About Us

Karen Alvarez has a bachelor’s degree in art history and a master’s degree in medieval studies. She is a self-described history geek whose favorite activity is visiting museums and historic buildings. She began her career as a museum assistant and eventually became a grant writer for nonprofit organizations. She loves traveling and often seeks out independent bookstores wherever she goes. Her reading interests run the gamut, but her favorite subjects are history, literature, and historical fiction.

Jeanne was one of “those” English majors who spent 10 years after college working at jobs that were just jobs. But when she moved to Ann Arbor in 1985, she found her niche, career, and many of her best friends working at the first Borders Book Shop for 16 1/2 years, and then for 9 years working at the Borders Corporate Offices where she remained until the bitter end. In 2013 Jeanne was hired as one of the original employees at Ann Arbor’s Literati Bookstore, where she wore many hats. After delaying her retirement several times, she finally took the plunge in July of 2023, in large part to tackle the many unread books she has accumulated in her library after 25 years working in bookstores. Jeanne reads mostly fiction (both classics and contemporary), with a smattering of poetry, biographies, memoirs, political science, and history thrown in when the spirit moves her.