Two Cool New Features on Our Website

Two very cool new features have been added to our website, one unique to us and the other on indie bookstore websites throughout the country thanks the American Booksellers Association. One will help you know what books are coming out in the future (that’s the one we did!), and the other to help you decide if a book you’ve found is one you actually want to buy.

Books from the Future
Did you know we can take pre-orders for books that haven’t been published yet? We can. Of course you can’t pre-order what you don’t know about and unless you happen to be a book buyer, work for one, or spend time at publishing trade shows, you’re probably not going to know what books are available for pre-order. So we’ve created this ever expanding list of Books From The Future. We’ll add to this list every time our buyers hear about future releases they think people will be excited about, so check back frequently. We’ve also set up a page of all the paperback releases, so as soon as we know when the book you’ve been dying to read is due in paperback, you will too. You can also follow our Books From The Future Tumblr where we’ll post one book (or so) from this list every day (or so). Or if you’re on Pinterest follow us and/or our Books from the Future Board.



Staff Picks Labels on Book Listings
Every month we feature a dozen or so adult and childrens books as Staff Picks. We have a display in the store and this page on our website. Over the years we have selected hundreds of great books, and though much of that list is online, it doesn’t really help you if you’re trying to decide whether or not to buy a particular book. Now, when you search for a book, you can see if it was a staff pick right from the search return and read what we had to say about it on its page. We’re still catching up with all our past picks but eventually everything we’ve picked will have a “Staff Pick” stamp on the cover. It’s a little change, but it’ll make it a little bit easier to answer the age old question, “Should I buy this book?”

That's all we've got planned for the website at the moment. Leave us a comment with what other features, services, functions, etc., you'd like to see from portersquarebooks.com.

Mirrored From Antiquity

In a curious click of serendipity, two excellent new paperback releases, Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve and Christopher Krebs' A Most Dangerous Book , each detail modern applications of famous ancient Roman texts. They both deal in their own ways with the understanding of large ideas and the consequences thereof.
The Swerve concerns Lucretius' On the Nature of Things, an extraordinarily humanist view arrived at centuries before the Enlightenment, and the gripping story of its barely surviving down to modern times. As a direct refutation of the very basis of its power, it was in the interests of the Roman Church to see it obliterated, and they very nearly succeeded.
A Most Dangerous Book is Tacitus' Germania - a generalized depiction of the Empire's enemy beyond the Rhine. Tacitus had probably never been to the region himself,and what he saw as a monolithic culture was actually a fragmented polyglot of different tribes. However, taken a certain way, the image he depicted struck a romantic chord with latter-day German nationalists, particularly the Nazis. Himmler's twisted reading of it found a philosophical basis for the depredations of "The Master Race" and, in the midst of wartime, sent agents to steal its earliest extant manuscript.
Both books read as intellectual thrillers, and taken together they form an instructive mirror image of impulse and history,

Gary

Get Obsessed!

Comedian Aaron Karo's new novel just hit shelves, and it's great.  I hadn't heard of Karo before I picked it up, but I liked this YA debut enough for his previous books to secure slots on my reading list (Ruminations on College Life, Ruminations on Twentysomething Life, and I'm Having More Fun Than You). 

Lexapros and Cons is fast-paced, uplifting, and laugh out loud funny.  Seventeen year old Chuck Taylor with his hand sanitizer and color-coded Converse All-Stars is a sympathetic and memorable hero.  His sarcasm and self-consciousness temper even the book's few stock moments: "I have become a cartoon character.  I am literally hiding behind a bookshelf peering at Amy through an opening in the books.  I'm toeing the line between spying and stalking... I glance up at what section I'm in.  It's Women's Studies.  Even the Dewey decimal system is mocking me." 

That's probably Karo's closest call with cliche.  For the most part, the book feels incredibly real.  From the Indian guy who talks like Jay-Z, to Chuck's parents and his psychologist, Karo's characters are consistently on point, their mannerisms and idiosyncrasies not only palpable but familiar.  And the love interest is decidedly more than just a pretty face.   

It's also full of compassion for the complex emotions that accompany mental illness in young people while remaining staunchly upbeat.  We take Chuck's problems seriously, but if Lexapros and Cons were a movie (and I'm sure it will be) it'd be PG-13 for language and acknowledging that teenage boys think about sex uncomfortably often, not for any dark content.  I love that the novel manages to capture timeless adolescent concerns in the age of Google and Adderall without preaching to or belittling those who are caught up in it.  And the clever chapter headings and snappy self-referential jacket are irresistible. 

Published by Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux

Kim Prosise

Our New Staff Picks Page

In February we rolled out a new staff picks page that uses tags to organize all of our recommendations. In the mood for a good mystery, click on “Mystery” in the Genre menu. You can also see our recommendations for Cooking, Graphic Novels, Picture Book, and more.

Did you have a good chat with Susannah, Nathan, Gary, or Carol? Just click on their name in the Bookseller menu and see what they’ve recommended. You can also just page through all the recommendations looking for something to catch your eye.

We started doing picks in this format in August, so some genres are still a little thin, but as the months go by, we’ll add more and more picks, making this page a great resource for finding your next read.