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Open for Shipping, Delivery, & Curbside Pickup!
Our physical store is closed, but you can still shop online!
DUE TO THE HIGH VOLUME OF SALES & THE LIMITED NUMBER OF BOOKSELLERS THAT CAN SAFELY BE IN THE STORE WE ARE RUNNING SEVERAL DAYS BEHIND IN PROCESSING ONLINE ORDERS.
This is a wonderful problem to have and we are so thankful for your support. Please see the website for more details.
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“
Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.
”
―
Mark Haddon
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As we work towards figuring out how to let readers back into the store, as I think about what it means to sell books online, as I try to fit what is most joyous about bookselling into the text and image communication of most social media, I'm realizing how often even a really well done staff pick, doesn't adequately recommend a book. You'd think written words would be able to sufficiently describe other written words, but sometimes you need tone of voice, you need gestures, you need to see an expression of struggle or thoughtfulness or laughter to really understand what we are saying about a book.
I've felt the inadequacy of distant communication in thinking about two amazing, new books that I just can't seem to compose a tweet or staff pick length descriptions for.
The first is
Minor Detail
by Adania Shibli, translated by Elisabeth Jaquette. Aspects of the book are relatively straightforward; a contemporary Palestinian journalist puts herself in danger to research a past crime against humanity, but where I struggle is how this book made me feel. The words in my head are all rooted in violence, explosions and detonations, and the like and though those words might be true to my own personal experience of reading, the book is about a society absolutely saturated with actual violence and Shibli explicitly explores the language that results from that saturation, while writing towards a language that opposes it. So the metaphorical violence of my personal reading experience feels not just inappropriate for the content, it feels almost opposed to the style. If you and I were chatting at the store, I could explain that all to you. I could use gestures and facial expressions to add personal, emotional context to the actual words. There just isn't space for that in most online venues.
Alice Knott
by Blake Butler poses an entirely different challenge, but runs up against the same barrier. In the context of our cascade of crises, the problems of surveillance, art, capitalism, and identity
that the book so brilliantly grapples with feel...secondary. As entwined as late capitalism and white supremacist fascism are, Butler's exploration (to date) doesn't directly include that entwining. There's a chance it's one of, if not the greatest novel about the commodification of art AND attention but, well, it's hard to think about the commodification of art AND attention in COVID-19 times. BUT, if you're looking for a break from that struggle AND still want something intellectually challenging, this is a great book. Over the course of a conversation with someone, I could easily figure out if this will be a good fit for them, but without that conversation, it's really impossible to know how to present the context of the book in a way that is useful to readers curious about it.
COVID-19 has forced us to discover that there's actually quite a lot of society that can be run remotely and online and also that there might be some real, long-term benefits from keeping those aspects of society virtual. At the same time, it's highlighted those activities that simply cannot be moved online. Some conversation can happen online, but not all of it. It seems, to me at least, that our goal should be to preserve the new progress we've made while doing everything in our power to make the world safe for long, energetic, person-to-person, conversations indoors, so we can tell you about more of these wonderful but difficult-to-blurb books. Wear your masks, everyone.
--Josh
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Join our next virtual event!
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Damien Echols
Angels and Archangels,
Tuesday, July 14th at 7PM
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Join us for a talk with Damien Echols, hosted on Crowdcast! This event is free and open to all.
“Angels do not belong to any one single religion, system, or dogma,” teaches Damien Echols. “They are almost pure energy—the very substance the cosmos is made of. They’re also incredibly willing to work with us if asked.”
With
Angels and Archangels,
this bestselling author presents an essential resource for understanding what angels are, how they make themselves available, and magickal practices to invoke their power to transform your life. In this lucid and information-packed guide, Damien shares his unique understanding and experience of magickal practices refined in the crucible of his wrongful death row imprisonment.
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J. Courtney Sullivan with Joanna Rakoff
Friends and Strangers,
Thursday, July 16th at 7PM
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Porter Square Books is delighted to welcome J. Courtney Sullivan in conversation with Joanna Rakoff for
Friends and Strangers!
Hosted on Crowdcast, this event is free and open to all.
An insightful, hilarious, and compulsively readable novel about a complicated friendship between two women who are at two very different stages in life, from the best-selling author of
Maine
and
Saints for All Occasions
(named one of the
Washington Post
's Ten Best Books of the Year and a
New York Times
Critics' Pick). A masterful exploration of motherhood, power dynamics, and privilege in its many forms,
Friends and Strangers
reveals how a single year can shape the course of a life.
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Want to show your love of Porter Square Books? Available for 2 weeks only, order your very own Porter Square Books T-shirt!
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Porter Square Books is proud to partner with the
Prison Book Program to help provide access to books to people in prison. Order any title off this wish list and select the "Curbside Pick Up" shipping option and we'll give to the Prison Book Program to distribute.
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Miss getting great recommendations from your favorite booksellers? Never quite got the hang of the whole online orders thing? Now you can sign up for a time slot to chat with a bookseller! Currently available on Saturday and Sunday between 10-4 pm.
Up this weekend: Josh on Saturday and Stacey on Sunday!
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Antiracism Books: A Place to Start
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Digital Audio Books:
A terrific way to support local indies!
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Want book recommendations, personalized
just for you?
Fill out our 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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Sometimes It Takes a While for a Book to Get Home
or
Shana's Pick & Shana's Dad's Pick
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Shana's Pick
But look, there are a LOT of great books out there and I cannot read all of them, no matter how hard I try. So I didn't buy it. Not immediately.
Then came Hanukkah, and I was thinking about what to get for my family members and thought, hmm, my dad would
love
this book. He likes weird facts and funny jokes as much as I do! Maybe even more than I do! And even better, I can read it before I give it to him! Actually maybe I should just get it for me.
Hanukkah came and went, and I'd neither given it to him or picked it up.
Then Kate chose it as her
staff pick
back in May. That reminded me I still hadn't read it, so I decided on a whim to try the
audiobook
.
I loved it. And more than that? I was even more certain that Dad not only would enjoy this book, but that he
needed
it. It felt so very
him
. That I couldn't even wait until I'd finished the book myself, or for the next good gift opportunity. I had to give it to him as soon as possible. He was intrigued, of course, but a little skeptical. Like me, he has a lot of books to read. I wasn't sure how soon he'd get to it or if he'd ever read it at all.
Then a few days ago, he called me out of the blue. I picked up the phone.
"Hey Dad," I said.
"Shana," he said. "Have I told you how much I
love
that book you got me?"
"Oh," I said. "Yeah."
"I think it might be my favorite book! I was telling Mom while we were walking the dog and she asked if I'd told
you,
and I knew I had, but I wanted to say so again. It's just so funny and
smart
! I'm learning so much!"
I got that warm feeling you get when someone says nice things about you behind your back and then you find out later. "Aw, I'm so glad."
"So yeah, I wanted you to know. It's my… well, I'm not staff, so it can't be a staff pick. Staff's dad pick?"
"You could write something about it for Shelf Stable?" I suggested.
And so, he did.
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Ezra's Pick
My daughter (staff member Shana) knows my proclivity for obscure facts and unconventional narratives, so when they came across
How to Invent Everything
by Ryan North, they knew it was a winner of a gift for me. I was more skeptical. Or more precisely, I thought this was a book that I would have loved when I was 13 or 15, and had the time to pour over all the arcane lists and charts and footnotes when I should have been "learning" my schoolwork.
As usual, Shana was right - to the detriment of my working and sleeping hours, I am right back to the obsessive information scouring I had associated with my more youthful sense of wonder. Ryan North (who claims to have found the book, but is probably collecting the royalties anyway) takes us through all of the essential elements of technology, including many that are so commonplace you might not recognize them as such - like spoken language, and negative numbers - and bringing us through domesticated plants and animals, medicine, art, the sciences, and the computer revolution. Along the way you will encounter and reencounter all sorts of facts and ideas in a new light. The book presents these building blocks of civilization for a very practical reason - if we end up stuck in the past with a dysfunctional time machine, we will need them to recreate the kind of civilization we know and love. But since, in our own timeline, some of these ideas took tens or hundreds of thousands of years to emerge, a little advanced knowledge and a "how-to" reference guide might help to speed things up a bit.
About that timeline. If you end up in the past and reinvent rational numbers 10,000 years before they emerged in "our" history, won't that confuse things a bit for we of the then-future? North sweeps this perpetual time-traveling conundrum away with an elegant, one-graph solution allowing for multiple, non-overlapping timelines. Lovely! But he is no stranger to more extensive graphs when needed - the flowchart to help you identify where you are in the history of the planet (can you breathe the air or not? What is the shape of the big dipper? Are there humans or Neanderthals around? Are there computer?) is a masterwork of simplicity at only four pages.
This book is fascinating, informative, eye-opening, and fun - and quite possibly extremely useful, because…you never know, do you?
Ezra Hausman (AKA Dr. Shana's Dad)
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A Burning
by Megha Majumdar, featuring a cast of readers
For readers of Tommy Orange, Yaa Gyasi, and Jhumpa Lahiri, an electrifying debut novel about three unforgettable characters who seek to rise--to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies--and find their lives entangled in the wake of a catastrophe in contemporary India.
“Majumdar’s suspenseful narrative holds a mirror up to society at large, reflecting the lies people tell themselves to rationalize sacrificing morality for personal gain. Unintended consequences from an impulsive social media post explode against a backdrop of deep economic insecurities and centuries-old prejudices. A searing debut, this novel is timely and timeless. It packs a punch way above its weight. Brilliant.”
--
Lisa Johnson, Penguin Bookshop
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Alert! New bookseller bundles available now!
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Our 'get 3 paperbacks' bundle options have expanded to include Caleb, Meaghan, and Shana! Get 3 paperbacks handpicked by the bookseller that fit in with their theme. You can find all bundles.
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EXPANDED OPTIONS:
Journals, Stationery & Crafts
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Sometimes a new notebook is what it takes to get the juices flowing!
We have now made a much wider variety of notebooks, journals, and even calendars available for order from our website,
like this classic Moleskin
. Now, along with items with an inventory status of "On Our Shelves Now," you can order journals, notebooks, diaries, calendars, planners, and more with an inventory status of "Available at Warehouses."
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Face Masks
Face coverings are going to be with us for a while, so
we’re now offering non-medical grade cloth masks (including kid size) from a variety of makers. Right now quantities are limited, but additional styles are on the way. We’ll keep you posted!
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Book Bundle Offerings
Make your shopping easy by buying bundles, handpicked by our expert booksellers!
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Old Hollywood: From Page to Screen
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The 1990s
The 1990s were a banner decade for film production. Notable for the rise of the independent film companies such as Miramax, New Line, and Lion’s Gate, the 1990s also continued producing money-making blockbusters and franchise films.
The early part of the decade brought a few well-produced literary adaptions including: A 1990 adaptation of
Dances with Wolves
(1988 book by Michael Blake), starring and directed by Kevin Costner. The film had 12 Oscar nominations, and won 7, including Best Picture. The same year
Misery
, Stephen King’s novel of the same name, opened to positive reviews and good box office. Kathy Bates won her Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of
Misery
.
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Howard’s End
in 1992 based on the classic 1910 novel by E.M. Forster and starred Oscar winner Emma Thompson. Oscar Hijuielos’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel (1989),
The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
, was adapted into the film
The Mambo Kings
(1992) starring Antonio Banderas. The Robert Altman directed
The Player
(1992) starred Tim Robbins and was based on the book by Michael Tolkin.
In 1993, Edith Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece,
The Age of
Innocence
(1920), was filmed by Martin Scorsese and starred Daniel Day-Lewis as Newland Archer. Interesting trivia: Oscar winner Joanne Woodward is never seen in the film, she supplied the narration only. The first installment of the
Jurassic Park
franchise was released in 1993; based on the novel by Michael Crichton. This was the highest-grossing film of the year. Paramount’s adaptation of Winston Grooms's novel (1986),
Forrest Gump
, was released in 1994 winning Best Picture and a Best Actor nod for Tom Hanks.
Halloween 1993 – Legendary Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini died in Rome.
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Jane Austen was represented in the 1990’s with four popular films. Her novel
Sense and Sensibility
(1811) was filmed by Ang Lee in 1995 and starred Emma Thompson (Best Screenplay Oscar) and Alan Rickman. Interesting trivia: This novel has been in continuous publication since 1811. The same year
Persuasion
(1817) was brought to the screen produced by the BBC.
Emma
(1815), as a film, came to life in 1996 with Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeremy Northam. The romantic comedy-drama
Mansfield Park
(1814) was adapted for a 1999 British film.
The epic wartime romance novel,
The English Patient
(1992) by Michael Ondaatje, was filmed in 1996 and won 9 Oscars, including Best Picture as well at 5 BAFTA Awards.
The Wings of the Dove
, Henry James’s 1902 book, was adapted in 1997 into a critically acclaimed film. Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel,
Mrs. Dalloway
(1997) was made into a well-produced British film with Vanessa Redgrave in the title role.
The Browning Version
, based on Terrance Rattigan’s 1948 play, starred Albert Finney and was released in 1994. It was nominated for a Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
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In the 1990s there were versions of Nabokov’s 1955 novel
Lolita
(1997); Tolstoy’s 1877 novel
Anna Karenina
(1997); James Ellroy’s 1990 noir novel,
L.A. Confidential
was adapted in 1997 into an award winning film. Thomas Keneally’s novel
Schindler’s Ark
(1982) was directed and produced by Steven Spielberg as
Schindler’s List
(1993); nominated for 12 Oscars, the movie won 7 including Best Picture. Interesting trivia: In 1998 this film was chosen to air on public television in Israel on Holocaust Memorial Day.
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Paramount Pictures’ 1997 blockbuster
Titanic
was not based on a book, short story, or play, but was an original script written by director James Cameron based on the historical tragedy that was the Titanic in 1912. This film is one of the highest grossing films in the history of cinema, grossing over $2.5 BILLION to date.
--Nathan
Next up: At Bat: Hollywood Plays Ball
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We don't have a new bedtime story today. Instead here's a video from...holy crap...over three months ago (!) of Josh reading from and talking about
I Hotel. In between when Josh made this video and today, our world has only grown closer to the time depicted in Yamashita's brilliant novel. If you're looking to read about another era of upheaval in American history,
I Hotel is a great choice.
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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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They're here! Check out our bookseller's favorite books this month, and enjoy that sweet, sweet discount.
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Two students at an elite private school, a Filipina-American on scholarship and a wealthy girl from China, confront prejudice and patriarchy at their school.
-Sarah
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The folk revival of the 1950s and 60s didn't just stem from Pete Seeger or Peter, Paul, and Mary. It was built on the back of one of the most famous folk singers of the day who I'd never heard of. This thorough biography tells her story, which is fascinating and unfortunately familiar.
-Meaghan
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We want to hear from you!
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What bookish content would you like to see on our website?
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Full-length reviews (or super sized staff picks as we like to call them).
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General bookish essays like the stuff in Shelf Stable.
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See you next time here at Shelf Stable!
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Did you miss an installment, or want to share with a friend? The Shelf Stable Archive has all our past issues!
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And don't forget to subscribe to our Events Newsletter for the full line up of events coming up, and our Kids Newsletter for
all the latest on events, new books, reviews, and more for young and young-at-heart readers.
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Looking for other ways to keep up with us? Check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube:
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25 White St. Cambridge, MA 02140
617-491-2220
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