Bookshops I actually return to

Marcus Oyelaran

@quietmarcus

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I bike the Necklace, I lose at trivia, and apparently I buy a lot of books while doing both. This is the short list of Boston-area shops that earn repeat visits instead of just a nice Instagram photo. Roughly 70% of these I've walked into on a random Tuesday with no plan and left with something. That's a good hit rate for anything in life.

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The list

Showing 1–10 of 11

Bookshops I actually return to — 10 items
Name	Neighborhood	Address	City	Specialty	My take
1Papercuts Bookshop	Jamaica Plain	60 South St	Boston, MA	Curated new fiction and local authors	Walking distance from my place, which is 90% of why it wins. The other 10% is they're just good at this.
2Brookline Booksmith	Coolidge Corner	279 Harvard St	Brookline, MA	New and used, huge events calendar	The used book cellar downstairs will eat an hour of your life. Budget accordingly.
3Harvard Book Store	Harvard Square	1256 Massachusetts Ave	Cambridge, MA	General interest, academic, author talks	Family-owned since 1932. That's a longer track record than most of my spreadsheets.
4Brattle Book Shop	Downtown	9 West St	Boston, MA	Used, rare, and antiquarian	The outdoor lot of discount carts is basically a clearance rack for people who read. I never leave empty-handed.
5Trident Booksellers & Café	Back Bay	338 Newbury St	Boston, MA	General interest with full café menu	Loud, busy, smells like brunch. Good for people-watching, bad for actually finishing a chapter.
6Beacon Hill Books & Café	Beacon Hill	71 Charles St	Boston, MA	General interest, five-story townhouse	Five floors in a 19th-century townhouse. Feels like browsing inside someone's very literate inheritance.
7Grolier Poetry Book Shop	Harvard Square	6 Plympton St	Cambridge, MA	All poetry, nothing else	Oldest poetry-only shop in the country. I understand maybe 40% of what's on these shelves. Still worth it.
8Frugal Bookstore	Roxbury	57 Warren St	Roxbury, MA	Books by authors of color	Small footprint, sharp curation. The staff recs have never once missed for me.
9All She Wrote Books	Assembly Row	451 Artisan Way	Somerville, MA	Feminist and queer authors	Newer shop, already feels essential. Great gift section if you're the type who buys books for other people.
10Porter Square Books	Porter Square	1815 Massachusetts Ave	Cambridge, MA	General interest, strong kids' section	Unpretentious and well-organized, which as a data guy I respect more than I should admit.