by Damla and Sophie We celebrated our birthday last month, with special honors to our Hague store on its 50th year. 🎉 Among many fun activities and giveaways on the day, we also created a little pop-up trivia quiz for our customers at the Hague store to test their literary and [...]
by Júlia Spring is always a special time for our ABC family. As the days get longer and the world starts to bloom again, we find ourselves in full celebration mode. This season isn’t just about fresh starts — it’s party time for us. In April, we’re celebrating the birthdays [...]
by Iris A few years after ABC first opened its doors in Amsterdam in 1972, founders Mitch Crossfield and Sam Boltansky decided to expand operations to The Hague. They got their hands on a cheap place to rent in the city center, and in 1976 the new store opened [...]
By Sophie Recently we featured in a satirical news show as the butt of a joke about how we had space for our new Romantasy section in Amsterdam because we had chucked out all our books on human rights. Funny joke, and thank you for highlighting us and books, Romantasy in particular, [...]
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 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 [...]
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 [...]
ABC’s co-director Martijn was a guest on the Bookshop Podcast! As an international podcast, The Bookshop Podcast has a wider reach than just the Netherlands, so it's a great opportunity for the world to know more about our small enterprise. With the title "Exploring the American Book Center: Martijn Meerts on Bookstore [...]
By Naomi When I tell people I work at a bookstore, their first reaction is usually: “It must be so nice to get to read all day.” That would be nice indeed, but that’s not what I actually do. Even though I don’t get to lounge around reading all day, I [...]
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 [...]
