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Books on Boston

The Rough Guide to Boston (Rough Guide. Boston) by David Fagundes, Anthony Grant. The city’s epicenter is Boston Common, a large public green that orients downtown and holds either on or near its grounds many of Boston’s most historic sights, including the Old State House, the Old Granary Burying Ground and the Old South Meeting House. Nothing, however, captures the spirit of the city better than nearby Faneuil Hall, the so-called "Cradle of Liberty," and the always-animated Quincy Market, adjacent to the hall. Due north, an incomparable sense of Boston’s original layout can be found in the cramped Blackstone Block. Boston’s waterfront, on the edge of downtown, offers its fair share of diversions, mostly ideal for traveling families; the action is centered on Long Wharf. The North End, modern Boston’s Little Italy, occupies the northeast corner of the peninsula, where, until the Big Dig project is completed, it’s cut off from the rest of the city by I-93. The North End is home to a few notable relics, such as Old North Church and the Paul Revere House, but is equally worth visiting for its animated streetlife, fueled, in large part, by the strong cups of espresso proffered by numerous Italian caffes. Just across Boston Inner Harbor from the North End is Charlestown, the quiet berth of the world’s oldest commissioned warship, the USS Constitution, as well as the locus of the Bunker Hill Monument, an obelisk commemorating the famous battle that bolstered American morale in the fight for independence. North of the common are the vintage gaslights and red-brick Federalist townhouses that line the streets of Beacon Hill, the city’s most exclusive residential neighborhood; it’s anchored by the gold-domed State House, designed, as were numerous area houses, by Charles Bulfinch. Charles Street runs south from the hill and separates Boston Common from the Public Garden, which marks the eastern edge of Back Bay, a similarly well-heeled neighborhood which features opulent rowhouses alongside modern landmarks like the John Hancock Tower, New England’s tallest skyscraper. The neighborhood also hosts some of the city’s best shopping along Newbury Street. Meanwhile, the stylish enclave of the South End, known for its restaurants and streetlife, as well as the ornate ironwork gracing its well-maintained homes, is also worth a visit.
The student domains of Kenmore Square and the Fenway are found west of Back Bay and the South End: the former is largely overrun with college kids from nearby Boston University; the latter spreads west of Massachusetts Avenue and southwest along Huntington Avenue, home to heavyweight local institutions like the Museum of Fine Arts, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. Below all these neighborhoods are Boston’s vast southern districts, which hold little of interest besides the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum and the southerly links in Frederick Law Olmsted’s series of parks, known as the Emerald Necklace; it includes the Arnold Arboretum and Franklin Park, setting for the Franklin Zoo. Across the Charles River from Boston is Cambridge, synonymous with venerable Harvard University and tech-savvy MIT, but also boasting some of the area’s best nightlife and a lively café scene, especially around Harvard Square, which spills over into neighboring Somerville to the north. The waterfront’s Long Wharf doubles as a jumping-off point for escaping the city altogether, on cruises to the idyllic Harbor Islands, or to happening Provincetown, Cape Cod’s foremost destination. Inland, nearby battle sites in Lexington and Concord make for easy day-trips, as does a jaunt up the coast to Salem and its witch sights, or further on to seafaring towns like Gloucester and Rockport.
Boston is at its most enjoyable in the fall (September through early November), when the weather is cooler and the long lines have somewhat abated; and in the spring (April through mid-May), when the magnolia trees blossom along Commonwealth Avenue and the parks spring back to life. Summer, meanwhile, is certainly the most popular time to visit Boston, both for the warmer weather and frequent festivals. However, July and August can be uncomfortably humid, and you’ll have to contend with large student-related influxes around graduation (early June) and the beginning of school (around Labor Day). At the other end of the spectrum, Boston winters can be harsh affairs: they tend to run from late November through March, but, thanks to the moderating influence of the Atlantic, mild spells often break the monotony of long cold stretches, and snowfall is lighter than in the interior regions of New England. No matter when you go, though, be prepared for sudden changes in the weather in the space of a single day: a December morning snow squall could easily be followed by afternoon sunshine and temperatures in the 50s (Fahrenheit). Boston is as close to the Old World as the New World gets, an American city that proudly trades on its colonial past, having served a crucial role in the country’s development from a few wayward pilgrims right through to the Revolutionary War. It occasionally takes its past a bit too seriously – what might pass for a faded relic anywhere else becomes a plaque-covered tourist sight here – but none of that detracts from the city’s overriding historic charm, nor its present-day energy.
Indeed, there are plenty of tall skyscrapers, thriving business concerns and cultural outposts in Boston that are part-and-parcel of modern urban America, not to mention excellent mergers of past and present, such as the bustling Quincy Market, a paradigm for successful urban renewal. And despite the occasional wearisome touch, no other city in America gives a better feel for the events and personas behind the nation’s birth, all played out in Boston’s wealth of emblematic and evocative colonial-era sights, conveniently linked by the self-guided walking tour (one of a handful in the city) known as the Freedom Trail. As well, the city’s cafés and shops, its attractive public spaces and the diversity of its neighborhoods – student hives, ethnic enclaves and stately districts of preserved townhouses – are similarly alluring, going some way to answering the twin accusations of elitism and provincialism to which Boston is perennially subjected.
Boston is also at the center of the American university system – more than sixty colleges call the area home, including illustrious Harvard and MIT, in the neighboring city of Cambridge, just across the Charles River. This academic connection has played a key part in the city’s long left-leaning political tradition, which has spawned a line of ethnic mayors, and, most famously, the Kennedy family. Steeped in Puritan roots, local residents often display a slightly anachronistic Yankee pride, but it’s one which has served to protect the city’s identity. Indeed, the districts around Boston Common exude an almost small-town atmosphere, and, until the past decade or so, were relatively unmarred by chain stores and fast-food joints. Meanwhile, groups of Irish and Italian descent have carved out authentic and often equally unchanged communities in areas like the North End, Charlestown and South Boston.
Today, Boston’s relatively small size – both physically and in terms of population (at under 600,000, it ranks well below most other similarly important US cities) – and its provincial feel actually serve to the city’s advantage. Though it has expanded significantly through landfills and annexation since it was first settled in 1630, it has never lost its core, which remains a tangle of streets over old cowpaths clustered around Boston Common (which was itself originally used as cattle pasture). Delightfully, this center can really only be explored properly on foot; for even as Boston has evolved from busy port to blighted city to the rejuvenated and prosperous place it is today, it has remained, fundamentally, a city on a human scale.

Back Bay by William Martin. Six turbulent generations of the determined Pratt clan pursue a lost Paul Revere treasure, in a saga that brings readers from the grit and romance of old Boston to the Back Bay of modern day. A gripping saga when it was first published some 20 years ago. Martin's "Back Bay" withstands the test of time. The story is cleverly told by the use of flashback. The reader learns the secret and the mystery of the Pratt family early in the book but must wait for the revelation and solution along with the characters who live in the 20th century. The story is a marvelous blend of fact and fiction and is a must read for anyone who loves Boston, history, and mystery.

Harvard Yard by William Martin. Martin, who introduced antiquarian Peter Fallon in his debut novel Back Bay (1979), brings him back for a second quest in this sprawling bibliomystery, which traces the tightly interlaced histories of the fictional Wedge family and Harvard University. Fallon, a proud Harvard grad, assists in the university's annual fund-raising appeals. One call, to Ridley Wedge Royce, lands him not a donation but a tip. The intriguing possibility that the Wedge family once owned a rare and unknown Shakespeare manuscript-a text purportedly linking Will Shakespeare and Harvard's founder-is enough to hook Fallon. But others are on the same scent and willing to go to any lengths to root out the manuscript if it still exists. How it came into the possession of the Wedges, and what happened to it next is gradually revealed as Martin spins through 300 years of American history-from the Salem witch trials and the Boston Tea Party to the Civil War and up to the radical late 1960s-telling a tale of Harvard the institution growing from a tiny establishment under beastly first master Nathaniel Eaton to become America's premier university. Fallon's search takes a back seat to the historical material, but the novel provides good entertainment and copious Crimson lore.
Picking up where his runaway bestseller Back Bay left off, William Martin returns to Boston to bring the history of Harvard University vividly to life. There are many Harvard legends. One of the oldest is the tale of how John Harvard's parents were brought together by none other than William Shakespeare, who then gave them a gift of an original manuscript upon the birth of their son. Now, Peter Fallon, the Harvard historian introduced in Back Bay, teams with other memorable characters from that novel and sets out to find those priceless pages that were thought to have been lost in the Harvard Hall fire of 1764. Mixing fact and fiction, blending the past and present, this riveting treasure hunt unveils the story of Harvard as it grows from a one-room schoolhouse to America's most famous university. Boston.

Houses of Boston’s Back Bay: An Architectural History, 1840-1917 by Bainbridge Bunting. This truly fascinating book is a detailed chronicle of a district rich in meaning for architect, planner, historian, sociologist and lover of Americana ... With it all, insights are gained into the mores of those marvelous Bostonians and their equally marvelous city. With 250 superb illustrations to accompany his text, Bainbridge Bunting focuses on a significant architectural form-the town house-and chronicles its development throughout the period of the Back Bay's greatest growth. Boston.

AIA Guide to Boston by Susan Southworth, Michael Southworth. The first edition of the American Institute of Architects' guide was published to considerable acclaim in 1984. This revised and expanded site-by-site survey highlights 550 of Boston's notable architectural landmarks, including 50 new profiles and 100 new b&w photographs. This is a good guide book for walking around Boston and trying to understand some history behind the buildings. Too many buildings are covered, old and new buildings together. The general information about the construction date, architectural style is provided but not in detail. It is so grouped that it makes it easy to walk around the town and see good number of buildings in the neighbourhood. Information is not very detailed, State Haouse is described in two pages or so, other buildings in one short paragraph, just to give general idea about the architecture and history of the city. I found it more handy than other available books for it covers a lot and it has walker friendly sequencing.

Boston: A Topographical History, Third Enlarged Edition by Walter Muir Whitehill, Lawrence W. Kennedy. This urbane and delightful book covering more than 300 years of the course of Boston's history has now been enlarged with an account of the city's new urban design, architecture, and historic preservation and is richly illustrated with 32 additional photographs and drawings. In the last three decades momentous changes have visited this colonial city made modern. Lawrence Kennedy portrays the Boston that preserved much of the intimacy of the remembered place while creating a dramatic new skyline. Boston has been remarkably transformed while keeping the human features of a beloved city. This is very good book about the City of Boston, as it was developed in stages. The Book explains the development and expansion of the city in time and according to location. It is very vivid and especially if you have been a pedestrian offen on the streets of Boston, It starts to make sense and starts to give joy. As I read the book I started to appreciate more and more the efforts of BRA and Back Bay Society.unfortunately before they acted quite a number of beautiful structures has gone.Book has very extensive history from 1700 to 1970's and than it is summary or may be it is a living history for you. There are numerous pictures but the number of pictures is not as much as those you may find in other types of books, like Boston in Pictures, etc. After all it is a narrative book but there is sufficient amount of pictures to help you visulize. I wish a more comprehensive book were to be produces to show in same pages all the developments, similar to "Boston, Than and Now" but with more older pictures and more story as this book has. Read this book and sit across the Charles on Cambridge Side than you start to see Trimont, Mill Dam, Neck. It is great book.

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