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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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“Reading is going toward something that is about to be, and no one yet knows what it will be.
”
– Italo Calvino
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One of my favorite things about working in an independent bookstore is receiving new books. Every Tuesday for the last several years, I’ve arrived at Porter Square Books to see carts filled with shiny new stories waiting to be shelved and discovered by readers. The last day I worked in the store (after it was closed to the public) was no different. I still stacked books high, organizing them by section before zooming over to the shelf. I still changed over the displays, setting up new books even though I knew it would be a long time before we would have customers in the store to browse them.
The browsing experience is unique to physical bookstores and impossible to replicate online. Every time I visit a bookstore I walk the shelves, on the lookout for something I didn’t even know I was looking for—a book that caught my attention because of an interesting cover or a gripping first page. I miss discovering new books more than I can say. And I’m absolutely crushed for all the authors releasing books into this maelstrom, books that no one will be able to discover by chance until bookstores are open once more.
Right now it’s easy to find the books you already had on your to-read list, but very difficult to stumble across a brand new treasure. If you’re looking for something new to sink into, might I suggest leaning on your favorite bookstores for recommendations? Here are just a few new releases that have caught my eye over the last few weeks:
A beautiful picture book about protecting Earth’s water resources.
I was completely enchanted by this lovely middle grade book about friendship, overcoming prejudice, and joining forces for the greater good.
I have loved both of Ahmed’s previous books, and I expect her latest to be just as satisfying.
This is an exceptional young adult fantasy debut. I adored it wholeheartedly and wish it upon all of you. (This book will be released on May 5, but is available to order now!)
Rebecca @PSB
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Little Fires Everywhere: Fiction
We're lucky that so many authors live in our community, many of whom stop in the store occasionally as regular old readers, rather than as authors for events. It's a special pleasure to chat with them, because, in a way, we're on the same team. (Maybe they're the pitchers and we're the catchers? They do floor exercises and we handle the balance beam? Look, not every metaphor needs to be perfect. ) Seeing Celeste awarded a
Guggenheim
today (CONGRATULATIONS!!!), reminded us how delightful it is when she stops by, whether to sign books for customers, pick up her own order, or find something for the 9 year old. (Some of us remember when that "9" was a much lower number.)
We have plenty of fun on social media, with authors like Celeste, readers, other bookstores, and though we get a lot out of our online conversations, it's just not the same. Here's hoping we see Celeste and everyone else very soon.
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Featured Staff Pick for Adults
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Becoming Eve by Abby Stein
Abby Stein’s memoir is an engaging story of growing up as a queer person (a trans woman, specifically) in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. Funny, heartbreaking, and always compassionate, this is a great read for anyone interested in trans life stories, intersections between queerness and religion, or communal responses to trauma. --
Sacha Lamb, Writer in Residence for Young Readers
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Caleb's Quarantine Specific Writing Prompts
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1. The call is coming from inside the house! What if someone broke into your home right before the shelter-in-place order and you all had to be cooped up together for six weeks? Awkward...
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2. Speaking of awkward. What if you used this time to have a long-avoided conversation with someone? You (or your character) has all this time on your hands, might as well air some stuff out! How does that turn out?
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3. How would your favorite character (in a book you're writing or one of your favorites by someone else) respond to all this isolation?
4. What if the Zoom call never ends? You can't turn it off. You can't leave the screen. You just have to talk. Or stare. What kind of weird
Goosebumps
ripoff is this???
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5. If you could be trapped with ANYONE (could be real, could be fictional) how would that go? What would your conversations look like? How would your narratives intertwine?
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Hope these get you going, but please don't write an entire book set in this crisis. These are just to help break you out from under all the ennui, this is definitely one of those cases where writing is for escapism. Or not. You do you!
Frantically,
-Caleb
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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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Elizabeth Wein Reads from Her Forthcoming Book
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We're big fans of Elizabeth Wein, author of
Code Name Verity
and
The Pearl Thief
, so when she reached out to see if there was anything she could do to support us during social distancing we jumped at the chance. Here is a video of her reading a passage from her forthcoming middle grade novel
The Enigma Game
.
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The Enigma Game
is scheduled for release on May 26, but is available for
preorder now!
Featuring beloved characters from
Code Name Verity
and
The Pearl Thief
, as well as a remarkable new voice, this brilliant, breathlessly plotted novel by award-winning author Elizabeth Wein is a must-read.
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I have shelves full of cookbooks in my house. I can’t resist the beautiful photography and mouth watering descriptions, but I tended to spend more time flipping through them than actually cooking. In the time before, I’d see something I felt like eating and run out to the store to get all the ingredients, including some obscure spice I probably wouldn’t use again for a year. Now my approach to cooking has to change, as we’re all forced to get creative with what we have and we’re more conscious than ever of not wasting food. A bad situation was an opportunity for me to become more intentional about cooking and eating, so I brought the cookbooks off the coffee table and into the kitchen, and started from the index this time.
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First was potato skins with crispy chickpeas and lemon-chive yogurt dip from
The Modern Cook’s Year
. Leftover chickpea filling went into an easy quesadilla for lunch the next day, and a bowl of farro topped with a fried egg the day after. The insides of the baked potatoes became mashed potato pancakes.
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I was briefly distracted from my cookbook project by
Melissa Clark’s take on mujadara
for NYT Cooking, immediately putting my stockpile of onions and the remaining herbs in my fridge to use. Hearty, savory, and comforting, this was my (carnivore) partner’s favorite, and I’ll be seeking out her cookbooks as soon as I’m back in the store.
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I’m (clearly) not vegan, but I love Chloe Coscarelli’s cookbook
Chloe Flavor
. I don’t miss my beloved cheese and eggs in these recipes, and the longer shelf life of plant-based ingredients is a plus right now. I preferred this easy vegan rigatoni vodka to the traditional cream sauce.
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Next, my favorite meal of the week. Cacio e pepe is the most wonderful pasta dish in existence, and Alison Roman’s take in
Nothing Fancy
is no exception. The rich, cheesy ditalini topped with chives and an egg yolk was perfectly balanced by Roman’s suggested accompaniment: bright, super lemony blanched broccoli.
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Finally, we took advantage of the beautiful weather early this week to grill for the first time this year. Charred asparagus and lemon with millet-caper pilaf from
Love & Lemons
was the perfect spring meal, conjuring better days ahead out grilling in the sun. In the meantime, there is a
great list of pantry-friendly meals
on the Love & Lemons blog
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For me, cooking has been an anchor, something to look forward to each day. It keeps my hands busy and occupies the limited amount of mental space I have right now, and at the end I’m rewarded with a delicious meal. Now go break out those old cookbooks, or order a new one to inspire you.
Katie
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More silly accents in this fun techno-fantasy tale from Kate's childhood,
Artemis Fowl
. (The author described it as "Die Hard with fairies," so, y'know, you really can't go wrong with this one.)
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Meet us over at our Instagram story at 8:45pm for tonight's live reading with the wonderful Meaghan! Wonder who or what she'll be dressed up as tonight.
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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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Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo
Ready to be distracted by awkward teenage love? This book is filled with hopes and dreams of real characters and our protagonist, Amelia, glides us through all of it with much charm and comedy. --Sinny
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We want to hear from you!
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*Send your entry by Thursday!*
For some reason, we've been thinking about the apocalypse lately, (insert joke about moving dystopian fiction into current affairs) which, of course, got us thinking about the Apocalypse Team game. The rules are simple and presented here in their bookish version. Build a team with three realistically human or animal characters from literature. So no picking characters with magic or super powers or anything like that. Once everyone in your group has assembled their team, each person makes the argument for why their team will survive the longest. Debate until a winner is chosen or you get sick of debating. Rinse and repeat with whatever other rules you want to add.
Respond to this email with your Literary Apocalypse Team and your argument for why you'll survive.
We'll pick a favorite and share the winner in next Thursday's shelf.
The winner will get a stack o' galleys sent to them via media mail!
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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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