Harvard Book Store is an independent and locally owned seller of used, new, and bargain books in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

Harvard Square Harvard Square is a triangular plaza at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue (Boston), Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street (Cambridge, Massachusetts), Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street near the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, C ...

. Harvard Book Store was established in 1932 by Mark Kramer, father of longtime owner Frank Kramer, and originally sold used textbooks to students. Family-owned for over seventy-five years, the store was sold in the fall of 2008 to Jeffrey Mayersohn and Linda Seamonson of

Wellesley, Massachusetts Wellesley () is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Wellesley is part of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. The population was 29,550 at the time of the 2020 census. Wellesley College, Babson College, and a campus of M ...

, and remains an independent business. Though often confused with the Harvard Coop, the store has no affiliation with

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

or the Harvard Coop bookstore, which is managed by

Barnes & Noble Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. The company operates approximately 600 retail stores across the United States. Barnes & Noble operates mainly through its B ...

. With a focus on an academic and intellectual audience, the store's selection and customer service is repeatedly honored by local publications and surveys. ''Forbes'' named the book store as its top bookshop in its "World's Top Shops 2005" list. In 2009, the store introduced an on-demand book printing service called the Espresso Book Machine, produced by New York firm On Demand Books, using books in the

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available through

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Library. In recent years, a well-attended author event series has hosted

Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American former politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He previously served as ...

Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie ( ; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British and American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern wor ...

Haruki Murakami is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been best-sellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for hi ...

John Updike John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth Tar ...

Orhan Pamuk Ferit Orhan Pamuk (born 7 June 1952; ) is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic, and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. One of Turkey's most prominent novelists, he has sold over 13 million books in 63 languages, making him ...

, and

Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author. Dubbed the "King of Horror", he is widely known for his horror novels and has also explored other genres, among them Thriller (genre), suspense, crime fiction, crime, scienc ...

, in addition to a number of local writers and academics.

References

External links

Boston Globe article: Wellesley couple buy Harvard Book Store

Boston Globe article: Next chapter for best seller

Substack Article : An Interview with Jeffrey Mayersohn (Harvard & Yale Graduate)
{{Cambridge, Massachusetts 1932 establishments in Massachusetts Bookstores in Massachusetts Companies based in Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard Square Independent bookstores of the United States Retail companies established in 1932