Tefft, 47 , knew the Carytown area from his days as an undergraduate studying English at nearby Virginia Commonwealth University. After earning a master’s degree in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo, he ended up making a living largely by working in independent bookstores, including the late, lamented Skyline Books that once brightened Manhattan’s West 18th Street.

Although the move was already in the works before the September 11 attacks on the city, Tefft left New York and moved back to Richmond in October 2001 with a truck of “about 3,000 or 4,000 books” he’d collected and an idea for a used-books shop of his own. A few months later, he found a retail space and a name for his store — in a building at 1317 W. Cary Street that still sported a rusted hanging sign for “George’s Chop Suey,” a long-gone restaurant.