By Leanne O’Brien and Chelsea Reil
Large bookstores like Borders and Barnes ‘ Noble may be convenient for students wanting to buy popular literary classics, but Boston also offers some small and independent bookshops to those who want to explore places that have a more local flavor.
Students said they have found benefits to shopping at these locales like Trident Booksellers ‘ Cafe, Revolution Books and Raven Used Books.
“I like supporting local business when I can,” said senior sociology major Emilia Sereva. “The layout [of these places] is usually a little homier. I like the book selection too.”
Senior sociology major Julee Goldberg said she likes the idea of helping smaller businesses within the city.
“With independent bookstores, I feel like my money is going somewhere important,” Goldberg said.
Trident Booksellers ‘ Cafe, located at 338 Newbury St., opened in the fall of 1984 and is the one of the last independent bookstores left in Boston, according to the bookstore’s website. The shop’s cafe offers breakfast, lunch and dinner, along with an assortment of beers, wines and desserts. The shop offers items from magazines to Moleskin notebooks to travel books.
David Nichol, who has worked at Trident for four years, said the store has not yet felt a strain from the sudden downturn in the economy.
“It’s too soon to tell,” Nichol said. “We’re in the fluctuation between summer and fall. With all the students back, it’s busy.”
Independent bookstores can also be different than larger stores because they sometimes cater to a specific genre and carry obscure titles, like the Cambridge bookstore Revolution Books. The small bookshop is located on the second floor of 1158 Massachusetts Ave., and is run by the Revolutionary Communist Party. It is part of a small chain of bookstores scattered throughout the country.
Sales clerk Ben O’Leary said the store aims to educate the public in communist revolution as a solution to oppression.
Book titles like “The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism,” by Ardea Skybreak, fill the shop’s shelves, which are chock full of books devoted to Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx and Mao Zedong.
The majority of the books in Revolution Books visitors would be hard-pressed to find at other major bookstores, and for those who are not communist, socialist or a communist sympathizer, the store is still interesting place to visit, Skybreak said.
Raven Used Books, located at 52-B JFK St. in Harvard Square, is another example of a bookshop with a niche. The store has almost every wall covered in books and stocks more than 1,000 books a week, which cover topics ranging from drama to environmental studies, according to the shop’s website.
John Petrovato, the store’s proprietor, said that Raven specializes in scholarly used books.
“Philosophy is one of our biggest sections and social sciences,” he said. “We do a lot with art books too.”
Petrovato said the profit margin is less important than the quality and so Raven is able to focus more on its buying than some other used bookstores.
One of the benefits of buying a used book is that it is cheaper and more environmentally friendly, Petrovato said.
Although books at independent bookstores may be more expensive, Nichol said customers never seem to mind having to pay a little bit more for their books when coming to the shop.
“Amazon and Barnes ‘ Noble can sell books for cheaper,” he said. “But [local shops] have a diverse selection. We’re
