About Us

Greetings and salutations, curious traveler! 

Before we show you our wares, it may be prudent to let you know who we are and what we have to offer you. Twice Told Tales is a husband-and-wife family business. The husband (your humble author) is John Francis Bittrich. My history as a bookseller began in the 1990s as an employee for the discount chain Buck-a-Book and a volunteer at Boston's Lucy Parsons Center infoshop. After that, I worked for Trident Books and for two separate campus bookstores operated by the Barnes and Noble corporation. My writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the Boston Compass, Boston Hassle, DigBoston, and the dear departed Boston Phoenix. Since moving to Salem two years ago, I've delivered lectures on Hawthorne, M.R. James, and Arthur Machen at the Salem Art Gallery and dabbled in leading historical walking tours. If the aforementioned writers don't make it obvious, my taste in literature is decidedly archaic, although I try to cast a wide net.

The other half of this family business is Dr. Melissa Zimdars, a professor of communication and media who thankfully knows far more than I do on the subject of books which were written this century. Why, she's even written a few of them!

As an aside, our admiration for classic literature should not be seen as an endorsement of the retrograde social attitudes and silly bigotries often found in such works. We are social progressives, civil libertarians, and economic leftists who do not mind taking the piss out of our heroes for some of their ridiculous and outmoded neuroses. Especially you, Lovecraft!

Ideally, when we have a space, we'll be able to host book clubs, readings, lectures, and myriad other events in addition to selling you books, objet d'art, etc. There's so much we'd like to do. The possibilities stagger the imagination! All things in due time of course, but do check back in periodically, and we'll keep you updated on our progress.