Book Bound

June Schlueter’s home library in Easton is a literary haven.

Madeline Marriott ’24

In a book she co-authored in 2021, Schlueter tugs on the question of whether or not Shakespeare borrowed inspiration from other playwrights.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAQUAN ALSTON

June Schlueter, professor emerita of English, has a legendary home library.

Along with her husband, Paul, she once had accumulated more than 50,000 books in her house on High Street, situated across from McKelvy House. They have since whittled down their collection to 15,000, give or take, but even so, there’s hardly a wall without deep brown shelves—built by the Easton Area High School woodshop instructor when the Schlueters first bought the house in the 1980s—stacked high with books.

It’s common wisdom among bibliophiles that a book collection becomes a library around the 1,000-book mark. Picture a typical home library, already an impressive feat taking years for many to accumulate, then multiply it by 15, and an image of the breadth and depth of the Schlueter library begins to emerge. When you think you’ve hit the back of the house, down one step is another room with a cozy chair and four walls filled with books. After wandering two floors straight out of a book lover’s dream, there’s still a third floor to explore.

The collection has some of everything: 20th-century encyclopedias and literary criticism, German philosophy and religious texts. And there are more than just books. Over the years, the Schlueters have amassed thousands of CDs and DVDs, and so many magazines that the ceiling underneath where they stored the collection began to crack.

The first display near the front door (and under the watchful eye of her Shakespeare poster) is her self-described “vanity shelf,” filled with the Schlueters’ own publications, whether as authors, editors, or contributors. June herself is the author of eight books and the editor of nearly a dozen more, plus the author of countless essays in journals across disciplines.

The books are otherwise organized both thematically and chronologically: Shakespeare and other early modern literature gets its own room in the back of the first floor; British and American literature line the walls upstairs; and entire rooms are dedicated to religion and literature and comparative literature along the front of the house’s second floor.
Schlueter has been a reader for as long as she can remember, from chapter books about a rabbit finding its place in the forest to the encyclopedias on her parents’ shelves.

“We all like to organize our lives according to stories, and books do it for us,” Schlueter says. “The nighttime story especially puts everything in perspective for children. They’re listening to a story about a lost pig or a creature, and they’re also silently looking into something from their lives.”
Almost all of Schlueter’s reading is connected to her writing. She gets her daily dose of both in her “scriptorium”—a writing nook nestled in the corner of a light filled porch on the side of her house. She spends her days wading through manuscripts and other old documents; her scholarship focuses on Shakespeare and other early modern English literature.

“I love the thought of discovery.”

“I love the thought of discovery,” Schlueter explains. “Maybe I won’t discover anything, but that potential keeps me going back to the manuscripts and works others have dismissed as irrelevant. Some of them turn out to be pretty important.”

When she does dabble in contemporary fiction, it’s usually on the recommendation of former students and colleagues. She recently finished By Any Other Name, Jodi Picoult’s latest novel that follows both a modern-day playwright and a poet and musician from the Elizabethan era. Up next on her list is The Correspondent, Virginia Evans’ breakout epistolary novel released last spring.

In retirement, the Schlueters have continued to share their love of books with the Lafayette community through their funding of the yearly Paul and June Schlueter Lecture on the Art and History of the Book since 2007.

The lecture, which occurs annually in fall in the Gendebein Room of Skillman Library, allows students to study the book as an artifact. Past guest lecturers include Mark Dimunation, chief of rare books and special collections at the Library of Congress, and Heather Wolfe, a curator of manuscripts at the Folger Shakespeare Library. [Editor’s note: The Map Thief author Michael Blanding, who was the 2015 series lecturer, penned
a feature for this issue of the magazine.] The idea was born out of the Schlueters’ shared love for the libraries they grew up visiting, Paul in Chicago and June in Garfield, N.J.

“It was a time when technology was really challenging books, so much so that people were wondering if we were going to have books in the future,” Schlueter says of the genesis of the lecture series. “We wanted to do our share to keep books alive.”

For those in a reading slump, who struggle to find time to read, or who don’t know what to read next, Schlueter recommends finding a community of readers.

“Reading can be a solitary activity, but joining a book club or even having one person to do it with can be such an enriching experience,” she says. “You can understand how people read differently than the way you do, and it can be surprising, like opening up a window where you can see something quite differently.”

An ode to the independent bookstore

In an era of continued corporatization, the Lafayette College Store is in the small-but-mighty group that has remained independent.

By Madeline Marriott ’24

In Peter Violante’s 19 years as the store’s manager, the College has twice considered switching to a third-party vendor, but both times made the decision to continue operating independently.

“The biggest reason for that decision is remaining in charge of what’s going on at the store and keeping in alignment with what the College is looking for,” Violante explains. “We control the pricing and which vendors and publishers we use for our merchandise. If we went to a third-party company, they would control all of that, and the store would look very different.” 

The store’s independence also allows for collaborations with local and national brands. During the Bicentennial, for example, the College partnered with Abercrombie & Fitch for custom merchandise and with Crayola for a Lafayette-themed crayon set. 

Lafayette College Store is one of only four Patriot League school stores to remain independently operated, joining Army, Navy, and Colgate. Among 4,000-plus college stores across the country, approximately 300 are members of the Independent College Bookstore Association (ICBA). Alternatively, Barnes and Noble College, one of the industry’s largest third-party vendors, operates more than 1,100 stores. 

“What we have at Lafayette is definitely out of the norm,” Violante says. “The trend across colleges is to remain outsourced.” 

Darrell Parry, currently the course materials coordinator, has been with the store for 25 years and has seen firsthand the evolution of its offerings. 

“We used to do our textbooks in house, and we would spend the summer getting them ready in a giant section, just to send them back halfway through and start to get ready for the next semester,” Parry explains. “Now, students order textbooks online and pick them up in the store. That way, we’re able to stock a much larger selection of trade books.” 

The store, which has been on McCartney and High Streets since 2021, has fiction and nonfiction bestsellers, local authors, Easton history, and books by faculty, staff, and alumni. 

“We have an entire section of alumni books,” Parry says. “I’ve never seen another college store be able to do that.” The section includes bestsellers like Ross Gay ’96, Michael S. Schmidt ’05, and David McCullough Jr. ’80.

According to Violante and Parry, the store is meant to serve both the Lafayette and greater Easton communities. They host events every year from the Easton Book Festival (Parry is also the festival’s president) to the College’s English Club. 

“We have a little bit for everyone,” Violante says. “People who want a souvenir, people who are looking for high-quality apparel, and people who want to come in and grab a book.”

‘Street’ smarts

Through Lafayette’s Investment Club, students prepare for Wall Street careers by learning to buy and sell stocks with real money.

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