Boston publishing history

I have long toyed with the idea of writing a history of the American publishing industry. However, it is a sad fact of life that there are only twenty-four hours in a day, and with nine of them taken by the work one must do to earn one's bread and cheese, and eight more in sleep, there is only so much time left for leisure activities such as writing—and most of that is taken by other pursuits with more-immediate rewards. In the spring of 2004, I bought a shelf-full of old books on the subject (including some rare early histories of the major publishing houses), spent several hours in the Boston Public Library reading old issues of Publishers' Weekly (the BPL has a complete run, on paper, available for use in the library), and walked around one May afternoon looking for important places in Boston publishing history. That was the last time I ever did any serious work on the subject, but I hope I will some day have the time to do more, because I'd like to think I had at least one book in me no matter how difficult the writing process may be.