"After nearly 40 years selling books Uptown, Jo Antonioli is still going strong," the Montana Standard said in its profile of the owner and operator of Books & Books in Butte. Antonioli, "a voracious reader since childhood, has never let up on her reading habits. That habit is part of the charm of her 70-year marriage to Dr. William 'Bill' Antonioli, who is 97.... Another possible source of her longevity is her passion for her work. That passion has kept Antonioli going all these years, she says."
Although she concedes to having slowed down a bit, "I don't want to think about retiring," she noted. "I love this place so much, it's like my ninth child."
With no experience as a bookseller, Antonioli opened Books & Books because she saw a need for it. There was no bookstore in the city at the time, and her eight children had all left home.
"It's a service to the community. It's a lot more complicated than I thought it would be," she said.
Like most booksellers she has had to adapt to the rise of the Internet ("It dealt us quite a blow. It was hard to get used to."), but she said shopping local has gained greater popularity over the last few years.
Ultimately, however, books and their readers are what she cares about most. "For such a small store, the children's section occupies a large portion of it," the Standard wrote. "She also devotes shelves to local writers and hosts book readings at the Main Stope Gallery around the corner."
Antonioli noted: "We try to keep a fair representation of great authors, whether they sell or not, just because you wouldn't want to go to a bookstore that didn't have Sartre."