Madison’s favorite independent bookstore has turned a gentle corner in its storied history. As of January 2, 2025, Hannah Davidson and Hilary Burg took over as owners of Mystery to Me, from founder Joanne Berg, who retired to Arizona.
Hannah, Joanne, and Hilary, just before Joanne’s retirement. Photo courtesy of MTM.
Mystery to Me on Monroe Street.
I call it a gentle corner that’s been turned, Dear Reader, because long-time patrons of the cozy shop at 1863 Monroe Street are not likely to notice jarring departures from past custom. The two young women, new mothers and former employees at the store, are interested in making the shop’s magic continue to happen. They expect to “build upon Mystery to Me’s success by introducing a variety of new in-store events, strengthening partnerships with local organizations and schools, and prioritizing personal recommendations to connect more readers with books they’ll love.” Both new owners were MTM employees before becoming prinicpals.
This store and its staff have a special place in Your New Favorite Writer’s heart not only as a bookstore but as the locus of my two successful book launch parties—one for the original edition of The Price of Passage in 2022 and the other to launch Izzy Strikes Gold! in 2024. The booksellers at Mystery to Me really know how to treat an author. In each case they arranged to have award-winning journalist and author Doug Moe interview me about my book, and they facilitated a joyous celebration/book-buying/autographing party.
Author left, and Doug Moe right, at launch of The Price of Passage.
Not because I’m so special, Gentle Reader. They do this for everybody. At least, for local authors with good books to pitch.
Despite the store’s name, it’s a full bookstore that caters to a broad variety of tastes across multiple genres. It includes a prominent children’s book section, developed a few years ago with the aid of a grant by author James Patterson.
Hilary helps a customer at Mystery to Me.
Mystery to Me dates back to 2013, when founder Joanne Berg retired from a career with the University of Wisconsin and purchased the inventory and shelves of Booked for Murder, a specialized bookstore on University Avenue. She moved the whole operation to Monroe Street, changed its name, and began to expand its scope. Soon the store was playing host to a wide variety of author events.
Kashmira Sheth at Mystery to Me.
Mystery to Me puts a lot of time and energy into hosting authors. This hospitality, overseen by Events Coordinator Elizabeth Walsh, is a great boon to struggling artists like me. And not only me. Famous authors including Hank Phillippi Ryan, Donna Leon, and James Patterson have been known to appear at Mystery to Me.
One of my personal favorites is my friend Kashmira Sheth, a prolific children’s book author formerly from Madison but now living in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Kashmira will showcase her new middle-grade novel, I’m From Here, Too tonight (Tuesday, April 8).
If you live anywhere in the Madison area, be sure to swing by Monroe Street and check out Mystery to Me, this fabulous local independent store that is such a central part of our literary scene.
Dear Reader, it was the kind of moment that keeps this old heart beating.
Literatus & Co., Main and Fourth, Watertown.
I stood by a small table on the way into Literatus & Co. bookstore in Watertown, Wisconsin, with small stacks of my historical novels: The Price of Passage and Izzy Strikes Gold! My agenda was buttonholing passers-by to introduce them to my books and myself.
One young woman and her husband or boyfriend heard my spiel. “I’ve always thought I wanted to be a writer myself,” she said, “but I’ve never done it.”
“Maybe you will,” I said.
She made a meek face. “May I ask . . . how old were you when these books were first published?”
I scratched my head. The Price of Passage first came out in August 2022, Izzy Strikes Gold! only last July. “I must have been in my late seventies,” I said. “I’ll be eighty this June.”
“That’s so encouraging! I still have time!” She flung her arms around me and squeezed long and hard. Of course I squeezed back. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks—I knew they were there but could not see them, so fierce and arresting was her hug. Eventually, she let go.
Not yet forty, she had come close to giving up on her dream of writing.
“Of course you still have time,” I said. “Just write. Don’t look for fame and fortune, but write. You’ll make friends of other writers and maybe get together to read one another’s drafts and offer mutual critiques. You’ll find fellow writers are incredibly generous and supportive.” I said that last bit because I’ve found it to be true.
Someone else who is generous and supportive is independent bookstore owners, like Isabelle Eller and Wesley Crnkovich of Literatus & Co. (The always well-informed Wesley asserts there is an unseen vowel in his last name. Say “CHIRNkovich.”)
Isabelle, left, and Wesley, right, with Your New Favorite Writer in the middle.
It was no random chance that brought about the mutually helpful encounter between me and the young woman who wants to write. It was, rather, part of a careful design.
I love bookstore proprietors like Isabelle and Wesley. They struggle, they care deeply about books and about people, they extend themselves to create islands of happiness and success. In today’s commercial milieu, that’s not always easy, but it’s done with aplomb.
Literatus & Co. stands in an old brick-faced corner at 401 East Main Street, smack in the center of Watertown. Like a lot of main streets in our part of the world, this one has seen more prosperous days. Literatus & Co., since its founding in 2019, has been “dedicated to keeping a thriving book culture alive in Watertown.”
And, boy, are they succeeding.
Wherever you may live, it’s worth the drive to spend a morning or afternoon at Literatus & Co. Let me tell you what you’ll find:
The front window has a dazzling display of books. At present it’s mostly bright-colored picture books for children. Maybe they change that from time to time.
Open the door, and you enter a long, narrow space, two old-fashioned stories high, lined with bookshelves. There are tables in the front end of the store where folks gather in ones, twos, threes, and sixes to meet, chat, and pass the time of day. An intense young man furrows his brows at a laptop computer; three mothers with shopping bags and coffee drinks exchange news while they watch their toddlers; a senior couple peruses books they have just bought or maybe are thinking about buying.
All are enveloped in the comforting smell of book-paper, humanity, and hot food.
Upstairs or downstairs, take your pick. Space for browsing and socializing at Literatus & Co.
Overhead, a railed mezzanine stretches the length of the store, with upstairs tables for two dozen more loungers/loafers/chatters. On ground level, reaching rearward from mid-store, is the hub: A cash register, a case of goodies baked fresh by Isabelle, and a coffee bar cum short-order kitchen where you can get hot and cold beverages, soups, sandwiches, and hot panini made to order.
On any brisk Saturday when customers mill about, Wesley, Isabelle, and one or two part-time employees spend their time ringing up sales and preparing food and drink orders, with a special combination of relaxed chatter and easy attention to detail. The store owners are on a first-name basis with most customers. It’s the place you go for a fix of community spirit when you’re downtown on a Saturday morning.
Browse through the bookshelves—take your time, Gentle Reader—and you’re bound to notice the collection is carefully curated. Books of a feather are shelved together, many turned face-outward so you don’t have to squint at narrow spines to divine what they are. The scope and variety of titles are stunning.
But, as an author flogging his own wares here, I have noticed it’s not only the books that are well-curated. The customer base is just as well-cultivated.
The owners and staff of Literatus & Co. know what they’re about. Their homepage says it: “A setting to gather, discuss, engage and learn—as real people. A place to form human connections and share stories. . . . Most of all—we commit to creating a place where minds are opened, and all ideas are welcome. In short: knowledge, curiosity, and civility.”
Isabelle’s baked goods.
This welcoming space does not just happen by itself. Wes and Isabelle pursue its elaboration with missionary zeal. If you’ve ever met real honest-to-goodness missionaries, you have noticed they don’t foam at the mouth with pet theories. They play the long game, work humbly and steadily to make their animating vision a new reality in people’s lives.
In just six years, Wesley and Isabelle and their helpers have created a place in Watertown frequented by lots of people just looking for coffee or a sandwich or some human warmth, but also by lots of readers—discriminating readers—who come in looking for books, searching the shelves for new offerings, willing to chat and listen to an author who might have something to share.
The booksellers at Literatus & Co. have made this new thing in their community. I am in their debt, and our whole wider Wisconsin literary community is as well.
