Minelli has strong memories of his grandmother, who ran a St. Vincent de Paul store decades ago, like going to Elder-Beerman where they shopped and ate soup and crackers.
“Hamilton was naturally at the forefront of my mind‚" he said during a special opening of his bookstore at 110 S. Second St. the weekend of Oct. 10. Household Books Hamilton will open in earnest from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. the weekend of Nov. 7, and will be open weekends through November and expand to Wednesdays through Sundays in December.
Credit: Michael D. Pitman
Credit: Michael D. Pitman
Stephanie and Steve Johnson embraced the community bookstore concept when they opened Star City Booksellers in 2023 in Miamisburg after the Barnes & Noble Dayton Mall location closed.
“It didn’t look like there was any replacement on the horizon,” said Stephanie, an elementary school teacher and avid reader.
She and her husband, Steve, the fire chief of the Miami Valley Fire District, found an available space at 55 S. Main St.
Star City Booksellers now features a curated selection of books, three book clubs and the couple’s French bulldog, Eddie George, who has become the unofficial store mascot.
The best part, Stephanie Johnson said, is the incredible feeling of community the store has.
In its short history, Star City Booksellers has hosted signings by bestselling authors such as Mia Sheridan and has become a launching point for independent local authors such as Trina Burkhart.
She will have a signing on Nov. 1 for her debut children’s book, “Eli the Eel.”
Stephanie Johnson said in addition to hosting the book clubs, the store’s backroom is rented out for craft parties, baby showers and other local events.
Star City Booksellers is also part of the Independent Bookstore Book Crawl every year, and joins forces with other Miamisburg businesses in citywide events.
Currently there is a large selection of ghost books offered to coincide with Miamisburg ghost tours and the Halloween season.
“I try to watch what my people are buying,” Stephanie Johnson said.
Pre-pandemic, the trend with bookstores was in decline. But since COVID, that trend has taken a 180-degree pivot. In the past five-plus years, more than 1,000 independent bookstores have opened, and Hill said more are opening monthly. The American Booksellers Association gets applications every day from bookstores planning to open, she said.
Not just independent stores
It’s not just the indies that are opening. Barnes & Noble, the country’s largest bookstore chain, opened nearly 60 new stores in 2024 and surpassed that total for 2025, and plans a second Butler County location in Fairfield Twp. News reports indicate the chain bookseller plans to surpass 2025’s total in 2026.
Hill said the growth of independent bookstores has happened organically, which “represents a shift we saw coming out of the pandemic in people’s values, both on the side of the people opening stores and the people frequenting, especially independent bookstores.”
The growth of the independent bookstores is most evident in greater Cincinnati and Dayton, but there are what’s called book deserts — communities that don’t have an independent or used store. Until Household Books, the city of Hamilton, Butler County’s largest city, didn’t have a bookstore.
“I think oftentimes bookstores are stigmatized of being a thing of the past,” said Minelli, whose first Household Books store is in College Hill in Hamilton County. “But I think I’ve learned one thing, swimming in these waters as long as I have, it’s that they can very easily be a thing of the future.”
Terry Unthank opened his Christian bookstore Bountiful Blessings, 6108 Winton Road, Suite A, in Fairfield this past weekend , a dream he had for years. Before the competition was vast, and while independent brick and mortar stores aren’t as populous now, that doesn’t mean there’s no competition. Online shopping, most notably with Amazon, however, can’t replace the community of a physical location.
“You can’t really just read every book to see what you like. Yeah, you get this little digital excerpt, but you can’t look through it,“ he said. ”I think what people want is an experience."
That experience includes customer service, which Unthank called “a lost art.”
“People are craving that,” he said. “They are willing to pay a couple dollars more for a book to have somebody thank them for coming in ... or explain a book they’re not familiar with.
“All of these things kind of converged and then we have this kind of explosion that’s happened very organically,” she said, adding there was also a backlash against billionaires amid the hunger to support local businesses. “People wanted to know who they’re shopping with, know who they’re giving their dollars to support their community, support their neighbors.”
‘BookTok’ and ‘romantacy’
The social media trend BookTok, a movement that started on TikTok and spread to other social media platforms, most notably Instagram with Bookstagram, has helped. Today, BookTok has spurred a reading resurgence since COVID-19 was prevalent, and the “romantacy” genre has been the driving force behind BookTok.
Combining elements of the fantasy and romance genres, romantacy has produced bestselling authors and series such as Sarah J. Maas’ “A Court of Thorns and Roses” series, the “Quicksilver” Fae & Alchemy series by Callie Hart, and Rebecca Yarros’ Empyrean series starting with “Fourth Wing.”
BookTok and romantacy grew to prominence during the COVID pandemic when people’s choices of entertainment were limited, said Josee Coyle, partner and event coordinator at Blue Dog Books, 245 S. Main St. in Springboro.
Coyle said that since the shop’s grand opening on Sept. 21, she has seen customers flocking in looking for the hottest BookTok titles, especially romantacy.
“I think what we’re finding is romantacy is bringing people in and from there they’re discovering new genres,” Coyle said.
“It was really this reminder to me that people really to love to read. It was the one good thing to come out of the pandemic,” she said.
Online communities including BookTok and bookstagram continue to draw people in, something Cozy Book Nook co-owner Tony Garcia found out firsthand.
“Our social media really exploded” when his wife began a TikTok account about books, he said.
Leslie Garcia started doing BookTok reviews in June and quickly reached more than 9,000 followers.
She said ironically, she wasn’t a TikTok user at the time.
“I was in Facebook groups and they always talked about BookTok so I checked it out. I got sucked in so fast,” Leslie Garcia said, adding that a lot of the books they carry in store a directly influenced by what’s on social media.
It’s working, said Tony Garcia.
The Garcias relocated their shop after a year in Moraine to 1400 E. Third St. in Dayton at the beginning of October in part because their old location was too small to keep up with demand.
“I think it’s a great time to be in the book business,” he said. “I think in today’s environment, books give an escape people are looking for.”
Lindsay Woodruff and Lauren Gay hope for the same success when Swoon Books & Wine opens on Far Hills Avenue in Oakwood later this year.
The shop will feature a full bar, a curated selection of LGBTQ+ titles, a strong young adult section, a comfortable space that encourages people to linger, and of course romance books.
Woodruff and Gay came up with the idea when Woodruff relocated her fair trade clothing, jewelry and home goods shop, Maraluna, in the Shops of Oakwood.
“(Lauren) asked what I wanted to do with my old space since I held the lease, and I made a joke about starting a romance bookstore. Lauren said, ‘Well if you want to stick a wine bar in it, let me know!’” Woodruff said. “I called her a week later and told her I couldn’t stop thinking about the idea. we decided we had to do it, and Swoon Books & Wine was born.”
