Although many people prefer electronic books, audiobooks or reading online, there are still many readers who enjoy buying and reading traditional printed books. The first bookstores appeared around the 4th century BC when the first booksellers invented the idea that the books should be collected in one place. When the Roman Empire began to fall apart, the bookstores had good times, and they would be until the printed press was created. Once it seemed that the rapid development of the e-book industry would pull the bookstores to pieces, but it didn't happen. And we hope it won't. The bookstores are still the places for those readers who like to hold a book in their hands and look at it before buying. 

The bookstores in their traditional meaning still take their place in the sun. And the statistics only prove that. More than 11,000 bookstores operate across the USA with the retail sales of the combined industry of $750 million every month. If we compare with the previous century (11,000 vs 4000 in 1931), it's a rather high jump. Yes, from 1997 the number of bookstores slightly dropped, but the bookstores are still alive. According to Statista research, 141 million Americans bought books at the bookstores at least once in the last three months in 2017. 

Despite the transition to e-books, the big chains and independent bookstores are still on the float. Let's take Barnes & Noble, for example. It's one of the biggest and progressive bookstores chains. They have always attracted the customers by interesting tricks such as TV advertising, publishing of proprietary books and low prices on bestsellers. The company runs more than 630 bookstores across the country in shopping malls, strip centres and separate spots. Since 2016, Barnes & Noble has been implementing its traditional bookstores' new feature – they offer promotional inclusion for self-published books that have received great sales through online platform. 

As for the market share, here Barnes & Noble takes second place with 17%. Amazon takes the first place with 23% of the market share in a book market. The company has only seventeen physical bookstores with intentions to expand. In the Amazon stores, there are thousands of books with their covers placed outwards – the company explains this decision by willing to demonstrate the author and his work instead of efficient space use. The books in stores are selected based on customers' preferences on Amazon's website. Along with books, you'll also find electronic gadgets like Amazon Echo, Amazon Fire or Kindle Fire tablet series. 

Except for the big chains of bookstores, there are many autonomous booksellers with one or several points. Among big independent bookstores, there are Book Soup (West Hollywood, Calif.), Elliott Bay Book Company (Seattle, Wash) Northshire Bookstore (Sarasota Springs, N.Y.) and Powell's Books (Portland, Ore).

Our section gives all locations of mentioned above bookstore lines, not only their locations. Here we give everything you need to know about bookstores – stores that are nearby, their photos, what books they sell (genres, authors), and customer's reviews.