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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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“
Everything in the world exists in order to end up in a book."
–
Stephane Mallarme
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Whenever I sit down to consider what to write for this letter, I find myself reaching for book recommendations. I guess that makes sense; my life's routine doesn't have a lot of variation right now, and as a bookseller it seems reasonable for me to use this space to tell you about more books you might enjoy. I have hit the point where I'm having weird dreams in which I brainstorm what kind of books to recommend here -- last night, for instance, I dreamed that I was making brownies from my favorite cookbook (a book that, I'm sorry to report, doesn't really exist) which called for the butter to be measured in tablespoons. By my waking calculation, the amount of butter called for would have made nearly a hundred brownies, so maybe it's for the best that my dream cookbook isn't available to you. I still appreciate this dream, which gives me today's theme: home project books.
(Please don't imagine for a moment that I'm doing all these cool crafts and hobbies myself! I doubt any one person has that kind of time, and also my skills in some of these areas are very limited; this list is taken more generally from various friends' and housemates' hobbies.)
If you knit:
Viking Knits and Ancient Ornaments
.
My favorite sweater, knitted by my partner, is from this book. (Ok, it is partly my favorite because of who made it, but it's also from a great pattern.) Every design in here is beautiful, and will keep your hands busy making something nice while you unwind with Netflix.
If you want to cook with the minimum cognitive load:
5 Ingredients
. Given that going to the grocery store right now is a Great and Terrible Journey -- and given how backlogged every grocery delivery service is -- this cookbook, which offers up a huge variety of great recipes with relatively few ingredients, might be exactly what you need in the kitchen.
If you want to start or improve some drawing skills:
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
. I doodled a lot in my high school notebooks but mostly stopped after that. This book, with interesting approaches like "stop thinking of how things should work, just turn some art upside down and copy the shapes" helped kickstart my drawing again. (I'm still not very good, but that isn't the book's fault.)
If you like food projects but already own all the cookbooks you need:
The Perfect Scoop
. You will need specialized equipment, namely an ice cream maker, so this one is kind of a deep cut. Nevertheless, summer is approaching, and if "home-make ice cream" has been on your bucket list for a while, now might be the time to go for it! I highly recommend trying out some of the weirder flavors on offer, as those have been my favorites.
If you want to hang out with some indoor plants:
Wild at Home
. This book is good whether you're just starting out and want to make sure your plants survive, or if you've been caring for indoor plants for a while and want to arrange them to maximum effect. (If you don't have plants yet and want some, see if any of your friends have baby spider plants; I guarantee they'd be happy to give you the socially distant gift of a spider plant of your own.)
If you want to start homebrewing:
Simple Homebrewing
&
Make Mead Like a Viking
. This is a two for one recommendation, because I personally prefer mead to beer, but I didn't want to leave beer out just because of my personal tastes. You'll need specialized equipment again here, both for the brewing and the bottling, but I cannot overstate how fun it is to decant mead with your housemates and think up a name for the batch.
As always, I hope everyone is keeping well, and that something in here might inspire you. May all your dreams be filled with benign ephemera like nonsense cookbook recipes.
Ari @ 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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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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Tonight's Thought Experiment
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Read in that order these five books tell a story about the relationship between people and certain types of buildings and how that relationship changes and even breaks down over time. What books do you think could make their own series? What unified story would they tell? How would that change your understanding of the original books?
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Josh's Interview with Consortium
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Consortium Book Sales & Distribution
is a company that helps small and independent presses and publishers sell their books to readers and bookstores. They've started a weekly interview series called "A Word with You," for their newsletter. Josh had more than one word for them. He talked about how he's handling shelter-in-place, PSB winning Bookstore of the Year, what he's reading, and what he hopes could come out of all...you know...this.
See the entire interview here
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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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You asked, we answered! Introducing fifteen gift bundles perfect for grads (or you, or anyone, we won't judge). Quantities are limited, so get your order in soon! See them all
here
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So there's been news about a new Stephenie Meyer book,
Midnight Sun
and those who enjoy the series (read: twilight forever fans) will have already pre-ordered their copy (yes, that's me, *waves hello*), then there's everyone else. But I'm not actually here to talk about the books, I'm here to talk about the dazzling Olympic Peninsula where Twilight takes place. I've been living in beautiful Somerville for almost 4 years now and before that, you guessed it, I lived in the beautiful state of Washington where I made several trips to Forks and La Push! I will admit that "Twilight" is what inspired the first trip to La Push, but every trip thereafter was by a magical force of its own. La Push is magical. I can see why SM decided to place her stories there. If you ever get the chance to travel to the PNW (pacific northwest), I recommend adding the Olympic Peninsula to your itinerary and giving the trip 2-3 days at the minimum, you won't want to leave the beaches once you see them. They are still highly secluded even in the summertime. My favourite is Second beach, it's a bit of a little hike down, but once you get there, it's like you've entered another realm. And if you're driving from Seattle, the drive is amazing, and Lake Crescent in Clallam County is worth stopping for - take a break from driving and enjoy a picnic there. I have so many favs to recommend on this Olympic Peninsula trip that I may make a part 2 for shelf-stable. Cheers!
-Sinny
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Meaghan is back and in costume! She reads from Lord of the Rings by a certain...Is that right? Yeah? You didn't mess with my notes to have a laugh? OK. Lord of the Rings by Jolkein Rolkein Rolkein Tolkein.
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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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This whole business started because you were looking for a book to read in your room and so you're going to read a book in your room if it kills you. ... ...You immediately regret thinking that. You push open the door the witch indicated and are shocked to see...a perfectly nice looking room. Not huge, but there's a nice looking bed against the wall with a night stand next to it and lovely looking reading lamp, as well as an old timey writing desk, a small bureau and even a sink. It's a small room, but as you open the drawers and knock on the bricks in the wall to see if there are any more surprises, it occurs to you many people over the course of human history would have killed for a room like this. ... ...And, again, you regret thinking that.
With the room as reconnoitered as you can make it you dramatically flop on the bed.
And hear a grown of pain coming from beneath it.
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Just ignore it. It was probably nothing anyway.
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HIgh-tail it out of there
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Take out your pent up frustration by jumping up & down on the bed
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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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