- That same desire for human connection fuels our next story.

As digital screens dominate daily interactions, one bookstore owner encourages face-to-face connection.

Producer John Branscum introduces us to a unique Camp North End space offering more than books.

(upbeat music) - We are currently in That's Novel Books, my indie bookstore, which is located in Camp North End.

I love books.

I love books and I love connecting with people over books.

My name is Alyssa Pressler and I am the owner of That's Novel Books.

(upbeat music continues) We have our regular book club, the Oh You're Reading Again Book Club.

That is the traditional one where we all read the same book and discuss it.

We have our Warhammer painting build night.

We have Novels and Needles Craft Club.

We have Silent Book Club.

We have Writing Club.

When COVID hit, we were kind of forced to only be online, and I think that might have been novel at first, but, very quickly, people became tired of it and missed that face-to-face interaction and missed those in-person events.

I'm a millennial, so my generation kind of saw the rise of the creation of online communities, and I love online communities, but I think there is still this really intense drive to meet people in person and to have those face-to-face interactions and connections.

Hi, you guys.

Welcome to Silent Book Club.

Thank you guys so much for being here tonight.

A silent book club is a book club where you bring whatever book you want to read and you silently read with others.

We're gonna get our silent hour of reading started.

We are silent.

Sometimes our surroundings are not, but just do your best to focus on your book and enjoy your focused reading time, and I will awkwardly interrupt you in one hour.

(mellow music) - [Ashley] I'm an introvert, so being able to read quietly together is, like, my ideal social situation.

- Silent Book Club is not a concept that we came up with.

It is actually its own organization and there are over 600 chapters worldwide, and we are just very grateful to host the largest North Carolina chapter.

- For school, I'm taking online classes, so I'm on the computer.

I do have a slight addiction to my phone, and so being able to just pick up a book, and the feel of a book in my hand, like, I love it.

- [Maria] The moment it goes silent, it's almost like a calm, and it's easy just to get lost in your book.

- There's energy in that silence of just a room full of strangers respecting each other's time, their space, their books, and the stories that they're enjoying.

- It's weird to be like, "We're excited to be quiet."

- It brings so many different types of people together.

We're all here together doing the thing that we love to do.

- I can be having a bad day or be stressed or sad or need a pick-me-up, and I'm never sad when I leave Silent Book Club.

- All types.

I get questions all the time.

Can my dog come?

What's the average age?

I'm 70.

Can I come?

Can my kid come?

And the answer is yes.

Anybody can come to Silent Book Club.

(crowd chattering) (upbeat music) I want to create these third spaces where anybody is welcome to do something that they're passionate about, and the barrier for entry is very low.

Writing Club is a chance for folks to kind of do the same thing that we do at Silent Book Club.

We come and we silently write together.

- It's sometimes distracting to sit at home or alone in a coffee shop, but when you come here and write, it kind of forces you to put all those distractions away and just focus on the craft.

- We might not be working on the same thing.

Some people are working on science fiction.

Some people are doing poetry.

Some people are just journaling, but everybody is in the same space for an hour and a half and we're all just focused on writing or being creative, which it kind of creates a really cool atmosphere.

- I always say the time is yours.

You can write whatever you would like.

We will have people who come and just sit and journal.

We will have people who come and are working on their fantasy novels, are writing poetry, are working on their dissertation.

We've had several folks who have published things that they worked on in Writing Club.

- My second book that I just self-published this past year is called "I Probably Should have Gone To Therapy," and it's a poetry collection of stuff that I worked on here.

- It's been super helpful to kind of just streamline my thoughts into one place and just finding ways and new ways to articulate my thoughts.

- It really is easily the best part of my job to be able to pour into the local author and writer community.

I feed off the energy for sure.

Any time I think, "What am I doing?

Gosh, I should just close it all down and go work for somebody nine to five.

My life would be so much easier and so much less stressful and I'd have more time with my family and my kid and to do things that I love."

And then somebody like Dara comes in and says, "You've changed my life," or, "What you have provided for me is so important and so healing."

And I'm like, "That's it.

That's why I do it."

It's more than a bookstore.

It's more than a bookstore to me, and I'm glad that it has become more than a bookstore to others.