Hand in Hand Tolstoy & Company Combines Lattes & Literature

By Nathan Diebenow

Great combos stand the test of time. Obviously, there’s peanut butter and jelly. Then, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw. And, of course, America and our freedoms.

Yet one combo has lasted for over 500 years—coffee and books—and Paula and Doug Perschke couldn’t resist sharing their love for both with natives, newcomers, and visitors to Clifton.

Paula and Doug themselves are a dynamic duo. Paula is a retired elementary school teacher who specialized as an education diagnostician. Doug is a retired engineer for an oil company who is currently a woodworking enthusiast.

Together they opened Tolstoy Co. & Bookshop – the only stand-alone bookstore and coffee shop in Bosque County.

The shop’s name is a synthesis of Paula’s favorite author Leo Tolstoy and Doug’s favorite bookstore Shakespeare & Company in Paris, France.

The seed for their coffee-bookstore concept grew from Paula’s love for books and coffee and her desire for a space where folks from the community can talk, study, and showcase their talents.

Paula’s father was a teacher who sparked her interest in literature

Tolstoy & Co. Bookshop offers a diverse array of book genres, authors, and topics in historic downtown Clifton.

Tolstoy & Co. Bookshop is a great meeting place to grab a cup of coffee, chat with friends, make new friends, and view art works for sale in historic downtown Clifton. -

Nathan Diebenow

from an early age. Her grandmother continued her development by reading to her as a child. Paula said that owning an actual book made a huge impression on her because her family couldn’t afford luxuries. That first book was a set of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s works, a Christmas present she shared with her siblings.

“We were always read to by our grandmother, so I enjoyed stories, but it wasn’t until I got that gift at Christmas that I really started loving reading on my own,” Paula said.

As she grew older as a student, Paula struggled with focusing her mind. Before terms like ADHD were commonplace, she just thought she was a daydreamer. Learning to study in college helped her organize her thoughts, and she brought this empathy to her career teaching 3rd to 5th grade students.

“It was always this desire of mine through social work or teaching to help kids,” she said.

As adult parents, Paula and Doug would take their two boys –Jake and Jordan– to the local bookstore as part of their family time on Friday nights.

“We believe that coffee and books go hand in hand, from memories of raising our kids. We’d get coffee or hot chocolate while we shopped,” Doug said.

On their family vacations, they would often visit bookstores too. During those trips, Paula and Doug took stock in the book shops’ amenities and layout: Did they offer coffee? How soft are the chairs? Are the book displays cluttered? Was it a chain or an independent store?

The Perschke family learned about Clifton through Jake’s time playing baseball in junior college with a fellow Bosque County resident. The ball team would drive through Highway 6 on their way to games, and the players would always stop there for refreshment and relaxation.

Seven years ago, Paula and Doug bought a house between Clifton and Cranfills Gap as a weekend retreat. They got to know not only the locals but also the local business owners in historic downtown Clifton. Then, in June 2021, Paula retired, deciding to strike out with her bookshop dream in a space between the Bosque County Properties office and the Clifton Chamber of Commerce building.

In July 2021 they signed the lease, and immediately Doug went to work making the bookshelves while Paula collected and orga- nized the inventory. For four months, it felt like a mad rush for them to move into the building on November 1, 2021, and then officially open on December 3, 2021.

Paula said that she keeps a variety of titles on the shelves because she enjoys encouraging folks of all ages, incomes, and faiths to read for fun. She is especially skilled in helping young adults (age 13-18) become more interested in the written word. To this end, she stocks up on graphic novels, which young folks enjoy reading.

To thrive as a bookseller, Paula knows she must listen to her customers, and time after time, she heard that folks love Texas history. Being a former Texas history teacher herself, she obliged, and that section has achieved the most success, she said. She also listens to published authors who reach out to her to sell their books. One such self-published author was Anita Dickason, a 22-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department.

“I had never heard of her,” Paula said. “She sent me her book that was based on a story she wrote about Meridian. I read the book and enjoyed it. We had her do an author visit, and several people have enjoyed her writing because she’s phenomenal.”

In January 2023, Paula hosted the paintings of Arleta Taylor, a visual artist born, raised, and educated in Poland and now based in Woodway. Her paintings feature acrylic and mixed media to fill one’s soul with positive energy, as her artist’s statement said.

Her works has been displayed in galleries in Las Vegas and San Francisco.

Paula’s bookshop hosts a book club that meets once a month in the evening. Thanks to the efforts of local Cliftonite Jan Zuehlke, the book club is up to 16 members, many of whom are retired educators who taught across different grade levels and in wide range of disciplines.

The way the club members pick books is through recommendations put into and then drawn from a hat. The group --whose members come from diverse experiences and perspectives-tries to mix up the themes, topics, and tastes so the stories aren’t too heavy or too light. Recently the book club rented the CLIFTEX Theatre to show the film PRACTICAL MAGIC, whose book version is of the same name by Alice Hoffman.

In addition to focusing on the mind, the shop offers space for Tai Chi classes once a week on Wednesdays at 12 p.m. For an hour, a licensed therapist from Whitney meets with a group for an hour. Donations are appreciated.

And last but not least, the coffee! The shop offers expresso for the serious caffeine connoisseur as well as hot tea and sodas. In the summer months, they will offer iced coffee drinks, though if you bring your own ice during the winter months, they will hook you up with their finest java along with your choice of flavorings.