Here in New England: Unforgettable Stories of People, Places, and Memories That Connect Us All.

by Mel Allen

320 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2025

Reviews

[Philip L · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was a kid, growing up in New Jersey, one of the things I remember from our house is that there was always a copy of the latest issue of Yankee magazine on the coffee table. My dad grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, and my mom spent at least a few years in Worchester, Mass as a young teenager. So naturally, a good deal of my time was spent in the New England states when I was a kid visiting my dad's family at the holidays or for summer vacations. New England was/is in my blood. When my youngest daughter chose a college in Maine, my dad gave her a gift subscription to Yankee as kind of an introduction to the region. When she was away at school, her copy would come to our house and I was re-introduced to the magazine. Reading it was like a breath of fresh air from my youth. I found that my favorite section was reading the editor's introductory letter to readers in each issue, written by Mel Allen. I loved his writing. He has a very conversational style, like he's sitting across from you in the room. He also seems to capture the essence of New England so well. The changing of the seasons, the different regions from the Atlantic coast to the mountains and farms and the cities. A true melting pot of Americana.

When i heard that Mel had put together this collection of stories he had written for Yankee over the years (he started writing for them in 1977 and retired in 2025) I had to have it. This book does not disappoint. It's a wonderful collection of stories about life in New England. Personal stories about real people, heartfelt, joyous, often funny, sometimes tragic, but always true & honest.
Loved it!

[Annie Reads The World · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for providing this ARC.

I love New England and I love reading about New England so this book sounded like something I would enjoy and I'm happy to say that it was.

It's a nice collection of stories from around New England interwoven with stories from the author's life.

I really enjoyed all the stories and I would absolutely recommend reading it.

The reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is that it the ARC copy was extremely hard to read with weird formatting and sentences in middle of other sentences which took away from the enjoyment of reading this. I'll be willing to give this book another shot though when it's actually published in it's proper format.

[Karen Pilon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here in New England is a compilation of stories Mel Allen has written over the course of his career at Yankee magazine. He recently retired from many years as editor at Yankee. As a life long New Englander, I have always found his writing to capture the soul of New England. Reading this book restored my faith that small town New England does still exist, it’s in the people, it’s in your memories, it’s in your heart. Each of his stories has an update, so even if you are a life long Yankee subscriber like I am and probably have read most of these stories, you’ll appreciate knowing how the heroes and heroines lives have turned out.