Open and shut cases

On the same weekend in which the Globe Northwest Weekly reported that North Reading bookstore Got Books is opening a new store in Lawrence (and closing its old store), another Massachusetts bookseller had a sadder fate.

Bunch of Grapes Bookstore in Vineyard Haven, Martha's Vineyard, was ruined on Friday, July 4, by unplanned pyrotechnics -- a fire that burned out most of a business block at Main and Centre streets. According to the Vineyard Gazette, the store is structurally damaged and has lost most of its inventory to the fire and associated water and smoke damage.

Ann Nelson, owner of Bunch of Grapes, reportedly told selectman Denys Wortman that "It's all gone," and the store website bears a single woeful message: "The bookstore is closed for the foreseeable future."