Moby Dickens Bookshop
Taos, New Mexico · 1984–2015

Last verified May 2026 · Original research by Josh Eldred

The Bachrachs and the founding

Art Bachrach was not a career bookseller. He was a psychologist — a distinguished one. Arthur J. Bachrach held a PhD from the University of Virginia, chaired the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University, and spent years directing the Environmental Stress Program at the Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, where he supervised undersea and extreme-environment research for the U.S. Navy. He was a published author in his own field and later wrote D. H. Lawrence in New Mexico: The Time Is Different There, published by UNM Press — a book of recollections about Lawrence's life and friends in 1920s Taos, drawn from interviews Art conducted with people who had known the Lawrences personally.

When Art and Susan Bachrach retired to Taos in the early 1980s, they did not retire quietly. In December 1984, they opened Moby Dickens Bookshop at 124 Bent Street — the name was Art's idea — in a building on property owned by Polly Raye. The building itself dated to around 1920, originally the home of John Dunn, the legendary Taos transportation entrepreneur who had arrived in the area from Elizabethtown in 1887. The Bachrachs turned it into something that Taos had needed and had not quite had: a serious, owner-curated independent bookshop that carried new books, rare books, and out-of-print books, with a deep emphasis on Southwest literature, regional history, and local authors.

This was not a tourist gift shop with a book table by the register. Moby Dickens was a bookstore built by someone who had spent a career in academic and research settings, who understood what serious readers actually read, and who had the intellectual infrastructure to curate accordingly. Art and Susan knew their stock. They knew their customers. And they knew the authors — many of whom lived within a short drive of the store.

Bent Street and the Taos literary geography

The location mattered. Bent Street — named for Charles Bent, New Mexico's first territorial governor, who was killed in the Taos Revolt of 1847 — runs through the heart of downtown Taos, connecting to the Taos Plaza via the John Dunn House Shops pedestrian passageway. By the 1980s, Bent Street had evolved from a residential lane into a walkable stretch of galleries, shops, and small restaurants that served both locals and the steady stream of visitors who came to Taos for the art, the skiing, and the landscape.

Moby Dickens fit this context. It was accessible to tourists walking Bent Street after visiting the galleries, but it was not dependent on tourist traffic. Its core audience was the permanent literary and artistic community of northern New Mexico — the writers, the painters, the university-connected intellectuals, the retirees who had moved to Taos from research careers and academic posts elsewhere, bringing their reading habits with them. These people bought books regularly, attended readings, and built the kind of household libraries that I now encounter when their estates transition.

The store occupied a space that felt appropriate to its purpose: rooms in a historic adobe-era building, with an upstairs area for additional stock and author events. Cats lived in the shop — Tony and Mabel, during the later years — and the overall atmosphere was what independent bookstores were before the word "curated" became a marketing cliche. At Moby Dickens, the shelves reflected one family's considered judgment about what was worth reading. That is curation in the old sense.

What Moby Dickens carried

The store described itself as specializing in new, rare, and out-of-print books about the Southwest, regional topics, and local-interest subjects. That description is accurate but understates the range. Moby Dickens was a general independent bookstore with a regional spine — it carried serious contemporary fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction, and the kinds of small-press titles that chain bookstores never stocked, but it organized this stock around a deep commitment to northern New Mexico writing.

What this meant in practice:

• New releases by regional authors — first editions in hardcover, stocked on pub date, often signed at in-store events. John Nichols, Frank Waters, Stanley Crawford, William Eastlake, and other northern NM writers had their new books on Moby Dickens shelves before anywhere else in Taos.
• Rare and out-of-print Southwest titles — the Bachrachs maintained a section of older, collectible books about Taos, northern New Mexico, Pueblo culture, D. H. Lawrence's Taos period, Mabel Dodge Luhan's literary colony, and the broader Southwest. Art Bachrach's own scholarly background made him a knowledgeable buyer of antiquarian Southwest material.
• Art and photography books — appropriate to a town whose economic and cultural identity was inseparable from its art community. Books on the Taos Society of Artists, individual Taos painters, and Southwest photography found a natural home on these shelves.
• General literary fiction and poetry — the kind of mid-list and small-press literary output that only an independent bookstore would carry. Moby Dickens customers were readers, and the store served them with a depth of selection that reflected their tastes.
• Original works by New Mexican authors — many of them signed. The store made a point of carrying signed copies from its author events, which means that signed first editions purchased at Moby Dickens were a regular part of what walked out the door and onto local bookshelves.

The Taos literary community and the signing table

The reason Moby Dickens matters to collectors and estate handlers is not just that it sold books. It is that it was the primary venue where northern New Mexico authors signed books for the local audience. And that signing history creates a provenance chain that extends forward into estate libraries today.

John Nichols

John Nichols moved to Taos in 1969 and lived there until his death on November 27, 2023, at age 83. He is best known for The Milagro Beanfield War (1974), adapted into a film directed by Robert Redford, and for the broader New Mexico Trilogy that includes The Magic Journey (1978) and The Nirvana Blues (1981). Nichols produced more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction over a career that spanned five decades, nearly all of it rooted in his adopted home of northern New Mexico.

Moby Dickens was Nichols's primary bookstore. He lived in Taos. He walked through downtown regularly. When he had a new book, he signed at Moby Dickens — and because he was both prolific and generous with his time, Nichols signed there repeatedly over the store's three-decade run. The result is that Moby Dickens stickers paired with John Nichols signatures represent one of the most common and most documentable provenance combinations in the northern New Mexico book market.

For anyone handling a Taos estate library, this is the combination to watch for. A first edition of a Nichols novel with a Moby Dickens sticker on the rear pastedown and a Nichols signature on the title page is not just a signed book — it is a book with a traceable origin. The sticker authenticates the geographic context. The signature, dated within the store's operating years, connects to a known signing venue. Together, they create the kind of provenance documentation that moves a book from "signed" to "signed with attribution." That distinction matters to collectors who track closed signature pools — and Nichols's pool closed permanently in November 2023.

Frank Waters

Frank Waters (1902–1995) was among the most significant literary voices of the American Southwest, author of twenty-eight volumes of fiction and nonfiction including The Man Who Killed the Deer and Book of the Hopi. Waters lived in the Taos area from the late 1940s onward, purchasing property in nearby Arroyo Seco in 1947, and was a central figure in the Taos literary community for decades. He signed at Moby Dickens during the Bachrach era — and his death in 1995 means that every signed Frank Waters book in existence is now part of a permanently closed pool. A Waters signature paired with a Moby Dickens sticker is strong provenance.

William Eastlake

William Eastlake (1917–1997) lived and ranched near Cuba, New Mexico, and was part of the northern New Mexico literary circle that intersected with Taos. His novels — Go in Beauty, The Bronc People, Portrait of an Artist with Twenty-Six Horses — drew on the landscape and culture of the region. Eastlake signed at Moby Dickens, and his books surface in Taos-area estate libraries alongside Waters, Nichols, and Crawford. Like Waters, Eastlake's signature pool is permanently closed.

Stanley Crawford

Stanley Crawford, who has lived in Dixon, New Mexico (about thirty miles south of Taos), since the late 1960s, is the author of novels including Gascoyne, Log of the S.S. The Mrs Unguentine, and the nonfiction work Mayordomo: Chronicle of an Acequia in Northern New Mexico, one of the finest pieces of writing about irrigation-community culture in the American West. Crawford is a working farmer as well as a working writer, and his books carry the specificity of someone who actually lives the agricultural and community life he describes. He signed at Moby Dickens throughout its operation, and his books appear regularly in northern New Mexico estate libraries.

The broader signing roster

Beyond the core northern New Mexico writers, Moby Dickens hosted readings and signings by visiting national authors throughout the year. The store held regular free events featuring both local and nationally recognized writers. A book signed at a Moby Dickens event by a touring author — with a Moby Dickens sticker confirming the point of sale — provides geographic authentication for that signature: the author was in Taos, at this store, on or near this date. For authors who signed extensively on tour, this kind of venue-specific provenance can differentiate one signed copy from another.

Provenance markers: identifying a Moby Dickens book

When I encounter books from northern New Mexico estate libraries — whether I am handling the estate directly or evaluating books that have been brought to me — I look for specific markers that connect a book to Moby Dickens. Here is what to look for, and here is what each marker means for authentication and provenance documentation.

• The Moby Dickens sticker. A small sticker — typically a white oval or white rectangle — printed with "Moby Dickens Bookshop, Taos, NM" in blue or black ink. Placed on the rear pastedown endpaper. This is the primary provenance marker. Because the store is permanently closed, these stickers are no longer being produced. Every sticker in existence was placed during the store's operating years (1984–2015), which makes them a fixed-date provenance indicator. Do not remove these stickers. They are doing their job.
• Signed copies with corresponding dates. A signature on the title page or half-title, dated within 1984–2015, in a book that also carries a Moby Dickens sticker. This combination is the strongest provenance chain the store produces. It means: this book was purchased at Moby Dickens, and the signature was likely added at a Moby Dickens reading or signing event.
• Penciled bookseller pricing. The Bachrachs carried both new and used books. Older volumes — particularly the rare and out-of-print Southwest titles — may carry penciled price marks on the rear endpaper, in the traditional antiquarian-bookseller manner. These marks confirm that the book passed through a knowledgeable bookseller's hands and was priced by someone who understood what it was.
• Event ephemera. Bookmarks, reading-event flyers, author-appearance announcements, and other printed material tucked between pages. Moby Dickens regularly produced material advertising upcoming events. When these survive inside a book, they add a layer of documentation — and they occasionally establish a date range for when the book was purchased or last opened.
• Customer ownership marks. The kind of reader who shopped at Moby Dickens often wrote their name on the flyleaf or title page — in pencil, in the bibliographically conscious tradition. These ownership marks do not reduce value. They confirm the household's identity and connection to the Taos literary community, which can matter if the owner was themselves a notable figure.

What Taos estate libraries with Moby Dickens provenance contain

The households that built their libraries at Moby Dickens were a specific demographic: retired academics, research scientists who had moved to Taos after careers at national labs or universities, working artists and writers, seasonal residents from the coasts who maintained Taos homes, and the permanent residents who constituted the town's literary and intellectual class. Their libraries reflect those backgrounds.

When I walk a Taos-area estate library — or when books from a Taos household arrive at the warehouse in Albuquerque — here is what a Moby Dickens household typically contains:

• Northern New Mexico authors in first editions, often signed. Nichols, Waters, Crawford, Eastlake, and the other writers who constituted the Taos literary community. Many of these will carry Moby Dickens stickers. Some will have inscriptions — "For [name], with thanks for coming tonight" — that connect directly to store events.
• Southwest history, anthropology, and Pueblo studies. The Bachrachs curated this section with care. Estate libraries from Moby Dickens customers often contain significant runs of Southwest scholarship — Pueblo pottery studies, Taos Pueblo histories, Spanish colonial documents, acequia and land-grant literature.
• D. H. Lawrence and Mabel Dodge Luhan material. Art Bachrach literally wrote a book about Lawrence in New Mexico. The store carried Lawrence material and Luhan material in depth, and customers who shared Bachrach's interest built personal collections on these subjects. My D. H. Lawrence reference page covers what to look for.
• Art books — Taos Society of Artists, individual Taos painters, Southwest photography. In a town where the art galleries outnumber the restaurants, the book-buying public wanted art books. Moby Dickens supplied them, and estate libraries reflect that demand.
• Serious general literary fiction. The same readers who bought regional books also bought contemporary literary fiction — first editions of national authors, often in original dust jackets, often in good condition because these were careful readers.
• Poetry — including small-press chapbooks. Moby Dickens carried poetry seriously. Estate libraries from its customers often contain strong poetry sections with small-press titles that are easy to overlook and sometimes genuinely collectible.

How Moby Dickens books appear in Albuquerque estate libraries

This might seem counterintuitive. Moby Dickens was a Taos bookstore. Why am I writing about it on a site based in Albuquerque?

Because northern New Mexico is one literary ecosystem, and books move within it. The person who bought books at Moby Dickens in the 1990s might have retired to Albuquerque in the 2010s. The family that maintained a Taos ski home for thirty years might have consolidated their books when the parents moved to an assisted-living facility on the I-25 corridor. The Taos writer who died in 2022 might have an adult child in the East Mountains who is now clearing the family home.

In every one of these scenarios, Moby Dickens books end up in Albuquerque-area estate libraries. And when they do, they appear alongside books from Living Batch, Collected Works in Santa Fe, Bookworks, and the other bookstores that served the I-25 corridor. A household library that contains provenance markers from both Moby Dickens and an Albuquerque bookstore is telling you something important: this was a reader who moved within the northern New Mexico literary community. The library probably has depth, range, and signed copies from multiple venues.

I see this pattern regularly. A Moby Dickens sticker in an Albuquerque estate library is a signal. It means the rest of the collection deserves careful attention, because the person who bought books in Taos was almost certainly buying them in Albuquerque and Santa Fe as well.

The 2012 sale and the 2015 closure

Art Bachrach died on December 19, 2011, at age 88. He had run Moby Dickens with Susan for twenty-seven years. In 2012, the Bachrachs sold the business to Jay and Carolyn Moore, who had moved to Taos to operate the store.

The Moores ran Moby Dickens for three years. On July 3, 2015, the store closed. Customers arrived to find a going-out-of-business sign on a locked front door. The Moores cited the combination of Amazon's dominance, razor-thin book margins, unpredictable tourist spending, and the controversial installation of parking meters on Bent Street — a change that locals believed was suppressing foot traffic to the downtown shops.

The closure was a recognized cultural loss. For thirty-one years, Moby Dickens had been the place in Taos where you went to buy a book. Not a souvenir with a Taos logo. Not a mass-market paperback from a spinner rack. A book — chosen by someone who understood books, carried because it belonged on the shelf, sold to a customer who would read it. That infrastructure is difficult to replace.

About six weeks after the closure, the space reopened as Op.Cit Books, operated by Noemi de Bodisco, who also ran Op.Cit in Santa Fe and Tome on the Range in Las Vegas, New Mexico. De Bodisco leased the space from Polly Raye, the longtime property owner, and continued the tradition of literary programming at the Bent Street location. The bookstore community adapted, as bookstore communities do. But Moby Dickens — the Bachrachs' store, with its particular sensibility and its three decades of accumulated relationships — was gone.

The collector value question

I do not post prices online. The market moves, conditions vary, and any number I published today could be misleading by next season. What I can do is explain how Moby Dickens provenance fits into the first-edition identification and authentication framework that collectors use.

Highest tier of interest: A first-edition, first-printing hardcover by a northern New Mexico author (Nichols, Waters, Eastlake, Crawford), signed on the title page with a date falling within Moby Dickens's operating years, with a Moby Dickens sticker on the rear pastedown. This is a documented provenance chain: the book was purchased at a known venue, the signature was added at or near that venue, and the sticker authenticates both. For authors whose signature pools are now permanently closed (Waters died 1995, Eastlake 1997, Nichols 2023), this documentation is especially significant because no new signed copies are being created.

Strong interest: Rare or out-of-print Southwest titles — particularly early Taos-related material, D. H. Lawrence first editions, Pueblo studies, or Taos Society of Artists publications — with Moby Dickens provenance. The Bachrachs curated this material knowledgeably, and the store's sticker on an antiquarian Southwest book confirms that it passed through a serious bookseller's assessment.

Moderate interest: Unsigned first editions of significant literary works purchased at Moby Dickens. The sticker adds provenance context — it places the book in a specific Taos household during a specific era — but without a signature, the premium is cultural rather than financial.

Minimal financial impact but cultural significance: Later printings, book-club editions, and reading copies with Moby Dickens stickers. These confirm the household's connection to the store and are worth preserving as provenance documentation, but they do not materially affect the book's resale value.

If you are clearing a Taos or northern NM estate library

The presence of Moby Dickens stickers in an estate library is a flag that says: this person was a serious reader who participated in the Taos literary community. Here is the practical advice for handling that library:

1. Do not remove Moby Dickens stickers. They are provenance documentation. They authenticate. Removing them destroys information that cannot be recreated.
2. Check every book for signatures. Moby Dickens customers attended readings. A library with Moby Dickens stickers will often contain signed copies in higher-than-average concentrations. Check the title page and the half-title of every hardcover. Check the title page of every trade paperback. Do not skip the poetry.
3. Look at the poetry shelf with extra care. Small-press chapbooks from regional and literary presses are easy to mistake for pamphlets and discard. They are often the most overlooked and most collectible category in a serious literary library. If you do not know what you are looking at, photograph it and ask.
4. Preserve inscriptions. An inscription from a northern New Mexico author to a named local recipient is an association copy — the book connects two identified people in a specific community. If the recipient was a notable figure (a local artist, a writer, a community leader), the association adds interest beyond the signature itself.
5. Look for the rare-and-out-of-print section. Moby Dickens sold antiquarian Southwest material. The person who bought it may have shelved it separately or mixed it in with the rest of the library. Either way, the older Taos-related titles deserve individual attention.
6. Do not assume that "old" means "valuable" or that "new" means "not valuable." A pristine 1990s first edition of a Nichols novel, signed at Moby Dickens, may be worth considerably more than a beat-up 1920s reprint of a common Southwest title. Condition, edition, and signature status determine value. The sticker helps authenticate. But the evaluation requires someone who knows the regional market.
7. Call or text before you start sorting. I will give you an honest read on what you have, what to watch for, and what the library is likely worth as a collection. This conversation is free. 702-496-4214. If you want cash for the collection rather than donation, my sell books in Taos page covers that option.

Why this page exists

Moby Dickens Bookshop was part of the cultural infrastructure of northern New Mexico for thirty-one years. It was not the largest bookstore in the state. It was not the most famous. It was a small, independent, owner-curated shop in a historic building on a historic street in a town whose literary significance far exceeds its population of roughly six thousand permanent residents.

What made Moby Dickens matter was its role as a node — the place where authors and readers intersected, where new books entered the community, where rare books changed hands, where the literary culture of Taos had a physical address. Art Bachrach built this with the same intellectual discipline he had brought to his research career. Susan Bachrach sustained it through three decades of retail operations in a small market. Together, they created something that is easy to take for granted until it disappears.

It has now disappeared. The space is a different bookstore under a different name. The Bachrachs' specific sensibility — the books they chose, the events they hosted, the relationships they cultivated — cannot be replicated. What survives is the paper trail: the books themselves, on shelves in Taos and Arroyo Seco and Ranchos de Taos and Angel Fire and the homes along the I-25 corridor where northern New Mexico readers eventually settled.

When you find a small white sticker on the rear pastedown of a book in a northern New Mexico estate library, you are holding a piece of that paper trail. It connects the book to a particular store, on a particular street, in a particular town, during a particular era. For some books, that connection is incidental. For others — the signed Nichols, the inscribed Waters, the rare D. H. Lawrence pamphlet — it is part of why the book matters.

Either way, it is worth a moment of attention before the book goes into the box.

Northern New Mexico's broader bookstore history

Moby Dickens was one of several distinctive independent bookstores that served the literary community of the I-25 corridor. The main bookstore-history reference page covers the full landscape — Page One Books, Bookworks, Salt of the Earth, Living Batch, Collected Works, and more. Each store had its own customers, its own specialties, and its own legacy in the region's estate libraries. Deep-dives on specific stores: Living Batch Bookstore · Collected Works, Santa Fe.