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The ultimate guide to independent bookstores in Greater Boston and beyond
You’re never too far from a great bookstore if you live in Greater Boston.
A new era of niche, independent bookstores is taking Boston by storm – and shows no signs of slowing down.
Among the cohort of bookstores with a special focus is the much-anticipated Lovestruck Books. The romance bookstore is set to open this winter in Harvard Square as a place where those smitten with the genre can find their happily ever after in the bookstore’s shelves. It’s a place to not only build community, but where readers can find their community, owner Rachel Kanter said.
But romance isn’t the only genre carving out a space for itself in Boston’s book scene. At least seven niche, independent bookstores have sprung up around the city in recent years – and more are on the way.
At All She Wrote Books, a feminist and queer bookstore, readers can find a curated selection of books with a focus on intersectional feminism. Christina Pascucci-Ciampa founded the bookstore as a pop-up in 2019 before moving to a brick-and-mortar store in Assembly Row in 2020, and later relocating to East Somerville in 2023.
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Add to the growing list Over the Tunnel Books, a speakeasy-style, subterranean bookshop in East Boston selling food related publications. The store is one of three businesses owned by Eastie resident Alexis Cervasio, and is located underneath her grocery store, EBO & Co. Grocery.
“You take a left at the wine fridge, and you go down the stairs to the bookstore,” she told Boston.com. Cervasio envisioned the bookstore as an extension of her home, a communal living room and lounge for foodies.
“It’s a good hideaway. There’s no clocks. It’s like you’re in Vegas. You can just let time slip away,” she said. The bookstore is located directly over the Sumner Tunnel (hence its name), and opened in December of 2023.
There’s Read My Lips Boston, an inclusive romance pop-up bookstore run by twins Lily and Hannah Barrett. The duo held their first pop-up in February of 2024.
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Newer additions to Boston’s book scene include Narrative, a Somerville bookstore which focuses on books by and about people of color. The shop opened in May to mighty acclaim from neighbors (see: the bookstore nearly sold out after its grand opening).
Most recently, Side Quest Books and Games opened their brick-and-mortar bookstore in Somerville’s Bow Market in August, after operating as a pop-up shop. The bookstore focuses on fantasy books and role-playing games from underrepresented or marginalized creators.
On Friday, JustBook-ish, a highly curated literary gathering space in Dorchester, held its grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony. The bookstore was founded by Porsha Olayiwola, Boston’s poet laureate, and Bing Broderick, former director of Haley House.
And there’s plenty more coming soon, like the aforementioned Lovestruck Books and Dr. Ellie Paris Social Bookstore & Ice Cream Cafe in Brockton, which also opened on Friday.
How did Boston get so many niche bookstores?
Many independent bookstore owners told Boston.com they felt a shift in the literary world post-pandemic that likely produced the diverse, niche landscape we see in Boston’s book scene today.
The boom in independent bookselling, coupled with a desire for connection, increased demand for these niche bookstores, which function as sites of intentional community, they said.
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For Kanter, it was the opening and massive success of The Ripped Bodice, a romance bookstore in Park Slope, Brooklyn in 2023, that confirmed her giddy inkling; something new and exciting was happening in the industry, and she had to be part of it.
“It felt like kismet. It was a real endorsement of the fact that there is a market for this. There is an appetite for these spaces where people can get together and really celebrate romance,” she said in an interview with Boston.com in July.
This was also the case for Mila Hossain, owner of Narrative in Somerville. She turned to reading during quarantine as a means of comfort and escapism amidst incredible isolation. But this period did not bode dark days for her, nor for the book industry. Rather, the pandemic helped bring her idea to open a bookstore to fruition – and like a phoenix rising from the ashes, hundreds of independent bookstores like hers were born.
More than 300 new independent bookstores have emerged across the country in the past couple of years, according to the New York Times. Hossain credits the surge to the pandemic and a renewed understanding that bookstores are more than just places to shop; they are lifelines for community and connection.
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“A lot of people really realized how important these spaces are and how important it is to make sure that they keep existing,” she said.
Porsha Olayiwola, co-founder of JustBook-ish in Dorchester, said she has “definitely” seen a rise in the number of independent bookstores serving a particular audience.
She credits this “resurgence” of niche bookstores to the pandemic-era boom in bookselling and social movements, as well as a political climate that has raised the stakes for books and bookstores.
“I think part of it is probably the discourse around the banning of books and how that relates to the banning of humans. Bookstores just feel like a place where knowledge can be accessed and also accessible,” she said.
Her bookstore’s ethos, “culturally curated, radically influenced, locally inspired,” reflects this shift in the industry, and it’s something that will be carried through the shop’s curation of books.
JustBook-ish sells books that are culturally relevant to the surrounding community, often with a social justice focus. Local writers and authors who often don’t have a home or space for their books will get a spot on JustBook-ish’s shelves too, Olayiwola said. The store will also serve as a gathering place for programming and events with a literary and artistic focus, adding to the bookstore’s niche.
“There’s going to be an interesting interplay between our programming and our inventory. I think that our programming will impact our inventory,” Olayiwola said.
What does a niche bookstore offer?
Events, window displays and book shelves can all be curated to introduce a particular niche to a broad audience.
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Hossain’s bookstore emphasizes marginalized voices and experiences, and she curated every single detail of the bookstore to reflect this focus, she said. This curation is what brings an extra value-add to customers, who “crave that intentionality,” she said.
“You’re getting purpose. The curation has a lot of meaning. There’s a lot of intentionality behind the whole space and everything in it,” she said. “I think a lot of people really want to support that, which is wonderful.”
At first, Hossain worried that having a focus would be too limiting, that customers wouldn’t feel like they could find something for themselves. But she has found this not to be true, as “everyone kind of understands that it is a place where everyone is welcome,” she said.
“My hope is that Narrative will make you feel seen, or give you some sort of connection or perspective. Even though we are niche and focused, that doesn’t mean that it’s not for you. There’s something here for everyone,” Hossain added.
The inclusive nature of having a niche was a draw for many booksellers, like Olayiwola, the co-founder of JustBook-ish in Dorchester.
She said she hopes the identities she and her business partner, Bing Broderick, embody will help bring all kinds of people to the store.
“At JustBook-ish, we’re 50% woman-owned, 50% Black-owned, 100% queer-owned. Just us embodying those identities will hopefully invite folks who also have those identities. But beyond that, this intersectionality invites everybody in,” she said.
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Twin sisters Lily and Hannah Barrett, owners of the inclusive romance pop-up bookstore Read My Lips Boston felt similarly. Focusing on inclusive romance means they can share diverse perspectives and lived experiences, and it also allows people to “read about others’ experiences, to put themselves in other shoes,” Hannah Barrett said.
“We wanted to create a space where people could feel seen and where they could also expand their perspectives,” Lily Barrett added.
Having a niche is helpful from a practical standpoint, too. As a one-woman team, Hossain, the owner of Narrative, is responsible for everything that happens at the store. From bookselling and coordinating events, to the behind-the-scenes grunt work like taking inventory and cleaning, she does it all. Having a niche has helped her run her store as efficiently as possible.
“It’s really nice for me to have something that is grounding and helps me organize my thoughts. I feel like I have built something that feels really intentional and meaningful, and having a focus and a niche really helps drive that,” she said.
A bookstore boom or a “reclaiming” of Boston’s bookish past?
When Broderick, a co-founder of JustBook-ish, moved to Boston in 1987 there were around 25 bookstores in Harvard Square, he told Boston.com. The landscape today is beginning to reflect this past, more so than create something new, he believes.
“I feel like we’re reclaiming to some degree,” he said.
Indeed, according to a 1989 article in the Harvard Crimson, there were more than 25 bookstores across 10 blocks in Harvard Square – “a bookstore for every type of shopper,” student journalist Melissa R. Hart wrote.
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While Boston’s book scene in 2024 might not be experiencing a renaissance to rival its bookish past, there is something to be said for the bookstore owners – many of them queer women and women of color – who are building the city’s niche bookstore scene. They’ve created a “warm, welcoming, and celebratory” industry that is not based on competition, but rather solidarity and support.
“Other indie booksellers and bookstore owners see a new bookstore opening not as competition, but as a success for the industry,” Kanter, the owner of Lovestruck Books, said. “It’s been really wonderful.”
Hossain, owner of Narrative agreed, saying there is tremendous respect and support for each other’s niche and success.
“There’s not this sense of, ‘If I’m thriving, I’m taking something away from one of them.’ It’s more so that, ‘If I thrive, we all thrive together.’ Each of us has something different to offer, but it’s all tied together in a way,” she said.
Map: Where to find the best bookstores in Greater Boston
Full list: Where to find the best bookstores in Greater Boston
Community co-op Nia Harmon contributed to this report.
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