"The best part of it has been seeing how the community has shaped the bookstore," said Megan Murai, co-owner of Timbre Books in Ventura, Calif.
She and her husband, Kyle Murai, opened the 1,200-square-foot store in downtown Ventura in October 2020. While the general-interest, all-ages bookstore sells a "little bit of everything," adult fiction is the store's single biggest section and there is a robust selection of children's titles. Timbre Books sells new books, along with an assortment of gift items like candles, journals and greeting cards.
The store held its first in-person author event on Saturday, with Karen Grassle, who played Caroline Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie, reading from her new book, Bright Lights, Prairie Dust: Reflections on Life, Loss, and Love from Little House's Ma. Prior to Saturday's event, Timbre Books had held virtual events, including a "really wonderful" event with Obi Kaufman, author of The California Field Atlas, and book club meetings, with customers able to attend virtually or in-person. Looking ahead, Murai hopes to gradually grow the store's event offerings while still keeping customers safe.
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| Owners Megan and Kyle Murai | |
Reflecting on how the inventory has changed since the store had its grand opening last year, Murai said she'd underestimated the demand for books about the environment and natural history. Customers and community members are "really interested in learning about local lands," which in retrospect "isn't that surprising knowing Ventura."
Prior to opening Timbre Books, neither Murai nor her husband had any experience in bookselling. Opening a bookstore of her own had always been a dream, but it was something that she'd imagined would happen later on in life. Early in the pandemic, however, Murai and her husband were getting coffee from their favorite local coffee shop and started talking about how great an adjacent storefront would be for a bookstore.
At the time, Murai was doing some freelance work while also working at a brewery in town, and was trying to "figure out what I wanted to do next because of the pandemic." The storefront they liked had been vacant for over a year, and they decided "maybe we should just look into it." Once they started researching the process, things quickly "snowballed" from there.
When it came to learning the ropes of the bookselling business, Murai joined the ABA and made use of the myriad resources for new stores. She joined forums with other booksellers, messaged other booksellers on social media, did plenty of "random Google searches" and gradually compiled information.
Building the store's opening inventory, she recalled, was something of a collaborative process. Murai holds an MFA in creative writing, with fiction and literature being her specialty. For the store's poetry and creative nonfiction sections, Murai turned to friends she met in grad school who studied those subjects, and for the children's section Murai asked for help from a friend who is a librarian. Beyond that, she asked community members and friends what they'd like to see.
Almost right from the start, the community's response was "far beyond what we expected," Murai said. Shortly before the store opened, Murai and her husband did a final fundraising push. They would have been able to open the store without it, she explained, but felt they could make the store even better with those extra funds. They were blown away by how many people in the community were willing to donate and rally around the store.
"We've had really great community support," Murai said, adding that it's come from both individuals as well as other local businesses. "There's been an outpouring of people saying they're grateful we're here." --Alex Mutter