"Keep reading. It's one of the most marvelous adventures that anyone can have." - Lloyd Alexander

It feels like just yesterday I was writing one of my first Shelf Stable articles about how weird it was celebrating Passover through Zoom. Now, it's Erev Rosh Hashana, and wow does 5780 feel like it's gone on FOREVER. Really hoping 5781 is better.

Rosh Hashana is the Jewish New Year, and it and Yom Kippur are known as the High Holy Days. Yom Kippur is known as the Day of Atonement, and it's always been cool to me that one of our biggest holidays is all about apologies and forgiveness. Not a thing that's always big in American culture, but it should be. There's a power in admitting you're wrong and a power in forgiving people. We all make mistakes. The important thing is to learn and grow from them.

Despite, or even in some cases because of this year's strangeness, I do feel like I've learned and grown a lot, and probably made my share of mistakes. I'd say I'm excited to see what the next year brings, but honestly? I'm terrified. Everything feels so insurmountably awful right now. We can't go five minutes without another news story about bigotry or voter suppression or California being literally on fire. Oh, and the ongoing pandemic. Can't forget that. Really wish I could.

So what will Rosh Hashana look like this year? Well, very different. We'll probably still have the same food, even if we have to eat it in a socially distant fashion. I know my synagogue has already been doing services on Zoom. Will they put a mask on the shofar, or will the shofar blower be on their own where their spit can't hit anyone? I don't know. I'm sure the synagogue's made a plan, but I only realized Rosh Hashana was almost here like a week ago. I haven't looked into it yet. Seriously, how is it already fall? This year doesn't feel real.

Anyway, shanah tova to everyone celebrating tonight! Take care of yourselves, and may you have a sweet, healthy new year.

Curbside Pick Up: Daily, 3PM-7PM

Virtual: Hannah Abigail Clarke with Rory Power and Emily A. Duncan, The Scapegracers

Porter Square Books is delighted to present Hannah Abigail Clarke for their debut novel The Scapegracers, in conversation with Rory Power and Emily A. Duncan! In The Scapegracers, an outcast teenage lesbian witch finds her coven hidden amongst the popular girls in her school -- and performs some seriously badass magic in the process. This event is free and open to all, and takes place on Crowdcast.

Virtual: Helen Macdonald with Kathryn Schulz, Vesper Flights [Ticketed]

Porter Square Books is pleased to present a virtual talk with Helen Macdonald, author of H Is For Hawk, for the release of her new book Vesper Flights, in conversation with Kathryn Schulz! An entry link will be emailed to ticket holders in the week of the event. The signed book included in your ticket can be shipped or picked up, simply choose your preferred method at check out. Books will be available prior to the event.

In Vesper Flights Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved essays, along with new pieces on topics ranging from nostalgia for a vanishing countryside to the tribulations of farming ostriches to her own private vespers while trying to fall asleep.

By one of this century's most important and insightful nature writers, Vesper Flights is a captivating and foundational book about observation, fascination, time, memory, love and loss and how we make sense of the world around us.

One of the rules I've developed over the course of reading all. the. books. (because in addition to bookselling, I also review for Kirkus and the Horn Book) is that any book of more than 400 pages has to earn its length. If you want me to commit that much time to your work, every paragraph has to deserve its spot on the page. None of this could-have-been-an-article-but-the-author-wanted-an-ISBN business. No main-character-explains-the-backstory-the-exact-same-way-four-different-times verbosity.

But some writers absolutely justify their length. Their books are unwieldy because their narratives demand it, and they reward the reader by making every word count. If you're looking for a book that will keep you busy for a while, I recommend these.

I went for a long walk recently in a part of Boston that I don’t visit very often. There’s something compelling about a place that’s almost familiar: one you’ve seen before but don’t really know. Right now, I feel I know the few places I am seeing (bedroom ceiling, a few well-tread walks, my best friend’s backyard) like the back of my hand. Even rotating grocery store displays are a little thrilling at this point, if not exactly inspiring.

I walked in this area of Boston that I know but don’t, taking in all the grand houses, thinking about what lives were happening so near and far from me. I started wanting to put people in those houses. I stood in front of one and cataloged everything about it that I thought I could learn from it: the personality of a well-dressed yard, the contrasting dust in a stained glass window. The high, proud entry way and the small pile of worn shoes beside it. I gave myself just a minute -- maybe as a challenge, maybe so as not to worry the neighbors.

As I kept walking, back to my unchanging apartment, I thought about other places like this that I’d gotten just a quick but vivid impression of: A college admissions office for a college I didn’t apply to, in a tiny yellow Victorian cottage set in the middle of a wide grass expanse, filled with intimidating, gleaming wood furniture. A playdate held with a school friend at their house, just once, making shortbread in a kitchen filtered through a childhood memory. The waiting room for a dermatologist I didn’t end up visiting again: dark with plush carpeting and squashy low couches, a too-tall coffee table offering laminated advertisements for Botox treatments and eyelash implants.

As an exercise I started to chase these places in my imagination, see who else may have visited them and what could have happened there. I don’t know these places, not really, but who might? I’m investigating via paper and pen. I’d invite you to try the same.

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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