter besides books, such as newspapers, magazines and maps; additional product lines may vary enormously, particularly among independent bookstores. Colleges and universities often have their own student bookstore on campus that focuses on providing course textbooks and scholarly books, although some on-campus bookstores are owned by large chains such as WHSmith or Waterstone's in the United Kingdom, or Barnes & Noble College Booksellers in the United States, which is a private firm controlled by the chair of Barnes & Noble.

Another common type of bookstore is the used bookstore or second-hand bookshop which buys and sells used and out-of-print books in a variety of conditions.^[1][2] A range of titles are available in used bookstores, including in print and out of print books. Book collectors tend to frequent used book stores. Large online bookstores offer used books for sale, too. Individuals wishing to sell their used books using online bookstores agree to terms outlined by the bookstore(s): for example, paying the online bookstore(s) a predetermined commission once the books have sold.

History[link]

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Bookshop in Much Wenlock, UK.

Greek and Roman booksellers[link]

In the book of Jeremiah the prophet is represented as dictating to Baruch the scribe, who described the mode in which his book was written. These scribes were the earliest booksellers, and supplied copies as they were demanded. Aristotle possessed a somewhat extensive library, and Plato is recorded to have paid the large sum of one hundred minae for three small treatises of Philolaus the Pythagorean. When the Alexandrian library was founded about 300 B.C., various expedients were used for the purpose of procuring books, and this appears to have stimulated the energies of the Athenian booksellers. In Rome, toward the end of the republic, it became the fashion to have a library as part of the household furniture. Roman booksellers carried on a flourishing trade. Their shops (taberna librarii) were chiefly in the Argiletum, and in the Vicus Sandalarius. On the door, or on the side posts, was a list of the books on sale; and Martial, who mentions this also, says that a copy of his First Book of Epigrams might be purchased for five denarii. In the time of Augustus the great booksellers were the Sosii. According to Justinian, a law was passed granting to the scribes the ownership of the material written; this may be the beginnings of the modern law of copyright.

Islamic bookshops[link]

The high degree of learning and scholarship in the medieval Islamic world, particularly during the Abbasid Caliphate in the east and Caliphate of Córdoba in the west, encouraged the development of bookshops, copyists, and book dealers across the entire Muslim world, in Islāmic cities such as Damascus, Baghdad, and Córdoba. According to Encyclopædia Britannica:

Christianity[link]

The spread of Christianity naturally created a great demand for copies of the Gospels, other sacred books, and later on for missals and other devotional volumes for both church and private use. Before the Reformation and the introduction of printing, scribes and stationers who sold books formed guilds. Some of these stationers had stations built against the walls of cathedrals. Besides the sworn stationers there were many booksellers in Oxford who were not sworn; for one of the statutes, passed in 1373, expressly states that, in consequence of their presence,

Modern bookselling[link]

Librería San Ginés in Madrid (Spain)

The modern system of bookselling dates from soon after the introduction of printing. The earliest printers were also editors and booksellers; but being unable to sell every copy of the works they printed, they had agents at most of the seats of learning, such as Antony Koburger, who introduced the art of printing into Nuremberg in 1470.

Bookstores are often found in transport facilities. Here in the train station in Metz, France.

The religious dissensions of the continent, and the Reformation in England under Henry VIII and Edward VI, created a great demand for books; but in England neither monarchs of the Tudor nor Stuart dynasties could easily tolerate a free press, and various efforts were made to curb it.

The first patent for the office of king's printer was granted to Thomas Berthelet by Henry VIII in 1529, but only such books as were first licensed were to be printed. At that time even the purchase or possession of an unlicensed book was a punishable offense. In 1556 the Company of Stationers was incorporated, and very extensive powers were granted in order that obnoxious books might be repressed. In the following reigns the Star Chamber exercised a rather effectual censorship; but, in spite of all precaution, such was the demand for books of a polemical nature, that many were printed abroad and surreptitiously introduced into England.

Queen Elizabeth interfered little with books except when they emanated from Roman Catholics, or touched upon her royal prerogatives; and towards the end of her reign, and during that of her successor, James, bookselling flourished. So much had bookselling increased during the Protectorate that, in 1658, was published A Catalogue of the most Vendible Books in England by W. London. A bad time immediately followed. Although there were provincial booksellers the centre of the trade was St. Paul's Churchyard. When the Great Fire of London began in 1666 the booksellers put most of their stock in the vaults of the church, where it was destroyed. The Restoration also restored the office of Licenser of the Press, which continued till 1694.

In the first copyright statute, the Statute of Anne (1709), which specially relates to booksellers, it is enacted that, if any person shall think the published price of a book unreasonably high, he may make a complaint to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and to certain other persons named, who shall examine his complaint, and if well founded reduce the price; and any bookseller charging more than the price so fixed shall be fined £5 for every copy sold. Apparently this enactment remained a dead letter.

Selling and publishing[link]

Books on a table in Borders (Georgia, USA)

For later times it is necessary to make a gradual distinction between booksellers, whose trade consists in selling books, either by retail or wholesale, and publishers, whose business involves the production of the books from the author's manuscripts, and who are the intermediaries between author and bookseller, just as the booksellers (in the restricted sense) are intermediaries between the author and publisher and the public. The convenience of this distinction is not impaired by the fact either that a publisher is also a wholesale bookseller, or that a still more recent development in publishing started a reaction to some extent in the way of amalgamating the two functions. The scheme of The Times Book Club (started in 1905) was, again, a combination of a subscription library with the business of bookselling and it brought the organization of a newspaper, with all its means of achieving publicity, into the work of promoting the sale of books, in a way which practically introduced a new factor into the bookselling business.

[edit] Specialty developments

Books in a Tokyo bookstore

During the 19th century it remains the fact that the distinction between publisher and bookseller—literary promoter and shopkeeper—became fundamental. The booksellers, as such, were engaged either in wholesale bookselling, or in the retail, the old or second-hand (now includes rare and very old books trade, called Antiquarian books), and the periodicals publishing or retailing trades.

Coming between the publisher and the retail bookseller is the important distributing agency of the wholesale bookseller. It is to him that the retailer looks for his miscellaneous supplies, as it is simply impossible for him to stock one-half of the books published. In Paternoster Row, London, which has for over a hundred years been the centre of this industry, may be seen the collectors from the shops of the retail booksellers, busily engaged in obtaining the books ordered by the book-buying public. It is also through these agencies that the country bookseller obtains his miscellaneous supplies. At the leading house in this department of bookselling almost any book can be found, or information obtained concerning it. At one of these establishments over 1,000,000 books are constantly kept in stock. It is here that the publisher calls first on showing or "subscribing" a new book, a critical process, for by the number thus subscribed the fate of a book is sometimes determined.

What may be termed the third partner in publishing and its ramification is the retail bookseller; and to protect his interests there was established in 1890 a London booksellers' society, which had for its object the restriction of discounts to 25%, and also to arrange prices generally and control all details connected with the trade. The society a few years afterwards widened its field of operations so as to include the whole of the United Kingdom, and its designation then became "The Associated Booksellers of Great Britain and Ireland."

Bookselling in the United States[link]

The Tattered Cover is a bookstore in Denver, Colorado, and one of the largest independent bookstores in the United States.

The history of bookselling in the United States is of special interest. The Spanish settlements drew away from the old country much of its enterprise and best talent, and the presses of Mexico and other cities teemed with publications mostly of a religious character, but many others, especially linguistic and historical, were also published. Bookselling in the United States was of a somewhat later growth, although printing was introduced into Boston as early as 1676, Philadelphia in 1685, and New York in 1693. Franklin had served to make the trade illustrious, yet few persons were engaged in it at the commencement of the 19th century. Books chiefly for scholars and libraries were imported from Europe; but after the second war printing-presses multiplied rapidly, and with the spread of newspapers and education there also arose a demand for books, and publishers set to work to secure the advantages offered by the wide field of English literature, the whole of which they had the liberty of reaping free of all cost beyond that of production. The works of Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Thomas Moore, Robert Southey, William Wordsworth, and indeed of every author of note, were reprinted without the smallest payment to author or proprietor. Half the names of the authors in the so-called "American" catalogue of books printed between 1820 and 1852 are British. By this means the works of the best authors were brought to the doors of all classes in the cheapest variety of forms. In consequence of the Civil War, the high price of labour, and the restrictive duties laid on in order to protect native industry, coupled with the frequent intercourse with England, a great change took place, and American publishers and booksellers, while there was still no international copyright, made liberal offers for early sheets of new publications. Boston, New York and Philadelphia still retained their old supremacy as bookselling centres. Meanwhile, the distinct publishing business also grew, until gradually the conditions of business became assimilated to those of Europe.

In the course of the 16th and 17th centuries the Low Countries for a time became the chief centre of the bookselling world, and many of the finest folios and quartos in our libraries bear the names of Jansen, Blauw or Plantin, with the imprint of Amsterdam, Utrecht, Leiden or Antwerp, while the Elzevirs besides other works produced their charming little pocket classics. The southern towns of Douai and Saint-Omer at the same time furnished polemical works in English.

See also[link]

Books portal

Look up bookstore or bookshop in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Bookstore tourism
• Book store shoplifting
• Books and publishing in Pakistan
• History of the book
• Independent bookstore
• List of bookstore chains
• Publishing

References[link]

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bookselling". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bookselling

• Forbes article on book collectors by Finn-Olaf Jones, December 12, 2005
• The International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB)
• The Independent Online Booksellers Association (IOBA)

Jane Lynch
Lynch in 2008
Born	Jane Marie Lynch (1960-07-14) July 14, 1960 (age 51) Dolton, Illinois, U.S.
Residence	Los Angeles, California
Education	Thornridge High School
Alma mater	Illinois State University Cornell University
Occupation	Actress, comedian, singer, author
Years active	1981–present
Home town	Chicago, Illinois
Television	Two and a Half Men Glee The L Word iCarly
Spouse	Dr. Lara Embry (2010)[1][2]

Jane Marie Lynch (born July 14, 1960) is an American actress, comedian, and singer. She obtained a Golden Globe Award, Emmy Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, People's Choice Award, and Satellite Award. Lynch also received the First Annual PlanetOut.com Short Movie Award, Florida Film Critics Circle Award, and Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival Jury Award. She is open about her lesbianism; in 2005, Lynch was named one of POWER UP's "10 Amazing Gay Women in Showbiz".

She gained fame in Christopher Guest's improv mockumentary pictures such as Best in Show^[3][4] and is currently known for playing the role of Sue Sylvester in the Fox musical comedy series Glee for which she has won both the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film.^[3][5] Other notable awards she has won for the series include the People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Comedy Actress, Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series. Her television cameos include an appearance in the Nickelodeon situation comedy iCarly and the Showtime dark comedy series Weeds. Lynch had a recurring role in the Fox situation comedy Two and a Half Men and also has had notable roles in numerous mainstream comedies, such as Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Role Models, and The Three Stooges.

In 2010, Lynch married clinical psychologist Lara Embry, Ph.D., who has two daughters: Haden and Chase, aged eight and ten respectively.^[6]

Early life[link]

Lynch was born and raised in Dolton, Illinois, the daughter of a homemaker-secretary mother, Eileen (née Carney), and a banker father, Frank Lynch.^[7][8][9] Her father was of Irish descent and her mother was of Irish and Swedish ancestry.^[10] She was raised in a Catholic family and attended Thornridge High School.^[7] She received her bachelor's degree in theater from Illinois State University and her MFA in theater from Cornell University.

Career[link]

Early work[link]

Lynch spent fifteen years in Chicago, acting in the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and, at the time of her audition, was one of only two women picked to join The Second City comedy troupe.^[7][11] She then continued to hone her comical and improvisational skills at Annoyance Theater, playing Carol Brady in the theater's The Real Live Brady Bunch. Andy Richter played Mike Brady in the New York shows. He and Lynch became very good friends.^[12]

Films[link]

Lynch got her start in films in 1988, playing a small role in the film Vice Versa. In 1993, she had a secondary role as a doctor alongside Harrison Ford in The Fugitive.

During the 1990s, she made numerous television commercials, including one for Frosted Flakes for an adult audience, directed by Christopher Guest. A few years later, Guest would remember Lynch, as he cast actors for his dog show mockumentary, Best in Show (2000). Lynch played Christy Cummings, a butch lesbian personal dog handler to trophy wife Sheri Ann Cabot (Jennifer Coolidge). Since then, she has been a staple part of Guest's casts, appearing in the director's A Mighty Wind (2003) as porn actress-turned-folk singer Laurie Bohner and in For Your Consideration (2006) as an entertainment reporter.

Audiences and critics took notice of Lynch for her turn in Judd Apatow's The 40-Year-Old Virgin. She told Fresh Air's Terry Gross the role was originally intended for a man but, at the urging of Steve Carell's wife Nancy Walls, was offered to Lynch instead.^[13] Since then, she has had supporting roles in a series of films including Role Models, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Alvin & the Chipmunks, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Space Chimps, The Rocker, The Hammer, Another Cinderella Story, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, and Spring Breakdown.^[14]

In Adventures of Power, a critically acclaimed comedy about air-drumming released in 2008, Lynch reunited with her former co-star Michael McKean (from For Your Consideration) in the role of Aunt Joanie and starring alongside Ari Gold, Adrian Grenier, Chiu Chi Ling, and Shoshannah Stern. Similar to her contribution as Sue Sylvester on the Fox musical comedy-drama series Glee, Lynch's role as the encouraging Aunt Joanie to Power, a young musician who plays the air drums because he never had access to musical instruments, promotes the initiative to support music education.^[15]

In Julie and Julia, she played the role of Dorothy McWilliams, Julia Child's sister. Entertainment Weekly dedicated an article on their website toward the possibility of her performance receiving an Academy Award nomination.^[16][17]

Television[link]

Lynch has appeared in television roles for over a decade, including work in L.A. Law, Judging Amy, The West Wing, 7th Heaven, Desperate Housewives, Friends, Dawson's Creek, Felicity, Arrested Development, Lovespring International, Two and a Half Men, Weeds, Boston Legal, The L Word, Criminal Minds, Help Me Help You, Gilmore Girls, The New Adventures of Old Christine, Psych, Monk, and Party Down. She also starred with John Hannah and William Fichtner in 2002's MDs and has appeared in the crime drama Criminal Minds as Spencer Reid's schizophrenic mother.

Beginning 2009, Lynch appeared on the Fox series Glee. She won glowing reviews for her role as the aggressive cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester. Mary McNamara of the LA Times wrote, "Lynch alone makes Glee worth watching."^[18] Before her work with Glee, she was a series regular on the Starz comedy Party Down. Though the series was renewed for a second season, Lynch would not be returning, due to her work on Glee.^[19]

Lynch has garnered numerous accolades and awards throughout her career, particularly for her role as Sue Sylvester. In 2005, for example, Lynch was named as one of POWER UP's "10 Amazing Gay Women in Showbiz." On December 15, 2009, Lynch received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries, or Television Film for her role on Glee; she lost to Chloë Sevigny. The series itself also received nominations in three other categories.^[20] On August 29, 2010, Lynch won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress - Comedy Series.^[21] And in January 2011, Lynch was awarded the Golden Globe in The Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries, or Television Film Catergory.

In addition to her current work on Glee, Lynch continues to pursue other projects. Lynch hosted Saturday Night Live on October 9, 2010; the news of her hosting was accidentally broken to her by her Glee boss, Ryan Murphy, by text message.^[22] Lynch also guest starred on the Nickelodeon show iCarly as Pam Puckett, Sam Puckett's mother, in the episode "iSam's Mom".

Other work[link]

Lynch wrote and starred in the award-winning play Oh Sister, My Sister. Originally produced in 1998, the play kicked off the Lesbians in Theater program at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center in 2004.^[23]

She starred in Comcast's XFinity ads, mainly with two different laptops and two different colored Persian cats. She also stars in LG Corp.'s Text Ed campaign to educate drivers about the dangers of texting while driving.^[24]

Lynch's first experience hosting an awards show was in 2010 when she hosted the 2010 VH1 DoSomething Awards.^[25] It was announced that she will be hosting the 2011 VH1 DoSomething Awards, airing on VH1 on August 18.^[26] Lynch hosted the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards on September 18, 2011, only the third woman in Emmy history to host the awards show solo.^[27] According to September 19's Hollywood Reporter Lynch hosting the Emmys did not help ratings, as viewing was down 8% year over year and eight million less people watched the Emmys as watched Michael Vick's return to Atlanta on Sunday Night Football on NBC (21.5 million for Eagles-Falcons, 13.5 million for the Emmys).^[28]

(l-r) Governor appointee Don Norte, Dr. Lara Embry, Jane Lynch, and Norte's husband, gay activist Kevin Norte, at Autum P-FLAG 2010's Charitable Event at The London Hotel, West Hollywood, California.

Happy Accidents, was released Fall 2011 by Hyperion Voice. Lynch was inspired to write the book after reflecting upon the successes of her past year and wishing she could have told her more anxious, younger self to not worry as much.^[29] The memoir also includes detail about her years as an alcoholic and her success in battling this addiction.^[30] Lynch is openly lesbian, and married Lara Embry in 2010.^[31] A self-proclaimed animal lover, Lynch has two dogs and a cat.^[32] She has recorded a PSA for PETA encouraging the adoption of shelter animals.^[33] On February 23, 2012, it was announced that she would be the commencement speaker for Smith College's class of 2012 where she received a honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts.

In March 2012, Lynch was featured with Martin Sheen, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Brad Pitt in a performance of Dustin Lance Black's play, '8' — a staged reenactment of the federal trial that overturned California's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage — as Maggie Gallagher.^[34] The production was held at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre and broadcast on YouTube to raise money for the American Foundation for Equal Rights.^[35][36]

Filmography[link]

Discography[link]

Soundtracks

• 2003: A Mighty Wind
• 2008: Another Cinderella Story
• 2010: Glee: The Music, The Power of Madonna
• 2010: Glee: The Music, Volume 3 Showstoppers
• 2010: Ohio [Glee Cast Version] (Featuring Carol Burnett) – Single

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jane Lynch

• Jane Lynch at the Internet Movie Database
• PlanetOut interview
• AfterEllen.com interview with Jane Lynch
• Panel discussion with Jane Lynch at Outfest 2010
• Jane Lynch at Emmys.com