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Downbound Books has opened at 4139 Apple St. on the Northside of Cincinnati, Ohio. The Enquirer reported that Cincinnati native Gregory Kornbluh had traveled the U.S., "looking at books, perfecting his dream bookstore in his mind's eye" and has now realized that dream.
"While we're going to do our best to offer a wide and hopefully unexpected range of books, a shop our size can't rightly claim to have something for everyone," he said. "But maybe we've got everything for someone."
Kornbluh and his partner, Sarah Fischer, "are excited to learn more about the interests of local readers, but... his and Fischer's tastes will 'always show through,' " the Enquirer noted, adding that while the general stock is a mix of their tastes, Fischer curated the cookbook and children's sections.
"We're aiming to be an old-fashioned neighborhood bookstore, but hopefully one that people all over the city find worth traveling for," he said.
His dream had always been to own a small store that could accommodate a lot of books while maintaining a clean, minimalist feel. The shelving and furniture in 500-square-foot Downbound Books were handcrafted by Kornbluh with assistance from his father, a retired architect.
Although he and Fischer originally met as classmates at local schools, for the past 13 years Kornbluh "has been on the east coast, working for a short time as a bookseller at a shop outside Boston and then mainly in the sales and marketing department of Harvard University Press," the Enquirer wrote.
"I was very fortunate to travel widely for work, and at every stop, I'd visit as many bookstores as I could. Over the years, the outlines of my dream bookstore became more and more clear," he said. "We've been open just a few days now, but so far I'm really, really pleased that people seem to be seeing it the way that I'd hoped."
He told the Cincinnati Business Courier: "There's been a real resurgence in indie bookstores. People really like shopping local and they appreciate what small bookstores do. Amazon is not a place to discover books, it's a great place to get cheap books you already know you want. Amazon doesn't have story time, it doesn't have a curated collection of local art and products for sale."