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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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“I guess there are never enough books.”
– John Steinbeck
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I live in a tiny attic in Cambridge, literally surrounded by piles and piles of books. My to-be-read list is so long that it’s difficult for my brain to comprehend it, like the size of the known universe, or the concept of infinity. Working at a bookstore will do that to you. (So will frequenting one, as many of you know.)
The last time I was starved for reading material, I was working as an
animatrice
--a summer camp counselor--in a tiny village in the Pyrenees. According to a 2017 census, Thèbe has a population of 76 people, none of whom spoke English. Our tiny camp library had only a single book that wasn’t in French or Spanish. It was possibly the only English book in the region. It was
East of Eden
.
I had hated
The Grapes of Wrath
when I had to read it in high school, so I was disappointed to learn that Steinbeck was my only option. But at least that brick of a paperback would last me a long time, I thought. So I gave it a shot.
To this day, it’s one of my all-time favorite novels. Every time I picked it up, I was transported from rural France to the dusty Salinas Valley, in turns unsettled by and filled with empathy for the generations of characters, nostalgic for the American West. And it provided me with one of my favorite lines in literature, one that has been a guiding principle in my life ever since:
And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.
I’ve wasted a lot of time in the past few weeks worrying that I’m not doing enough. I haven’t picked up a new hobby or read a billion books. I haven’t learned to meditate or done yoga every day or started an art project or baked sourdough. With no fixed routine and the ability to work from home, I’ve stressed constantly about working too much or not working enough. But these are unprecedented times, and I think we all need to be reminded that we don’t need to be perfect right now. This isn’t a vacation retreat or a chance to “work on ourselves”. So let yourself off the hook, and just focus on being
good.
Stay safe, self-isolate, wear a mask in public, protect others, take care of yourself. That’s what I’m trying to focus on right now.
Oh, and also--maybe pick up that book you’ve been avoiding. It could end up giving you just what you need.
Yours in books,
Kate @ PSB
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Join our next virtual event!
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Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor
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The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home: Fiction
Porter Square Books is pleased to bring you a *virtual event* with Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, brilliant co-creators of Welcome to Night Vale and authors of
The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home
! This event takes place on Thursday, April 30th at 7pm from the comfort of your own home (the secret faceless old woman who lives there is also invited). To join this event via Crowdcast, register at the link below.
From the
New York Times
bestselling authors of
Welcome to Night Vale
and
It Devours!
and the creators of the hit podcast, comes a new novel set in the world of Night Vale and beyond.
In the town of Night Vale, there’s a faceless old woman who secretly lives in everyone’s home, but no one knows how she got there or where she came from...until now. Told in a series of eerie flashbacks, the story of
The Faceless Old Woman
goes back centuries to reveal an initially blissful and then tragic childhood on a Mediterranean Estate in the early nineteenth century, her rise in the criminal underworld of Europe, a nautical adventure with a mysterious organization of smugglers, her plot for revenge on the ones who betrayed her, and ultimately her death and its aftermath, as her spirit travels the world for decades until settling in modern-day Night Vale.
Interspersed throughout is a present-day story in Night Vale, as
The Faceless Old Woman
guides, haunts, and sabotages a man named Craig. In the end, her current day dealings with Craig and her swashbuckling history in nineteenth century Europe will come together in the most unexpected and horrifying way.
Part
The Haunting of Hill House
, part
The Count of Monte Cristo
, and 100% about a faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home.
Joseph Fink
created the Welcome to Night Vale and Alice Isn’t Dead podcasts. He lives with his wife in the Hudson River Valley and Los Angeles. He is the author of the novel
Alice Isn’t Dead
.
Jeffrey Cranor
co-writes the Welcome to Night Vale and Within the Wires podcasts. He also co-creates theater and dance pieces with choreographer/wife Jillian Sweeney. They live in New York. Together, they are the authors of the New York Times best-selling novels
Welcome to Night Vale, It Devours!
, and four Welcome to Night Vale episode script books: Mostly Void, Partially Stars, The Great Glowing Coils of the Universe, The Buying of Lot 37, and Who’s a Good Boy? In 2016, Fink and Cranor announced their podcast network
“Night Vale Presents”
which has produced 14 original fiction and non-fiction podcasts. For more on Welcome to Night Vale, upcoming events, and the books, visit:
www.welcometonightvale.com
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Events We Missed: Kimberly Hamlin
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Free Thinker: Sex, Suffrage, and the Extraordinary Life of Helen Hamilton Gardener: Nonfiction, Biography
Tonight, we were meant to host Kimberly Hamlin with Natalie Dystra for
Free Thinker,
Hamlin's biography of a woman whose contributions to history have been mostly overlooked in the modern era.
Free Thinker
reveals the remarkable true story of the “fallen woman” who reinvented herself and became the suffragists’ lead negotiator in Congress. When Ohio newspapers published the story of young Alice Chenoweth’s affair with a married man, she changed her name to Helen Hamilton Gardener, moved to New York City, and devoted her life to championing women’s rights and decrying the sexual double standard. Opposed to piety, temperance, and conventional thinking, Gardener eventually settled in Washington, D.C., where her telltale charm proved, according to her colleague Maud Wood Park, "the most potent factor" in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Centering both sex and race,
Free Thinker
sheds new light on the suffrage movement and introduces one of its most fascinating advocates.
Celebrated in her own time but lost to history in ours, Gardener was hailed as the "Harriet Beecher Stowe of Fallen Women" and died as the highest-ranking woman in federal government.
Free Thinker
is the story of a woman whose struggles, both personal and political, resound in today’s fight for gender and sexual equity.
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Featured Staff Pick for Adults
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Wicked Enchantment by Wanda Coleman
Wanda Coleman, a poet laureate of anger and honesty, lived resistance and shouted rebellion, has always been the poet America needed, though sometimes it seemed like she was the only one who knew that. With this new book of poems selected and introduced by Terrance Hayes, perhaps America will finally know it too. --
Josh
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You Don't Have To Do This Alone
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Dear friends, because I truly do consider you all friends: I want to take a moment to break from book content to remind you of something important. These are incredibly difficult, isolating times. You are not alone in feeling that way. It's one of the main reasons we started this newsletter - we knew that people would need community and companionship more than ever.
Please remember that if you are struggling, in a big way or a small way, there are people who want to help.
In college, one of my most rewarding - and challenging - experiences was volunteering for the Samaritans hotline. The Samaritans are a nonprofit with a 24/7 helpline focusing on suicide prevention. My biggest takeaway from the experience, though: you don't need to be at rock bottom to call. Most callers just needed a friendly voice, someone to tell about their day--something we could all use right now.
You don't need to reach a certain level of despair to qualify.
Just having someone to listen can feel like a massive weight off your shoulders.
Please call or text
(877) 870-4673
, any time of day or night.
You don't need to go this alone.
(You can also support the work of the Samaritans by donating here
.)
We're fortunate to live in a pretty amazing community that doesn't want anyone left hurting just because of the status of their bank account.
Somerville Support Now
is offering free, 45-minute video calls with licensed local psychotherapists to anyone 18+ in Somerville, Cambridge, Medford or Arlington, mostly focusing on how to cope through these difficult times. For those outside of those boundaries, the national
Give an Hour
similarly offers hour-long sessions with licensed providers at absolutely no cost to you. (Not just one session - as many as you need!)
There is no shame in asking for help. It's in fact an incredibly brave thing to do. Let me say that again:
there is no shame in asking for help.
--Leila
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Digital Audio Books:
A terrific way to support local indies!
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Events are back, baby! Want to stay up to date on the full upcoming line up of virtual happenings? Make sure you're signed up for our events newsletter!
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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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Make your shopping easy by buying bundles, handpicked by our expert booksellers. We'll be adding more of these so stay tuned.
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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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Life in the Time of COVID-19: A Photo Essay by Robin
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Working from home, making masks, trying to stay safe while outside…
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Delivering books, always fun, and shopping safely, while wearing those masks….
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At the start of the pandemic, before non-essential business closed, my roommates and I were making frequent trips to the garden store, for seeds, plants, flower pots, soil, gardening gloves, you name it. In one week we took four trips. Two of us in this household also have a plant problem, in that we just can’t stop buying them. All available window spaces and surfaces in our living room, kitchen, and bedrooms are filled with plants. Our porch is a maze of planters filled with herbs, vegetables, catnip, and pansies. As some friends left town we were also charged with rehoming their plants for the time being. Despite strict instructions not to buy more plants, one roommate received a gift card to Mahoney’s for her birthday yesterday. I may emerge from quarantine draped in fronds and identifying as a wood nymph.
I’m new to the care and keeping of plants, but I’ve found it incredibly healing and satisfying. Not only do plants make a home more inviting, but it’s really nice to have something to devote attention to. In particular though, I crave flowers. (Is this any surprise for a May baby?) A pothos is an easy plant to care for, but so is a brightly colored geranium. I got a stunning pink one a month ago that is still thriving. I highly recommend getting one.
The PSB staff is probably tired of me talking about these, but here are two plant-related books that I can’t stop recommending:
The Landscapes of Anne of Green Gables
by Catherine Reid, and the classic
Braiding Sweetgrass
by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Also in my shopping cart/on my TBR list is
Things That Are
by Amy Leach, because I’ve heard there’s a delightful section on how flowers were named. --
Heather
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And of course, don't forget to meet us over at our Instagram story at 8:45pm for tonight's live bedtime reading!
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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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Sunny by Celia Krampien
A colorful, silly story about a girl who makes the best of everything. A good story for looking on the bright side of things.
--Stacey
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We Want to Hear From You!
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Which book format are you preferring these days?
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A nice hefty hardcover will always do the trick.
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Paperbacks are portable, flexible, light - perfect for moving from room to room.
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I am e-reading everything!
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Audiobooks are the way to go right now.
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I can't focus on reading at all! (To which we say -- try another format!)
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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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