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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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"
Books to the ceiling, Books to the sky, My pile of books is a mile high. How I love them! How I need them! I’ll have a long beard by the time I read them.
"
–
Arnold Lobel
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Hello friends!
I hope everyone is doing alright out there. I truly miss the bookstore more than anything as well as all of you that fill it with so much love.
In these times of uncertainty and crippling loneliness it is important to recognize our paperback pals- as no one is ever truly alone with a book. I myself have been struggling quite a lot with my mental health primarily due to the lack of social interaction and sunlight. I find myself at times feeling very lost and hopeless. That is until I reach over to my bookshelf which is conveniently in arms reach of my bed. It is, to quote Olivia Gatwood’s
Life of the Party
, my way to “feel less alone in the dark.”
Perhaps the biggest thing I miss from the bookstore is handing you the book back after the transaction. In that small gesture I know I’m handing you an escape, an empathy machine, and most of all, a friend. I miss knowing that when you leave our store you will no longer be alone on the other side.
I miss you all in the same way I miss my fellow train riders. I miss my morning commute, the entire Red Line filled with bodies all going somewhere but just for these 50 minutes we are all together. I miss seeing all the faces and making little stories in my head of where they may be going or what they may be leaving.
Let’s take this quarantine as a nice long train ride. We are all such busy bodies caught up in our everyday swing of chaotic schedules and constant commuting- but now, now we have the opportunity to stop, to breathe. Reach out to someone you’ve been wanting to, answer someone you’ve been too busy to answer, or simply just be and give your body the rest it’s been craving. Because for once, in this rare, strange occasion, we are all in the same train car.
Stay safe,
Hannah @ PSB
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Don't miss our next virtual event!
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Jennifer Finney Boylan
with Jodi Picoult
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Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs: Memoir
Our events manager Leila was lucky enough to have front row seats to hear Jennifer Finney Boylan talk about her new memoir,
Good Boy
, at a conference early this year, and immediately knew we had to host her! We are so excited that we were able to convert this store event to a
virtual event
,
taking place on
Friday, April 24th at 7pm, right on your computer screen.
And Jennifer will be joined in conversation by no less than
Jodi Picoult!!
From bestselling author of
She’s Not There
,
New York Times
opinion columnist, and human rights activist Jennifer Finney Boylan,
Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs
, is a memoir of the transformative power of loving dogs.
Good Boy
is a universal account of a remarkable story: showing how a young boy became a middle-aged woman—accompanied at seven crucial moments of growth and transformation by seven memorable dogs. “Everything I know about love,” she writes, “I learned from dogs.” Their love enables us to pull off what seem like impossible feats: to find our way home when we are lost, to live our lives with humor and courage, and above all, to best become our true selves.
Professor
Jennifer Finney Boylan,
author of more than a dozen books, is the inaugural Anna Quindlen Writer in Residence at Barnard College of Columbia University. Her column “Men & Women” appears on the op/ed page of the
New York Times
on alternate Wednesdays. She serves on the Board of Trustees of PEN America. From 2011 to 2018 she served on the Board of Directors of GLAAD and also provided counsel for the TV series
Transparent
and
I Am Cait
. Her 2003 memoir,
She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders
was the first bestselling work by a transgender American. A novelist, memoirist, and short story writer, she is also a nationally known advocate for human rights. She lives in New York City, and in Belgrade Lakes, Maine, with her wife, Deedie. They have a son, Sean and a daughter, Zai.
Jodi Picoult
is the #1 bestselling author of twenty-five novels including
My Sister's Keeper
,
Nineteen Minutes
,
The Storyteller
,
Leaving Time
, the acclaimed #1 bestseller,
Small Great Things
, which explored the issues of power, privilege and race, and has sold more than 1.5 million copies. Picoult's most recent novel,
A SPARK OF LIGHT
., published on October 2, 2018, was her tenth consecutive instant #1 New York Times bestseller, and was praised as “Picoult at her fearless best” by the
Washington Post.
This event is free (although if you love us and want to support more virtual programming, you can contribute a few dollars!) and hosted on Crowdcast. Register at the link below!
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Featured Staff Pick for Adults
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The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida by
Clarissa Goenawan
After finishing this book weeks ago, I'm still thinking of Miwako Sumida and friends. This story is dark and sometimes feels too real, but you can't look away.
--Sinny
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We've been parted from one of our closest friends, Bear, for far too long. In an effort to close the distance and keep Bear apprised of our doings, the team sent our most heartfelt missives.
PSBTV is proud to present the epic 5-part documentary mini-series event of the Spring, "Letters to Bear." If you need a smile, we're pretty sure these will do the trick.
Letters to Bear, Episode the Second:
Leila's Lamentations
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Digital Audio Books:
A terrific way to support local indies!
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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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Miss one of our bedtime stories? Or one of the tours of our libraries in the epic YouTube series PSB: Cribs? Good news! We've made playlists on YouTube so you can catch up on all of them.
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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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Sometimes the right beverage is all we need to shake us out of doldrums and get us through to another chapter, especially when that beverage has a little bit of caffeine.
I know we're all missing our favorite coffees and teas from Cafe Zing during this pandemic and life is just not the same w/out an earl grey tea. However, I've found a lot of comfort in making teas at home to go with my book reads. If you're local to Somerville and Cambridge, you'll recognize MEM Tea as the local tea shop in Somerville. Also, MEM Tea is what Cafe Zing uses for their tea drinks. So, it feels like you have a piece of Cafe Zing and Porter Square Books in your home when you purchase their tea and our books! MEM Tea is open for
online ordering
and if I may, here are my favs to drink:
Mornings
:
Afternoons
:
Evenings
:
-Sinny
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Josh read another passage from
The Dreamed Part
, this one all about our relationship to books. (In way he also reads all of Wurthering Heights.) His cat Circe makes a cameo appearance and the awkward moments at the beginning are just Josh waiting for viewers to show up on Instagram Live.
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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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Brown Girl Ghosted by Mintie Das
Violet Choudbury sees dead people, and in particular the recently murdered queen bee of her cheerleading squad. For one of a handful of brown girls in a small Illinois town, who wants only to blend in, this is not working well. I thoroughly enjoyed this original, fun, and fast-paced story.
--Robin
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We Want to Hear from You!
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What is your bookish kryptonite? That genre or type or category of book that you just can't resist? Mysteries that involve twins? Sci Fi featuring sarcastic robots? Domestic novels in which all the conflict & tension would be resolved if a couple people were honest with each other? Let us know and you might see something on our social media.
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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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