Maria's Bookshop

Shop Indie. Nurture Your Community.

Maria's Bookshop is located on historic Main Avenue, in downtown Durango, Colorado. Proudly serving the Durango community since 1984, Maria's Bookshop is a locally-owned, independent business. 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.

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 over 100 active local reading groups, 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.

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 store's logo.

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 friendly staff as well as information about upcoming events. Thanks for the visit!

Photo courtesy of Scott D. W. Smith

Special Events

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

Right of Thirst
by Huyler, Frank

Shattered by his wife's death, and by his own role in it, successful cardiologist Charles Anderson volunteers to assist with earthquake relief in an impoverished Islamic country in a constant state of conflict with its neighbor. But when the refugees he's come to help do not appear and artillery begins to fall in the distance along the border, the story takes an unexpected turn.

This haunting, resonant tour de force about one man's desire to live a moral life offers a moving exploration of the tensions between poverty and wealth, the ethics of intervention, the deep cultural differences that divide the world, and the essential human similarities that unite it.

Strengthening a Vibrant Local Economy

Informative titles on the importance of building and strengthening a vibrant local economy.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
by Kingsolver, Barbara, Kingsolver, Camille
“Tracing the food year, Kingsolver—with her characteristic candor, poetry, and grace—brings us meditations on asparagus, turkeys, tomatoes, and mulch as she and her family try to eat locally as much as they can. This is a distinct hybrid of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Under the Tuscan Sun, and Walden.” —Matt Plies, Annie Bloom’s Books, Portland, OR

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.

On the Divinity of Second Chances
by McLaren, Kaya
A broken family finds its way back together in this captivating story from the author of "Church of the Dog"
A charismatic author with a voice and message all her own, Kaya McLaren has become beloved in the book world as much for her upbeat energy as for her rich storytelling. In "On the Divinity of Second Chances," she portrays a family on the brink of dissolutionaa mother besieged by middle age, a distant father lost in daily life, and their three teenage children struggling in various ways with the familyas disintegration even as they conceal a secret that could send their parents further over the edge. With the help of a group of tap-dancing old ladies, a sensual tango teacher, and a lot of luck, this family is about to learn that everyone gets a second chance which, as McLaren beautifully reminds us in this inspiring novel, is sometimes even better than the first.