As a Creative Writing major, I am no stranger to bookstores. I haven’t done a lot of travelling in my twenty short years, but I can say that I’ve visited some sort of bookstore in every state I’ve been to–here in North Carolina, Georgia, New York City, and everywhere in between. That being said, Pomegranate Books is definitely one of the cuter, more welcoming stores I’ve ever tried out.
Pomegranate Books was opened in 2005. Kathleen Jewel, the proud owner, is a retired physician who dabbles in beekeeping, writing, and women’s studies. Pomegranate has a large selection of used and new books, a good selection of which were written by local authors–some of whom are UNCW alumni or professors. They also serve coffee and tea for $1 per cup, which is much better than other bookstores around town (I’m looking at you, Barnes & Noble Starbucks). I’d already had my maximum of three cups on the day that I visited, so I didn’t try any coffee, but it smelled amazing and almost every other patron in the store had a cup in hand.
Browsing through the shelves, I actually spotted a couple of the textbooks and novels that I had previously purchased through the campus bookstore or Amazon. If you’re a Creative Writing or English major, or you’re just taking a few classes in either of those fields to see what they’re all about, I would definitely suggest visiting Pomegranate to look for your textbooks before ordering them through campus.
As far as my purchases go, I was visiting on a friend’s birthday, so I decided to buy one of the cute little cards Pomegrante stocks. It has a picture of a teapot on the front, and the inside reads: “Happy Birthday, hot-tea!” How precious is that?