Maria's Bookshop

Welcome!

Maria's Bookshop is located on historic Main Avenue, in downtown Durango, Colorado. Co-owners Andrea Avantaggio and Peter Schertz--along with their two children, Evan and Lydia--are longtime Durango residents, avid unicyclists and champions for our local community.

Oddly enough, there has never been a Maria who has worked at Maria's Bookshop. In fact, the store's namesake is master potter Maria Martinez of the San Ildefonso pueblo, whose beautiful designs inspired the bird that is our logo.

A full-service general bookstore, Maria's Bookshop carries an inventory of nearly 40,000 books on custom-made wooden bookshelves in 2200 square feet of retail space. Antique snowshoes, skies, and sleds as well as some beautiful work by local artists hang from our walls. We have a staff of fourteen dedicated booksellers, and a large and loyal clientele from the local community of about 45,000. Maria's Bookshop sponsors 85 active book clubs, hosts dozens of special events a year, and helps support several local non-profit organizations. We are proud to be a long-standing community resource!

We hope you'll have a chance to come to the store, or come back again if you're a regular. If not, our website offers some great suggestions from our well-educated, talented and quirky staff as well as information about upcoming events. Thanks for the visit!

Photo courtesy of Scott D. W. Smith

Maria's Bookshop Events

Check out what's selling at Maria's Bookshop this week.

Mommy, Do You Love Me?
by Lambert, Teres
To develop self-love, children need to know and be reassured that they are loved. This book helps children understand that, in addition to the words aI love you, a love can be expressed by a parentas daily actions.

Women's Resouce Center Monthly Picks

Every month, as a service to our community, Maria's Bookshop and Durango's Women's Resource Center partner up to recommend three outstanding titles exploring and celebrating women's lives.

Garden Spells
by Allen, Sarah Addison
In a garden surrounded by a tall fence, tucked away behind a small, quiet house in an even smaller town, is an apple tree that is rumored to bear a very special sort of fruit. In this luminous debut novel, Sarah Addison Allen tells the story of that enchanted tree, and the extraordinary people who tend it....
The Waverleys have always been a curious family, endowed with peculiar gifts that make them outsiders even in their hometown of Bascom, North Carolina. Even their garden has a reputation, famous for its feisty apple tree that bears prophetic fruit, and its edible flowers, imbued with special powers. Generations of Waverleys tended this garden. Their history was in the soil. But so were their futures.
A successful caterer, Claire Waverley prepares dishes made with her mystical plants--from the nasturtiums that aid in keeping secrets and the pansies that make children thoughtful, to the snapdragons intended to discourage the attentions of her amorous neighbor. Meanwhile, her elderly cousin, Evanelle, is known for distributing unexpected gifts whose uses become uncannily clear. They are the last of the Waverleys--except for Claire's rebellious sister, Sydney, who fled Bascom the moment she could, abandoning Claire, as their own mother had years before.
When Sydney suddenly returns home with a young daughter of her own, Claire's quiet life is turned upside down--along with the protective boundary she has so carefully constructed around her heart. Together again in the house they grew up in, Sydney takes stock of all she left behind, as Claire struggles to heal the wounds of the past. And soon the sisters realize they must deal with their common legacy--if they are everto feel at home in Bascom--or with each other.
Enchanting and heartfelt, this captivating novel is sure to cast a spell with a style all its own....

"From the Hardcover edition."