Since the beginning of its summer farmers’ markets, the Jenks Building has seen many changes inside its 90-some-year-old bones. Further painting throughout the many spaces has occurred upstairs and downstairs, gallery space continues to be furnished, and the remaining shelves of Shriber Auto Parts have been emptied as the windows have sprung to life with art and the spirit of the season. Most of all, Trust Books, a second branch of Jenks Building owner Michael Owen’s Akron bookshop, has opened inside.
Owen opened his first bookshop in the Northside District of Akron in February 2019, located one floor below Northside Cellar, a fashion and home store run by his wife, Jodie. “It’s not a conventional bookstore by any stretch of the imagination, but if you’re a reader, you’ll find a lot of old friends on our shelves,” he said.
Opening Halloween weekend, the new Cuyahoga Falls location offers a similar vibe—both in reading material and atmosphere—to the Akron location. While it doesn’t boast a giant collection one may find in chain stores like Barnes & Noble, once patrons start browsing, it won’t take long to find the perfect choice.
“It’s freedom from choice… Everywhere I’d go and look at these book shops, there would be a million books. People would be drowning in a quagmire of books. So I won’t let people bring me books,” Owen states. The Cuyahoga Falls store has an average of 700 books in stock at this time, which Owen suggests could grow, but no more than 900.
By providing a moderate number in the store’s collection, buyers will have an easier time shopping, and will be more likely to buy something that will bring them joy than accidentally making a regrettable purchase. Available books might range from a brand new copy of David Sedaris’ When You Are Engulfed in Flames to a dog-eared copy of The Diary of Anne Frank to Derf Blackderf’s newest historic graphic novel, Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio.
“People say ‘Well, do you sell new books or old books?’” Owen recalls. “I tell them ‘We sell good books.’ And sometimes we sell great books.”
Prices on each book are range according to the quality of the book. A “sociology experiment,” as he likes to call it, Owen expects that people are buying the story as well as the opportunity to shop from his curated collection and experience the building. He and the many people involved in the building’s transformation work into the winter, and they see multiple opportunities for the people of Cuyahoga Falls.
All of this is, in part, due to the building’s ambiguity. What it could be is unknown, but what it’s going to be, Owen is certain, will be something wonderful. ““If you can set your hopes and do the work, and transmogrify something, you can take it to a place that nobody would have ever expected it to go to,” he says. “We can create a place where we can show the benefits of urban recycling and people will want to be someplace that isn’t the same as everywhere else.”
Already this transmogrification has proven successful. “One of the nicest complements I got recently was ‘I just feel myself decompress here.’”
Visit https://www.facebook.com/TrustBooks-1249501501870831 for more information about Trust Books.
