The bookstore, at the corner of Main and Center streets in Bountiful, specializes in used and rare books. It carries titles covering everything from aeronautics to writing. The books come from a variety of sources, including estate and garage sales and customers hoping to make a few bucks or a good trade.

"It's a sampling of the community," says owner Ben Jorgensen, who purchased the store seven years ago with his wife, LeAnn.

The store was previously known as the Bountiful Paperback Exchange under Gail Olsen, who bought 10,000 books from a North Salt Lake woman in the early 1980s.

"I had gone to that bookstore before and I liked it," says Olsen who, along with husband Mark, now lives in Hurricane. "I figured I could do a lot better. I needed to do something. I told Mark that I thought I could make it go, and Mark said, 'Go for it.' "

Although a lover of books, Olsen was most intrigued by the people she chatted with at the store. When the time came to find a new owner, she looked no further than the customers she had grown to love.

"It was what Ben [Jorgensen] wanted to do," says Olsen. "He just craved having that kind of business. I had another offer and I could've gotten more out of it, but didn't think they would carry on."

The Jorgensens had traded books with Olsen through the years, but were much more than customers, offering help and assistance to place some of Olsen's inventory for sale on the Internet.

"I thought we ought to buy it," Ben Jorgensen says of the chance to purchase the store. "The nice thing about buying an existing business is that we have a good customer base, loyal customers. We have a good community following which is nice. We feel like we're part of the community that way."

This was just the attitude and perspective that Olsen had wanted for the store, which she continues to refer to as "her baby."

"I felt enough of a connection to [the business] to get the people to run it who loved it the most," she says.

As Ben Jorgensen travels to prospective sales in people's homes, he has come to believe that you can you can tell a lot about a person by the books on their library shelves. The estimated 100,000 paperback and hardback volumes in the Book Garden's inventory show that Jorgensen knows a good buy when he sees one.

One treasure buried in a 4,000-book collection purchased at a storage unit sale was a custom-made art book, circa 1820, beautifully bound and filled with exquisitely printed miniature engravings. On another occasion, Jorgensen was able to acquire an 1860s-era Book of Mormon, which later sold for more than $10,000.

While the Jorgensens, who acknowledge that their business is something of a dying breed, do advertise many of their books on www.Amazon.com, they have no intention of closing up their brick-and-mortar shop.

"We're a part of the community," Jorgensen says. "In general, people looking for books aren't ornery. They're looking for a fun book to read and are happy and nice. And if you find . . . a book they're looking for, they're really happy."