The Toadstool Bookshops in Peterborough and Keene are under new ownership.

Emerson Sistare and his family have purchased the longtime independent bookstores from Willard and Holly Williams. The Williams family founded the Toadstool in Peterborough in 1972.

Sistare grew up in Peterborough, Jaffrey and Dublin and will be managing both the Peterborough and Keene locations.

“I spent so much time there as a kid,” Sistare said. “It had a huge impact on the trajectory of my life.”

Sistare has memories of spending time at The Toadstool on Sundays after going to church with his grandmother, who was an avid reader. He remembers her telling him to pick out a book and he would find five. He went to midnight “Harry Potter” releases with his mother. It was a space he deeply identified with the community, and when he lived out of state, “coming home and seeing The Toadstool felt like I had walked in the door of the Monadnock region,” he said. 

Sistare has most recently worked as a history teacher at Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine. 

“I was trying to find a profession where I could primarily focus life around learning new things,” he said, and he credits his career path to his lifelong love of reading, as well as inspiration from Henry Walters, a local poet who taught Sistare at Dublin School, and Dublin School Head of School Brad Bates. He believes his experience in education will apply to running the bookstores, as he will continue to be curious and humble, and he’s excited to read as much as he can.

Sistare has spent months learning about how to run a bookstore from the Williamses. 

“It’s been a very steep learning curve,” he said, “The Monadnock region as a whole has become very accustomed to the standard of excellence Holly and Willard operate on on a daily basis. For 50 years, the greater Peterborough community has walked into The Toadstool and only ever seen masters of their craft at work.”

Sistare said this extends to the staff, including Peterborough-based Jeff Osgood, who runs the used book section; Lowell Morris, who runs the music section; and the staff in Keene. The staff will remain in place under Sistare’s ownership.

“Working with them has been unbelievably exciting,” he said. 

The Peterborough and Keene locations have 70,000 titles in each store. Sistare said they organize hundreds of books a day.

Sistare explained that there was a large resurgence of independent bookstores during the pandemic and a decrease in Amazon book sales.

“Independent bookstores are places where members of our community can see their interests and passions validated and represented on the shelves next to their neighbors,” he said, which encourages a sense of place and “plays a huge part in how we see ourselves.”

Plus, the Monadnock region has a number of esteemed local authors. The first shelf in The Toadstool is the New England section.

“The Peterborough area really prides itself on the prioritization that [the region] is well read,” Sistare said, mentioning Sy Montgomery, Howard Mansfield and Susie Spikol, local authors who have written books that are sold at the store and have held readings there.

And Sistare emphasized the importance of being a “self-reflective” independent bookstore.

“One of the biggest things I’ve seen Willard and Holly do is consistently looking – is the store reflective of the community around it?” he said.

Sistare said The Toadstool is “a bookstore for bookstore lovers.” He added that the experience of walking into The Toadstool is “almost like you’ve walked inside a book.”

Sistare’s favorite times working at The Toadstool are when children come in. When he sees children with their grandparents, it brings back memories of his own childhood shaped by books and he feels honored to be part of their reading journey.

“To get to provide a space where memories get to be made is a rare opportunity and blessing,” he said. “I feel very, very lucky.”

Sistare said his main goal “is to continue the tradition of exceptional literary service and personal service that Willard and Holly have engrained in the community.” The Williamses’ third bookstore location, in Nashua, will stay in their family and has been renamed Balin Books.

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