Shelf Stable: September 9th |
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"Reading is an active, imaginative act; it takes work." - Khaled Hosseini
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The store was closed on Labor Day. Not just closed to customers, as it normally is on Mondays now, but completely closed. We didn’t answer the phone, we didn’t answer emails, we didn’t process or fulfill online orders, we didn’t post on social media, and we didn’t put out a Shelf Stable. Some of us used that time for a socially distanced gathering and BBQ. We went on a beautiful hike in the woods, played a fun mystery game (Thank you, Janaea!), confirmed that there were no snakes in the kayak (Good work, G!), and had a delicious meal (Thank you, Dina & David!) Kate even got to see otters! Some of us who hadn’t seen each other in weeks (or longer) got to see each other and everyone (because we were outside and stayed far apart!) got to see the bottom half of everyone’s faces. (Dang, that moment when you get to see a friend smile for the first time in… … ...just, dang.) It was an all around lovely day and I honestly wish we could do something like that at least once a month.
This is the part of pieces like this, at least in America, where I would talk about how important days off and socializing are to a healthy work environment and productivity at the store, how important it is to a business based almost entirely on building relationships with customers to build good relationships with the staff, and how it is impossible to ask for top quality customer service from your staff, if you’re not doing everything in your power to care for their mental health. All of that is true but…
Not everything needs to be “productive” to be valuable, even in the context of a job and a business. No one is just a bookseller even when they are at the store bookselling. Good food is valuable because it is good food. Fun is valuable because it is fun. Friendship is valuable because it is friendship. Otters are valuable because they are so friggin’ cute!
I think one of the reasons we are struggling so much, as a nation, with COVID-19 is that certain very powerful currents in our society and in our economy only see “work” that produces profit (for them) as “valuable.” To them, everything else either supports the ability to do that work (see all those tech industry offices with game rooms), is biologically required for that work to happen (you know, like eating and sleeping), or inhibits that work and must be eliminated somehow. Actually, I would say one of the reasons we are struggling so much, as a nation, in general, is this myopic definition of what is valuable.
We are back at it now and given what is going to be the strangest and hardest fourth quarter in the store’s history, it’s hard to imagine taking another day off like we did on Monday until at least the new year. And, even then, if it’s still not safe to gather indoors, it might not be until March or later that we can actually all gather and just be people and friends together who just happen to also be booksellers for Porter Square Books.
Obviously, I wish COVID-19 didn’t happen, but since it did happen, I want some good to come from it. I want all the suffering and loss to at least lead to something. If we, as a nation, start to separate “value” from “work,” if we start to at least recognize the inherent value of things like fun and friendship and games (and otters!) and sitting in lawn chairs on beautiful late summer days with people we like to spend time with, that, at least, is something.
Josh
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Read our reopen policies and hours! |
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Thanks to all our friends who've visited so far -- it's been wonderful to see everyone's face (well, the top half above the mask anyway) and we're so grateful to everyone who has been so respectful of our policies!
Updated In-Store Shopping Hours:
Monday: CLOSED
Tuesday-Friday: 3PM-7PM
Saturday: 9AM-6PM, with 9AM-11AM set aside for vulnerable customers
Sunday: 3PM-7PM
Curbside Pick Up: Daily, 3PM-7PM
We really appreciate your support!
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Join our next virtual events! |
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Thursday, September 10th at 7pm
Virtual: Margot Livesey with Tom Mallon, The Boy in the Field
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Porter Square Books is delighted to host friend of the store Margot Livesey for a talk on her new book The Boy in the Fields, in conversation with Tom Mallon! This event takes place on Crowdcast, and is free and open to all.
The New York Times bestselling author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy delivers another “luminous, unforgettable, and perfectly rendered” (Dennis Lehane) novel—a poignant and probing psychological drama that follows the lives of three siblings in the wake of a violent crime.
One September afternoon in 1999, teenagers Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan Lang are walking home from school when they discover a boy lying in a field, bloody and unconscious. Thanks to their intervention, the boy’s life is saved. In the aftermath, all three siblings are irrevocably changed. Written with the deceptive simplicity and power of a fable, The Boy in the Field showcases Margot Livesey’s unmatched ability to “tell her tale masterfully, with intelligence, tenderness, and a shrewd understanding of all our mercurial human impulses” (Lily King, author of Euphoria).
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Want to show your love of Porter Square Books? Order your very own Porter Square Books T-shirt! |
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Old Hollywood: From Page to Screen |
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The Musicals
Many movie musicals started out on Broadway and many Broadway musicals started out as books, short stories, or plays. The movie musical has been a Hollywood mainstay since the late 1920s and the beginning of sound. Al Jolson is considered the first singing movie star when he sang in The Jazz Singer (1927), based on the play by Samson Raphaelson.
In 1910 Gaston Leroux published his masterpiece, The Phantom of the Opera (Le Fantôme de l’Opèra), which was made into numerous films. In 1986 Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote and produced a stage musical and in 2004 an elaborate movie version was released by Warner Brothers. L. Frank Baum’s Oz books (the first one published in 1900) got the musical treatment by MGM in 1939 with The Wizard of Oz, starring Judy Garland. This film is one of Hollywood’s most beloved movie musicals.
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Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist (1838) became Oliver! in 1960 and played in London’s West End and Broadway and then transferred to film in 1968. Nominated for 11 Oscars, the film won six including Best Picture. In 1962 director Mervyn LeRoy produced and directed the film version of the hit musical, Gypsy, based on the memoirs (1957) of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. Taking over for Broadway’s brassy Ethel Merman was Hollywood’s Rosalind Russell, who played Mama Rose. Interesting trivia: Natalie Wood sang her songs in Gypsy but Russell’s brittle voice was blended with that of singer Lisa Kirk.
It’s certain that T. S. Eliot never dreamed his 1939 whimsical collection of poems, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, would some day become Cats -- one of the longest running Broadway shows (1981-1999) and a dreadful 2019 film from Universal. Chicago was a 1926 melodrama by Maurine Dallas Watkins that became a 1975 musical play and then a jazzy movie in 2002 starring Renée Zellweger and Richard Gere. Based on the stories by Sholem Aleichem, Fiddler on the Roof arrived in Hollywood in 1971 and won John Williams his first Oscar (out of 5) for Best Scoring: Adaptation and Original Song Score. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s adaptation of James A. Michener’s short story collection, Tales of the South Pacific (1947) graced Broadway in 1949 and received the Hollywood treatment in 1958. Their score is considered one of their best along with The King and I, based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon. The movie released in 1956 starred Yul Brynner (Best Actor Oscar) and Deborah Kerr. Interesting trivia: Brynner played in The King and I on stage 4625 times.
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Victor Hugo’s 1862 perennial bestseller Les Misérables has been made into countless plays and films. The Broadway musical (1980) was produced as a film in 2012 and starred Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway (Best Supporting Oscar). Liza Minnelli started in the film version of Cabaret, which in turn was derived from Christopher Isherwood’s book Goodbye to Berlin (1939). Originally published in the New Yorker, Sally Benson’s short story collection, 5135 Kensington became the movie musical Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). Starring Judy Garland and Tom Drake, the film was a massive hit and garnered four Oscar nominations. The movie version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s first collaboration, Oklahoma!, was produced in 1955 and based on the play Green Grows the Lilacs (1931) by Lynn Riggs. Maria von Trapp’s memoir: The Story of the Trapp Family Singers (1949) became the Broadway musical The Sound of Music (1956) and then a hit film in 1965 starring Dame Julie Andrews.
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Some other classic works that have been turned into musicals: J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan (1904) had a TV musical version made in 1954 with Mary Martin; Anita Loos’s comic novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: The Intimate Diary of a Professional Lady (1925) became first a play, then a 1953 musical starring a luminous Marilyn Monroe. Author Patrick Dennis’s 1955 bestseller Auntie Mame became a musical film, Mame, in 1974 staring Lucille Ball. The Merchant of Yonkers was Thornton Wilder’s 1938 play that was rewritten as The Matchmaker in 1954, and then eventually a musical play and movie: Hello Dolly! The movie musical Camelot, based on T. H. White’s 1958 novel, The Once and Future King, was filmed in 1967 and starred Vanessa Redgrave.
Next Up: Classic Bond
Nathan
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Put on Some Music & Write
I’d like to say that I conscientiously developed this technique specifically to build community in the store, but, really, I just stumbled onto this trying to coordinate a project I’m working on with another bookseller. We were working an evening shift together and decided it was just easier (both practically and emotionally) to hang out at the store afterwards than try to coordinate a Zoom call or something. We mentioned it to another bookseller who was there and I said, “Why don’t you stay, too?” Eventually, everyone working that night decided to stay and at least one of us actually bought a notebook to participate. We got dinner, hung out, played Thrashing Thru the Passion by The Hold Steady and did some writing. Everyone liked it so much that we now organize a writing group once a week. Here’s how it works.
- One of us picks an album that is about half an hour long. Half an hour is long enough that you can feel like you’ve accomplished something, but not so long that it could be intimidating.
- Once we get settled, we turn on the music and write until the album is over.
- Then we pack up and head home. No sharing. No critique. No workshopping.
Having a set beginning and end makes it easy to write the whole time. Not sharing your work means you can write whatever you want or as much or as a little as you want, but being with other people applies just a little bit of passive peer pressure to keep the pen moving. It is amazing how good a solid half hour of writing can feel, especially if you’ve been struggling to write during the pandemic. It is also amazing how good a solid half hour of just being with other human beings who you don’t live with can feel, especially since it is so difficult to do that now.
Our next writing group is tomorrow at (or around really) 8PM. If you’d like to join us, just pick out an album that’s about half an hour and write during it. No need to share, no need to even tell anyone you’re writing. Just start putting words on a page and see what happens.
Josh
P.S. The fastest half hour was definitely the one we wrote to BTS. Do what you will with that info.
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Visit your friends at Cafe Zing! |
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Did you know our beloved Cafe Zing is open for customers? Now you know!
Open Wednesday-Saturday, 8AM-2PM! See you and your extra-shot, biggest-size-you-have iced latte at the cafe.
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Antiracism Books: A Place to Start |
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Our bookseller bundles have expanded again! For the kiddos Stacey will send you three middle grade (ages 8-12) paperbacks. They'll be quirky or heartwarming or maybe creepy or maybe esoteric or maybe all of the above! But whatever they are they'll be great books. Kate will send you 3 paperbacks from all over the store. Type a word or phrase in the order comments and Kate will pick out three paperbacks for you. Kate reads widely, but you may especially like her picks if you enjoy slightly-off-kilter fiction, works in translation, poetry, and little books about big landscapes.
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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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When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole, read by Susan Dalian & Jay Aaseng
Rear Window meets Get Out in this gripping thriller from a critically acclaimed and New York Times Notable author, in which the gentrification of a Brooklyn neighborhood takes on a sinister new meaning…
“Cole’s thriller exposes the underbelly of gentrification and prosperity, taking a searing look at systemic racism. When a pharmaceutical firm plans to move its headquarters to a historically Black Brooklyn neighborhood, an influx of rich white people displace Black residents from their homes and their roots. Timely, groundbreaking, and thought-provoking, When No One Is Watching is essential reading for the #BlackLivesMatter movement.”
--Alyssa Raymond, Copper Dog Books
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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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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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Additional Book Bundle Offerings
Make your shopping easy by buying bundles, handpicked by our expert booksellers!
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Always seem to miss our virtual events? Did you know you can watch almost all of them back, right on Crowdcast? Check out Ariel Sabar author of Veritas by clicking the image below! |
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Check out what our booksellers are loving this month. |
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Featured Staff Pick for Children |
Kiki's Delivery Service is a classic for all those who love Hiyao Miyazaki films and this is the story that inspired the film. Kiki is such a delight and I don't know about you, but a whimsical story about a witch who travels to the seaside village of Koriko whilst forging new friendships is the kind of content that 2020 needs right now. Plus, there is a black cat, Jiji, who steals the scene.
Sinny
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Featured Staff Pick for Adults |
Hands-down one of the best books I've read this year. Part twisted queer love story, part thriller, this journey through obsession and murder is one I couldn't put down, and one that stayed on my mind for a long time after finishing.
Ari
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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 to 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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25 White St. Cambridge, MA 02140
617-491-2220
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