News brief

Small town book brigade. Residents of a small Michigan community formed a human chain and helped a local bookshop move each of its 9,100 books – one by one – to a new storefront about a block away. The “book brigade” of around 300 people even put the books back on the shelves in alphabetical order, said Michelle Tuplin, the store’s owner. “As people passed the books along, they said ‘I have not read this’ and ‘that’s a good one,’” she sad. The endeavor took just under two hours – much shorter than hiring a moving company, according to Ms. Tuplin.

Last summer, the Monitor interviewed Evan Friss, the author of “The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore” and the important role they play in communities as places where ideas and activism could flourish.