Friday, March 14, 2014

New Magazines in 2014

Every year we like to freshen our magazine selections with some new titles. Here are a few of the magazines we have recently started carrying.

Sweet Paul: A craft and home magazine for fans of Kinfolk and Lucky Peach. Here’s how Paul Lowe Einlyng describes his magazine: “I decided that I should go out on a limb and create my own magazine that would leverage not only my years of experience, but also showcase the work of my incredibly talented posse of food-geek, photography-obsessed, craft-genius friends! I wanted Sweet Paul magazine to be an anticipated quarterly that readers could use to sweeten their everyday life. I strive to put out a magazine that is as creative and visually stunning as Martha Stewart Living but without being weighed-down with impossible recipes and projects developed for expert chefs and crafters. Full of easy-yet-elegant recipes, stylish crafts, entertaining ideas, shopping tips, recurring features and more, Sweet Paul magazine is the source people all over the world turn to for inspiration.” 

The Ink Seed Project: The Ink Seed Project is a quarterly press dedicated to the creative empowerment of their Somerville community. They foster several campaigns aimed at strengthening creative/critical thinking skills and strive to maintain an open dialogue with their readership. They publish art of every genre, created by people of every type. The Ink Seed Project is as versatile as the people who are a part of it. 

Draft & Imbibe: Cambridge is a pretty good place to grab a drink, so we added a couple of adult beverage magazines. Draft: Life on Tap is the premier beer magazine around, providing reviews, travel guides, homebrewing tips, information on new and upcoming breweries, and articles that put it all in historical context. Imbibe is the ultimate guide to liquid culture. In every issue of the magazine and on the website, you’ll find the best drink recipes, reviews, destinations and profiles—everything you need to know about the people, places, flavors and cultures of drinks. From wine, spirits and beer to coffee, tea and everything in between, Imbibe celebrates your world in a glass.

The Gay and Lesbian Review: The Gay and Lesbian Review’s mission is to provide a forum for enlightened discussion of issues and ideas of importance to lesbians and gay men; to advance gay and lesbian culture by providing a quality vehicle for its best writers and thinkers; and to educate a broader public on gay and lesbian topics. Each issue is organized around a theme, such as “The Science of Homosexuality,” “Human Rights around the World,” and “Virtual Communities,” and includes about a half-dozen essays in a wide range of disciplines as well as reviews of books, movies, and plays. A few poems also appear in each issue, along with letters to the editor, an artist’s profiles, and an international spectrum column. The goal is always to cover a topic from a range of perspectives by featuring a number of the leading contributors in the field. 

American Reader: The American Reader is a monthly journal committed to inspiring literary and critical conversation among a new generation of readers, and restoring literature to its proper place in the American cultural discourse. It seeks to be principled, but not dogmatic; discerning, but not cruel; popular, but not populist. It honors the dignity of the reading public and heralds the reemergence of a thriving and serious-minded national literary culture. It features new fiction; new poetry; translated portfolios of international fiction, poetry, and drama; well-argued reviews of new literature; considered essays on all matters literary; and occasional interviews with writers, publishers, editors, and various industry professionals. 

Even though we’ve been carrying the apt annual for a while, it gets a special mention here because it has just secured national distribution. This makes it a lot easier for stores like us to carry it. Though the publishers are in Baltimore now, they were our neighbors for a while and it’s great to see this success.

Friday, March 7, 2014

Announcing Downloadable Audiobooks



We are excited to announce that Porter Square Books now offers downloadable audio books through Acoustik. Acoustik is a free audiobook app available for both iOS and Android devices. Once you have the app (and have created a free account) you’ll be able to buy and download digital audiobooks from your local independent bookstore.

You can search for audiobooks as you would a regular book on our site, you can check out their bestsellers, or browse through various genres like mystery, romance, and teens. Many of the books offer free samples, so you can even test them out beforehand.

So, to sum up. At our website you can get book recommendations from professional booksellers, pre-order forthcoming books so you can get your favorite author’s new book the very instant it is released, orders books to be shipped to you or picked up at the store, shop for ebooks, buy signed copies, keep track of author events, download Pimsleur language courses, learn about the best books for young readers, and now, download audiobooks, and all with your locally owned fiercely independent bookstore. Makes me wonder how any other bookselling website can compete.

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