Our Story

How The Book Cellar Came to Life

The Book Cellar started the way most good things do — with a conversation between two people who couldn’t stop talking about books.

Megan Bordwine and Chad Thompson, a husband-and-wife team with a shared obsession for reading and a deep love for their community, opened the store in the spring of 2023 in historic Abingdon, Virginia.

From the start, they built the space with their hands and their values. The shelves, the fixtures, the books themselves — almost everything has a previous life somewhere else. Why buy new when something used has more character?

What they’ve created isn’t trying to be anything fancy. It’s a used bookstore where you can actually browse without feeling rushed, find something unexpected, and maybe strike up a conversation with a stranger who just read the same book you’ve been meaning to pick up.