Featured Books Archive at Pardee Library

The remarkable tale of Polaroid's first instant camera to hit the market in 1948 to the company's dramatic decline into bankruptcy in the late '90s and its unlikely resurrection in the digital age. Instant is both an inspiring tale of American ingenuity and a cautionary business tale about the perils of companies that lose their creative edge.

To be a part of Red Sox Nation is to be a hopeful romantic who neither betrays loyalty nor surrenders hope in the direst of circumstances. From Bangor to Back Bay, New Englanders endure in baseball matters. And life. The team's history has intersected with the history of Boston and well beyond it, through the Curse of the Bambino, the military service of Ted Williams during World War II, and the Boston Marathon bombing. The Fenway Effect chronicles these stories and others that have built the incredible saga of the Boston Red Sox.

Diving into Harvard Square's past and present, Catherine J. Turco, an economic sociologist and longtime Harvard Square denizen, tells the crazy, complicated love story of one quirky little marketplace and in the process, reveals the hidden love story Americans everywhere have long had with their own Main Streets and downtowns.

Brilliantly told by Carter Alan--and featuring the voices of station insiders and the artists they loved--Radio Free Boston is the story of a city; of artistic freedom, of music and politics and identity; and of the cultural, technological, and financial forces that killed rock radio.

Boston historian and author Anthony M. Sammarco recounts how Howard Johnson introduced twenty-eight flavors of ice cream, the "Tendersweet" clam strips, grilled frankforts and a menu of delicious and traditional foods that families eagerly enjoyed when they traveled.

In this text, the authors explain their business method, that of values-led business, and how anyone who owns, works for, invests in, or shops with a company might help make it a socially responsible business using this method.

Written by Leon Gorman, grandson of founder L. L., this is the first authoritative, true-to-life account of the iconic retailer and its quirky history and culture.

Before the 1820s, the vast majority of Americans ate only at home. As the nation began to urbanize and industrialize, home and work became increasingly divided, resulting in new forms of commercial dining. In this fascinating book, Kelly Erby explores the evolution of such eating alternatives in Boston during the nineteenth century. Restaurant Republic sheds light on how commercial dining both reflected and helped shape growing fragmentation along lines of race, class, and gender--from the elite Tremont House, which served fashionable French cuisine, to such plebeian and ethnic venues as oyster saloons and Chinese chop suey houses.