New Leaders You Should Know: Emerson Sistare

Emerson Sistare, 28, the new owner of Toadstool Bookstores in Keene and Peterborough, took over operations in January from Willard Williams who co-founded the popular independent bookstores more than 50 years ago. 

Sistare, whose family is from Peterborough and Dublin, says he spent a lot of time in Toadstool as a child. Sistare’s business partners are his dad, a lawyer, and his mother, a former kindergarten teacher. “My background with books has involved a lifelong passion of reading and learning in general,” he says.

 Before buying the bookstores, Sistare taught history and philosophy at Gould Academy, an independent boarding school in Bethel, Maine. He says the pandemic, which had been exhausting for many teachers, including himself, played a role in his decision to try something new after learning Toadstool was for sale. “The effort that it takes to teach is pretty monumental and to do that during a pandemic is just exhausting,” he says. 

Williams, who announced in September 2021 that he was looking for a new owner and said, at the time, he was looking for someone who shared his commitment to the community, has been helping Sistare with the transition. Sistare says he and Williams have discussed what makes Toadstool bookstore work, and they share the opinion that trying to supply books the fastest and cheapest way possible is a
losing battle. 

“This is not something that we’re able to do in comparison to Amazon or large-scale box stores like Barnes and Noble or Borders,” he says. “They have the manpower and the resources to be able to knock down prices and order in quantities that independent bookstores simply can’t.”

What makes an independent bookstore like Toadstool work, Sistare says, is the experience and personalized service they provide. “We’re curating an experience for people that come in so they can spend time and invest their time in something they enjoy,” he says. “We’re not strictly making financial decisions on a cost-revenue basis. We have to make expense decisions based on whether they fit with the spirit of what we’re doing, and that’s really important for the culture of the store and the culture of the community.”

This is Sistare’s first business venture. “I wasn’t someone who grew up with the idea that I was going to own a business someday,” he says. “It’s crazy, I have no compunction or any irony in the sense that I feel like I’m the luckiest man. That’s 100% sincere. I wake up everyday and spend my time with people, and kids, talking about Pete the Cat or the Berenstain Bears. It’s the coolest job on the planet.”