During the time he lived in Tucson, first as a student and then as a young professional, Marty Valencia lived just west of the university, a stone’s throw from Roskruge School, three blocks from the Dairy Queen, and — more importantly — a 10-minute walk from Tucson’s oldest bookstore: The Book Stop.
He became a regular there, which is why a short Instagram post in November caught his eye and triggered his imagination.
“In case you have not been in the store recently,” it read, “we wanted to share that, sadly, the Book Stop will be closing permanently on December 31st.”
Startled by the news, Valencia wondered if there might still be time to edit the store’s next chapter.
“I called them that day to see if they might consider selling the store,” he recalled. “I’d been looking at other opportunities, but to me this one was special. I knew right away I was interested if they were.”
New owner Marty Valencia at The Book Stop, 214 N. Fourth Ave.
Conversations began just after Thanksgiving, and by mid-January a plot twist was well underway. The sale was finalized Feb. 2, meaning the venerable old bookshop at 214 N. Fourth Ave. will remain open after all.
“I’ve always dreamed of owning a bookstore, and owning this bookstore is a dream come true,” Valencia said this week. “It just feels like something I was meant to do.”
Maybe it was, at that.
Raised in Surprise, a northwest suburb of Phoenix, Valencia’s first job was at the Cholla branch of the Phoenix Public Library. He later spent seven years as a librarian at Pima College, then five as a manager at the Changing Hands Bookstore on Camelback Road in Phoenix.
“I moved back to Phoenix 10 years ago to help take care of my parents,” Valencia explained. “I hadn’t been in Tucson much since the pandemic, but I came down for the Loft Film Fest in November. The day after I got home, I saw the post on Instagram. It got me thinking how much I liked Tucson, how much I remembered about the store.”
One of his most prized possessions is a facsimile of “The Book of Kells” — a gift from a friend who found it there.
First opened in 1967, The Book Stop is still what neighborhood bookstores used to be, with some 50,000 used books jammed into 2,600 square feet of floor space. No bells, no whistles, just books, vintage maps, old posters and long-forgotten playbills.
Valencia said The Book Stop’s name and address will remain the same, but he is weighing ways he might freshen the business model some.
“We’ll want to keep the current feel as much as we can,” he said. “The character of the place is special. It’s why we all love it, but I can see a coffee cart in the store. I can see at least some new books. I can’t imagine owning a bookstore without the latest Colson Whitehead titles in it!”
Valencia also hopes to establish the store as a hub for local authors and a place readers can discover diverse, new voices.
Tucson’s oldest bookstore, The Book Stop at 214 N. Fourth Ave., gets to write a new chapter under a new owner after almost closing.
“Malvern Books in Austin used to have a sign in the window that said, ‘Leastsellers Sold Here,’ and I liked the sound of that. One of the ways independent and community-focused bookstores can shine is to help new voices be heard.”
He then gazed directly across the street, where the new Ari on Fourth apartment complex is home to more than 500 renters.
“It would be good to meet some of those people, too,” Valencia said with a smile.
The Book Stop is now closed, as the transition is finalized, but Valencia hopes to re-open in mid-March — in time for the Fourth Avenue Street Fair March 20-22.
No one is happier with recent developments than Claire Fellows, who first went to work for the store in 1977, paired with fellow staff member Tina Bailey to buy it in 1992, and has been there almost every day since Bailey died five years ago.
“This has been part of me for a long time, and it’s good to know it will go on,” she confessed. “I didn’t want to close the store, I just knew it was time. Time to move on, time for me to retire.”
Fellows said she would stay on for a month or so to help Valencia establish a routine, and then start planning that long-delayed vacation.
“People ask if I’m feeling sad or nostalgic about leaving,” Fellows said, “but with our year-end financials, taxes, and now this, I haven’t had time to really think about. I’m sure it will hit me one of these days. It’s been a good run.”
Footnotes
- Author William Kent Krueger will receive the Tucson Festival of Books’ Founders Award for 2026, Executive Director Abra McAndrew has announced. Krueger’s Cork O’Connor series of Minnesota mysteries has become his calling card, but critics favor “Ordinary Grace,” a standalone novel that earned him an Edgar Award in 2014. The Founders Award is presented each spring to a festival author who has made lasting contributions to American literature. Krueger will be honored at the festival’s annual Authors Table Dinner March 13.
- This year’s book festival will be March 14-15 at the University of Arizona. For a complete list of festival authors and presentations, visit tucsonfestivalofbooks.org.
- Poets Andrew Grace and Susan Nguyen will be the headliners at the Morgan Schuldt Memorial Reading this Thursday evening, Feb. 26, at the UA Poetry Center. For more information, visit poetry.arizona.edu.
- Author Sarah A. Bailey will be selling and signing copies of her recent romance novels this Friday evening, Feb. 27, at Stacks Book Club in Oro Valley. To learn more, visit stacksbookclub.com.
