HEAVEN, BY HOTEL STANDARDS
The History of The Omni Parker House
170th Anniversary Edition

Format: 132 pages, Paperback
Publication Date: 2024 
Publisher: Omni Parker House
ISBN: 978-0-578-45759-8
Language: English
Price: $29.95

Heaven, By Hotel Standards is a delightfully anecdotal and lavishly illustrated book by author and photographer Susan Wilson, the hotel’s official House Historian. The Omni Parker House has played an integral role in the history of Boston since 1855. In the culinary world, it's been heralded as the home of the Parker House Roll and Boston Cream Pie—and a place where Ho Chi Minh, Malcolm X, and Emeril Lagasse once worked in the kitchens. It's where the brightest lights of America's Golden Age of Literature—writers like Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Longfellow—regularly met in the legendary Saturday Club, where world-class musicians and theatricians have been inspired and nurtured, and where generations of local and national politicians assembled for private meetings, press conferences, and power breakfasts.

• "Heaven by book standards. Love the history."
• "The Parker House book is magnificent — visually and photos and text. All so entertaining. And I love all the colors and the quality of paper and the size, etc. Full of facts and smiles and life."
• "As a travel and history columnist, I often have to turn to books for research, but it isn't always a safe endeavor. There are many books out there that are stylized to the point of falsity. Finding a balance between making history entertaining rather than dry and keeping things factual is tough. This is where Wilson shines. … She must have dug very deep to get all of the information she imparts here and I am more than happy that she did."

Where to Buy:
School Street Coffeehouse, 60 School Street, Boston,
or,
Mail check for $35 (includes postage, handling, and tax), made out to Omni Parker House to Omni Parker House, ATT John Murtha, 60 School Street, Boston MA 02108

BOSTON SITES & INSIGHTS:
An Essential Guide to Historic Landmarks In and Around Boston

Format: 368 pages, Paperback
Publication Date: 2004 
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 978-080707135-9
Language: English
Price: $29.95

"A marvelous multicultural book... The best introduction to the tourist sites in Boston and the surrounding area we have come across."-The Discerning Traveler

Whether you're looking for a history of one of the city's world-class museums or for a fascinating story about Boston's popular North End, Susan Wilson covers it all in Boston Sites and Insights.

Divided into six sections that reflect the diversity of people, activities, and landmarks within the city, this fascinating book leaves no stone unturned. With practical, up-to-date information in an "Essentials" section at the end of each chapter as well as fresh retellings of popular legends and lore, Wilson provides everything the modern visitor or current resident needs to know to enjoy the multicultural city of Boston, Massachusetts.

"The book I've long been waiting for, companionably providing me with the story on buildings I've wanted to know more about, as well as alluring me with information on lore laden sites and settings I can now add to my circle of friends. The book is lively, distinguished and fun." --Lynda Morgenroth, author of Boston Neighborhoods

"Boston Sites and Insights is the most inclusive listing of things to do in the Boston area I've seen. Ms. Wilson has outdone herself, including something for everyone with this truly multicultural travel guide." --Kenneth A. Heidelberg, Boston African American National Historic Site

"This thorough, entertaining guide is recommended both to the general public and to serious students of history." --Library Journal

"A dense, information-packed introduction to Beantown... fascinating." --Los Angeles Times

Where to buy
BEACON PRESS
BARNES & NOBLE
BOOKSHOP.ORG
AMAZON

THE LITERARY TRAIL OF GREATER BOSTON:
A tour of sites in Boston, Cambridge, and Concord

Format: 198 pages, Paperback
Publication Date: 2004 
Publisher: Commonwealth Editions (Revised Edition)
ISBN: 1-889833-67-3
Language: English
Original Price: $14.95

No city in America can match the literary heritage of Boston. Just as the city has a Freedom Trail connecting its Revolutionary sites, it also has a Literary Trail connecting the homes, workplaces, and final resting places of its great writers. This revised second edition of Susan Wilson's expert guidebook (originally published 2000, ISBN 0-618-05013-2) brings the story up to the minute.

Spanning nearly four centuries of literary greatness, from Anne Hutchinson and Cotton Mather to Sylvia Plath and John Updike, The Literary Trail of Greater Boston covers more than just Boston proper, as the title suggests. Winding its way through Cambridge and finding its way to Concord, Wilson's work pays special tribute to literary heroes of the nineteenth century, including Alcott, Thoreau, Longfellow, Emerson, and Hawthorne, while guiding readers to sites related to Kahlil Gibran, Willa Cather, Robert Frost, Eugene O'Neill, E. E. Cummings, and a remarkable number of other modern writers.

This unusual guidebook also features lively selections from the writers' own works along with short essays on writers past by well-known contemporary writers. These include Julia Child on Fannie Farmer, David McCullough on Francis Parkman, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on W. E. B. DuBois.

"The Literary Trail of Greater Boston is part tour guide, part literary history, altogether charming." --novelist Robert B. Parker

"If you're visiting for the first time, let this great little guidebook show you the treasures of Boston's literary past. If you've lived here all your life, let it remind you of the richness around you." --William Martin, author of Back Bay and Harvard Yard



Where to buy:
AMAZON
ABE BOOKS

GARDEN OF MEMORIES: A Guide to Historic Forest Hills

Author: Susan Wilson
ISBN: none
Pages: 144
Binding Information: Paperback 
Size: 6X8 1/4 Inches
Illustrated: yes; 
	includes vintage images 
	and original photos by Susan Wilson
Price: $15.00
 

Susan's beautifully written, lavishly illustrated, four-color book takes visitors on six themed walking tours through the largest, most beautiful rural garden cemetery and sculpture garden in America.

Book is available directly through Forest Hills Cemetery, either at the main office or via mail order:
FOREST HILLS CEMETERY, Forsyth Chapel
95 Forest Hills Avenue
Jamaica Plain MA
617-524-0128 X22
http://www.foresthillstrust.org