Best of Boston

How did book lovers ever live without Itty Bitty Booklights and Page-a-Day calendars and frightfully clever refrigerator magnets? Quite nicely, as proven by this 10-year-old independent where the bibelots are scarce and the books are wall-to-wall. Though founder Tim Huggins stepped down last year, new owner Mary Cotton (a former employee) has preserved the hallmarks—a highly literate staff, a robust calendar of events and big-name authors—while adding things like summer-camp care packages and Grub Street writing workshops. Like so much of what it stocks, Newtonville Books remains a classic.