Books-A-Million
bookstore chain
Books-A-Million, Inc., also known as BAM!, is a bookstore chain in the United States, operating 260 stores in 32 states. Stores range in size from 4,000 to 30,000 square feet and sell books, magazines, manga, collectibles, toys, technology, and gifts. Most Books-A-Million stores feature "Joe Muggs" cafés, a coffee and espresso bar.
Stores operate under the names Books-A-Million, Bookland, Books & Company, and 2nd & Charles.
The company owns Yogurt Mountain Holding, a frozen yogurt retailer and franchisor with 40 locations, as well as Preferred Growth Properties, which develops and manages commercial real estate investments. It owns and operates American Wholesale Book Company (AWBC), an e-commerce division operating as booksamillion.com; and an internet development and services company, NetCentral, in Nashville, Tennessee.
In December 2015, the company was acquired by its chairman, Clyde B. Anderson, and his family, for $21 million.
History
Books-A-Million was founded in 1917 in Florence, Alabama, as a newsstand by 14-year old Clyde W. Anderson, who dropped out of school to support his family after his father died. Anderson saw a business opportunity after workers on the nearby Wilson Dam complained that they could not get their hometown newspapers.
In 1950, Charles C. Anderson, the founder's son, inherited the store and expanded it into a chain.
The public source identifies “Books-A-Million” as bookstore chain. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Books-A-Million, bookstore and chain.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4943266. VIAF identifies the subject as 152696348. The Library of Congress control number is nb2005010883. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2015, 1917 and 1950.
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This entry incorporates text from “Books-A-Million” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.