Boston Public Library

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Thirty-three reasons you can't miss this year's Boston Books Festival

Bound for glory
The Boston Book Festival happens this Saturday, October 16, from 10 am to 9 pm at various locations in Copley Square.
By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | October 15, 2010

Fall Books Preview: Getting booked

Readings, festivals, and other seasonal literary events
Two Sedarises, two New Yorker favorites, and a famous neurologist are among the highlights of this fall’s book events.
By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | September 14, 2010

Critics' choice?

Jonathan Franzen and the Great American Novel
This month, Jonathan Franzen became the first living American novelist in 10 years to make the cover of Time . His Freedom — out this Tuesday, and his first novel since 2001's National Book Award–winning best seller, The Corrections — has been anointed the latest Great American Novel.
By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | August 29, 2010

Role model?

John Waters gets up close and personal
John Waters gets up close and personal
By SHAULA CLARK | June 07, 2010

Moneybags Menino

The mayor cuts services, but sits on a stash of cash.
Inside Boston’s political back rooms, there is a growing suspicion that Mayor Thomas Menino is sitting on millions of dollars — tens of millions, maybe as much as $400 million — that could be used to save vital city services, such as, among many examples, four branch libraries and eight community centers that are slated to be shuttered.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | May 17, 2010

Library woes

Plus, Arizona declares war on immigrants
In an attempt to save four Boston Public Library branches that are slated to close due to budget shortfalls, some state legislators from Boston have threatened to block all state funding the library receives if it shutters any of its 26 branches.
By EDITORIAL | April 28, 2010

Pardon the interruption

Quartet of Happiness, Jerry Leake, and Jazz Week
Maybe it was when saxophonist Kelly Roberge, instrument in hand, leapt off the Cambridge YMCA Theatre stage in the middle of a performance by the Ayn Inserto Jazz Orchestra and fled the auditorium — as if in extreme gastro-intestinal distress.
By JON GARELICK | April 22, 2010

Battle of the Bulger

Former Mass. Sen. Pres. William Bulger defends James Michael Curley's legacy — and his own
Earlier this fall, with almost no fanfare, Beverly-based Commonwealth Editions published a new biography of Boston's archetypal politician — James Michael Curley: A Short Biography with Personal Reminiscences — written by former Massachusetts Senate president William Bulger.
By ADAM REILLY | December 16, 2009

Hardboiled hub

The city’s gritty, criminal underbelly has redefined the dark, artistic vision known as Boston noir
When I was growing up in Roslindale a few decades back — among tribes of ignorant, second-generation immigrant kids whose favorite words began with “f” and “n” and who liked to torture small animals and beat up small children before they moved on to their future vocations as petty criminals, dead dope users, or real-estate agents.
By PETER KEOUGH | October 21, 2009

Interview: Colin Beavan

It's not easy going green
"In my twenties, I was really concerned with global warming. In my thirties, I was really focused on being a writer."
By TOM MEEK | October 02, 2009

Museum pieces and other pieces

Jazz Week returns, the Jazz Hall of Fame inducts, Ron Gill says bye
It's Jazz Week time again — that time when the Boston jazz community looks to expand its minority-appeal music to a larger public.
By JON GARELICK | April 21, 2009

Review: My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poems of Jack Spicer

Strong spirits
Spicer believed that words are magic, that they have the power to "do" good and harm to people.
By WILLIAM CORBETT | December 19, 2008

What? This old thing?

A guide to Boston's secret trove of peculiar artifacts
Glossy guidebooks often extol Boston as one of America’s most “European” cities, a euphemism that means that we’re . . . you know, wicked old.
By JACQUELINE HOUTON | August 27, 2008

Boston Public Library Memo

By EDITORIAL | August 20, 2008

Freedom RIDErs

A new civil-rights movement emerges
This article originally appeared in the August 12, 1988 issue of the Boston Phoenix.
By SEAN FLYNN | August 14, 2008

AG should probe BPL

Supposedly ‘independent’ trustees receive city funds. Why Birmingham rather than Bulger for the top job?
Political innocents who discount allegations that Boston Mayor Thomas Menino is politicizing the Boston Public Library’s board of trustees so that he can directly control the nation’s oldest free municipal library received a rude awakening recently.
By EDITORIAL | July 23, 2008

Week in the knees

Jazz Week kicks out the jams, plus Bley and Zorn
“Jazz Week,” which runs April 26–May 4, tends to appropriate all events to its needs — if you’re playing, say, your regularly scheduled gig at Matt Murphy’s Pub this week, you’re part of Jazz Week.
By JON GARELICK | April 28, 2008

That hurts

Letters to the Boston editor: March 14, 2008
Regarding David Thorpe’s recent “The Big Hurt” column: it’s unfortunate and a sad commentary on society that you get paid for this.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | March 12, 2008

Iraq: Five years later and time to go

Plus, updates on the Cowans case, performance artist Milan Kohout, and the BPL
March 19 will mark the fifth anniversary of America’s war in Iraq.
By EDITORIAL | March 12, 2008

Read the runes

Letters to the Boston editor, March 7, 2008
As a user of the special collections at the Boston Public Library, I have been appalled at the light coverage of key service desks necessitated by staff cuts over the past several years.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | March 05, 2008

Menino aims to take another bite out of the BPL

Will his handpicked trustees let him?
Why does Boston mayor Thomas Menino seem to have such a chip on his shoulder about the Boston Public Library?
By EDITORIAL | February 27, 2008

New insurance, no assurance

Letters to the Boston editor, November 23, 2007
Let’s see, we start with a government-enforced policy about a life-and-death issue.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | November 19, 2007

Unpleasantness at the BPL

How one of the nation’s leading librarians got axed by City Hall
Why would the library’s trustees give the boot to a leader who has proved to be a triple-threat talent?
By EDITORIAL | November 07, 2007

I will survive

John Osorio-Buck in Lawrence, street art in Central Square, and Corita Kent’s Rainbow Gas Tank
“There is no such thing in civilized society as self-support,” claims a handwritten, hand-held, Dylan-esque cardboard sign.
By RANDI HOPKINS | October 16, 2007

While you were out . . .

Yes, stuff happened in Boston during your summer break. But we’ve got it covered.
When you’re a student, it can seem as if reality just freezes when you leave town for the summer.
By ADAM REILLY | September 04, 2007

Tiny tomes

Miniature books at the Boston Public Library
One day, over 35 years ago, when searching at a rare book shop in Wilbraham, MA for new items for her rare book collection, Anne Bromer discovered a toolbox on top of some bookshelves.
By MICHELLE MINKOFF | July 16, 2007

Mystic rivers

When G.I. Gurdjieff came to Boston
Was Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff a charlatan?
By JAMES PARKER | July 03, 2007

That dirty water

Why doesn’t the Patrick administration think that’s an environmental issue?
Much of the heart and soul of historic Boston is in danger of sinking into the marshy ooze on which it was built over the centuries.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | April 11, 2007

Tales from the ’hood

Wynton takes some pot shots at pop culture
From the beat of the first hand-slapped tambourine, you know who you’re listening to.
By JON GARELICK | March 20, 2007

Cheap cheer

The Scrooge – lovers guide to seasonal fun
Why bother caroling when you can spike your eggnog and sing karaoke? Heck, why venture into the windy streets when you can snuggle next to the radiator with a six-pack of cheep beer?
By VANESSA CZARNECKI | December 12, 2006

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