The Reading Room in Chattanooga, Tennessee

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Matt Reiter It’s open from noon to midnight, Wednesday through Sunday. Matt Reiter A variety of cocktails, beer, wine, and non-alcoholic beverages are available. Abby Kennedy Events include readings, bingo nights, comedy, and more.

Matt Reiter The Reading Room blends the intimacy of an inviting bar with the inviting solace of a good bookstore. Matt Reiter Is there a better pairing than a good book and a great drink? You can find both at this cozy bar on the east side of Chattanooga.

But the books lining the walls of the Reading Room are not just decoration. They are for sale, and their journey began, appropriately enough, at the library. The Reading Room is part neighborhood watering hole, part used bookstore, a combination dreamed up by the owner, Linden Marno-Ferree, after working on both sides of the equation.

Before entering the restaurant industry and becoming a bartender, Marno-Ferree worked as a bookseller at Harvard Book Store in Massachusetts and Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C. She eventually began imagining a place that combined the conviviality of a bar with the comfortable solitude of a bookstore. Then she found the perfect partner in the Chattanooga Public Library Foundation.

Books supplied through the library partnership fill the Reading Room’s shelves, and a portion of sales goes back to the foundation. The shop currently advertises every book at $8 or less. The result feels more like an eccentric reader's living room than a conventional bookstore.