Fred Bass

Strand Book Store in New York City was founded by Fred’s father Benjamin in 1927. Fred was born in 1928 and has been working in the family business since he was thirteen years old. The Strand has roughly 2.5 million used, rare, and new books—the equivalent of roughly 18 miles of books.

Fred spoke to Jessica Harris about how he and his father turned the Strand into one of New York’s literary landmarks, from scratch. Fred died in January, 2018 at 89 years old, a few months after celebrating the Strand’s 90th birthday.

Listen to the interview