At least four independent bookstores have opened in the Reno area in the last year, reflecting a national trend.
Alyx Harrigian is co-owner of Thistle and Nightshade, a Reno bookstore that opened in 2024.
In addition to all genres of books, the store also carries things like candles and stickers, and it also has a newly-opened community space.
“Now we have a dedicated community room that's always open, and so book clubs can go anytime we're open,” Harrigian said. “We're also planning lots of craft days and trivia nights and stuff like that.”
In the past year, the bookstore has been joined by Hollow and Quill, Moss and Midnight, Between the Covers, and Bub’s Bookstore, all new indie bookstores in the Reno area.
But Nevada is not alone when it comes to new bookstores opening.
In the last five years, the number of independent bookstores registered with the American Booksellers Association has increased by over a thousand. Six hundred and five new stores opened in 2025.
But despite so many new stores opening, Allison Hill, CEO of the American Booksellers Association, said the last few years have been some of the hardest for bookstore owners.
“You take into consideration the typical challenges of running a small business, and of running independent bookstores specifically,” she said. “And you've got Amazon's chokehold on the book industry. You've got rising costs. You've got the labor shortage.”
On top of that, the percentage of Americans who read for pleasure on a given day dropped to 16% in 2023.
So, why are so many bookstores opening? Rob Fuller, co-owner of Bub’s Bookstore in Carson City, said there’s multiple factors.
“I think one of the biggest ones is this current pushback against these gigantic corporations — Amazon, Walmart, Target,” he said. “And people are tired of subscriptions, and people are tired of not actually physically owning things.”
Ilya Arbateman co-owns The Radical Cat, which opened in 2022. He said one reason people come to the store instead of shopping online or at a chain store, is that their selection of books is curated.
“Frankly, we're just a better bookstore than Barnes and Noble is,” he said. “They might have a lot of stuff, but because it's totally uncurated and uninteresting, you know, like your chance of discovering something is actually pretty low.”
The Radical Cat also has community space that doubles as an area for patrons to interact with their resident cats who are available for adoption.
Providing community spaces and facilitating in-person conversations is central for a lot of indie bookstores. Fuller said that it’s one of his top priorities for Bub’s Bookstore.
“My wife is actually more of a reader than I am,” he said, “but I really feel strongly about the community aspect that a bookstore, especially an indie bookstore, can offer to a community.”
Fuller said that another plus of shopping indie is that the money spent goes back into the community.
According to a 2022 report by the American Booksellers Association and Civic Economics, 29% of all revenue at independent bookstores goes directly back into the local economy. That creates twice the local economic impact of shopping at Barnes and Noble. And four times that of buying from Amazon.
To help encourage people to shop local without giving up the convenience of online shopping, bookshop.org allows people to order books on their website while giving their profits to indie bookstores of the shopper’s choice.
Hill said that the site has been a huge help to stores struggling to keep their doors open.
But despite all of this growth, she said running a bookstore still isn’t easy.
“I mean, the joke in the industry is how do you make a small fortune in the book business? You start with a large fortune, right?” Hill said.
Some booksellers think that the recent upswing in indie bookstores is simply a short term change. But Hill hopes, that maybe, these numbers reflect a more significant shift as people try to find community through reading, and invest in their local area.
Arbateman said it will depend on how much people are willing to continue to support bookstores in the years to come.
“When the culture is vibrant, like the book culture is vibrant, you know, I think there's actually room for as many bookstores as possible, basically, if people have the energy to do it,” he said.
