A feel-good story in the news today...
Residents of all ages in 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.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/17/book-brigade-us-town-forms-human-chain-to-move-9100-books-one-by-one
The “book brigade” of about 300 people stood in two lines running along a sidewalk in downtown Chelsea on Sunday, passing each title from Serendipity Books’ former location directly to the correct shelves in the new building, down the block and around the corner on Main Street.
“It was a practical way to move the books, but it also was a way for everybody to have a part,” Michelle Tuplin, the store’s owner, said. “As people passed the books along, they said ‘I have not read this’ and ‘that’s a good one’.”
Tuplin said the endeavour took just under two hours – much shorter than hiring a moving company to box and unbox the thousands of titles. The brigade even put the books back on the shelves in alphabetical order.