Audio version of this story.

If you ever wandered through the door of Bound To Be Read Books, you might’ve encountered one or two Jeffs, the owner Jeff McCord or his longtime friend and store manager Jef Blocker. You probably saw Kona, the bookstore cat, sprawled out on top of a display. And, of course, you found books, used and new, lining the walls around you.

Now, though, those books are quickly disappearing from the shelves. McCord is preparing to close the store after 10 years along Flat Shoals Avenue. He expects to finish the closing process in the next few weeks.

Watching the shelves empty after so many years, he says the feeling is bittersweet. The store isn’t being forced out of business by a new digital era.

“It’s not about e-readers; it’s not about Amazon; it’s not about any of that stuff,” McCord says. “We’ve actually had a great six months.”

McCord is closing the store for personal reasons. In all the time that he’s owned the bookstore, he’s actually held a day job, too, like a 9-to-5 job, doing public relations for the state.

“Just working 90 hours for 10 years has worn me out a bit,” McCord says.

Bound To Be Read Books’ closing will be the end of something that started as a dream for McCord about 12 years ago.

He was at a funeral and met someone who had opened a used bookstore. In that conversation, McCord says he quickly realized he wanted to do the same.

“I literally started buying books,” he says. “And when the house got full of books and we couldn’t sit down anywhere, I knew it was time. So we took the plunge.”

He signed the lease for the space along Flat Shoals Avenue, built shelves, and Blocker picked up Kona, who was just a kitten, and brought her to what became Bound To Be Read Books.

Like so many independent bookstores, there were little things about it that made it special.

Its hours were late — almost matching the hours of the village around it, a street lined with bars. “When I’d go to conferences with other booksellers and tell them we were open until 9,” McCord says, “they just thought we were crazy.”

It was the setting for poetry readings and author events. Jeff and Jef have also held a series of book clubs, including one that focused on scandalous books and another, more recently, that merged comedy with books.

But perhaps most special was the store’s biweekly newsletter that included a column from Kona. McCord maintains that she wrote it herself.

“Now, she’s not very good at typing,” he says. “We generally have to edit them for length and appropriateness.”

Bound To Be Read Books did get national attention. It was once featured in a Buzzfeed listicle of 44 great American bookstores everyone should visit.

But most of all, it was a neighborhood bookstore — a fixture in an often-changing East Atlanta community.

“Over 10 years, we’ve seen people grow up and families start and move into the neighborhood, move out of the neighborhood,” McCord says.

For many East Atlanta residents, stopping into Bound To Be Read Books became part of their weekly routine. Jeff and Jef could list off customers who came on the weekends or every Tuesday or maybe each Thursday night, like Alison Ross did.

“It just became one of these things where we would come here often to look at books and get books,” she says, “and also talk with them about books and politics and current events.”

She says she’ll still be friends with Jeff and Jef after Bound To Be Read Books closes. But in her view, every neighborhood needs a bookstore. So she’s sad that East Atlanta will soon be without one.

“You just sort of wish that it weren’t happening, but it is,” she says.

McCord did originally want to find a new owner so that the store could stay in the community. But after a year of looking, it became clear that wasn’t going to happen. He decided it was time to move on.

And to what?

Well, Kona, the cat, is retiring. “She’s working on her fur-moirs and is looking forward to publishing those and becoming a famous celebri-cat,” McCord says.

Blocker says he too has some writing he’s been meaning to get to. So, Blocker says, maybe he and Kona will be revising together.

And as for McCord, he says he’s just looking forward to some free time for family, friends and, well, reading.

“I might actually have some time to read,” he says. “That will be great.”