New England independent bookstores

2. Montague Bookmill

To get to Montague Bookmill, drive 20 minutes north from Amherst following the Connecticut River past tobacco barns and potato fields to the village of Montague. The Bookmill, as it’s known, is an 1842 grist mill in business as a bookstore since the late 1980s. Last October Susan Shilliday, a screenwriter, (‘‘Legends of the Fall,’’ ‘‘I Dreamed of Africa,’’ ‘‘A Wrinkle in Time,’’ ‘‘thirtysomething’’) bought the business. Shilliday had moved to Northampton from Santa Monica, Calif., in 2006.

(Text by Jonathan Levitt for the Boston Globe; Montague Bookmill photo)
2. Montague Bookmill To get to Montague Bookmill, drive 20 minutes north from Amherst following the Connecticut River past tobacco barns and potato fields to the village of Montague. The Bookmill, as it’s known, is an 1842 grist mill in business as a bookstore since the late 1980s. Last October Susan Shilliday, a screenwriter, (‘‘Legends of the Fall,’’ ‘‘I Dreamed of Africa,’’ ‘‘A Wrinkle in Time,’’ ‘‘thirtysomething’’) bought the business. Shilliday had moved to Northampton from Santa Monica, Calif., in 2006. DISCUSS Your favorite independent bookstores? PLAN New England travel guide