One morning in April 2024, a tractor trailer holding 5,500 books parked beside a low stucco building in California. Waiting inside among empty shelves and used furniture, Lyzy Lusterman found herself in shadow, excited but wondering what shed gotten herself into.
Until then, Lusterman had been immersed in the music world as a pianist and publisher of specialized magazines such as Ukulele and Acoustic Guitar. Now she was the new owner of , the countrys largest bookseller focused on birds. I think of myself as a pragmatic, risk-averse person, Lusterman says. Launching into another niche business while using savings to open the brands first physical location? This seemed anything but.
Shed bought Buteo Books to realize a childhood fantasy. Six months earlier, shed seen an ad in Living Bird magazine that read, Have You Always Dreamed of Owning a Bookstore? The answer was yes.
As a kid, Lusterman cherished the freedom of visiting local bookshops, where adults welcomed her to browse and read for as long as she wished. Her avian passion arrived later. While shed grown up amid the towering redwoods and rugged coasts of Californias Marin County, birds didnt catch her eye until the pandemic. On long walks along San Francisco Bay, she began observing shorebirds like American Avocets and Black-necked Stilts and became hooked. Soon, she realized there was a local community of obsessed birders.
Since taking over Buteo Books, Lusterman has used her publishing and marketing experience to tap into that subculture. Shes expanded and created a welcoming physical space, open four days a week in San Rafael. Its a niche that was waiting to be filled, says Jane Medley, a member of Marin 91做厙 Society who regularly visits for store events with authors, scientists, and photographers. Shes building a community.
Shes only the latest passionate owner to leave an imprint on the business. Ornithologist Byron Harrell, the first president of the Raptor Research Foundation, and his wife, Joyce, founded Buteo Books in 1971. At a conference in Europe, they saw a bookseller hawking avian titles and decided to bring the business model back home to South Dakota. At first, they offered a handwritten catalog of 50 titles, with a focus on raptor reads (as the name Buteo suggests). They slowly grew the business, taking mail or phone orders for new books and publishing a few of their own.
Allen Hale, an avid birder in Virginia, took over 20 years later. By day he was a land surveyora great profession, he says, for watching wildlife on the job. As owner, he built Buteo Books trove of rare, out-of-print, and antiquarian titles. Collecting books, after all, is not unlike adding species to a life list. He enjoyed introducing his favorite nature writer, Peter Matthiessen, to interested customers. I have 簫virtually every book he wrote, Hale says.
In 1998, Hale hired an employee who would shape Buteo Books future. Not only did Jamie Hale create the companys first database and launch it into online selling, but she also met and married Allens son, Jeremy. The pair took the reins in 2013, moving the collection from Allens basement into a four-story warehouse theyd purchased. Boosted by surging interest in birding, the business had its best year ever in 2021, shipping 28 books a day on average. But the couple also ran other businesses from the facility and felt stretched thin. They put Buteo Books up for sale in 2022, hoping to see it live on. A year later, as doubt began to set in, Lusterman wrote to them.
Under Lusterman, the companys family tradition has continued. For years, Lyzy had worked with her father, David, and brother, Joey, at Stringletter, the music magazine company that David started in the 1980s. These days, the family has also embraced Buteo Books: David helped set up the store; Joey proofreads newsletters; and Lyzys mother, Kathryn, works there, advising customers on local birding spots and native plants, a passion of hers.
Lyzy herself has leaned into curating the stores offerings. She particularly enjoys acquiring titles from private collections, discovering precious treasures in the form of bookmarks or marginalia, and finding customers who may cherish the books anew. Theres something nice about knowing that other people held a book and read it before you, she says. Its a reminder that stories and knowledge are living things. Her regular emails spotlight , , and community notes, such as a customer who built a Chimney Swift tower, while the Buteo Curio newsletter offers updates on , finds.
She hopes this care sets Buteo Books apart from platforms like Amazon or the whims of some algorithm. But she is clear-eyed about the financial challenges. In two years, shes become familiar with the seasons of booksellingthe holiday high, the lull that follows. Still, she thinks business is moving in the right direction. Newsletter subscribers, a driver of online orders, have more than doubled from those she inherited. And though most sales are online, in-person revenue is ticking up as the Bay Areas birding community learns about the store.
Like the Harrells and Hales before her, she has also gone on the road, selling at regional events. Shed like to do morethe challenge is staying patient. After all, a great independent bookstore wasnt built in a day.
Lusterman says these books have shaped her understanding of birds and nature. Shes always restocking them.
This story originally ran in the Summer 2026 issue as New Chapter. To receive our print magazine, become a member by .
