It should be no surprise to the regulars who read this blog that I adore bookstores. My favorite bookstore has to be the Next Chapter Bookshop in Mequon, Wisconsin. This store has a great selection, a really cozy atmosphere, and plenty of author appearances. They also have a very active event schedule.

The history behind Next Chapter is that it used to be a Harry W. Schwartz bookstore location. This has significance for anyone in the Milwaukee area, because HWS was a much-beloved independent bookstore chain. They closed up shop about a year ago, but luckily for book lovers Lanora Hurley decided to keep it going and took over the store last year. Lanora knew what she was doing, and I couldn’t wait to find out more about her. If you are ever in the Milwaukee area, I encourage you to make a stop at Next Chapter. In the meantime, enjoy this interview.

Opening a bookstore in this economy might have scared off some people, but I’m happy you decided to move forward! Tell us about the Next Chapter Book Shop.

I have always wanted to own my own bookstore, ever since I was a little kid opening the boxes of books in the back room of my grandmother’s bookstore. She owned a small Christian bookstore in the 1970s called ABC Bookstore in Cedarburg. It was located where The Gem Shop is now. However, after working for two great independent stores, Politics & Prose in Washington DC and then Harry W. Schwartz here in Milwaukee, I came to realize everything that was involved in running a bookstore and decided I would be content to work for the Schwartz family for the rest of my life. However, it didn’t work out that way! It’s my daughter’s fault really. When I was first approached about purchasing the Mequon HWS location, I initially decided “no,” or more like “no waaaaay….”. However my 10 year old pointed out to me that I needed to follow my dreams, or at least try. I did not think that I would be able to make it happen. The credit crisis had just happened and I seriously doubted that I would be able to get funding. Plus so many other factors needed to fall into

place, including the landlord reducing the rent considerably. It must have been fate because everything did fall into place. The Schwartz family approached me at the end of November to make an offer. I wrote a business plan, got a business loan, set up the company and opened accounts in 3 months…all while working my full time job as manager of the store for HWS. The Mequon HWS closed on March 27, 2009 and Next Chapter opened on April 1. We are coming up on being in business one year. I’m very proud of what my staff and I have done over the past 12 months. I think that Next Chapter has continued to be a part of the community while starting to develop its own personality. I look forward to another 20 years of this (at least)…but I just hope the roller coaster ride gets a little tamer in the years to come. J

What types of book clubs or reading groups hang out at Next Chapter?

One of the best decisions I made this year was to keep the same staff that had been working for me when we were HWS. Jane Glaser is my book club coordinator and she has done a fantastic job of keeping our book club program going strong. We have over 150 active book groups registered with us. When a group registers, they not only get Jane’s personal recommendations and service, they get 15% off of the book they are reading in the month they have their meeting. We also hold special events for our registered book club members that highlight our recommended books and often have many freebies! We have three book groups that we run in the store that are free and open to the public. We have a literary book group that meets on the third Tuesday of every month, a Mystery book group that meets on the last Monday of every month and a Young Adult book group that just started up that meets once a month on Sundays.

Author events have to be one of my favorite things to attend. Who are some of the authors you’ve had visit? Any of them have a particularly happy or fun memory you could share?

We have had over 44 author events in the store since we opened. This is also something I am very proud of. Most publishers are not willing to take the risk, or take on the expense (because author tours are very expensive) to send authors to new bookstores. The fact that the publishers continued to send us authors on tour was a big deal. The publishers saw the community support that I had, and saw that we were experienced booksellers, even though we were a new bookstore, and kept us on the circuit. This year, some of the bigger names we had were John Grogan, Annie Barrows, David Wroblewski, Jennifer Chiaverini, Adrianna Trigiani, Elizabeth Berg and Jacqueline Mitchard. The David Wroblewski event was my favorite in many ways. We had 350 people there. He was so intelligent and so charming. Plus when he read from The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, you could hear a pin drop. His reading was just mesmerizing! The best part of the evening was his comments to the staff afterwards. He told us he has NEVER had a more intelligent and interesting audience and just loved the questions that people asked. The Annie Barrows night was one I’ll remember for the rest of my life, only because it was so tense! She missed her connecting flight out of Minneapolis to Milwaukee due to a bad storm and arrived almost 2 hours late. Having to get up in front of 300 people to let them know she was that delayed was quite the experience! This year is shaping up to be even better than last year with author visits. We have many that we are working on right now, and some are a secret for now, but I can tell you that I’m VERY excited to announce some of these amazing people that will be coming to our little berg!

Remind our readers why having independent bookstores like Next Chapter is so very important to book lovers?

I could write volumes on why having an independent bookstore in your neighborhood is important. One of the most important reasons is that independent bookstores do not let outside influences decide what books we stock, and therefore what books our customers have access to. What I mean by this is that in many of the mass merchandise stores, the books that are available for purchase are determined by how much of a discount, or how much extra cooperative advertising money the publisher is willing to kick back to the retailer to stock the book. They do not stock titles based on quality, they stock them just like they stock any other product…by what will get them the best deal. If independent bookstores disappear altogether, there will be no outlet for readers to find authors that are a little out of the mainstream. Independent bookstore are also the last and only places that local authors can find an audience for their books. We carry and promote local and self-published authors. You will not find these books in a chain or mass merchandise store. If it weren’t for independent bookstores, many great authors would never find an audience. Any independent store is also an asset to the local economy. For every $100 a consumer spends in a locally owned store, $68 stays in the local economy. For every $100 in consumer spending at a chain store only $43 stays in the local economy. This is because all of my employees are local and I make a point to support other local businesses, from where I get my bags, to my lawyer and my accountant. Unlike online bookstores, we pay sales tax that helps keep property taxes low(er) and keep the local government funded with services for police and fire. But I think the most important function of an independent bookstore in a community is really to provide what urban planners call a “third place”; a place outside of home and work where people can meet and talk and find a sense of community and belonging. I think that is the beauty of books. Despite reading being such a solitary act, they bring people together.

Tell us a bit about yourself. What drew you to this profession?

I have always been an obsessive and avid reader since I was little. Helping my grandmother in her bookstore planted the seed! So I was naturally drawn to bookstores. I started working at Borders Books in Columbus, OH while I was in college. I loved working in the bookstore, but didn’t like the corporate atmosphere so much. When my husband and I moved to Washington DC, I got a job for Politics & Prose and just fell in love with the whole business. I realized that I never wanted to do anything else! What other profession does a person get to wear jeans and sneakers to work, get free books, meet famous authors and talk to people about what you’ve read? I probably won’t ever retire, because I’m already doing what I love. This is my dream job.

What’s the most interesting book you’ve ever read? Favorite authors?

Both of these questions are very hard for me to answer. I read on average 2 books per week, sometimes more. At 100+ book per year, it would be easier for you to ask me what was the most interesting book I read last month! J Or break it down by genre. Because of the way the publishing industry works, I am also usually reading books 6-9 months before they are published. The publisher will send us uncorrected proofs to read ahead of time so if we like it, we can plan on the marketing and promotion to get the word out to our customers. That said, there are a couple of authors that I have read almost every book that has come out: Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, Alice Walker. Somewhere in the top 100 are the following (modern) books: Atonement by Ian McEwan, Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, Little Bee by Chris Cleave, The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber, Remains of the Day by Kazou Ishiguro.

Book you’re currently reading?

One of my responsibilities in addition to “owner” is to be the Children’s book buyer. This means that I get to meet with the publisher sales reps three times a year and decide which Children’s books to bring in for stock. So because of this, I am spending most of my reading time reading young adult and teen novels. This is really fun, by the way. I think that much of the young adult fiction being published in the past 10 years is more interesting, innovative and compelling that anything happening on the adult side. I just started a book called Middleworld by J P Voekel which is awesome! It comes out in April this year. This is a book for ages 8-12 and it has everything a good action adventure novel needs. The book is Percy Jackson meets Indiana Jones and is a funny page turning adventure that takes place in the Mayan jungle and incorporates the whole myth of the Mayan calendar ending in the year 2012.

Where can we learn more about you?

There is some information on the Next Chapter website or you can “google” me, but I think just a bunch of book reviews come up. Or, come in and ask…I’m an “open book”. Ha ha!

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