Massachusetts Books

Excellent guide to Boston for the first timer or the native who wants details for great day trip. Filled with clear and informative maps, fun photos and wonderful descriptions of different areas of Boston and the many surrounding attractions. It contains a terrific history section, practical tips on planning your trip, accomodations, restaurants, shopping and sports info and more and even a list of good books about Boston. The book is scattered with helpful tips and recommendations to enhance your visit. A very attractive book, it's size (about 5 1/2 X 8 1/2 and about 3/4 inch think) makes it easy to carry around and substantial enough to save as a great souvenir of your trip. I work at a Global Training Center and we use this book consistently to help our visitors plan their sightseeing. I highly recommeded this guide.

With information about Boston's colleges, neighborhoods and historical sites, it's a coffee table book that could double as a guide book for residents and visitors alike. It would make the perfect gift for a student at one of the area's colleges who needs to know more about what the city has to offer.

Great book at fraction of original price. Really helped me out on my trip. Very informative.

The best kind of humor turns a mirror to the world and shows us the absurdity in our daily lives.

On the one hand, this is a very instructional book with good, practical advice on driving and parking in the Boston area. On the other hand, it's simply hysterical. I almost wish I had this book when I first started driving in Massachusetts, but I think having experienced it all before reading the book made it that much funnier.

Anyone who lives and drives in Boston, or anyone moving to Boston who plans to drive a car, should read this book. Afterwards, you will fit right in on the Massachusetts roadways. Even if you aren't interested in using these techniques, understanding them helps protect you from other drivers who do. And the more you've actually experienced Boston drivers, the funnier it gets.

A sample quote, regarding increased enforcement of traffic laws: "[T]here is a renewed emphasis on FORM. You must avoid the APPEARANCE of impropriety. For example, illegal turns should be done smoothly, without signaling and without guilt. One-way maneuvers should be done in reverse gear -- your car will be facing the right way, you won't stand out, and you won't get a ticket. Establish your rule of the road with finesse and class, so that it appears to be the natural order of things."

I hope it comes back in print soon.

Fully illustrated to elicit howls of laughter, this is possibly one of the funniest books I've ever read. I found it in a Boston bookstore and have had to fight off my friends, all of whom keep trying to steal it.
Wonderful pointers for pronunciation abound.

Boston Firsts is a tribute not only to the innovative spirit of Boston, but also to human ingenuity and creativity. The book is divided into forty short essays which explore intriguing topics, such as the first novel, and the scandal behind it, the first YMCA, opening in 1852, and the first Boston Cream Pie, a treasure for pie-lovers everywhere. How did the tradition of First Night begin? What is the story of the USS Constitution? For readers who are curious and appreciate history and innovation presented in antecdotal style, this book is a joy. The book is written deftly by essayist Lynda Morgenroth, whose work has appeared in numerous journals and periodicals, including the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and -- of course -- the Boston Globe. I recommend this book most highly.

This book is wonderful in every respect! There is a great deal of history provided in the book, and practically walks the reader through the historical town of Boston feeling as if they were re-living the experiences of the individuals written of in the book (i.e. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere, John Hancock). Also the reader absorbs the culture and environment of historical Boston by envisioning the architecture and designs of the houses, meeting places, state buildings and so forth.

A thoroughly written book, with a knack for meticulous details, is one highly recommended for history buffs and loyal Bostonians.

Compiled and edited by Ken Mallory (Director of Publications, New England Aquarium, Boston), Boston Harbor Islands: National Park Area is a beautiful and impressively informative introduction to the national park islands of Boston Harbor. Featuring lavish full-color photographs, at-a-glance capsule information concerning access, description, facilities, special interests, and agencies of each island, and inviting, easy-to-follow narration of each island, Boston Harbor Islands: National Park Area is a joy for armchair travelers, and an excellent introduction for anyone looking to spend quality vacation time in the national park areas of Boston Harbor Islands.

In this penetrating and highly readable examination of twentieth century Boston expressionist painters, Judith Bookbinder shows that fine scholarship can serve both the academic specialist and the general reader.

Focusing on the life and works of Karl Zerbe, Jack Levine, Hyman Bloom, David Aronson and other gifted expressionist artists who worked in early twentieth century Boston, Bookbinder illuminates the interplay and results of the artistic, historical, and social forces in each artist's life and work. To be sure, Bookbinder's keen analysis of each artist's use of form, color, and composition in their respective explorations of German-inspired expressionism will be of greatest interest to the specialist, espcially as she explores the tension with the contrasting French-inpsired abstract art championed by the Museum of Modern Art and others in the New York-centered art community. At the same time, Bookbinder's sensitive examination of the varying effect on these artists of poverty, religious feeling, and family pressures allows the general reader to understand the underlying energy that inspired such powerful expressionist creations. This is a book that other scholars should emulate.

The Boston Renaissance: Race, Space, And Economic Change In An American Metropolis is the detailed story of how Boston was transformed from a city with declining manufacturing base, depopulation, and racial unrest back in the 1970s, to the confident, multicultural, high-tech industry oriented, prosperous cosmopolitan city it is today. The authors draw upon a wide variety of historical and contemporary resources to explain Boston's impressive rebirth and redevelopment, and vastly improved ethnic and racial co-existence. Still very much a work in progress, Boston's story could well serve as a template for other troubled communities, large and small, anywhere within the confines of the United States as we progress through the first decade of a new century.