About Avol’s
Established in 1980 by Richard & Carol Avol, Avol’s began as a general used and out-of-print bookstore. Originally located on Williamson St., the store moved after one year to a single-story frame building located at the intersection of State St., Broom St., and Gilman. Some years later, a fire in an adjacent building forced the store to move, and it relocated to the former Women’s Building at 240 W. Gilman. The present owner, Ron Czerwien, purchased the business from the Avols in 1993. Shortly thereafter, Richard & Carol Avol moved to Washburn, WI, where they currently operate Chequamegon Books & Coffee.
After the Women’s Building was sold to a local developer in 2003, Avol’s lost its lease. At about the same time, Canterbury, a new bookstore which also operated a café and bed & breakfast, announced that it would be closing after 13 years of operation. The owners met, and soon arrangements were made for Avol’s to lease the former Canterbury Bookstore space on Gorham Street in Madison. The coffee-shop space was subsequently sublet to Bookworks, another used & out-of-print bookstore, which had closed its State St. location about a year after Canterbury closed. The bed & breakfast also discontinued operating and today the rooms are rented, mainly to graduate students and visiting faculty.
In late July of 2012, Avol’s gave up its lease and the space was rented to A Room of One’s Own Bookstore, a locally owned and operated new book store. Today, Avol’s no longer operates a brick-and-mortar business. Instead, Ron provides used books to Room which are sold on a consignment basis and continues to sell books online under the Avol’s name at Amazon, ABE (Advanced Book Exchange), and Alibris.
About Ron
Ron Czerwien was born and raised in Chicago. He graduated from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale with a BA in English. After working for a large property & casualty insurance company for nearly 20 years, he opened a small used book store in Madison, WI. In 1993 he purchased Avol’s Bookstore in Madison. For many years Ron hosted poetry readings and open mics at his store and after it closed, in 2012, at different venues in Madison. His poems have appeared online and in a number of print journals. His unpublished manuscript, The Office of Uncomfortable Admissions, received an honorable mention in the Concrete Wolf Chapbook Contest. He is the author of two chapbooks: “A Ragged Tear Down The Middle Of Our Flag,” published in 2017 by locofo chaps, an imprint of Moria Books; and “a little rain, a little more,” published by Bent Paddle Press in October 2018. Ron serves on the board of directors of the Council for Wisconsin Writers and he continues to sell used and out-of-print books Online under the name Avol’s Books, LLC. In his free time he creates collages that combine old advertising images and appropriated text to amuse his friends. You can see these on his Instagram account @czerwienron.