A bookstore (North American English) or bookshop (Commonwealth English) is a retailer that primarily sells books. Bookstores can range in size from local shops offering several hundred titles to large brick-and-mortar chains offering upwards of 200,000 titles. Online bookstores may offer many times more titles. Bookstores often sell items related to books such as newspapers and travel maps. Colleges and universities often have their own student bookstore on campus that focuses on providing course textbooks, although some on-campus bookstores are owned by large chains such as Barnes & Noble.

Another common type of bookstore is the used bookstore which buys and sells used copies of books, often for prices much cheaper than new copies. However, sometimes with rare books, especially first editions, these prices are much higher. Book collectors tend to frequent used book stores.

During the 1990s many bookstores (both chains and independents) started to include coffee shops in their store. Today it's rare to see a medium or large sized bookstore without a coffee shop instore or very close by. The 1990s also saw the large chain bookstores start to rebrand themselves in the image public libraries, where people are allowed sit and read as much as they want without being pressured to buy anything. Almost all chains now include many chairs and couches conveniently placed throughout the store.

See also

• List of bookstore chains
• Amazon.com, a pioneering internet-based book retailer

de:Buchhändler nl:Boekwinkel no:Bokhandel ja:書店