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Open for Shipped Orders!
Our physical store is closed, but you can still get many books shipped to you directly from our warehouse. Here's how:
1. Only order titles with an inventory status of "Available at the Warehouse"
2. Select the "
UPS/USPS Ground Shipping"
option
3. Pay with a credit card
We are happy to fulfill other orders, but will not be able to process them until at least May 4. Other options: try
Indiebound.org
or
Bookshop.org
- keep it indie!
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“Where is human nature so weak as in a bookstore.” –
Henry Ward Beecher
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Hello Friends,
I'm currently reading a book called
The Dreamed Part
by Rodrigo Fresan. I read a passage for a bedtime story a little while ago and I'm going to read another passage tomorrow. It is a wild, sprawling, ambitious book about dreams, books, love, stories, language, and probably a whole bunch of other things I haven't wrapped my head around yet. (And also a sequel to The Invented Part, which I have not read yet, but will.)
I bring it up here, because one character has an interesting philosophy. Penelope, who is an author, believes that every person has a specific single book that is for them, kind of like the books version of a soul mate. (Her book is
Wuthering Heights
, which she first read when she was nine after watching a telenovela version of it.) That idea has the same beauty and anxiety of the soul mates idea; the beautiful possibility that you'll find the person that completes you and the anxious possibility that you never will. As someone with several avatars for books tattooed on his arms, a part of me loves that idea, specifically the idea that there is something uniquely beautiful to spending your life with one book. (And there are many great books that support a life time of reading.)
What I find most interesting about this idea is that the truth of it is based more in possibility than in actuality. In some ways it doesn't really matter whether or not you have a specific book that is meant for you and you alone that you either find or don't in the course of your life, because you are able to treat any book you want as if it is that soul-book. The book doesn't care how you read it. The author isn't there to stop your from interpreting it. Even if it's a book you don't like, your inherent right to make meaning from its material, allows you to reclaim it. (Though, I personally wouldn't spend that much intellectual and emotional effort on a book I don't enjoy.)
Penelope's idea (I don't
think
it's Fresan's idea, but <shrug emoji>) is both wrong and right. In a whole ton of ways the idea of everyone having a book-mate doesn't make any sense at all and, at the same time, you can make it true for you. There are a lot of different ways to read Whitman's boast of contradicting himself, but I think this is the kind of contradiction he was celebrating; the contradictions that arise from the ambiguity inherent in language, the contradictions that arise from complex emotions, the contradictions that arise from changing circumstances, the contradictions that books and literature are uniquely able to capture for our consideration.
So, tonight, read whatever book you are reading as if it were your book-mate, as if it was written for you, and you alone. In a way, no matter how many other people have read it and are reading, it was.
Yours in Reading,
Josh @PSB
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John Kane and Bill Hanley
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Last Seat in the House: The Story of Hanley Sound: Nonfiction
A double-dose of FOMO! Not only is Woodstock one of the events many people wish they could haven't attended, we also wish we could have heard from Woodstock's sound engineer Bill Hanley.
Known as the "Father of Festival Sound," Bill Hanley (b. 1937) made his indelible mark as a sound engineer at the 1969 Woodstock Music and Arts Fair. Hanley is credited with creating the sound of Woodstock, which literally made the massive festival possible. Stories of his on-the-fly solutions resonate as legend among festival goers, music lovers, and sound engineers. Since the 1950s his passion for audio has changed the way audiences listen to and technicians approach quality live concert sound.
John Kane examines Hanley's echoing impact on the entire field of sound engineering, that crucial but often-overlooked carrier wave of contemporary music. Hanley's innovations founded the sound reinforcement industry and launched a new area of technology, rich with clarity and intelligibility. By the early seventies the post-Woodstock festival mass gathering movement collapsed. The music industry shifted, and new sound companies surfaced. After huge financial losses and facing stiff competition, Hanley lost his hold on a business he helped create. By studying both his history during the festivals and his independent business ventures, Kane seeks to present an honest portrayal of Hanley and his acumen and contributions.
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Featured Staff Pick for Adults
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Weather by Jenny Offill
Described as “the perfect worry novel”, Jenny Offill’s latest work is about the weather (mainly the looming threat of climate change) but it also speaks to weathering smaller anxieties (politics, marriage, interfamily relationships, a failure to live up to expectations). Told through narrative fragments and wry observations,
Weather
offers a kaleidoscopic and tender experience of being alive during uncertain times.
--Justin, Writer in Residence for Adults
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Bear finished all their puzzles and wanted to play a game. So Stacey taught them how to play hide'n'seek. It took Bear a few tries to get the hang of it.
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See all of Bear's hiding places and rare hide'n'seek finishing move
here
!
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Digital Audio Books:
A terrific way to support local indies!
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For all the latest on events, new books, reviews, and more for young and young-at-heart readers.
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Virtual Bookseller
Looking to get some good book recommendations, personalized
just for you?
Check out our Virtual Bookseller! Just fill out the form with your likes and dislikes, genres and favorites, and we'll crowdsource a bunch of great picks for you with our crack team of
real life
booksellers. Give it a whirl!
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Preorders are a great way to support PSB while we're not able to actually be at the store for two reasons:
- They bring in income now while the store is closed.
- We can deal with them later!
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You can see all of the books from the future we're excited about here.
But you can preorder more than just what we're excited for. Any book with an inventory status (who knew you'd have to get to know our online inventory statuses so well) of "Coming Soon--Available for Pre-Order Now" or "On the Horizon--Available for Pre-Order Now," is, uh, available for preorder now.
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Miss one of our bedtime stories? Or one of the tours of our libraries in the epic YouTube series PSB: Cribs? Good news! We've made playlists on YouTube so you can catch up on all of them.
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Are you missing out on our recommendations, pining for our Staff Pick display?? Our April crop of staff picks is now live on our website! We'll feature titles throughout the month, but you can browse the full list at the link below. As ever, all staff picks are 20% off - so go crazy!
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Do you ever sit back and realize that you’ve inadvertently read in a theme? I’m not talking about a mystery series or research books about a particular subject. Rather, I refer to books that all of a sudden remind you of other books—otherwise unrelated tomes that nevertheless have things in common, that seem to be in conversation with each other.
I read K. M. Szpara’s
Docile
a few months ago, a speculative exploration of the ways in which capitalism and consent can be intertwined to no one’s benefit. More recently, I picked up
The Fortress
by S. A. Jones, wherein a man serves as a
supplicant within a walled city run and populated exclusively by women. Both books are disturbing and provocative—both books ruminate on questions of power and consent. Now they run together in my mind. I rarely think of one without feeling my attention drawn to the other.
Ling Ma’s
Severance
was widely acclaimed when it was first released, and is experiencing a resurgence due to its subject matter: that of a societal breakdown in the wake of an apocalyptic pandemic. But It’s also a story about the insecurity of living one’s twenties in an increasingly unstable world, where agreed-upon standards of adult life (a career, a house, a partner, children) seem simply out of reach. If you were drawn to the main character of Severance, might I suggest dipping into Alexandra Chang’s
Days of Distraction
? Chang’s debut novel is less apocalyptic, but still very much concerned with the cultural expectations surrounding young adulthood—and, like Severance, it still manages to be funny and deeply engaging.
Have you been reading in a theme lately? Drop us a note on Twitter and tell us what!
-Rebecca
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Bored? Gathering with friends then lapsing into awkward silence because all of you have been up to the same thing and that thing is nothing? Wishing there was a way to connect with your friends and actually engage your imaginations? Need a way to make your children (and yourself) do more math, but in a fun way? Missing those days when you could just play pretend, but since you can't go to a playground and declare the top of the slide your castle, not sure where to start?
I have a solution. It's a solution that's been there for decades now, but one that's been ignored for far too long. One that only recently has started to gain popularity thanks to the swing of pop culture and, of course,
certain podcasts
.
For those that failed their knowledge checks, Dungeons and Dragons is a tabletop roleplaying game. You make characters and roll dice and together with your friends, you tell a story. I love it because it's got all the fantasy and storytelling elements I love, complete with the social aspect that even introverts like me start to miss after a while. There's nothing like hanging out with your friends, making characters, rolling dice, then laughing because you critically failed (rolled a one) and accidentally tapped the goblin on the shoulder instead of punching them, or cheering when you roll a twenty-sided die (D20 in the nerd dialect) and it lands on the 20, ensuring an amazing success.
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And then there's the stories. A good Game Master (the person who runs the game, known sometimes as a Dungeon Master or Storyteller) is a good writer, and like all good writers, they excel at making you feel. My longest running game is run by my friend Brooke, a Game Master so skilled at her craft that she's made every single one of us cry at some point or another. She's so good at it that she's also got a
live show
(that you can listen to as a podcast!) that she runs from her home in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
But wait, you say, Grand Rapids Michigan?? How does a bookseller in Cambridge play Dungeons and Dragons with someone in Michigan? That's a pretty big trek for a game, even one as fun as Dungeons and Dragons. True! Especially since some of my friends who play with me are in Indiana, Tennessee, Illinois, and even Australia.
Fortunately, we have the magic of the internet. It's been letting us play since long before this quarantine, and hopefully will let us continue to play for a long time after. Using services like Zoom, Skype, or other chat services, and websites specifically designed for the purpose like
Roll20
and
Mythweavers
, we've been meeting up and playing regularly. I've got a human gunslinger. We've got a handful of other magic users and fighters in the party, and then there's Brooke, who plays everyone else. She tells us what enemies and townsfolk and monsters are doing and then we tell her what we do. We roll the dice. If we get a high enough number, we succeed!
Since the Quarantine started, I've joined a few other campaigns too. They're not all Dungeons and Dragons, either. I'm playing a scholar in
Rise of the Runelords
, a classic
Pathfinder
campaign. I'm a ratfolk mechanic with a giant drone I can ride in a
Starfinder
game. I've got a teenaged hick in the alternate 80s
Tales from the Loop
game. And that's just so far.
If you want to play Dungeons and Dragons, or any other tabletop roleplaying game, well, it's going to take some dedication, but it's very worth it. You have to find people to play with, decide who's running it, what you're playing, and you have to make characters. There's never been a better time to get into it, though. In addition to there being more bored people than ever before, there are more resources, including a
starter set
that provides ready-made characters and an adventure to get your game off the ground as quickly as possible. Local gaming stores or comic stores might have resources too.
Pandemonium Books and Games
in Cambridge is running online games now. The fun and the opportunities are endless.
Heck, I might even be up for joining your campaign. But I'll have to check my schedule. I'm in enough games now that I'm actually
busy.
It's great.
--Shana
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Don't think the exploits of a robot built to kill could be a bedtime story? Shana proves you wrong by reading from
All Systems Red
by Martha Wells.
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Meet us over at our Instagram story at 8:45pm for tonight's live bedtime story with Kate!
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Support Cafe Zing baristas!
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Although Cafe Zing is its own business separate from ours, we really don't see it that way: Zing workers are part of the Porter Square Books family. They keep us well supplied - very well supplied - with caffeine, kindness, and some great tunes. Sometimes they give us staff picks; sometimes we give them exact change because we've bought the same, perfect, comforting, delicious beverage twice a day five days a week for how long, now?
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Featured Staff Pick For Kids
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The Deceivers by Kristen Simmons
Private academy for teenage con artists! What's not to love? Fast-paced, fun, diverting, and there's a sequel once you've finished this one!
--Rebecca
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We Want to Hear from You!
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How do you pick out your next read?
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Check social media & see what books everyone is talking about.
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I ask my bookish friend/family member
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Bookish media (NYT, NPR, LitHub, reviews in newspapers, etc.)
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Whatever is at hand when I finish a book
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Deacon King Kong by James McBride
“Deacon King Kong is a quintessential New York story. Set in the Brooklyn projects in 1969, a perpetually inebriated deacon called Sportcoat aims a gun at the neighborhood’s main drug dealer in the public plaza and pulls the trigger. Incredibly well-constructed and hilarious at times, McBride’s story entwines a number of storylines that are kickstarted by this central event. The local Italian gangster, the veteran cop, the meddling churchgoers, and the drug pushers all have their own agendas, hopes, and dreams that are affected. And though Sportcoat doesn’t remember his actions and is always under the influence of gut-rot moonshine, I couldn’t help but root for him as I was reading this. His delightful ineptitude and absence of clarity made this book impossible for me to put down. If you’ve never read McBride before, this is a great introduction.”
--Stuart McCommon, Novel.
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See you next time here at Shelf Stable!
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We'll get out our next issue as soon as we can. In the meantime, don't forget about all the other places you can catch up with us from afar, on
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube
:
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25 White St. Cambridge, MA 02140
617-491-2220
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