PAGES WITH HISTORY

FOR MORE THAN 200 YEARS, the Boston Athenaeum has been the literary and intellectual heartbeat of Boston. Members and visitors are part of an unbroken literary conversation that once included Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and John Quincy Adams, and continues with today’s poets and scholars, along with the delightfully bookish. For more information, visit www.BostonAthenaeum.org.

The recommendations below include books that either shaped the Athenaeum’s past (like Alcott reading Austen) or are shaping its present through book talks, discussion groups and member circulation trends.

AFTER LIVES: ON BIOGRAPHY AND THE MYSTERIES OF THE HUMAN HEART

by Megan Marshall (2025)

Marshall melds historical research with heartfelt personal reflection in this essay collection. It was our pleasure to host Marshall for a sold-out author talk this spring. She dazzled us with her curiosity and sincerity, both of which are evident in her essays on love and loss. Marshall’s Pulitzer Prize winning biography, “Margaret Fuller: A New American Life” (2013), is also worth a read!

NORTHANGER ABBEY

by Jane Austen (1818)

Austen’s enduring popularity is no surprise given her humor and clever heroines. It’s also no surprise that writer Louisa May Alcott was drawn to Austen’s wit—Alcott checked “Northanger Abbey” out of the Athenaeum on December 9, 1871. She was a frequent visitor to the Athenaeum in the 1870s, and her reading list has some intriguing titles (including “Why Paul Ferroll Killed His Wife” and “Married or Single?”). “Northanger Abbey,” however, stands out for its blend of irony and romance, and the copy Alcott took home can still be found in our special collections.

HEART LAMP: SELECTED STORIES

by Banu Mushtaq (2025)

This book broke new ground as the first short story collection to win the International Booker Prize in 2025, and it’s little wonder, given the sensitivity and humor with which Mushtaq approaches these stories of Muslim women and girls in India. We’ll be exploring “Heart Lamp” in depth in one of our upcoming “One Time Only” discussion groups, one of dozens of member gatherings we host every month to chat about books, movies, hobbies and more.

JAMES: A NOVEL

by Percival Everett (2024) 

Far and away one of the buzziest novels in recent memory, Everett’s reimagination of “Huckleberry Finn” was the Athenaeum’s most circulated book of 2024 (in both hardcover and ebook form). With its combination of thrilling adventure and biting critique, James provides a new look at an American classic.

COIGN OF VANTAGE, OR THE BOSTON ATHENAEUM MURDERS

by John McAleer (1988) 

The Athenaeum’s iconic architecture has led many curious bibliophiles to our red doors, including fictional writer Austin Layman in this thrilling whodunit mystery set at the Athenaeum. The murders are fortunately fictional, but McAleer’s charming rendering of the flamboyant setting and characters makes this book irresistible to those who frequent the Athenaeum.

BY THE BOSTON ATHENAEUM