Life as a Bookseller Archives

Bookseller life: inventory edition

by Iris As booksellers at ABC, certain days of the year are more important than others. Thanksgiving is one of those days, and the last Saturday before Christmas. And then there's the first Monday of February: inventory day! Inventory checking, also known as stocktaking, is "the physical verification of the [...]

Iris W2026-01-23T20:43:26+01:00Tags: bookseller life, inventory, Iris, life as a bookseller, stocktake|

Trade-In Days at the ABC

Give Your Books a Second Life – Join Our Trade-In Days at ABC The Hague by Júlia If your shelves are breaking under the weight of books while your wish list keeps growing, and you simply need more space – the ABC has you covered! Just join us for [...]

Damla2025-11-02T16:31:14+01:00Tags: ABC Events, ABC The Hague, Júlia, Trade-In Days|

What we’re reading, watching, and listening to

by Damla Every so often we want to share what we're currently reading, watching, and/or listening to. We hope you'll enjoy our choices! Iris Reading: Currently reading The Last Gifts of the Universe by August Riley. It’s a sci-fi book about two siblings and their cat (called Pumpkin!), [...]

Damla2025-10-14T18:56:58+02:00Tags: Damla, Else, Iris, Mike, Read/Watch/Listen, Renata, Simone, Sophie, Sywert, what we're listening to, what we're reading, what we're watching, Yannis|

Jitse: 25 years @ the ABC

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. [...]

Iris W2025-09-22T19:03:03+02:00Tags: abc staff, interview, Jitse, life as a bookseller|

Bookseller life: Leidschendam edition

by Iris Our Leidschendam store in the Westfield Mall of the Netherlands opened its doors in 2021. It was pandemic times and the many extra rules and regulations didn't make for the smoothest of starts. But four years later we're still here, and it's well past time to bring you along [...]

Iris W2025-09-15T13:53:26+02:00Tags: A Day in the Life of a Bookseller, ABC History, bookseller life, Iris|

What we’re reading, watching, and listening to

by Sophie Every so often we want to share what we're currently reading, watching, and/or listening to. We hope you'll enjoy our choices! Tiemen: Reading: I'm currently reading part 4 of The Dungeon Crawler Carl series to my wife. Every evening I read about half an hour of DCC before [...]

Sophie2025-08-11T13:24:57+02:00Tags: Bella, Damla, Else, Iris, Jilles, Jurgen, Klaartje, Lynn, Renata, Sigrid, Sophie, Steven, Tiemen, what we're listening to, what we're reading, what we're watching|

Book Review: Source Code – My Beginnings

Source Code is not about Microsoft or the Gates Foundation or the future of technology. It’s the human, personal story of how Bill Gates became who he is today: his childhood, his early passions and pursuits. It’s the story of his principled grandmother and ambitious parents, his first deep friendships [...]

Damla2025-07-06T14:34:11+02:00Tags: Autobiography, Bill Gates, Book review, Book Reviews, life as a bookseller, Lynn, memoir, Non-Fiction, Source Code|

Space is Gay* (*LGBTQIA+) – part 2

By Else Else got so enthusiastic about this theme that she created a list that was way too long, but in the end she did manage to whittle it down to 12 very interesting titles. Yesterday we presented 4 of those 12, and today we present the other 8. If you [...]

Lilia2025-06-13T16:48:41+02:00Tags: Arkady Martine, Elizabeth May, Else, Emily Hamilton, Emily Tesh, L.R. Lam, Martha Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Science Fiction, Simon Jimenez, Space is Gay, Space Opera, Staff Choice, Staff Choices, Tamsyn Muir|

Expecting a chill in publishing: Why it matters

By Lynn As booksellers, we are sometimes asked by customers to add or withdraw certain titles from our assortment due to hot social or political issues. Our browsers have even been known to turn some books face-backwards (including those on Trump, Musk, the Middle East and Korea). Someone even recently suggested [...]

Lilia2025-05-18T17:40:03+02:00Tags: Booker Prize, Booker Prize Winner, Current Affairs, how current times affect the big publishers, independent publishers, Lynn, offering a broad range of books, publishing|

Book review: The Reformatory

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due Winner of the 2024 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel and Winner of the 2024 Shirley Jackson Award for Novel. A gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a [...]

Lilia2025-05-11T12:17:06+02:00Tags: Book review, Book Reviews, Else, Horror, Prize winners, Tananarive Due|

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