Sisters Share Love of Reading with Mentone Bookstore
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Jordan Fouts-
MENTONE – Sisters Maddie and Elyza Anweiler found that running a bookstore isn’t like what you see in the movies. And though they’ll generally insist the book is better than the flick, they say it’s not like what you read either. The formerly homeschooled twenty-somethings from Warsaw opened Pete & Freddy’s Pages Aplenty, 109 E. Main St., Mentone, four years ago in a four-room shop next to Java Jacks coffee. Their shelves have grown in that time from 2,000 tomes – a share of their personal collection – to 15,000 mysteries, cookbooks, westerns and other gently used paperbacks and hardcovers. “We often get the question, ‘So, have you read all these books?’” Maddie said Tuesday in the blue-painted room, which is devoted to Christian and hobby subjects as well as some fiction. The orange room contains kids books, the yellow room classics and poetry, and the green room biographies, art and travel. Not much is off-limits, though they won’t shelve horror, new age or “blatant erotica.” “So no ‘50 Shades of Gray,’” Elyza remarked. “Otherwise, we’re open to anything,” said Maddie – aka Pete – whose own tastes include, at the moment, fantasy and biographies. “There was a huge learning curve, we had to ask our friends how to diversify our own likes.” “I didn’t want true crime. It’s too depressing,” said Elyza, whose nickname is Freddy. She’s currently into history and poetry, and said she softened on the crime genre after getting some good recommendations like Truman Capote. It all adds up to an overflowing number of books, but “on the plus side, we get first pick,” said Maddie. “The only thing we love more than reading is buying books,” her sister added. Whether a book suits their personal tastes or not – stocking Stephanie Meyer was a concession to demand, for instance – doesn’t stop them from being knowledgeable about their collection. They keep everything carefully tagged and organized, with their catalog handily available on an iPad, and estimate they have whatever someone asks for about 85 percent of the time. If not, they can order it. “It was important to us when we opened up that we needed to know where everything was at,” said Maddie. Good organization helps avoid a pet peeve of theirs in other bookstores: clerks who aren’t familiar with their own collection. Prices range from $3 or $4 for a paperback to half of cover price for something in particularly good condition. They don’t often trade in rare or antique books since they aren’t trained to appraise them, though some of those do wind up on Etsy. Online presence is one of the things they’d like to expand on, besides physical space, and they want to offer more odds and ends like arts and crafts. Seeing their own published work on the shelves wouldn’t be bad either. They get a lot of help from their parents and four older siblings, who contribute by manning the store, giving recommendations and decorating. Quotes written on the walls are all family favorites, such as a Groucho Marx gem in the blue room: “I find television very educational. Every time someone switches it on I go into another room and read a good book.” Maddie was 21 and Elyza 19 when they acted on their dream to own a bookstore. They moved quickly once the space opened up, though they’ve had to keep outside jobs to supplement their income. “When we first opened, everybody was kind of negative. They said don’t expect success in the first five years,” Elyza said. “But we didn’t open the store to be rich but to share our love of books,” said Maddie. “Things aren’t like what you see in movies or in books. There’ve been surprises and joys along the way. We’ve grown in a business sense and a book sense, and in friendships.” It was a shock to move where they didn’t know anyone, but they’ve amassed a crew of regulars by now who stop in to see what’s new in their favorite genre. They also come for weekly get-togethers like knitting club or special events like local author signings and sidewalk sales. “It’s a small town but very connected,” said Elyza. “And it’s very fun to say I own a bookstore.”
