The NewSouth Bookstore

On South Court Street in downtown Montgomery, a short walk from the Rosa Parks Museum and the Freedom Rides Museum, The NewSouth Bookstore has served readers since 2000. It was founded by Suzanne La Rosa and Randall Williams as a sideline of NewSouth Books, one of the Southeast’s leading independent publishing houses, and it originally occupied space on the ground floor of NewSouth’s editorial offices.

That publishing connection shaped the store’s identity from the start, and it still shows in the shelves today. The bookstore keeps a particularly deep selection in Southern history and culture, the Civil War, civil rights, slavery, Reconstruction, and Alabama history specifically, subjects that resonate given the store’s location in a neighborhood layered with civil rights history. Alongside those specialty sections, the shop stocks new and used books across the usual range of genres, plus gift items like journals, candles, and puzzles for browsers looking for something other than a book.

The relationship between the bookstore and its publishing parent changed in 2022, when NewSouth Books was sold to the University of Georgia Press. Rather than winding down, La Rosa and Williams redirected their attention toward growing the bookstore itself, expanding its physical space, sharpening its book selection, and building out a more active events calendar. The store now hosts author talks and facilitates custom book orders and corporate events, functions that keep it tied into Montgomery’s literary community beyond simple retail.

As an independent bookstore, NewSouth operates on IndieCommerce, a platform built specifically to support stores like it rather than large chain retailers, and the shop leans into that identity through community programming, including local author days that spotlight regional writers. The store is open seven days a week, with weekday hours from 10am to 6pm and weekend hours from 10am to 4pm, making it an easy stop for both downtown workers on a lunch break and weekend visitors touring Montgomery’s historic sites.

The staff, including assistant bookstore manager Jessala White, help steer both new and used inventory, and the shop’s used book selection gives it a browsing quality that a purely new-release retailer would lack. Shoppers can find staff picks tables and bestseller displays alongside the deeper regional history stacks, a layout that serves casual visitors and serious researchers of Alabama and Southern history equally well.

For anyone building a downtown Montgomery itinerary, The NewSouth Bookstore pairs naturally with the civil rights museums nearby, offering a place to sit with the history just encountered a block or two away in book form. It remains one of the clearest examples in the city of an independent retailer that has outlasted the very publishing venture that spawned it, carving out its own identity in the process.

The store’s publishing background also shows up in how it approaches events. Because its founders spent decades on the publishing side of the book business, the store has relationships with authors and presses that a purely retail-focused shop would likely lack, which has translated into a steady calendar of readings and signings that draw both local and visiting writers.

Corporate and custom orders are another part of the business that separates it from a casual browsing shop. Local offices, schools, and organizations use the store to source books in bulk for events or gifts, and the staff will track down specific out-of-print or hard-to-find titles on request, a service that depends on the kind of book trade knowledge built up over more than two decades in business.

The gift section, though smaller than the book stacks, rounds out the shop nicely for browsers who came in for one title and end up finding a card, candle, or puzzle worth adding to the stack at checkout. Combined with the store’s downtown location and its deep regional history sections, that mix of function keeps The NewSouth Bookstore relevant to a wide range of Montgomery shoppers, not just committed readers.