Best of Boston

2007 Best Bookstore

Harvard Book Store

Sticking it to the corporate chains is most satisfying when you can do so without, you know, sacrificing anything. Seventy-five years after Boston native Mark Kramer opened a bookstore in Harvard Square, the supersize word-maven haven is still family-owned (by Kramer’s son, Frank) and still doing everything right, with a public library’s worth of used tomes, and new releases to rival Barnes and Borders. In a particularly Cantabrigian touch, the shop vows to go to court before disclosing your purchases to the government or anyone else, should they for some reason ask. Take that, Patriot Act!

1256 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, 800-542-7323, harvard.com