Boston’s Book Eden

by Virginia Pye

Everyone knows that Boston is a book-loving city, but since moving back to the area after more than thirty years away, I’ve been amazed by the thriving literary life of my hometown. On a recent evening, I was torn between hearing Alexander Chee and Laura van den Berg at the Brookline Booksmith, Rebecca Makkai and Jennifer Haigh at Newtonville Books, or Amber Tamblyn and Aclyn Friedman at Harvard Bookstore. In the end, I opted to hear another bestselling author, Katherine Howe, at the Cambridge Historical Society, speak on a topic relevant to a novel I’m currently researchin...