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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. Five or fewer books per order if possible.
We are happy to fulfill other orders, but will not be able to process them until at least May 18. Other options: try
Indiebound.org
or
Bookshop.org
- keep it indie!
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“
Like wildflowers; You must allow yourself to grow in all the places people thought you never would."
–
E.V. Rieu
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Have you ever seen flowers so aggressively gorgeous it affected you emotionally?
Because that's how I've been feeling as I drive around Cambridge and Somerville. How are all these people planting such amazing flowers? Are tulips even real? Because some of those colors are way too deep and clear to exist outsize of an artist's imagination. And the LILACS. Lilacs have been my favorite for so long. I don't have any bushes of my own, but my mother very carefully clipped some for me to put in a vase, and now my entire kitchen smells of them.
I've never been especially into gardening, but I feel like that might change soon. I'm too in love with these flowers and their brilliant colors and amazing smells. How does one become a gardener? As a bookseller, my first instinct is to go to
books
. There are even ones that just focus on
tulips
! I know just enough about the fascinating history behind tulip cultivation and the mania that fueled attempts to create rare and fancy tulips that I WANT to know more. Maybe now, with all this time spent at home, I'll finally try planting some flowers myself.
--Shana @ PSB
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Join our next virtual event!
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Friday, May 22 @ 7pm
Welcome to the Neighborhood:
An Anthology Reading
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Welcome to the Neighborhood: An Anthology of American Coexistence:
Literary Collection
Join Porter Square Books virtually for a reading with contributors to the new anthology
Welcome to the Neighborhood: An Anthology of American Coexistence! Featured readers include Katherine Hollander, Aaron Devine, Sarah Green, Sonya Larson, Jennifer De Leon, Lynne Viti, and Lloyd Schwartz.
How to live with difference—not necessarily in peace, but with resilience, engagement, and a lack of vitriol—is a defining worry in America at this moment. The poets, fiction writers, and essayists (plus one graphic novelist) who contributed to
Welcome to the Neighborhood don’t necessarily offer roadmaps to harmonious neighboring. Some of their narrators don’t even want to be neighbors. Maybe they grieve, or rage. Maybe they briefly find resolution or community. But they do approach the question of what it means to be neighbors, and how we should do it, with open minds and nuance.
The many diverse contributors give this collection a depth beyond easy answers. Their attentions to the theme of neighborliness as an ongoing evolution offer hope to readers: possible pathways for rediscovering community, even just by way of a shared wish for it. The result is an enormously rich resource for the classroom and for anyone interested in reflecting on what it means to be American today, and how place and community play a part.
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American Inspiration: Virtual events with NEGHS
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Our friends over at the New England Historical Genealogy Society have partnered with the Boston Public Library and WGBH to offer a terrific line up of virtual events centering on American history and identity - books provided by yours truly!
Join NEGHS via Zoom on
Thursday, May 14 @ 6pm to hear from
Stephen Puleo, one of Boston’s best-loved historians. His new book,
Voyage of Mercy: The USS Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America's First Humanitarian Mission, casts light on the special relationship between Ireland and the United States, going back to 1847. Puleo is a historian, college teacher, public speaker, and the author of seven books including
Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919. Free and open to all!
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Featured Staff Pick for Adults
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The Regrets
by Amy Bonnaffons
The Regrets is the rom-com for those of us who hate rom-coms for being heartwarming and unrealistic. (Yes, there are ghosts in this book and still it's more realistic than your standard Meg Ryan fare.) Bonnaffons takes the set pieces of the New York romance and turns them into a prescient meditation on the nature of identity and the ways that romantic relationships can threaten one's sense of self. Also, and I can't stress this enough, there are ghosts. --
Meaghan
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Mystery readers: this one's for you!
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Do you love reading mysteries?
Do you love receiving mysterious packages and not knowing exactly what you'll find inside?
We've got a deal for you! Check out our new Mystery Bundles. For $25, we'll send you five (!) mystery books from our bargain bins! Stock is limited, so put your order in now - and get ready to start sleuthing from your armchair.
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Imagine writing a whole book for the first time - putting your heart and soul (plus a
ton of work) into it, taking a leap of faith and trusting an editor and publisher to help you with it, and then sending it out into the world at last -- only for a pandemic to hit and steal the show!
We love supporting debut voices, and here's a great opportunity to learn about some of your soon-to-be favorite authors: every day for the rest of May, at 2pm EST, brilliant YA writers
Dhionelle Clayton and Nic Stone will host an Instagram live featuring an upcoming author! You can join them on Instagram at
@BrownBookWorm and
@NicStone.
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Want to know some of PSB's recent favorite books from new authors? Stay tuned for a roundup of our debut picks next week! --
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 May 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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Sign up for Shelf Stable recently and want to catch up on what you missed? Or maybe you want to share this whole Shelf Stable business with someone in your life who hasn't signed up for it? Check out the full archive!
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Have you been missing your favourite Thai restaurant? One of my fav recipes that I keep in heavy rotation is panang curry. This is a vegetarian version, but it's easy to add meat/seafood as well. I use the
store-bought panang curry paste
which can be found in HMart, but you can also make the paste from scratch if you've got all the ingredients and tools needed. I'll include a recipe where everything can be made from scratch, but for all intents and purposes, here is my very easy version of panang curry!
Ingredients
- 2-3 Korean sweet potatoes (or any potatoes you prefer)
- 1 yellow onion
- 1-2 large carrots
- 2-3tbsp panang curry paste
- 2 coconut milk cans (cooking not drinking)
- 1tbsp olive oil
Directions
- Heat stove to med-high then add oil, once the pan is hot, add the panang curry paste and stir for 3-5 mins
- Add coconut milk
- Add all chopped vegetables, bring to boil, then cover and let simmer for about 30 minutes or until vegetables are cooked
- Enjoy with rice!
--
Sinny
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Today, I read through my backlog of Shelf Stable newsletters (just a few, but if you're interested, you can read through all of them
here). I love seeing what everyone is up to, now that we can't chat in the offices or while shelving. Every few days I read about something someone is doing and think, "oh! I'm doing that, too!"
I read Josh's post on vinegars while drinking sparking water mixed with a spicy pineapple vinegar my partner and I made. Josh is correct: shrubs are really good. This weekend, my partner and I spent half a day starting various ferments from hot-sauces to garlic to lacto-strawberries. If you haven't tried lacto-fermenting berries, I highly recommend trying the next time you get your mitts on some!
Here's the Noma recipe for lacto-blueberries; if you enjoy it, it's
worth getting the book.
In other newsletters, Shana and Heather have posted their knitting. After years of focusing on small projects and making up my own patterns, I started quarantine with a pattern and the resolve to see it through. Okay, maybe the resolve was more an inability to do any creative work, but it meant for once in my life, I was able to follow a pattern. I've therefore been knitting up my stash. After seeing
Heather's post on purchasing yarn for a sweater, I gave myself permission to purchase new yarn for a specific pattern, and am now following it, learning new skills along the way.
There have been a few hard days where it feels like I'm incapable of doing anything, but reading about fermenting and knitting I'm reminded that I am making progress on projects. They may not be the manuscripts I want to get to my agent, but they're something, and I enjoy them. And that, especially now, is enough. --
Marika
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Whoops, technical issues with last night's bedtime story with Meaghan! We'll have it on our YouTube channel soon, though. In the meantime, let's rewatch Shana's reading from
Spindle's End
:
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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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I'm Sticking with You
by
Smriti Prasadam-Halls, illustrated by Steve Small
A charming and fun story of enduring friendship…perfect!
--Robin
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A Porter Square Books Choose Your Own Adventure!
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“I mean exactly what I said!” shrieks the cloaked figure. “I should have left you where I found you, in my rising-water-booby-trap! But nooo, I thought, they look so pathetic, I thought. You’ve been
looking
for a new assistant, I thought. So I sent Spot out to get you. Isn’t that right, Spot?” The hidden door to the room once again slides open, allowing someone to come bounding excitedly into the room.
Well, some
thing.
It’s the Cerberus, three-headed pup of the underworld, which gambols up to its master, serpentine tail a-wag. “Oh,yes, Spot. Who’s my little hell-hound? Who’s my good widdle flesh-devourer?” They turn back to you, and so does the dog--suddenly you’re fixed in the gaze of eight cold eyes. “But I suppose you
did
get the rum for me, after all. So you’ll do. Hand over the rum, and for heaven’s sake, drop that monkey statue. It’s
very
cursed.”
You hurriedly set down the monkey statue, and with another wave of the witch’s wizened hands, the statue and bemused pirate crew all disappear, sent back to their own time.
You’re pretty sure you glimpsed Summit the Pirate sneak away past the three-headed dog and down the hall to the right--but you keep your mouth shut.
“Well, New Assistant. I suppose it’s been a long day. You can stay here in the kitchen and help me make the pineapple upside-down cake, or you can go to your new quarters and finally finish that book--down the hall to your left. Whatever you do, don’t take the right-hand corridor! It’s off limits. Or,” the figure’s eyes glinted beneath their cowl, “you could always take me up on that game of rummy.”
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Stay to help--that sponge cake did smell delicious, after all.
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Check out your new room and finish the book. It’s been helpful thus far.
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Follow the escaped pirate down the forbidden hallway.
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Play cards with the witch. What’s the worst that could happen?
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The Bird King
by G. Willow Wilson
“Fatima is a concubine of the sultan of the last emirate in the Iberian Peninsula to submit to the Spanish Inquisition. When her dearest friend, Hassan, a mapmaker who can map places he has never seen (and that do not always exist), is singled out by the Inquisition, she flees with him and a jinn, following the trail of the elusive and mythical Bird King, who may or may not be able to grant them sanctuary. Wilson’s latest novel is rich with the historical detail, lush description, and fantastical elements that we have come to know and love from her. A story of resistance, freedom, seeking, and strength, and a true fable for our times.
”
--Anna Elkund, University Bookstore
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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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