The media is fond of producing obituaries for public figures, but sometimes it's the death of those who aren't in the limelight that affect the most people.

This includes people such as Dr David Christophel, a charismatic man often known as "the American" by those who shopped at his bookstore in Adelaide's foothills.

He was also a father, husband, lover of dogs and a well-respected paleobotanist who spent nearly 30 years teaching at the University of Adelaide.

Entering the Tardis

Anybody who visited Blackwood Books probably unknowingly passed the owner obscured at the counter by piles of books.

The store looks smallish and unremarkable on the outside, but its twists and turns with seemingly endless shelves of books gives it its second name, Tardis Books.

When prompted, an American voice boomed from nowhere and somehow knew the details of every book in the 50,000-odd collection.

This was David, a man from Iowa who adopted Adelaide as his hometown decades ago and whose passion created one of the most popular book exchanges in South Australia.

"Dad really had a way with people and he expressed a lot of his personality through his love for books," Al Christophel said.

"That radiated through how he sold and how he spoke to customers. There's basically a generation of kids who gained a lot from reading just by going there."

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Regular customer Patricia Fairbairn described the store as an "Aladdin's cave".

"David always had a smile and a hug — I knew him from church as well — and the books just seemed to go on forever," she said.

"It just went on and on and he seemed to know every book he had in the shop."

But David was not always a bookseller. He was a respected and published academic with a particular interest in fossils and botany.

A gifted academic

He grew up as an only child in the small town of Oelwein in Iowa, graduating from high school in 1965 with a national merit scholarship to go to any college in the US.

It was also during his last year of school when he met his first wife, Annabel, an exchange student from Adelaide, for whom he would eventually sell his Chevrolet to fly to Australia and propose.

David chose a Presbyterian college in Iowa where he graduated with honours in biology and drama.

David Christophel had a diverse career in Australia and the US. ( Supplied )

He married Annabel in about 1970 and they migrated to Canada where David undertook post-graduate work in taxonomy and paleobotany at the University of Alberta.

After their daughter Angie was born, David set about applying for academic positions across the globe.

His wife spotted an advertisement in her home town for a lecturer's position in taxonomy and Australian flora at the University of Adelaide.

David landed the job and began a 27-year career with the university.

He was an entertainer at heart — evident by his tendency to sometimes arrive at lectures dressed up as a tree or a flower ovary — and became a favourite among students.

In 1996 he was awarded the Stephen Cole The Elder Prize for Excellence in Teaching, when two of his colleagues attributed him for inspiring them to teach.

He was published in numerous scientific journals and was renowned for his work relating to fossil leaves and uncovering evidence of a tropical rainforest in south-east Australia that existed during the Eocene Epoch about 40 million years ago.

David died in January aged 70.

David Christophel was remembered in front of more than 200 people at Blackwood Uniting Church. ( ABC Radio Adelaide: Malcolm Sutton )

Creating a lasting impression

Fellow academics were among those who packed into Blackwood Uniting Church for his funeral.

Also present were those touched by his enthusiasm, including self-professed "restoration ecologist" Philip Holzknecht from Queensland.

"When I first came to Adelaide I'd heard about rainforest leaf fossils in Golden Grove and Anglesea, and at the Waite Arboretum there was a display of fossils and the publications of David Christophel," he said.

"The curator said David now runs a bookshop in Blackwood and so I immediately went up there.

"When I first went up there, there was a pile of books on the desk and I couldn't see anybody and I said very loudly: 'Is anybody here?'

"This sonorous voice came from behind the books, 'Of course I'm here', and that was the beginning of several conversations I had with him about fossils and rainforest."

David Christophel loved dogs and met his second wife, Debbie, while they were walking their respective golden retrievers. ( Supplied )

A treasure hunt in Blackwood

David opened Blackwood Books in 1997 with his second wife, Debbie, at a smaller and different location to where it is today.

It grew over the years, including from 2001 to 2007 when it had different owners while the Christophels lived in the US.

Mrs Bonaparte was a regular at Blackwood Books and a favourite among children. ( Facebook: Blackwood Books )

The shop has been in its current location since 2007 where my own visits invoked a sense I was stepping into a Stephen King novel, due to David's rich character and the mystery conjured by endless shelves of second-hand books.

David himself was the perfect person to talk to about finding new authors.

"He always knew what they were after and always maintained his friendship, even over years and years there, so I think it was more than just a store," Al said.

"It was a place where people went to find things they couldn't find in other places and he was just a constant presence there."

Ashley Burnard spent some time working at the store where she began as a book repairer aged 13.

For her job interview David gave her a list of books and told her it was like a treasure hunt.

"He said you have to go and find the books and tell me the genre and where you found them and make like a treasure map," she said.

"He definitely brought that love of drama and his passion for stories into everything he did.

"We used to have conversations about Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit and Harry Potter and all of the fantasies and science fiction genres, books he'd always recommend and you could tell he was super passionate about fantasy and other worlds."

Al said he was not surprised by the large turnout at David's funeral.

"He lived a really full life and touched a lot of people's lives in a variety of ways."

As for the long-term future of Blackwood Books, the family is yet to decide, but it reopens on February 12.