New Bookseller Creates a Store of 'Substance'

Lillian Trujillo opened Sages Pages in Madison, New Jersey, in September with the goal of "connect[ing] people with sources of information and other people's thoughts."

Trujillo, who grew up in New York and now lives in Montville, New Jersey, 20 minutes from Sages Pages, holds a B.A. in linguistics from Columbia, and is fluent in the romance languages and conversational in Arabic and Greek. "My dream job would be an archaeological decipherer and study hieroglyphics or to compile a dictionary," she said. Trujillo has worked as a translator, a writer for a bilingual magazine, and a salesperson and marketer. While in sales, she spent all her free time and a lot of her money in bookstores, so she decided to buy one of her own and "spend the rest of [her] life there."

A bookselling career lets Trujillo focus on her love of language, and it allows her to foster it in others as well. "I'm fascinated with the acquisition of language," she said. "I like to facilitate communication and help people increase their understanding. And books help do that. Books are just conveying messages. I want to connect a person with their need for information, connection, understanding, and communication."

Sages Pages is in a two-story, century-old farmhouse. The main floor of the 1,400-square-foot house features Book Sense materials near the front door, the children's section, some adult categories, and a section reflecting the store's specialization in foreign language. The foreign language section is primarily devoted to Spanish, French, German, and Italian literature. Trujillo said, "I do a couple of annual trips to Europe to get a nice selection of books that are difficult to find here. And I'm selling the books at reasonable prices." She strongly advocates reading a work in its original language. "[The reader] loses so much of the culture in translation," Trujillo explained.

On the second floor of the farmhouse, Sages Pages stocks adult fiction, which surrounds a central reading lounge, a space filled with armchairs and couches where customers can take the coffee, tea, and, soon, pastries available in the store. Trujillo also uses the lounge for author events.

Trujillo stocks Sages Pages as a general bookstore, but said that all the titles must meet the standards described in the bookstore's mission statement, which she summarized: "We will carry nothing on the shelves that you cannot grow from, whether that's intellectually, emotionally, or spiritually. Every book will have substance. We'll have entertaining books, as long as they have substance to them. We'll carry classics and classics to be, whether they're funny, a romance, or a mystery."

In the short time Sages Pages has been open, the bookstore has become a part of the community, and Trujillo intends to expand that relationship. "We're scheduled to do book fairs next year," she said. "We're contributing gift baskets to silent auctions and fundraisers." The store's outreach is having an effect: When a nearby school hosted a contest for poetry and pumpkin carving, a parent bought a "whole slew" of Sages Pages gift certificates as prizes.

In another community-minded gesture, Trujillo has made the reading lounge available to the public. Book clubs meet there, and a knitting group and several workshops utilize the space. Soon, she'd like to see it used for tutors and kids to meet in after school programs. "It's a place for people to come to gather, to philosophize," said Trujillo. "That's almost a lost tradition. People typically gather in loud places, like bars. Why not a quieter place, like a bookstore? I'm inviting everyone."

Madison is responding to Trujillo's open door. She told BTW, "People are starting to find us. It's only been a month. I'm amazed how quickly we're moving along." --Karen Schechner