Although the book industry has declined in the years since e-books have hit the market, Jon Johnson doesn’t have any plans to close The Pea Picker Bookstore in Tyler.

The Internet has changed everything and has cut down on the book business, Johnson said.

“I don’t know how it’s going to end up but we will be here until nobody comes in to see what we’re doing,” he added.

Johnson, 68, is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the business his parents started in Athens. One of the last locally owned bookstores in the area, The Pea Picker has been in Tyler since 1978.

Thinking of all the changes in the book business over the years, Johnson recalls his great-grandfather, who was a blacksmith in Winnsboro. “I can imagine how he felt when the first horseless carriage came down Main Street,” he said.

When asked if he could compare that feeling to the book business, he paused and said he didn’t know.

“If they keep printing books, we’ll still buy them and sell them,” he said.

 

FAMILY BUSINESS

His parents, Dan and Johnnie Johnson, ran a weekly newspaper called The Pea Picker in Athens from 1972 to 1978, and decided to open a book store. They opened The Pea Picker Bookstore on Valentine’s Day 1975.

Over the years, the Johnsons opened Pea Picker stores in Corsicana, Beaumont and Tyler but the Tyler store is the only one that remains. Corsicana closed in 1978, Beaumont in 1986 and Athens in 2012.

Johnson’s wife of 33 years, Sharon, ran the Beaumont store while he worked as a computer programmer for an oil supply company. They moved to Tyler to run the bookstore here in 1986.

The Tyler store was originally located in the Hillside Shopping Center on East Erwin Street. But after a flood left the store in four feet of water, they looked for higher ground and bought the building on University Boulevard, Johnson said.

They opened the new Tyler store in 1986 and ran both for years, closing the store on Erwin Street in 1990.

Johnson said if they had rented the building instead of buying it, as his mother insisted, the business may be in trouble, like countless other bookstores. The growing popularity of e-books is why Johnson closed the Athens store after his mother died, he added.

Johnson was a computer programmer for 20 years and has been running The Pea Picker for the last 30 years.

The 6,000-square-foot building is crammed floor-to-ceiling with new and used books of every kind. Johnson can’t say how many books he has now but believes it is in the hundreds of thousands.

He and his father built all of the bookshelves in the store.

“I didn’t know how to use the hammer until I started building bookshelves,” he said. “But I drove every nail in here just about.”

Since opening, The Pea Picker has filled up with more books; but other than that, it hasn’t changed much over the years. Posters and magazine covers from the 1990s and other decades line the walls, as well as bookmarks left in books he has bought throughout the years.

 

SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY

At one time, Harlequin romance novels ran the whole store.

“We couldn’t find enough of them,” he said, adding that there were 20 to 30 ladies who read every one of the new books that came out each month.

Romance novels remain a big seller, as well as suspense and mystery books, westerns and science fiction novels.

Johnson pays cash for used books he can sell and he offers something for everybody.

“But it never fails, someone will ask at least every day for something I’ve never heard of,” he said, adding that a customer last week was looking for a book on Victorian flowers.

When asked what type of books were his favorite, Johnson said everything.

“Anything that’s good; it doesn’t matter the subject,” he said.

He recently started reading Nicholas Sparks’ tearjerkers and to his surprise, enjoys them. He reads all kinds of books to see what customers are reading.

“Mom always said listen to what the people want; that’s what books to look for when you buy,” Johnson said.

When he’s not helping a customer, Johnson can be found reading a book behind the counter. If he could find his old high school teachers, he would tell them he finally read all of the books he was supposed to back then, he said, laughing.

 

HOME AWAY FROM HOME

Meeting people has been Johnson’s favorite part of the business.

“You never know who is going to come through the door and what they’re going to read,” he said. “It’s like a book. You can’t tell a book by its cover. You can’t tell what a readers going to want.”

He has seen a retired teacher, carpenter, truck driver and federal district judge talking together about reading the same book.

The Pea Picker has had customers for 40 years and now sees their kids and grandkids shop there. He still sees younger customers come in and he has a room full of children’s books.

Customers can come in and ask for just about any book and Johnson knows where it is or where to start looking. “It’s like home away from home,” he said. “You put up books every day, that’s how you learn.”

Johnson runs the store alone most days but has some help from his wife. They have three children and two grandchildren. Although he hopes to leave the business to his children one day, he doesn’t know if that will happen.

“Some people say you could retire,” he said. “I guess, but I don’t know what I’d do.”

Johnson isn’t planning a big celebration for the 40th anniversary. He plans to open the doors for business as usual on Valentine’s Day.

“We’re still here. That’s what I want everyone to know,” Johnson said.