The usual hum of people fills the walkways of the Downtown Mall on a Friday afternoon. Students, parents and children bustle about with their shopping bags, occasionally laughing or pausing for a cup of coffee and a mid-afternoon snack. However, halfway down the Mall, if one looks closely, they can see red and white block letter signs that read, "Books" and an arrow pointing down to the two small, dimly lit windows a few feet above ground level.
Located in the basement of The Hardware Store on East Main Street, The Book Cellar teems with more used and new books than one could ever see through those tiny windows. Several different rooms in the store each are overflowing with books that line the narrow aisles.
The store is a gold mine for book lovers. Patrons can find something -- or rather someone -- who has a good story to tell.
Tom Tiede, owner of The Book Cellar, bought the store four years ago and runs it by himself six days a week.
"The Charlottesville area has about 8,962 bookstores," he said with a chuckle. "And that's 8,961 more than we need."
Tiede is not the only one who feels his store adds to the Downtown Mall's atmosphere. Stan Epstein, manager of the Hardware Store complex, said he sometimes can hear Hardware Store patrons talking about the store and many go and visit after eating their meals.
"I've heard people walking and saying 'I've go to take you there, there's a bookstore down there that you won't believe,'" Epstein said.
Epstein is also a fan.
"I have personally gotten gifts there," he said. "It's a hidden treasure, it's a wonderful asset to the overall complex."
Unlike the bookworms who frequent his store's packed shelves, Tiede admitted that he is not much of an avid reader.
"Most books bore me to death," he said.
When he does have time to read, however, he usually reads only portions of a book.
"There's an awful lot of expensive, popular junk out there," he added. "And one or two chapters will tell me the whole thing."
This holds true for almost every genre of literature except books relating to Thomas Jefferson, Tiede said.
"I read almost everything about Thomas Jefferson," he said. "He has a very human quality about him."
He added he especially doesn't care for authors such as Stephen King who seem to have a band of "constituents" they write for time and time again.
"It's easy for me to slam it," Tiede said. "But I'd do it myself if I could."
He also said he writes his own books. While most of his six works have focused on subjects such as war, pestilence and famine, he added his newest book, due out in the beginning of next year, is quite different.
"I got cynical and tired of writing that stuff," Tiede said. "But I guess I can't get away from the cynicism."
Tiede calls his new book a "gimmick book" because its basic purpose is to attack self-help books.
"They don't help anybody," he said. "They just tell people things they should already know. Everything I've experienced supports my philosophy of self-reliance. You've got to learn to pick yourself up off the floor because you can't stay there forever, and a book can't help you with that."
If he sounds a bit critical, it's because he is.
"Opinionated, yes," he added. "I'm an editorialist at heart."
Tiede grew up just outside of Seattle, and attended Washington State University, where he worked as editor of the school's daily newspaper.
"I guess I have a degree in ... I guess English and journalism," Tiede said.
He began his career as a sports journalist after graduating in 1959.
"At first, I just kind of bounced around," he said.
He also spent time as a syndicated columnist out of New York after graduating from college. Then he became a war correspondent for the next 27 years. His travels took him to some 130 countries and over two million miles around the world.
Tiede's clear blue eyes drift away as he reflects on his past.
"It seems like 27 hundred years to me now," he said. "It got to be an enormous grind."
However, he added that visiting so many different countries was an experience in itself.
"I've been everywhere," Tiede said.
He said he has spent a great deal of time seeing the world and working on his writing. While making his trips around the world, Tiede was involved in at least three minor airplane crashes. One crash took place in India and the memory of swirling almost completely upside down in an airplane is still fresh in his mind.
"It didn't crash," he added. "But it might as well have."
The near death experiences now have turned him off traveling. Instead, Tiede said he is quite content to live in Virginia. Of everywhere he has been, he describes Charlottesville as "one of the finest places on Earth."
He excitedly speaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains as the origin of North America.
"It's a mystical experience," he said. "There's nothing more pastoral than this country."
He added, though, that if he had to choose a place to live besides Charlottesville, it would be Cyprus.
"There are all kinds of mysteries and legends there," Tiede said. "Everywhere you turn there's something different -- something you've never heard of or seen."
Tiede pauses for a moment to ask a customer a question before ringing her up.
"I just picked it up," she says after he asks her why she chose that particular book.
Looking up at her with a smile, a hint of sarcasm in his voice, Tiede says he must approve of everything people buy from the store.
He begins to tell her a fictitious story about how he "also grow[s] mushrooms in the basement and sell[s] them on Saturdays."
Smiling, the woman tells Tiede she does not need a bag for her purchase.
"Oh good," he says. "You just saved me a quarter of a cent."
The woman leaves The Book Cellar with both the book and the smile Tiede gave her.
The store is about more than just books -- it has a personality all its own. And Tiede wouldn't have it any other way. Tiede is dedicated to his books, his customers and his store. As people come and go, he looks up from his place behind the counter to bid them farewell.
"See ya, guy," he says to all his customers as they climb the stairs exiting the store, leaving with just a bit more than a book in hand.
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