Massachusetts Books

Boston has a reputation for being something of a Puritanical stick-in-the-mud. It is surprising, then, that it has experimented so vigorously and persistently with its urban design. Some of those experiments - the Back Bay and the Emerald Necklace - we recognize as glittering successes, while others - the creation of Government Center and the Fitzgerald Expressway - are festering failures that the city is only beginning to address today. Of the numerous histories and narratives that this tremendously fertile subject has produced (many of which I've read), the most wide-ranging, elegantly written and well illustrated that I have found is Jane Holtz Kay's Lost Boston. It works equally well as a coffee table book and a curl-up-on-the-couch book.

The creation and evolution of Boston is arranged here chronologically, starting with the first settlements in 1630 and concluding with an epilogue on urban renewal and it's ramifications at the close of the 20th century. Even though it is an accurate history, it tells a great story without becoming dry or academic. The language is descriptive and accessible, introducing major players in the Boston scene, from Charles Bulfinch to James Michael Curley. You also get a wonderful feel not just for the power brokers, but the neighborhoods, people and places that made the city a vibrant place. There is a warmth to Kay's writing, without delving into sentimentality. Because the background history - the day-to-day development that made Boston the Hub of the Universe - is so readable, it helped me understand the context of major events in the city's history: filling of Back Bay, the Great Fire of November 1872 and the razing of the West End in the 1960's. Instead of examining these as isolated events, they are knit together to show the city as a living, evolving organism. It was fascinating to see how Boston reinvented itself after the Fire, to see the creation of Frederick Law Olmstead's Emerald Necklace, only to lose its way, lured by the siren song of renewal.

And throughout are some of the best photographs and period illustrations of old Boston you're likely to ever see. There are the bustling wharfs on Atlantic Avenue, the original Museum of Fine Arts (where the Hancock Tower now stands), and the graceful mansions of Roxbury. There are dozens of examples of the Boston Granite style that dominated the city's architecture before the Great Fire. For me, the most moving photographs were the ones of Adams and Scollay Square and the West End, all of which fell victim to the wrecking ball to make way for Government Center and urban renewal. They themselves serve as simple, eloquent statements for common sense and reason when it comes to grand urban experiments.

And yet, it's an unfinished history. The Big Dig - the largest public works project in American history - is nearing completion, which will bring down the despised Fitzgerald Expressway. The land cleared for that highway will yet again be developed into inhabitable space and add another major chapter in the history of the city's evolution. So as history loops back on itself in Boston, it does so in new and unforeseen ways. In that, Lost Boston serves us well as a history and a speculation on the future of the city.

What a handsome book this is! I can't decide whether I liked the photos more or the text. The history is elegantly written and fascinating. How many people realize that Boston was literally created from the marshlands, spoonful by spoonful. The cast of characters who lived in this so-called Athens of America had an equally splendid selection of architects and places to live. The photos are a real treasure. I keep turning back to so many. The first edition was a classic, my mother told me. And this updated one has not only the older traditional rownhouses and state house and the pictures of the monumental construction of such attractions as the PUblic Garden and Common but a new cast. There are images of neon lights and amusement parks and the author (whose last book Asphalt Nation was a stunner with a polemic cast) has added photos of saved and threatened buildings to tell the 2lst century story. I couldn't recommend this more.

A 1999 revised edition of the 1980 classic by one-time Boston Globe and current Nation architectural critic Jane Kay, this beautiful book is filled with images of buildings and squares tragically allowed to fall into disrepair, destroyed by fire or bulldozed for parking lots and malls. Pictures, maps and photographs are black & white, and are interspersed throughout the book, organized into subjects such as signs, spires, schools, etc. The text is arranged chronologically, and is generally well-written and highly accessible. The author delves into the history, policies and people of various times from 1630 to the present day.

Many of the buildings and areas depicted are truly beautiful, some destroyed as recently as the 1970s, when you'd think people would have known better. Scenes after the fire of November 1872 make you want to cry. I have a fair number of pictorial histories of The Hub, and still found some pictures in here that I hadn't seen elsewhere, and the author's perspective is worthwhile reading.

The book is constructed of high quality paper and concludes with picture credits, a selected bibliography and a good index. It should be of interest to those with some connection to Boston, architecture or history, particularly of the 18th and 19th century.

What a treat to have this updated version of the author's classic history of Boston. The photos still resonate with the sadness of their loss and the beauty of their existence. But this isn't just a coffee table book. It remains the best history of this fascinating old, and new, city. I especially liked the supplement telling what had been saved, what was threatened and what was lost. I bought the first version 20 years ago and have bought the second to give to the next generation in my household to say how cities grow and should grow. A splendid book!

The time is 1854. Louisa May Alcott is 22. Yes, this is the Louisa who later writes Little Women and goes on to become a famous author. In this book she does the sleuthing.

Her friend Dorothy Brownly Wortham is recently returned from her travels in Europe after her wedding to Preston. Louisa and her friend Sylvia Shattuck have been invited to Dorothy's for tea. Also in attendance are Dorothy's twin sisters Edith and Sarah, their brother Edgar, and their aunt Alfreda Thorney. Unfortunately the one person missing is Dorothy. After waiting for quite a while, she arrives. She says that tea was for tomorrow, not today. She won't say where she's been. She seems quite distraught and asks everyone to come back tomorrow for tea. She asks Louisa to arrive a little early so that they may talk.

Louisa is distressed and determined to arrive early to find out what is wrong with Dorothy.

The next day, Dorothy is once again missing. After everyone arrives, Constable Cobban of the Boston Watch and Police arrives to announce that Dorothy had drowned. Her dog Lily was found drowned with her.

Louisa and Sylvia attend the autopsy but it proves to be too much for Sylvia and they leave. Louisa is determined to find out how and why Dorothy was murdered. Yes, it was murder.

Louisa ends up putting herself in danger and bringing gossip upon her name in her quest to find the murderer.

While historical mysteries are not my favorite, I really enjoyed this book. It was fun having a famous author do the sleuthing. I thought I was well written and the characters were so well developed that I had trouble figuring out who did it. That always makes it a good mystery in my eyes.

I look forward to reading more books with Louisa doing the sleuthing. I recommend this book.

Although they are as poor as can be, they live in an exclusive section of Boston so Louisa May Alcott and her family mingle with people of high society. Her father doesn't earn much money and the family's work with the Abolitionists and the underground puts the Alcotts in danger yet they are a close group bound by love. In her early twenties Louisa May wants to be a writer.

She is excited about seeing her friend Dot Wortham's home after a year long honeymoon in Europe. Dot noticeably upset asks Louisa to meet with her tomorrow at a tea party. The next day Louisa May learns that her friend's body was found floating in the Charles River. Bruises around her throat and injuries to her head lead the police to believe she was murdered by her husband who society thinks married Dot for her money. Louisa is more attuned to the behavioral nuances of the families of Dot and her husband and thinks the killer is still at large. Wanting justice to be served, she starts her own investigation and almost ends up as the killer's next victim.

LOUISA AND THE MISSING HEIRESS is a charming amateur sleuth novel that will appeal to fans of historical cozies. Anna Maclean brings the 1850's in Boston to life and readers see how even in the North the social issue of slavery permeates the culture. The heroine is charming, intelligent and independent, a woman who knows what she wants and will work to obtain it. This is the first installment in what looks to be a delightful new mystery series starring a totally wonder protagonist.

Harriet Klausner

In this first book of a promising new series, Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, tells readers of a time in her past when she helped solve a murder mystery. Shortly after going to a tea party where her friend, Dorothy Brownly Wortham, acts strangely, Dorothy is murdered. Dorothy had told Louisa she wanted to speak to her, but was killed before she had a chance to. Louisa is determined to find out how and why Dorothy was murdered.

This was an extremely well written, well researched book. Louisa really came to life as a character, as did the rest of her family, especially her mother, Abba. The time period also came to life through the book. The mystery itself was well plotted, and the identity of the murderer unexpected.

I'm looking forward to more books in this series.

A new sleuth has arrived on the scene, the author Louisa May Alcott. Ms. Alcott was known to have written a few thrillers herself when not writing things like "Little Women." Anna Maclean has gone back and recreated this aspect of Louisa's life with amazing fidelity; however Ms. Alcott does not just write mysteries, but also solves them.

Written with the precision and skill of her historical novels, Jean Mackin creates a minor masterpiece in her debut as Anna Maclean, mystery writer. The plot winds itself in and around pre-Civil War Boston with the beauty and complexity of a Medieval tapestry. The story is entangled with numerous characters functioning on many levels, often seeming to contradict themselves, leading us down many blind alleys. I must admit I could not put this book down. Just when I thought I had figured out who the guilty party was I discovered some new reason why they did not do it. The ending is quite a surprise. If you are looking for an entertaining historical mystery, and value good writing, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

I'd like to second all the positive and well-deserved praise for Stanton's The Lowell Experiment. In clear and thoughtful prose, Stanton's study does indeed "tackle the blindspots" in public history. Willing to move outside her own comfort zone, Stanton places her anthropological lens on the public historians themselves. Among other projects, she examines the complex relationship that public historians at Lowell have with their newly found comfort zone in the New Economy, and theorizes how that relationship colors how they are ultimately able to interpret history in their "post-industrial" city (particularly with regards to interpretive offerings that critically link Past to Present).

This is a significant contribution to scholars/practitioners of Public History, but The Lowell Experiment should have an even wider readership. I would urge those in American Studies and Labor Studies to read this very important study and to consider teaching it in their graduate seminars. I used The Lowell Experiment in my graduate seminar, "Performing History" (in a History Department). Prior to reading Stanton's monograph, students read Kirshenblatt-Gimblett's Destination Culture, as well as Handler and Gable's The New History in an Old Museum - two texts that The Lowell Experiment self-consciously invokes. "Dynamic" is how I would describe the discussion on the day we addressed Stanton's text. Students were impressed and inspired by her scholarship, and provoked by her ideas (even while at the end of the day many felt a bit defeated about the possibilities for a truly radical public history--but this, of course, is not Stanton's burden to bear).

The Lowell Experiment is a refreshing look at a public history site through an anthropological lens by examining the role public historians play at historic sites. Stanton explores complex questions of heritage, tourism and public history detailing how the past shapes the present and the present shapes the interpretation of the past. In addition, she unveils the many challenges and limitations public historians have being both interpreters and contributors to history at historic sites. Stanton's writing is smooth and graceful filled with thought and detail. I would highly recommend this book for both graduate courses as well as readers interested in the politics of historic sites. There is no wonder this book took home the National Council of Public History's book prize, for it is truly a winner.

Stanton's examination of the heritage industry combines an astute critique of the political economy of post-industrialization with a deeply empathetic analysis of the quandries and complexities public historians face when attempting to tell complicated and sometimes conflicted stories about the past to broad audiences who tend to come to historic sites seeking a past that is familiar to them. Stanton's achievement here is in her exposure of the silences in the Lowell story and in her gentle but insistent demand that the realities of contemporary post-industrial cities -- shrinking economic bases, poverty and unprecedented heterogeneity among them -- become part of the framework for interpreting the past, grappling with the present and charting the future.

Stanton's book richly deserved the National Council of Public History's annual book prize, because, leveling a anthropologist's gaze at the public history profession, she exposes one of its most serious blind spots -- the question of why and how history could matter in today's public world. Stanton's exceedingly provocative study looks at the way the habits and ambitions of public historians combine to create distance between what we know about the past and the questions that knowledge could prompt us to ask about today and tomorrow. As one of the landmarks of 20th century public history, Lowell is a great laboratory for Stanton's ideas, and she renders it with memorable texture and detail. An excellent book for graduate courses and for the bookshelves of anyone interested in why historic sites languish while public appetite for history grows.

It has rarely been my experience that a picture is worth a thousand words -- the best pictures often elicit no words at all. Maps, however, are different -- these, when well done, I would gladly substitute for the best prose. And those in Mapping Boston are absolutely superb, giving greater clarity to a wide range of topics than words ever could.

Boston, of all cities, must give historical cartographers fits -- the city's boundaries have changed so greatly over time as to render historical comparison a great challenge. But Mapping Boston succeeds wonderfully in helping the reader to understand the city's gradual evolution from peninsula to metropolis. The growth of the city, the changes in population and land utilization, Boston's shifting ethnic and economic face are all elucidated colorfully and clearly. The bottom line is that the lover of Boston history will revel in this volume; indeed, I expect most every resident of the area will derive considerable pleasure from it.

For those who do, I would also recommend Diana Muir's Reflections in Bullough's Pond, which does for the region around Boston what Mapping Boston does for the city itself: places it in context, gives it color, brings it to life.

This book is simply gorgeous in design and exceptional in content. I can recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone interested in the history of Boston or in the evolution of maps of North America.

Collects in one place excellent plates of all the great historical maps of Boston, as well as some rarities. Ranks up there as one of the necessities for anyone with a passion for Boston's topographical history.

This book beautifully portray's Boston's physical past, present and future through maps and photographs. The book does an excellent job showing how streets and shorelines through the years match to the present topography (a huge interest of mine when exploring the city). This book is for you if you love history and maps of Boston and New England. VERY WELL DONE!

The authors do a great job of taking snapshots of Massachusetts from the days of the "city on a hill" to the modern day. This is a fantastic book for anyone interested in delving in the social, political and economic history of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts!

book: new, too costly, too big, had to rebind it, not amazon's fault. content: if you forgot where your Puritan blood is, look harder: did you REALLY wanna sail 3 months on a ship from London to infect Native Americans? the answer was yes, amaf ....

This very well written and extremely interesting history of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is one of the only general histories of the State available.

Authors and Professors Richard Brown and Jack Tager have compiled an enjoyable read that touches on every important aspect of the State's history - from the earliest English settlements to the modern day Commonwealth. The reader quickly discovers that Massachusetts is a tremendously diverse and wonderful place to live or visit!

Finally, the "Suggested Readings" portion of this book details dozens of other specific works for those interested in finding out more about the history of Massachusetts.

The reader will be challenged to find a better general history of Massachusetts!

There is no better book about the history of Massachusetts -- check out A Concise History today.

This is an excellent continuation of Terry Marotta's series of books and columns. The entries are thought provoking and life affirming. An excellent compilation.

This is an excellent continuation of Terry Marotta's series of books and columns. The entries are thought provoking and life affirming. An excellent compilation.

This is an excellent continuation of Terry Marotta's series of books and columns. The entries are thought provoking and life affirming. An excellent compilation.

This is an excellent continuation of Terry Marotta's series of books and columns. The entries are thought provoking and life affirming. An excellent compilation.

Finally, a nature guide that tells it all, and best; presented by towns and areas. Lots of maps and details. Nicely done.

The new book , The Nature of Cape Cod, by seasoned geologist/naturalist and first-time author, Beth Schwarzman, is informative, beautifully finished with clear detailed maps, and has a writing style that blends important lessons on living in harmony with the natural Cape system with interesting information and facts about the Cape from its geologic beginnings at the end of the Ice Age up to the present day. This book is a welcome addition to the libraries of all who love exploring and appreciating Cape Cod.

As a hiker, canoe & kayaker, birdwatcher, guide book collector and Cape Cod resident I feel qualified to say that I'm in love with this book. Moreover, as someone who managed a local bookshop on Cape Cod for 12 years, I'm quite aware of how far above the pack "The Nature of Cape Cod" is. As much as I like to collect field guides, I only want to carry one in the actual 'field' and this is definitely my choice for the one detailing plants, trees, flora & fauna, with the geology it all sits upon and environments it creates. It's also a treasure trove of secluded sites richly described and beautifully mapped.

We like this very comprehensive guide to Cape Cod because it has everything in one book that we and our friends need to explore the Cape. The author begins with the fascinating story of how the Cape was built as the Ice Age came to an end and leads into the environments, plant life, animals and birds of the Cape. Especially valuable to those wishing to explore and 'savor' their surroundings, are the 50 sites that represent the natural environments of the Cape. Details about access, geology, history, beaches, what to see and do, and unique features of the sites are available along with maps for hikers and paddlers. The clear illustrations of plant and animal life are helpful, as well as the lists of birds commonly seen on the Cape. What a treasure this book will be for Cape Cod dwellers and nature lovers of all sorts!

This is an amzing current day historical account given by Dr Counter on his childhood hero Matthew Henson's and Robert Peary's North Pole discovery and the legacy they left.

found this in my local library, and it was a great read. For a neuroscientist to be the writer, he is also a good writer. One passage describes as Peary's wife, coming to the artic from New York City on a relief ship, must have seen an Inuit woman with a Inuit child of white skin complexion, and "must have understood. A stoic woman", as the book describes, decided in not saying anything. Very very detailed, it filled the dots in many areas. Would have liked a critical analysis of the 1912 Henson book "A Polar Explorer" in light of the culture during the time it was written, and how it would have been re-written today, since the book publication could only be possible after Peary's review. And would have also mentioned more about the meteorites found and hauled in the 1890's. But still, the amount of detail and effort in stringing it all together is majestic.

I've read a good number of books by and about Peary, Henson, Rasmussen, Freuchen, Ehrlich, and others, and this is the best of the lot. It's a fascinating story that recounts the Peary/Henson trek to the N Pole and bundles it with such topics as Eskimo culture, race relations a century ago, and race relations today. Throughout it all, Dr. Counter writes with great sensitivity and objectivity about controversial topics. That he was able to discover the modern relations of Matthew Henson and bring them to the states for reunion and recognition is remarkable. If you are at all interested in history, the N Pole expeditions, or artic living, you'll really enjoy this book.

I just heard this book's author on the radio, and was so impressed by him. He's a Harvard professor who got interested in the story of Matthew Henson, a black man who explored the Arctic and discovered the North Pole along with Robert Peary. The professor, Dr. Counter, has gone to the Arctic several times now, and has befriended the sons and grandsons of both Henson and Peary. Before Dr. Counter, nobody in the US even knew that these explorers had fathered children up there. And Dr. Counter has done a lot to get Henson recognition here in the States, where institutionalized racism has minimized his role in history.

Thank goodness for Mameve Medwed. With "Of Men and Their Mothers," she has given us another smart, witty, perceptive and compulsively readable novel. Margaret Atwood once said that she could identify a story by Alice Munro if it were in braille -- and she doesn't read braille. The same can be said about Mameve Medwed's increasingly impressive body of work. Her ability to deal with the important business of life (relationships, loss, love, and starting anew) in a comedic way is unmatched. I put down "Of Men and Their Mothers" between chapters (very briefly) and ran my fingers across the binding in both admiration and gratitude. This book stays with you. Mameve Medwed's great gift in "Of Men and Their Mothers" is to sweep the reader along on a comedic high, all the while exploring the complexities of the way we live with each other. Bravo!

Of Men and Their Mothers is another first-rate novel from Medwed. Clever and funny, the novel is chock full of endearing characters and tackles a fundamental aspect of the human condition with deft and aplomb -- grappling with one's in-laws. I highly recommend it.

Amid all the horrors and stresses of contemporary life, how wonderful to find a writer whose grasp of those tensions is pointed and profound, but who is able to render up her perceptions in such a benign and funny way. I have read all five of Mameve Medwed's novels, and each one is a skillfully composed comic delight. Of Men and Their Mothers is full of vivid, even Dickensian characters, and its observations about life in Cambridge, Somerville, and present-day America are richly rewarding. Simultaneously amusing and illuminating, the novel will whet your appetite for Medwed's earlier four books. Let's hope there is soon a sixth novel as well.

It always makes me nervous to read a new novel by a writer whose books I already know and like. What if the new one isn't as good? But it's so wonderful when the book IS as good as the others -- and this one is. It's about a woman named Maisie Pollock and her relationships with a piggish overbearing (but believable) ex-mother-in-law, her son's rude waifish girlfriend, a young mother embroiled in a custody battle with HER horrible mother-in-law, and a new man who may or may not be overly tied to his dead mother's apron strings. The writing is somehow both cozy and sharp. It's very funny -- the kind of comedy that looks easy but must take incredible skill to write, and that makes you wince and laugh at the same time. It's about big things -- anxiety, resentment, fear, romantic attraction -- and the nutty small ways we try to hide our feelings, or channel them into socially "correct" behavior. The biggest thing of all is motherhood, and the perennial question about when do you speak up and when do you keep your mouth shut. As with all of her earlier books, reading this gave me a huge amount of pleasure and a lot to think about.

I totally enjoy all of this series...very entertaining diversions. Cynthia Riggs writes excellent dialogue and creates very believable characters.

Victoria Trumbull is 92 and lives on Martha's Vineyard. She gets fired from her job as West Tisbury correspondent for The Island Enquirer. The editor is going for a younger look.

Victoria throws her weight behind The Grackle, a two-page West Tisbury newsletter, into a competitor of the Enquirer. The Grackle's editor doesn't want it to grow, but Victoria takes over.

The Enquirer's editor has been receiving obituaries naming him as the deceased. Since they follow the deaths of people close to him, he can't laugh them off as jokes. He rehires Victoria to discover the identity of the obituary writer. Since she knows everyone on the island, she sets out to find the writer and hopefully not need one written for herself.

I really enjoy Victoria. She is such a spitfire at 92. She is the type of person I would enjoy hanging around. Martha's Vineyard is one of my favorite settings for mysteries.

The author has done a great job with the plot and provided many twists and turns to keep us guessing. I highly recommend this book.

Victoria Trumbull has lived on Martha's Vineyard her entire life -- all 92 years of it. Not only does she know every inch of the island, but she also knows everyone on it. She's the perfect person to help solve the mystery of the chilling obituaries that newspaper editor Colley Jameson keeps receiving -- ones that feature himself as the deceased. Chapter by chapter, author Riggs introduces us to a variety of characters whose paths must eventually cross and criss-cross again. In soap opera fashion, everyone seems to have been married or involved with everybody else in the community. (Writer Tom Dwyer should seem vaguely familiar to those who have read Philip R. Craig's books.) When people start dying and Colley's fake obits come too close to reality, Victoria vows to get to the bottom of it all. She is a feisty senior whose quirky approach to investigation is fun to follow to the end. An entertaining read for cozy mystery afficionadoes.

On Martha's Vineyard, ninety two year old Victoria Trumbull is fired from her job at the Island Enquirer where she has been writing the West Tisbury column for over a half a century. Publisher Colley Jameson feels he can get someone to work the section cheaper. Shortly thereafter, he gets a fake obituary notice that he believes Victoria sent to him but she denies it vehemently. Instead the nonagenarian goes to work for the West Tisbury Grackle a one page broadsheet published by William Botts.

When Colley's biggest advertiser is killed, a second obituary notice arrives. When one of his ex-wives gets shot, he receives a third obit. Colley hires Victoria to find out who the writer is even though she has increased the circulation of the Grackle forcing Mr. Botts, who wanted to do the paper as a retirement hobby, to hire more staff. When Colley's ex-wife is shot and then killed in the hospital by candy laced with cyanide is killed by candy laced with cyanide another obituary notice arrives. Victoria figures out who the obituary writer is but believes that person is not the killer. The last obituary notice happens when Colley's lawyer is murdered. The crime wave comes to a climax when the two suspects meet with Victoria because they need her help.

The protagonist may be ninety-two but she has more energy than people half her age. Poor Mr. Botts didn't have a chance when Victoria changed his broadsheet into a sixteen pager with pictures and a staff of eight. The authorities think that none of the murders are linked but Victoria is determined to prove otherwise and ends up saving Colley's life when someone lures him into a trap. Cynthia Riggs has written a delightful cozy starring a likable protagonist.

Harriet Klausner