© Aram Boghosian
Author Anna Shinoda experienced some of the best of Boston on Thursday. First, she visited the art-packed, Back Bay home of Smoki Bacon and Dick Concannon for an episode of their show “The Literati Scene.” Then she hung out on Newbury Street. It was a nice way to enjoy the city — and promote her debut novel, “Learning Not to Drown” — while her husband, Mike Shinoda, of the band Linkin Park, tours the East Coast. The band plays the Xfinity Center with Jared Leto’s 30 Seconds to Mars and AFI on Saturday night. While lunching at Stephanie’s on Newbury, Shinoda told us that she knows the area pretty well. Her brother-in-law attended Amherst and Harvard, and she used to visit him while touring with the band. “We used to get so excited when we pulled into Boston,” she said, remembering Linkin Park’s early touring days. “The food here is so good.” Shinoda’s young adult novel, which was released in April, is about a teen’s complicated relationship with her brother who’s been in and out of jail and struggles with addiction. Shinoda worked on the book for about a decade before it hit shelves, but said the timing of the novel’s release turned out to be just right. There’s been a recent surge of interest in realistic young adult novels because of authors such as John Green, who penned “The Fault in Our Stars.” Shinoda said Green is one of her favorites, as are Meg Rosoff and Cambridge regular Neil Gaiman. “I just read a lot of him. In general, I love dark stuff.”
