Hello Book Nerd

Bookshop field note

Changing Hands Bookstore

The Camelback branch in Phoenix. A large, long-established independent with a cafe and bar attached, a trade-in counter, a substantial children’s section and a packed events calendar. Book Bar is next door and Tesota is nearby, which makes the shop the anchor of a whole afternoon rather than a single stop.

Where
300 W Camelback Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85013
Neighbourhood
Alhambra, Phoenix
What it is
Independent bookstore

The quick read

Is it your kind of place?

Go if

you want the full afternoon: books, coffee, a drink, kids who are happy, and a neighbourhood built to absorb the rest of the day.

Go elsewhere if

you are after silence and a private armchair, because you will be sharing this place with a lot of contented people.

Read the full visit from 15 March 2026

The complete review, raw reviewer words and all twenty scores live there.

02 / Photographs

Inside the bookshop

The trades desk, busy. A bookseller in a yellow T-shirt talks with two customers at the counter while another bookseller works behind it, under yellow TRADES DESK signs and a convex security mirror. Shelves of stationery and gifts crowd in on every side.
Inside
A memoir shelf where nearly every book carries a typed changing hands staff pick card signed by a bookseller. A handwritten strip of shelf tape reads MEMOIRS cont., and another reads dot on spine = used.
Staff picks
The FIRST DRAFT book bar: a long timber counter under a wooden canopy with wine glasses racked overhead, lined with yellow stools. Several people sit working on laptops, a barista pulls drinks, and a sign by the magazine racks reads LINE STARTS HERE. Two enormous paper snowflakes hang from the beams.
Somewhere to sit
A wide view of the cafe counter under the FIRST DRAFT sign, with spinning racks of greeting cards and a wall of illustrated gift bags in the foreground and customers at the bar beyond.
What makes it itself