by Lília Continuing with the celebration of our 52 years of existence, our Iris and Luke asked colleagues for their book recommendations for the occasion. Most of them revolved around the lives of normal people in somewhat exceptional settings (reminiscent of ABC!), with overcoming adversity a prominent theme. No one chose [...]
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 out. [...]
by Lynn & 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 three of [...]
by Lynn Of course, we had no idea when opening an English-language bookstore full of remainder books how vital freight services would become for our survival. (Just as most people didn’t think about logistics and supply chains until Covid hit.) At first, our books came from Baltimore on pallets by sea [...]
by Lynn Forty years ago this February, I landed at Baltimore airport in the worst snowstorm they’d had in 10 years. On the way to our host Larry Boltansky’s home, the freeway was closed and we had to shovel the station wagon out from under snow to get to a side [...]
by Lynn The ABC started in 1972 after Mitch Crossfield and Sam Boltansky, who knew each other from Baltimore, came to Amsterdam in 1971 and saw the lines of English-speaking tourists outside Madame Tussaud's on the Kalverstraat, then one of the busiest shopping streets in Europe. They went to the jewelry [...]
Marie is a good example of a “growing up with ABC” customer: niece of our Sophie, she has known the ABC since she was born. Her ABC store may have changed from The Hague to Amsterdam, where she moved to study and work, but her loyalty remains the same. [...]
by Lynn ABC’s Christmas of 1973 was quite eventful. Mitch, who had co-founded ABC the year before, went back to Baltimore for the holidays and left me in charge while we were renovating. He and the landlord, Jacob Kroonenberg, had agreed to level out the ground floor, which had been split-level, [...]
Lauren Lauren is not only a customer but also our blog editor. She’s an avid reader, so when she moved to the Netherlands back in 1996 to work as a journalist, she just had to find the ABC. ABC Lília: Hi Lauren, great talking to you! Lauren: Thanks, [...]
by Lynn Following Oprah’s initiative, in 2003 we launched our first Community Read. It had been done before in Chicago, when the entire city—media, government, library and school system—got together to encourage everybody in Chicago to read the same book during the same summer. It worked wonderfully! People spoke about entering [...]
