One For the Books
There’s something fun about a neighborhood bookstore where you can find that one special book you’ve been looking for. Browse Awhile Books, located in the Downtown Historic District, is a literature lover’s dream. This month marks the store’s 35th anniversary, but it wasn’t always a Tipp City fixture. Owner Bill Jones related that his initial foray into bookstore ownership began up the road in Sidney.
“When I opened in 1980, downtown Sidney was booming, but by 1990 it had declined,” he said. “I looked in Troy and Tipp City and decided to come here. I’ve always had an interest in old books, and there was a used bookstore in Sidney that closed up. I thought, what the heck, I’ll open one of my own. At first, I had some people helping me because I was still working my day job and didn’t have the time to devote to it. For the past 12 years, since I retired, this has been my full-time job.”
Browse Awhile Books specializes in used, rare, and out-of-print books, along with signed author copies. Their inventory of approximately 150,000 books covers everything from cookbooks to mysteries, romance, westerns, sci-fi, U.S. and military history, and biographies. The family-friendly store also offers a wide variety of comics, children’s books, and graphic books. For more than 25 years, they’ve had an active online presence in addition to their physical location.
“We were one of the first booksellers that worked with AbeBooks (an online rare book vendor) and Bibliofind, which is now Amazon Marketplace,” Jones said. “Online sales make up about a third of our business. We don’t take consignments because the overhead is the biggest cost. The best sources for rare books are estate sales, library sales, and churches. That’s where some of the nicer books come from. Books are part of the entertainment business, and I consider the book business to be about used books.”
Along with its successes, the store has had some setbacks. One of these was when a fire broke out in June of 2016, damaging not only the store’s inventory, but two upstairs apartments.
“The next day, we were the number five headline on Reddit,” Jones said. “The fire was caused by wiring, which happens in old buildings. The front apartment was basically gone. The rear of the building is concrete, which acted as a firewall. We had a terrific restoration company that did a good job, and it took them about a year. The community also stepped up to help with the cleanup, and we had storage cartons loaned to us to store our books. The local building inspectors worked to make it as easy for us as possible. That’s something you’ll only see in a small town like this. Strangers would walk by when I was out front during the restoration, and they’d ask, ‘Can we pray for you?’ We’ve been blessed with good friends and neighbors.”
Adding to the store’s charm and legacy is another bit of urban folklore--ghosts.
“This place is indeed haunted,” Jones revealed. “When I purchased the building there were 2, but now there are more like 19. We’ll see books flying off the shelves and hear footsteps. We had several investigations, especially after the fire. The apparitions stopped for a while, then six months later, they were back. About that time, we got books from a church, and we figured they were looking after the books. There are times when I’m working upstairs and I’ll hear footsteps and other noises. Nobody said anything about spirits before I bought the place. We had a college student who was doing research, and they set up video cameras and captured books falling off the shelves during the night.”
The vast and unique selection of books has been a draw not only for the store but also for the downtown district. “We have regular customers who come from Columbus and Indiana. We have people from Michigan who come down, and a woman from Illinois who stops in twice a year on her way through the area. We want our customers to leave happier than when they came in. I’d like to see them buy something but if they don’t, that’s okay. I like it when people find something by a favorite author or in a genre that they enjoy.
“There was a time when Tipp City was going through a lean period, but now it has bounced back. I tell people if you come up here on a Saturday to visit the shops or get something to eat and you don’t have a conversation with someone - you’re doing something wrong.”
Browse Awhile Books is located at 118 E. Main Street in Tipp City. For hours of operation or access to their online store, visit browseawhilebookshop.com. You can also follow them on Facebook or call 937.667.7200.
