The Book Stop hopes for new life after all

Once scheduled to close on Dec. 31, Tucson’s oldest bookstore will remain open indefinitely as owners continue conversations with prospective buyers.

“After we announced our plans to close last month, a number of people called and stopped by to talk about taking over the store,” co-owner Claire Fellows said. “We’ve been in serious conversation with one of them for the last few weeks. Our landlord said to take as long as we need, so we’ll stay open for a while longer and see what happens.”

This comes as welcome news to those literary treasure-hunters who expect to find the unexpected when they visit the all-second-hand bookshop at 214 N. Fourth Ave.

Even without the expected clearance sale last weekend, it was a busy place.

“A lot of people will be sorely disappointed if this goes away,” Fellows said.

The thought of closing the store began to surface in Fellows last spring, almost four years after the unexpected death of co-owner Tina Bailey. It was Bailey who had managed the day-to-day operation of the store. Since she died, the key in the door every morning has been held by Fellows.

“I just realized there were other things I wanted to do,” Fellows recalled. “Since Tina died, this has pretty much been my life. I’ve opened and closed the store almost every day for four years. I just felt like it was time to do something else.”

Initially, Fellows wondered if Bailey’s family might take over the store, but in time, the decision was made to close.

By fall, plans for a year-end clearance sale were in place, and on Nov. 17, the store’s Instagram page reported The Book Stop would close for the final time on Dec. 31.

“We were thinking we would just dissolve the business,” Fellows said, “sell everything we could and then give whatever was left to charity, or to other bookstores. That was the plan.”

And now?

Fellows is hoping the story will have the same happy ending that Bisbee Books and Music enjoyed last year. It, too, had announced a going-out-of-business sale. Only then did a serious buyer step forward. The sale was finalized Jan. 9.

“It would be wonderful if history could repeat itself,” Fellows confessed. “It would be great if we could find a way for the store to go on.”

First opened in 1967, The Book Stop was originally located at the corner of Campbell Avenue and Water Street, two blocks north of Grant Road.

Its founder was William Merrick, a former construction worker who had learned to love books, and in an era before mall stores, box stores and Amazon, The Book Stop quickly became one of the largest bookstores in Tucson.

Fellows has been part of The Book Stop story since 1977, when she was hired part-time to help out over the holidays. She is still behind the counter today, still recording sales on the same 1912 cash register the store used then.

“Looking back, it’s all pretty amazing to think about,” Fellows said. “When I first started, I didn’t know anything about books. I just knew I needed a job.”

Fellows and Bailey would purchase the business in 1992, and in 2007, they moved it to their current location on Fourth Avenue.

“We weren’t really looking to move,” Fellows said, “but the building’s new owners wanted to renovate the space. Tina and I began looking for a place that had foot traffic. We knew we couldn’t get into a mall, but there was Fourth Avenue, so we went to the Merchants Association and asked if there were any vacancies. They suggested we look here, and here we’ve been ever since.”

Memories, she has a few.

She remembers the day when Larry McMurtry came screeching to a stop out front, excitedly wanting to show them something: the Oscar he and Diana Ossana had won for their screenplay of the movie Brokeback Mountain.

“I learned one thing that day,” Fellows recalls. “Oscars are heavy!”

Equally memorable were the happy faces of customers who had found the perfect gift for a parent, or maybe a granddaughter.

It hasn’t always been easy, Fellows acknowledged. First, there was the recession of 2007-10. From 2012-14, construction of the Sun Link Streetcar made access to Fourth Avenue businesses almost impossible. Then came the pandemic, which took its toll in 2020 and ’21.

Still, the old neon sign in the window continues to say “Open.”  

In some ways, those who step inside step back into time, into a bookshop like bookshops used to be, with more than 55,000 used books squeezed onto shelves that are wedged into 2,600 square feet of floor space. Vintage street maps, posters and playbills fill the drawers.

So much to explore. So little time? Is the final chapter of this Tucson landmark now being written?

Just so you know, The Book Stop’s “Mystery” section is near the back of the store, on the right.

Footnotes

• Friends of the Pima County Public Library have selected Melanie Morgan to be their new executive director, board president Penny Moreno announced Monday. Morgan will succeed Libby Stone, who has retired. Morgan managed the Tucson Festival of Books from 2017-23. She will begin work Jan. 5.
• “I Do Know Some Things” by Tucson poet Richard Siken is one of 10 books on a list of the year’s best poetry published last week by The New York Times. Siken’s collection was also a finalist for this year’s National Book Award.
• Stacks Book Club will host an early release party for Tucson author Jaclyn Rodriguez and her latest book, “A Vow in Vengeance,” Jan. 10 at 6:30 p.m. For location and ticket information, visit stacksbookclub.com/events.
• The University of Arizona Poetry Center’s winter event schedule will begin with readings by Cameron Awkward Rich and Franny Choi on Thursday evening, Jan. 15, at 7 p.m. For more, visit poetry.arizona.edu.