After serving as a hub for Las Vegas’ literary community for 39 years, Amber Unicorn Books (2101 S. Decatur Blvd., #14) will shutter at the end of November.
“It’s sad,” owner Myrna Donato says. “I feel like I’m abandoning all my loyal customers, but they all understand.”
Her store has struggled financially since neighboring Trader Joe’s vacated its shopping center in 2016. The following year, Donato’s husband, Lou, died. Then COVID-19 hit. At age 81, Donato says it’s “time to go home and play with my dogs.”
Amber Unicorn is particularly known for its extensive cookbook collection, and during the closing sale, the store will open its cookbook annex to the public for the first time. “I read cookbooks like other people read novels,” Donato says. “It’s become a specialty of mine.”
Donato estimates that she has 26,000 cookbooks in the store and another 10,000 at home.
Leading up to the closure, Amber Unicorn is running a final sale, with fiction paperbacks going for $2 and the rest of its book inventory discounted by 30%. Remaining books will also be available for purchase online at
bit.ly/3kk4boj.
For now, Donato plans to remain open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“It’s a bittersweet end of an era—not being able to see my customers every day, having to say goodbye to each and every one of them,” Donato says. “It’s going to be a little bit on the traumatic side.”
