There's something strange about northern Arizona. I've driven around quite a lot, and if my own experiences are any reflection, there's a disturbing paucity of bookstores here. Where is there a Barnes & Noble outside of the greater Phoenix area? Do people here who want to read have to use Amazon.com? Or, are they not readers, generally, but caught up in other occupations?
yah that's where travis Walton was abducted in 1975. The forest up there certainly seem eerie since the ufo, plus too many Mormons up there. I certainly can't stand that part of Arizona, gives me the willies. I visited a friend there one time, I swear it was so small town and seemed like Utah valley. I did see so many people with Mormon underwear outlines on the clothes.
Well, I swear there's nothing around Cottonwood or Sedona! :) And I'm not 100% sure about Prescott, either. Google says yes, but my explorations yielded no joy.
Brick and mortar bookstores are just disappearing everywhere. I went to a large (six levels) mall in downtown San Diego last year, and there was only one bookstore, and the selection and presentation was pathetic, really bad. Had all the signs of "going out of business soon".
Our local mall in Hawaii used to have two newsagents/bookstores years ago, now none.
I'm not from Arizona, but it is home to one of my all-time favorite bookstore(s):
Bookman's.
There used to be a Bookman's in Flagstaff, but I haven't been there in about ten years so I don't know if Bookman's Flagstaff still exists.
However...there ARE Bookman's (or used to be, anyway) in Phoenix, Tucson (THE BEST!!!), and Sierra Vista (if I'm remembering the name of the town correctly; it adjoins a military base in southern Arizona, and is sort-of-near Tombstone).
notloggedinrightnow Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I'm not from Arizona, but it is home to one of my > all-time favorite bookstore(s): > > Bookman's. >
Bookman's has branched out into musical instruments in the regular stores and they're opening a big sporting goods facility in central Tucson.
Hey now, Northern Arizona is awesome!! I love the forests, high desert and everything in between. There used to be a bookmans, and a ton of other little bookstores. Has Barnes and Noble shut them all down? I hope not, growing up they were all over. Same in Sedona. Are they all gone now? :(
I live in central AZ. I've also noticed the lack of bookstores and I hate it! I sometimes make trips to the valley (usually Mesa) to buy books but I do use Amazon a lot.
Flagstaff has a very nice Barnes & Noble (with a fireplace, no less!), a great Bookman's, and a couple of little New Age-y bookshops downtown. The campus bookstore is decent, too.
There are also a few places in Sedona that sell books.
It's over-run by crows and ravens, too, plus there are tons of stories about haunted buildings downtown.
Wandering around in Wupakti is enough to give anyone the creeps, and Sunset Crater Volcano is just surreal. Even Elden Pueblo is kind of strange. I went there alone one time and felt like I was being watched the whole time.
If you go down to Sedona, there are all these supposed "vortexes" and places where aliens go.
I look forward to graduating in a couple of weeks and getting the he!! outta there.
I lived in northern AZ for seven years (jr high and high school). There were plenty of readers in town back then, as well as a decent number of bookstores (which I frequented, being a bookworm).
The area surrounding Flagstaff is definitely kind of otherworldly if you're not used to wild, untamed nature. And the lack of streetlights in town, due to the observatory, sometimes freaks people out. I really love the geography of the area, though. The pine and aspen forests are beautiful.
Yeah, Cottonwood is a little sparse in the area of bookstores. There are a few smaller independent places, but not really anything with a selection. Sedona mostly has new age and crystal type places, mixed in with general fiction. Flagstaff is really the closest place to go with B&N and Bookmans, with Prescott being a close second if you're more to the South. There used to be quite a few smaller places in Flag that were excellent, but B&N drove a lot of them out (McGaugh's, how I miss you...)