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Open for Phone Orders!
617-491-2220
Monday - Friday:
9am - 6pm
Saturday & Sunday:
11am - 5pm
Open for Curbside Pickup!
Monday - Friday:
12pm - 6pm
Saturday & Sunday:
11am - 5pm
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“I hope your rambles have been sweet, and your reveries spacious.”
-Emily Dickinson
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Hello readers,
Welcome to the inaugural edition of
Shelf Stable,
Porter Square Books' newsletter offering for these strange times.
We hope you're all safe and home. While we're closed to the public here at the store, staff is here working behind the scenes to send out all your bookish desires via
curbside pick up, free local delivery to Cambridge and Somerville, free media mail shipping and more.
We're taking
phone orders and giving recommendations, too.
(Our hours are listed above for you.) And you've been keeping us busy - we can't thank you enough for supporting your local independent bookstore in these uncertain times, and it's our pleasure to continue to serve the community we care about so much.
We'll be trying to send out this newsletter as often as we can over the next few weeks, because we know many of you are stuck at home away from shelves full of books, and we miss seeing you all here in the store, too! The social isolation you might be feeling is very real and very normal in the current circumstances. With this newsletter, we want to do our part to remind you that we're all still here - separate, yes, but we're together in coping with these scary times.
Some highlights to look for in this and future newsletters:
events we missed, video for at-home browsing of our shelves, clips from PSB staffers reading, featured staff picks, polls and quizzes, writing prompts
and more! (Is there something you'd like to see from us? Reply to this email and let us know!)
Stay connected, stay well, and keep reading.
all the best, Leila @ PSB
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The Willies: Poetry
On Friday, March 13th, we should've been hosting
Adam Falkner
for his poetry collection
The Willies
!
The Willies
, Falkner's first full-length poetry collection, offers a sharp and vulnerable portrait of the journey into queerhood in America. Departing from a more familiar coming out narrative he centers the stories of dueling selves. Masquerading white boy. Child of an addict. Closeted varsity athlete. Drifting seamlessly between the scholarly and conversational, Falkner's poems showcase a versatility of language and a courageous hunger, unafraid of depicting the costumes we use to hide legacies of toxic masculinity. Through snapshots both tragic and humorous, merciless and humane, Falkner offers powerful new ways of understanding the intersectional linkage that binds queer shame to cultural appropriation. At its core, The Willies asks us to consider who we will become if we do not grapple with what scares us most.
We've got a ton of signed copies here, and copies are 20% off through the month, so pick up a copy!
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Bury Me in Thunder: Poetry
We were so excited to kick off our first in a new reading series, Poets & Plants, on Tuesday, March 17th, and we're so sorry we've got to postpone!
It's a new venture in partnership with our friends at local independent market Pemberton Farms. (
Check them out for all your grocery and plant needs - they're amazing
!) Our idea was to bring you an evening of verse surrounded by greenery: homegrown, local poetry in the beautiful greenhouse space in Pemberton Farms. As soon as we're able, we'll be getting this back on our calendar.
Our first Poets & Plants would've featured readings from moira j and Adrie Lester.
Bury Me in Thunder
is the debut collection from
mo
ira j.
, an agender writer of Dził Łigai Si'an N'dee descent.
Delivering an unflinching look into the consumption of Indigenous people, this collection sheds new light on the colonization of North America and how trauma is carried through intergenerational memory.
Adrie Lester was planning to bring some beautiful *
homebound*
chapbooks of her work, so you'll have to come to our rescheduled event to pick one up!
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Abundance: Fiction
Tonight, Wednesday the 18th, we would've hosted Michael Fine for his debut novel
Abundance.
Abundance
follows Julia, an American medical doctor fleeing her own privileged background to deliver health care to remote African communities, and Carl, whose experiences as a black man in the United States have led him to volunteer in Africa.
This is an unforgettable thriller grounded in real events. The author served as a medical officer for Kenya and worked as a volunteer during the Liberian Civil War, the backdrop of the book.
A former director of the Rhode Island Department of Health, Michael Fine has been a writer, community organizer, family physician, and public health official for more than 40 years. In addition to his book
Health Care Revolt
, he has published widely in the medical literature, mostly about health policy. Given his expertise and experience, he was actually grateful when we reached out to cancel because he really gets why it's crucial to flatten the curve now. We're sorry to miss out, but we'll reschedule!
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Digital Audio Books:
A terrific way to support local indies!
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What have we been up to here at the store?
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We're reading (well, of course we are!):
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Shana Reads Chapter 1 of Mira Grant's
Feed
(click on the video to hear!)
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We're hosting live story hours on Instagram:
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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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Featured Staff Pick For Adults
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Darkly creepy and a little unsettling. A strong, morally ambiguous female lead with healing powers.
--Stacey
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Did you have imaginings, like us, that this time of social distancing would
finally be your moment
to finish that writing project you're working on? Nail that opus? Perfect that poem?
...And are you now feeling a little, um... stuck? It happens to the best of us! Here's a quick exercise to get those creative juices flowing!
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Sometimes you don't know what you need until you see it! We've taken a little virtual tour of our new books offerings in this video. See something you like? Check our website or give us a call!
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Featured Staff Pick For Kids
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The Inquisitor's Apprentice
In this fun and touching historical fantasy, 1910s New York is full of immigrant magic and predatory millionaires. When 13 year old Sacha Kessler finds out he can see magic he is forced to work for the NYPD Inquisitors to help support his family, gets himself in a whole lot of trouble, and even meets Harry Houdini. This is one of my favorite books ever, and it isn’t just because the protagonist has my name!
--Sacha, Writer in Residence for Young Readers
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We want to hear from you! What content would you like to see more of?
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Extras from authors/books who would have been featured in events
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Personal notes from PSB staff
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Behind-the-scenes silliness
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Interactive writing prompts & polls like this one!
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Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
"
Oona Out of Order
is a work of fiction that genuinely encouraged me to reflect upon my own mortality and the trajectory of my life. Oona wakes up on her birthday every year in a different part of her life. The difficulty this imposes is fascinating. Pop culture and music is ever-present, as Oona is a musician and chapter titles are taken from song titles or lyrics. What would it be to live your life out of order? To instinctively want to second guess and redo what you saw as failures? At the heart,
Oona Out of Order
is about mastering the art of living in the moment and it is a terribly fun romp."
-Rachel, Avid Bookshop
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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 between fulfilling and delivering your orders. 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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