Written by Lynn After stalking the owners of a prototype Espresso Book Machine (EBM) for several years until a new version was launched for use in bookstores and libraries in 2008, I traveled to London and to Cambridge, MA to see how it worked and to make a business case for [...]
by Iris Sharing food has always been an important part of any Thanksgiving celebration. At ABC, we host a Baked Goods Potluck in all three stores to represent that part of Thanksgiving Day. But starting in 1994 and lasting until well in the 2000s, we used to organize a full-blown dinner! [...]
by Iris While all ABC staff obviously looks very youthful and spry, some of us have actually been around for quite a while. Our Jitse is celebrating 25 years at ABC this year. A massive milestone! Read on to find out more about his highlights from the past 2.5 decades. [...]
In Memoriam: Derk Sauer On July 31, 2025, we heard that Derk Sauer, founder of The Moscow Times, died. This brought memories of our participation in the 1997 Moscow Book Fair (read our blog post about it here). We ran a small ad in The Moscow Times announcing that the American [...]
Written by Lynn I arrived in Amsterdam in 1972 with some history in the American women’s liberation movement, had even started an organization for equal pay back in the day, and sometimes collaborated with the gay liberation activists. But living my perception of a liberated life in a foreign culture was [...]
by Lynn While going through boxes of old ABC papers, I recently ran across a book review ripped out of a 1989 edition of the newspaper Het Parool. The reviewer, Johannes van Dam, saw The UnDutchables as a fresh take on Dutch life written by an American and British couple. [...]
By Lynn What are you giving thanks for this Thanksgiving? At ABC, we’re thankful for our community of booklovers, both customers and staff. I’m also thankful for the Iroquois Confederacy—the model for our democratic Constitution. We have celebrated Thanksgiving at our stores since 1989 as a way [...]
Written by Lynn I remember meeting Joe for the first time during the summer of 1973 in Amsterdam. Mitch Crossfield, one of our two founding partners, had gone off for vacation. The next morning, a young American boy of about 22 with a full black beard and long, straight, coarse [...]
Written by Lynn One day in 1986, a man approached me at the cash desk and asked, “Wouldn’t you like to have a bigger store?” Well, yes. “The Mothercare company just down the street is pulling out,” he told me. “The man who agreed to take over the rent has backed [...]
Written by Lynn and Steve Malenka Steve Malenka, who worked at ABC in the 1970s—first as fiction and gay book buyer, later as manager of the Book Bar, which sold Sammy’s Hotdogs as well as remainder books for one guilder a piece—has some wild memories to share. Here’s a photo of [...]
