Michelle Pierce owns the only independent bookstore in Malibu, California. Over a period of two years, she kept it open through two wildfires, an earthquake, a mudslide, and a six-month road closure that cut her town off from Los Angeles (Alin, 2026). Customers could not reach her, and many assumed she had closed for good. Some days the register took in nothing. She would later call 2025 “the most hopeless time in my life” (Alin, 2026). Yet every morning she unlocked the door.