[soft music] I prefer to read in the evening.

I like to read before bed.

I always have to have a cup of tea.

Reading to me is just like that sigh of relief, like I can finally relax.

And so when I get lost in something and I don't want to put the book down, I stay up until one or two o'clock in the morning.

That was how it was when I first read "Pride and Prejudice."

That was how it was when I first read "The Art of Fielding."

You know, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, I have these books that are my hills that I will die on.

I will hand sell them to everyone.

I want Cleary's to feel like coming home as a reader.

Cleary's Bookstore is my little West Coast bookstore in North Carolina.

I'm originally from Seattle.

We relocated to the area at the time I was working in publishing.

And I realized there were openings to open a cute little bookstore in this town that we love.

- Everyone here has just welcomed us.

It's been fantastic.

- We love Mount Holly.

(soft music) - Jameis loves Michelle.

You want to go say hi to Michelle and get a treat?

Yes.

Good boy.

- Good boy.

- Remember just to, good boy.

Come here.

- I love Mount Holly because it is a quirky, eclectic town.

When you really tuck into it and get to know the people that embody the community, you have a large swath of people from different backgrounds.

And everybody loves this town and everybody loves the community.

I also especially like that a lot of the business owners on Main Street are women, young millennial women.

Mount Holly's kind of scrappy too.

And I really like everybody's spirit around the city.

Oh, so good.

- I went back to Ireland for about two weeks and somebody apparently got bored and ended up deciding that she wanted to run a business to own her own bookstore.

- And he came back and I had already had a meeting with the city, had a building and a landlord lined up and we were going to go look at the space, had a business plan and I was just like, we're opening a bookstore.

- Turns out all I had to do was go and wait for her to get bored.

That was it.

- So we met back in Ireland about- - 11 years ago.

- Yeah, 11 years ago.

I ended up going out with a couple of coworkers one night.

I went up and saw her and we kind of hit it off that night.

- Okay.

I was being a nuisance.

His friend was trying to hit on the girl who was with me and I was like, no, no, no, no, thank you.

Please leave us alone.

So he went to his table of friends and was like, who would like to volunteer as tribute to come distract this girl?

And Matt, sight unseen, Matt volunteered and the rest is history.

- Oh my gosh.

- Heather's crazy.

- I know, I know.

Can I get you something?

- I would love something.

- Where do you want?

- Right away.

- The whole store is about the joy of reading and about the readers who enjoy Cleary's.

As you'll see from our book clubs, we're just a group of like yappers who love to talk about books.

- I just assumed it was like, oh, she sees another girl in trouble.

And she saw herself in her.

- It's a little chaotic, but we just try to have as much fun as we can with reading, which is really where the store gets its namesake from.

I named it after Beverly Cleary, who is a wonderful children's book author and librarian from the Pacific Northwest.

So kind of paying homage to my roots.

- Jocelyn's made such a safe and welcoming space for everyone that you can hear all kinds of different opinions.

My favorite book clubs are the ones where people don't always agree on how they feel about it.

And when my opinion gets changed, she has a bunch of different theme ones.

So it's different genres every week, like mystery, thriller, historical fiction, sci-fi.

And so you can come to as many or as few as you want, which I come to all of them because I'm obsessed.

- I'm gonna read 50 pages of this and then put it in another book 'cause there was just so much you could tell and explain to everybody.

- We like to display our bestsellers right here just for people.

And we keep it on a week over week.

New books are up on the cash wrap and on the tables.

We always have like some good deals because we like to make sure that everybody can afford to read books at our store.

And then we have my beautiful genre wall, which is everything, mystery, thriller, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, romance and romance.

And that's kind of like the bread and butter of our readership.

We keep everything within genre and we don't actually merchandise by identity because we like people to be reflected on every single one of our shelves in the store.

So we really strive to curate a really eclectic and diverse mix of titles so that everybody knows that there is a story here for them.

I try for everybody to feel welcome and the conversations that we get into at the bookstore are great.

A lot of people have made friends from coming to our book clubs and finding community.

I really just want it to feel cozy.

I mean, we've got the creaky floors, we've got the exposed brick.

I've just always been a book girl.

So I knew that books were going to be in my future in some capacity and I really, I did.

I went from working at a bookstore in Seattle to working in publishing to owning my own bookstore and it's a labor of love, I would say.

It's a passion.

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