Toad Hall Bookstore in Rockport Mass is housed in a gorgeous granite building on Main Street. With the ocean just behind the bookstore and views to T.S. Eliot’s Dry Salvages, Toad Hall is in a stunning location. You can watch sailboats, kayaks, rowboats, and children swimming and beachcombing.
Toad Hall is just steps from the new Shalin Liu Performance Center. So, if you happen to come to the acclaimed Rockport Chamber Music Festival, come early and discover a wonderful independent bookstore.
In addition to being a bookstore Toad Hall is also a nonprofit organization dedicated to propagating environmentally conscious living. All net proceeds go to environmental projects and education. Toad Hall bills itself as “A Literary Community with Environmental Concern.”
Amy Pierson is the dedicated bookseller who specializes in hand selling books, creating community around environmental issues, and supporting local authors. In spite of its small size, Toad Hall has a wonderful selection of fiction, and showcases many local authors. Their cooking and gardening sections are top notch, and they have a remarkable selection of books about the environment, including the now seminal book about oceans:Smithsonian Ocean: Our Water, Our World, by local author Deborah Cramer.
A spiral staircase takes you downstairs to a cozy, carpeted room lined with books for children. It’s only fitting that a bookstore called Toad Hall would have a wonderful selection of children’s literature. Even though my daughter is now grown, I love to browse this section of the store.
Toad Hall has always given 100% of its profits to environmental projects. Founded in 1972 as the direct result of Earth Day, the bookstore has donated over $133,000, mostly in the form of small “seed money” grants. In many cases projects would not have moved forward without Toad Hall’s support.
