Literary Boston: 5 Fun Things

Stops for a Bookish Weekend Visit.

We went to Boston this past weekend and played tourist, staying in a beautiful old hotel in one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods and touring around. When I worked as an editor at the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, my schedule was grueling and I rarely had time to visit some of the places we went this past weekend. I was also too busy to pay close attention to how many authors had called Boston home through the ages. Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathanial Hawthorne, among many other historical and contemporary writers.

Beacon Hill books is beautiful inside and out.

Here’s the real kicker though: Did you know that Boston has a dedicated “Literary District,” with eighty-seven stops, including the original offices of publishers Little, Brown, Edgar Allen Poe’s birthplace, and the first headquarters of The Atlantic Monthly, which has since moved to Washington, DC. Here are the spots I went bananas over.

Left is 10 Louisburg Square, Right is 20 Pinkney Street.

Louisa May Alcott, the inspiring author of Little Women, one of my favorite books of all time, spent her early years in a small apartment at 20 Pinkney Street near the State House in Beacon Hill. (It’s where she was living when her first story was accepted for publication.) She’s most famous for living in Orchard House, her home in Concord where she wrote most of her novels. Lesser known is the fact that once she was an established writer, Alcott returned to Beacon Hill and lived in one of the finest Greek Revival mansions at 10 Louisburg Square. I power walked past the towering row house on a morning walk without the kids, and I snapped tons of pics.

My kids were tugging on me to “Come on, MOM,” as I took this pic of the Old Corner Bookstore.

We followed a tour of the Freedom Trail, which follows a collection of historical markers and sites through Boston telling the story of their significance in the Revolutionary War. The only one I snapped a photo of was the Old Corner Bookstore, the oldest commercial building in Boston, WHICH IS NOW A CHIPOTLE. Hey, the city has to preserve their old buildings somehow, and this one was nearly demolished in 1960. Anyway, it was once the home to publishing house Ticknor and Fields, and produced Thoreau’s Walden, Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Longfellow's Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, and most of Phillis Wheatley’s works.

Even the light fixtures near the fireplace are stunning at Beacon Hill Books.

Beacon Hill Books is the CUTEST bookshop in the entire city, maybe even the entire country. The downside: It’s also one of the hottest social media shots in the city. Which is funny. Because it’s a bookshop. Still, it’s packed with people on weekends, which is great, as long as they leave with a book, not just a photo of them beside books. Ha! Anyway, the interiors were designed by a star decorating team, the shop occupies four floors of a brownstone and it has an adorable children’s section with a train that circles the room. There is also a working fireplace, a well-curated selection of books and a cafe on the lower floor that serves tea in gorgeous teacups. Instagram-heavy visitors aside, it’s still my favorite bookstore in Boston.

My photos don’t capture the grandeur of the interior courtyard of the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum.

If you go on a bookish weekender tour of Boston, you’ll need to visit the adorable brass ducks from the book Make Way For Ducklings waddling through the Public Garden. You also may want to go to Trident Books in Back Bay, Brookline Booksmith or Porter Square Books, all favorite booksellers of mine. We headed for the STUNNING Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum, which displays timeless works of art in the former mansion of the Boston socialite. The courtyard that sits at the center of the home (above) is the perfect vantage point to dream up a novel, and the museum’s storied past — it was home to the biggest art heist in recent times — will also capture the imagination.

I am a super nerd, I know.

One last stop I had to make was at the Harvard COOP bookstore, which sits just across the street from the university’s famed campus. There are tons of tourists buying Harvard sweatshirts here, but it’s also an incredibly well-stocked bookstore with entire floors dedicated to fiction, nonfiction and YA. Best of all, I checked the shelves for my novels and they had copies of ON GIN LANE. Score! Don’t I look so happy? Here’s a quick look at the shop’s cool layout, too.

A view of the fiction section at the Harvard COOP bookstore in Cambridge.

What is your favorite part of Boston to visit? I know I missed so much, so I’ll make a list for next time!