In the 1950s and 1960s, the Danish Missionary Society (DMS), based in Copenhagen, operated a bookshop in Aden, Yemen. However, due to political instability, DMS closed operations in Yemen in October 1966.

After discussions with the Reformed Church in America (RCA) and Arabian Mission, who ran the American Mission Hospital (AMH) in Bahrain, it was decided that the bookshop would relocate to Bahrain.

The relocated bookshop complemented and merged with an existing small Bible bookshop, which was first started by the Mason Memorial Hospital founder Samuel Zwemer in the early 1900s.

In 1967, Family Bookshop Group (FBG) director Jørgen ‘Jan’ Pedersen launched the ‘Public Bookshop’, later renamed the ‘Family Bookshop’.

When similar bookshops opened in Kuwait and Oman under the same organisational agreement, FBG was formed as a limited liability company in Lebanon in June 1974 to manage all these outlets.

Bahrain’s ‘Family Bookshop’ became a popular destination for general books, magazines, newspapers and comic books, catering to both expatriates and locals.

It offered books in English, Arabic, and a few other languages, including Bibles and Christian literature. In Bahrain, the bookshop operated from locations in and around the hospital premises in Manama, the suq area in Bab Al Bahrain and Adliya.

For nearly 40 years, the Family Bookshop operated until the early 2000s.