The Literate Lizard Online Bookstore Story

The story of our beautiful three years as a brick-and-mortar store is told below, but as of October 2020 we are now an online-only bookstore. Due to a combination of personal challenges and the uncertainties of the business climate under Covid-19, our owner decided not to renew our lease. Enjoy the photos below of what once was, and thank you so much to all who entered our doors.

But The Literate Lizard continues online, still based in beautful Arizona, bringing books to our local community, and sending books nationwide. We also offer fabulous gift items, audiobooks and Ebooks. We don't shy away from real-world happenings, so expect our blog and our social media to be feisty, opinionated, sometimes controversial, and always with great information about books and insights into the publishing world.

Farewell, The Literate Lizard Bookstore. Long Live The Literate Lizard Online!

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The Literate Lizard Bookstore Story

What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

Breathe easy, Sedona. You have your bookstore. The Literate Lizard was the culmination of a life-long dream for Scottsdale psychologist Eve Hunter, who moved here two years ago. She had visited Sedona a year earlier and was shocked to discover that the city had no general interest bookstore. “I knew the time was right,” she said. “I wanted to create a place for book lovers to unplug and reconnect with physical books, a place where creative minds could come together.”

Eve opened the light-filled store in November of 2018, filled with eclectic furnishings like bookshelves fashioned from Indonesian plows, alligator juniper tables created by local artisans, and a half canoe housing Native American books.  Book browsers can relax into their choice of a plush sofa and easy chair, or beanbags in the kids’ section, or out on the patio with its view of Coffee Pot Rock. Local artworks adorn the walls.

 

And then there are the books! Store manager Ed Newton worked in the book business for twenty years in Philadelphia before moving here three years ago. He too had been shocked to find a town without a bookstore, so when Eve offered the opportunity to get back in the book business at The Lizard…he leaped!

Ed brings his long experience and passion for books to the task of curating the selections filling the shelves. He spends hours poring through publisher catalogs and sifting through the hundreds of new books that are published each week. As he puts it: “My goal is for everyone who walks into the store to find a book they want, or, better yet, to find something they didn’t know they wanted but now can’t imagine being without.”

 

The Literate Lizard also hosts author events, writing workshops and community events. Local authors are frequent guests at the store, but given the attraction of Sedona, authors passing through often arrange to hold a reading/signing. We have also hosted author events for national publishers, including J. A. Jance, Ellen LaCorte, Jeff Biggers and Brooke Bessesen. We've hosted the cast party for a production of The Vagina Monologues, and provide a pop-up bookstore for the renowned Sedona International Film Festival