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

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

Harvard Square Harvard Square is a triangular plaza at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street near the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The term "Harvard Square" is also used to delineate the busin ...

. 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 New England town, town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Wellesley is part of Greater Boston. The population was 29,550 at the time of the 2020 census. Wellesley College, Babson Col ...

, 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 Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

or the Harvard Coop bookstore, which is managed by

Barnes & Noble Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller. It is a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. As of July 7, 2020, the company operates 614 retail stores across all 50 U. ...

. 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 The Espresso Book Machine (EBM) is a print on demand (POD) machine created by On Demand Books. It prints, collates, covers, and binds a single book in a few minutes. Introduced in 2007, EBM is small enough to fit in a retail bookstore or small ...

, produced by New York firm

On Demand Books The Espresso Book Machine (EBM) is a print on demand (POD) machine created by On Demand Books. It prints, collates, covers, and binds a single book in a few minutes. Introduced in 2007, EBM is small enough to fit in a retail bookstore or small ...

, using books in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...

available through

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

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 politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic Part ...

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

Haruki Murakami is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been bestsellers 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 his ...

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 ...

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, his work has sold over thirteen million books in sixty-three lan ...

, and

Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high s ...

, 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