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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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“Happiness. That's what books smell like. Happiness.”
– Sarah MacLean
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Porter Square Books at your door!
There is absolutely nothing more satisfying than delivering packages of books during this Covid19 time. The cheers, the thumbs up, the gratitude, the faces at the windows, the dogs barking behind closed doors - it’s all fun and exciting and I have been discovering parts of Cambridge/Somerville that I have never been before. I must admit that sometimes I peek at the books only because I really miss handing your purchases to you in the store.
I especially miss my co-workers (many of whom are published authors) and Dina and David and their sweet dog Maxie.
I miss all our local authors, including Mameve Medwed, Claire Messud (I delivered to her yesterday and heard the sweetest and loudest dog barking), Stephen McCauley (whom we used to see almost every day in the store), Leah Hager Cohen, Celeste Ng (a star in her Netflix
Little Fires Everywhere
!), Ethan Gilsdorf, Raoul The Third, Margot Livesey, Joan Wickersham, Allegra Goodman, Virginia Pye, and oh so many more.
I miss our loyal and wonderful customers and store friends, including ‘no bag ever’ Carl, and customer #1, and Charles and Mary, and Rose, and Joyce and Paul, and Ophelia, and every customer who walks through our doors (yes, they will open to you again, soon we hope!) Thank you to all of you for your continued support.
I miss your dogs (Bonnita, of course!). I miss the smell of Zing coffee while working and the sight of those mouth watering spring rolls. Heather and staff - can’t wait to be back in the store with you all.
I really miss shelving books, especially sections 920, 800, 891, and 940.* I must admit that I don’t actually miss shelving 400 even though it is one of our most popular sections for finding strollers and
Dragons Love Tacos, The Day the Crayons Quit, She Persisted, Last Stop on Market Street,
and
Julian Is A Mermaid
.
I wonder what Randall Munro thinks of this Coronavirus? One of the questions in
W
hat If
is about the Common Cold (page 114) and Munro’s answers are eerily significant! I urge you to read them!
In ending I want to say that I can hardly wait till this Tuesday (new books are released every week on Tuesdays) when
The Sea Wife
by Amity Gaige is published. That’s when I will curl up on my couch and read!
Take Care,
Megan @ PSB
*
Editor's note:
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Join our next virtual event!
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Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor
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The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home: Fiction
Porter Square Books is pleased to bring you a *virtual event* with Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, brilliant co-creators of Welcome to Night Vale and authors of
The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home
! This event takes place on Thursday, April 30th at 7pm from the comfort of your own home (the secret faceless old woman who lives there is also invited). To join this event via Crowdcast, register at the link below.
From the
New York Times
bestselling authors of
Welcome to Night Vale
and
It Devours!
and the creators of the hit podcast, comes a new novel set in the world of Night Vale and beyond.
In the town of Night Vale, there’s a faceless old woman who secretly lives in everyone’s home, but no one knows how she got there or where she came from...until now. Told in a series of eerie flashbacks, the story of
The Faceless Old Woman
goes back centuries to reveal an initially blissful and then tragic childhood on a Mediterranean Estate in the early nineteenth century, her rise in the criminal underworld of Europe, a nautical adventure with a mysterious organization of smugglers, her plot for revenge on the ones who betrayed her, and ultimately her death and its aftermath, as her spirit travels the world for decades until settling in modern-day Night Vale.
Interspersed throughout is a present-day story in Night Vale, as
The Faceless Old Woman
guides, haunts, and sabotages a man named Craig. In the end, her current day dealings with Craig and her swashbuckling history in nineteenth century Europe will come together in the most unexpected and horrifying way.
Part
The Haunting of Hill House
, part
The Count of Monte Cristo
, and 100% about a faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home.
Joseph Fink
created the Welcome to Night Vale and Alice Isn’t Dead podcasts. He lives with his wife in the Hudson River Valley and Los Angeles. He is the author of the novel
Alice Isn’t Dead
.
Jeffrey Cranor
co-writes the Welcome to Night Vale and Within the Wires podcasts. He also co-creates theater and dance pieces with choreographer/wife Jillian Sweeney. They live in New York. Together, they are the authors of the New York Times best-selling novels
Welcome to Night Vale, It Devours!
, and four Welcome to Night Vale episode script books: Mostly Void, Partially Stars, The Great Glowing Coils of the Universe, The Buying of Lot 37, and Who’s a Good Boy? In 2016, Fink and Cranor announced their podcast network
“Night Vale Presents”
which has produced 14 original fiction and non-fiction podcasts. For more on Welcome to Night Vale, upcoming events, and the books, visit:
www.welcometonightvale.com
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Featured Staff Pick for Adults
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The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
Mandel's book is like the glass in her title: her language glitters yet also offers clarity and reflection, and her characters are like broken shards, mesmerizing in one light, and dangerously ordinary in another. Combining the humanity and structure of
Station Eleven
with the brutal realism of her earlier works,
The Glass Hotel
is an exceptional novel.
--
Marika
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As of a couple of days ago, we were able to donate 80 bundles of 2-3 kids books each, worth about $1,400 of merchandise, to kids in Somerville receiving free meals! Every day we are blown away by the support we have received from our community and we are excited to find a way to share that support with others in our community. Thank you all so much (and keep them coming)!
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Cafe Zing Fresh Rolls are Back!
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Introducing FRESH ROLL TUESDAYS at Cafe Zing!
We've missed you! And we're guessing that you've missed us, or at least our Vietnamese Fresh Rolls.
Available in packs of 10 with 6 peanut sauces.
We will take orders ahead through Eventbrite, and you can pick them up at Cafe Zing on Friday between 11am and 2pm. Once you arrive call us 617-497-9464, tell us your last name and we will bring them out to you curbside!
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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 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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Stacey's Semi-Satirical Solutions for Sub-cranial Sorcery
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Have you also been experiencing headaches in a greater-than-normal frequency as of late? Here are some thoughts and solutions that could help.
1. Cold compresses feel great on a throbbing noggin. Use a scarf to secure an ice pack to your cranium. Alternatively, cut your partner’s ratty t-shirt from the 90s (you know the one) into strips to use as securing material.
2. Light sensitive? Use one of your clean face masks over your eyes instead of your mouth while at home. Doesn’t block out enough light? Combine it with a beanie (or other winter hat) pulled low across your eyes. If you were thinking of trying #1, the hat is an excellent way to combine both. Perfect your echolocation skills to get around. Squeak.
3. Auditory sensitivity? Try wrapping scarves around your head (or scraps of a certain t-shirt) trying to mimic Isabelle’s “hair” from animal crossing. It might work, but if it does not, you’ll look almost as awesome as
Blair Imani
.
(Suggested reading for when you don’t have a headache, Blair’s books!
Making Our Way Home
and
Modern Herstory
)
4. Caffeine can help with headaches, but it can also aggravate your symptoms. Start with a small cup of coffee. No improvement? Add a second, larger cup of coffee. Keep going until you use all the coffee in the house. You might feel worse, but at least you’ll be so caffeinated you’ll see through time. Tell us what happens next… on second thought, don’t.
5. Sensitive to electronic screens? Have lots of emails in need of responses? Print them. All of them. With everyone staying inside, pollution has greatly decreased, so you don’t have to feel as bad about your ecologically destructive behavior. Write your responses out by hand. When completed, hand them to your kids to type up and send. Enjoy the non-zero chance your emails will be much more entertaining than you intended.
6. Stop letting the cat bite your scalp (I’m looking at you, Inspector Gadget). If they haven’t been biting your scalp, try encouraging them to do so. Maybe their sharp little teeth will hit a pressure point and cause some relief.
7. Hair grown so long your ponytail gives you a headache? Cut that sucker off at the base! You’ll be left with a charming “quarantine chic” haircut for whatever season follows The Season of Isolation.
8. Accept that you were a snake-oil salesfolk several past lives ago - this is just retribution for all the headaches you’ve caused. --
Stacey
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One of the things I miss about “normal” life was all of the audiobook-listening time that I had in my day. Typically, about two-thirds of my reading is in audiobook form—I listen on the train, while I’m waiting for my morning coffee at the bakery near my office, while I’m at the gym, while I’m walking home from the bookstore—you get the idea. I find audiobooks peaceful and immersive, and those are feelings I want right now, so I’ve been brainstorming and experimenting with how to incorporate audiobooks while I’m home.
Here are some of my ideas: while I’m doing the dishes (it seems like I’m ALWAYS doing dishes now), while going for runs or walks around the neighborhood, while coloring in a coloring book (
this one is my favorites
), and while cooking. I’ve found that adding audiobooks into my day is something that makes me happy, and I think a lot of you could find that as well. Now, for how I’m listening: I use both
Libro.fm
, which is an audiobook service that lets you choose an indie bookstore to benefit from your purchase, and Libby, which lets you access books through your library. I got a Boston Public Libraries “e-card” specifically to use Libby, and it’s been great.
And as for
what
to listen to: I’ve been listening to a lot of romance novels because I like knowing that a happy ending is coming. Recent favorites include
Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors
by Sonali Dev and
Bringing Down the Duke
by Evie Dunmore. I’ve also been listening to two gender-bent Sherlock Holmes series—the
Charlotte Holmes
novels by Brittany Cavallaro and the
Lady Sherlock
series by Sherry Thomas. These are both mystery series that aren’t too thriller-y or gory, which is a nice break from many mysteries. I’ve also found that re-listening to old favorites can be extra-comforting.
Happy listening,
April
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Meaghan is back and once again in costume. She reads from Neil Gaiman's classic,
Coraline.
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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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The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe
Much like me, the last thing Norris wanted was to move across the country, leaving his friends (and his hockey team) behind to go to high school in Texas. It's hot, it's sticky, and it might as well be another planet. Guess he better find a way to make the best of it...or escape. This book charmed me, in spite of my resistance to go back to the land where football and church are the same thing.
--
Caleb
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We Want to Hear from You!
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Where is your favorite place to read in public?
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Public park (On a bench, on the grass, etc.)
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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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