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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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“
A man's bookcase will tell you everything you'll ever need to know about him.
”
―
Walter Mosley
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I’ve finally made a list of projects to accomplish in quarantine. One of them is literally “clean your room”. But others include, “mend jeans”, “re-season cast iron pans”, “oil wooden spoons and cutting boards”, and “get pit stains out of white t-shirts” (sorry, is that gross? But also if you have tips on how to do this, please send them along). I’ve told myself I have to accomplish one of these projects a week. I like these tasks because they’re small, manageable, and things that in a normal world I probably would forget to do in favor of something more fun or relaxing. I’m a natural procrastinator.
My goal with these projects is mostly to feel like I’ve done something in a particular week. As I’ve normalized to my quarantine lifestyle I’m finally able to look around and see what needs fixing. I find these projects grounding.
One project on the list is culling my bookshelves. I have an entire bookcase that’s my TBR pile, some titles which have been on there for years. It’s almost shameful the amount of times I’ve moved them from one apartment to the next and still haven’t read them. (But not shameful enough to stop me from purchasing more books!) If there is ever a good time to Marie Kondo my shelves, both of the books I have read and the books I haven’t, it is while quarantining. There are several little free libraries in my neighborhood that I’m sure could benefit from a stock of freshly sanitized books.
In addition to freeing up my TBR pile, this cleansing act also literally brings to light some books that have been buried behind others and waited patiently for me. I read
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
in a matter of days, and next up on my list is
The Power
. After that maybe I’ll finally start Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series. And maybe this will be the year that I’ll read
Moby Dick
. I realized just how aspirational this book is by discovering that I own three copies of it. By the time you read this, two copies will have been distributed to little free libraries of Somerville.
--Heather @ 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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Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors
by Sonali Dev
In
Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors
, Sonali Dev creates a vibrant modern
Pride and Prejudice
retelling that manages to feel fresh. Trisha Raje is a prominent neurosurgeon and DJ Caine is a rising-star chef who quits his job and moves to California because his sister is sick. The two collide—explosively—throughout the novel, and the tension and slow burn will keep you reading and wondering what will happen even if you know how
Pride and Prejudice
ends. I flew through it, captured by the tension, the well-developed characters and families, and the many, many descriptions of DJ's cooking. Bonus: The sequel comes out at the end of May! --
April
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Literary magazines and journals are a vital part of literature and publishing, but they're also challenging for us to sell online.
Purchase this bundle and we'll send you three of the lit mags we have in the store now.
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In Which Bear Gets A Letter
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(Relatable. We just got to the best part!)
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(Oh!! What a wonderful surprise - wonder what's inside!)
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(Is the highlight of anyone else's day checking the mail, or is that just us?)
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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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Sinny Cooks: KFC (Korean Fried Chicken)
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For the adventurous cook: I give you KFC (Korean fried chicken)!
Unfortunately, the recipe that comes with this photo is not online and can only be spotted inside
Korean Home Cooking
by chef Sohui Kim, but I can vouch for this recipe. It is the real deal!
The sauce came out to be enough for two batches so I went for it and had KFC twice in one week. IT WAS WORTH IT.
--
Sinny
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When the shelter-in-place order first came down, I thought that at least this would give me lots of time to work on my embroidery, which I hadn’t touched in months. The guest book at my wedding was a tablecloth signed by all the guests, and I have (very) slowly been embroidering over the signatures. I got married in 2017, and it’s still only about 10% done. Finally, I’d finish the tablecloth!
I still haven’t touched it. I just didn’t feel like it, endless stem stitches did not seem a compelling reason to open the embroidery box. Every day I’d look at it and feel guilty that I wasn’t doing anything.
I needed that period of passively admiring the work of others, slowly storing up ideas and noticing what I would have done differently, before I could work up the motivation to get started myself. If you’re in a rut, try following artists you admire online and just taking it in, without any pressure on yourself to start. Maybe that’s as far as you get for now, but the seed will be planted and waiting for you when you’re ready. --
Katie
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Caleb shares an old favorite,
Taran Wanderer. No vocal cords were injured in this reading. Well, not permanently.
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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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Eek, You Reek!: Poems about Animals That Stink, Stank, Stunk
by Jane Yolen and Heidi Stemple, illustrated by
Eugenia Nobati
This fun, dynamic collection of poems highlights animals that stink! Stellar illustrations featuring expressive animal characters and detailed backgrounds accompany each poem. With actual facts in the poems and strong back matter, this book will appeal to everyone from goofy kids to teachers.
--Marika
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A Porter Square Books Choose Your Own Adventure!
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You toy with the idea of putting in Kanye's favorite security code of 111111, but decide you've got the book - might as well see if you can find any clues. You open to a random page. The page is blank except for six numerals: 111111. "Huh," you say to yourself.
You enter the passcode, and instantly the smartphone unlocks. Summit the Pirate gapes, and his pyramid cohort echo his expression one by one. "Sorcery," Summit says reverently. "A shipmate who can harness such power would not go amiss on our decks. Have you ever considered a life of piracy?" Fellow pirates nod, bobble-necked, around him.
You look more closely at the phone. There are only a few buttons: the Call function, the Address Book, and the Kobo eReader app. Feeling a little like you know where this is going, you click on the Kobo app, and see one book downloaded. It has no title, but you recognize those symbols: it's the ebook of the same tome you're holding.
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Open the e-version in Kobo - maybe it's easier to decipher in this format.
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Click on the address book to see if there are any useful contacts.
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Give the phone to the pirates in exchange for rum. Maybe you'll join them!!
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Go back to the paper book. It's brought you this far!
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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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