Over the summer, the booksellers at Porter Square Books recommended a list of new releases they were excited about. PSB’s co-owner and marketing director Josh Cook suggested a list of inspiring and uplifting books, promising that these new and forthcoming books will “inspire you to fight, make you smile and pick you up.” We’ve included lightly edited blurbs from the publishers to explain each title.
“Thank You, Everything” by Icinori, translated by Emilie Robert Wong
“These pages remind us that in our world of chaos, we can continue to see pockets of hope through a lens of gratitude.” – Kai
A series of “thank-yous” addressed to and acknowledging the contributions of common objects (a spoon, a rock, a beast) or concept (summer, slumber, surprise) that invites readers to play, explore and appreciate and look at the world with new eyes.
“The Great Misfortune of Stella Sedgwick” by S. Isabelle
“For those awaiting Season 4 of ’Bridgerton’ and want to follow a story of a young, independent and strong-willed Black woman, look no further than ’The Great Misfortune of Stella Sedgwick’ when it comes out in July.” – Kaliisha
A romance following a young Black woman, Stella Sedgwick, who is summoned to London by her late mother’s former employer, who tells her of his intention to bequeath one of the family’s great estates to her. With her cousin Olivia by her side, Stella is thrust into high society – picking up her mother’s anonymous advice column to guide readers through upper-class perils – and must navigate fashion and balls, insults and stares and a rekindled connection to Nathaniel, her rakish childhood best friend.
“Bingsu for Two” by Sujin Witherspoon
“If you don’t want to wait [until July], I also recommend this newly released enemies-to-lovers coffee shop romance involving the influence of social media, found family and standing up for one’s self.” – Kaliisha
River Langston-Lee has dumped his girlfriend, walked out on the SAT and quit his job at his parents’ cafe within 24 hours but manages to talk his way into a gig at a failing Korean cafe, Bingsu for Two. He has a short, grumpy and goth co-worker, Sarang Cho, whose family owns the cafe. He accidentally uploads a workplace video that goes viral but has fans shipping the two, forcing them to play along with the idea of romance for the cafe’s new paying customers. Eventually River’s ex and parents notice what’s going on around the corner.
“The Miraculous from the Material” by Alan Lightman
“Local author and professor Alan Lightman’s latest book highlights the wonders of the world around us, pairing stunning photos with short essays that restore an air of the miraculous to what might otherwise seem mundane.” – Murphy
Physicist and novelist Alan Lightman finds awe in the things that surround us – soap bubbles, scarlet ibises and shooting stars – and the rules and laws they obey. His “spiritual materialism,” a belief that we can embrace spiritual experiences without letting go of our scientific worldview, is explained in a book that pairs 36 photos evoking some of nature’s most awe-inspiring phenomena with essays on topics such as “Why do rainbows make an arc?” “Why does a particular waterfall at Yosemite National Park sometimes glow like it’s on fire?” and “How does a hummingbird fly?”
And a selection of suggestions from Cook:
“A Continuous Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Martin Sostre” by Garrett Felber
“Whether you agree with all of Sostre’s ideas or not, his commitment to a lifetime of personal growth and to improving his community through practical works, like opening a day care, is a guide for one’s own continuous works.” – Josh
The “Free Martin Sostre” movement – he was imprisoned for nine years – ran through a Black Power era alongside those to liberate Angela Davis and Huey Newton. Sostre receded from public view after his release in 1976 but lived another four decades in New York and New Jersey, the first biography shows, going from jailhouse lawyer to revolutionary bookseller, yogi, mentor, teacher, antirape organizer, housing justice activist and political thinker.
“The Dad Rock that Made Me a Woman” by Niko Stratis
“Stories like Niko’s are more important than ever, and the dad rock in this memoir adds a fun angle to a difficult but rewarding life’s journey.” – Josh
When Wilco’s 2007 album “Sky Blue Sky” was infamously criticized as “dad rock,” Niko Stratis was a 25-year old closeted trans woman working in her dad’s glass shop in the Yukon Territory. These essays delves into the emotional core of bands such as Wilco and The National to tell her own story and one of life-saving music, checking boxes from Michael Stipe’s allusions to queer longing and Radiohead’s embrace of unknowability to Bruce Springsteen’s desire to “change my clothes, my hair, my face.” (The inclusion of artists including Neko Case and Sharon Van Etten show that the “dad rock” label transcends gender.) It’s also a love letter to dads, like Stratis’ own, who embody the tenderness at the genre’s heart.
“The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World” by Robin Wall Kimmerer
“What if, instead of seeing ourselves as always being in competition with each other for whatever looks like a prize to us, we understood that all of us, other people, plants, animals, everything, are on the same team working together on this complicated, challenging, abundant, joyful project called life.” – Josh
Scientist Kimmerer looks to Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to explore what we value most, reconsidering an economy that is rooted in scarcity, competition and the hoarding of resources. The main metaphor is the serviceberry, which the book calls an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness and gratitude because the tree distributes its wealth – its berries – to meet the needs of a bird community that distributes its seeds to ensure its own survival.“Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity,” Kimmerer says.
“Worthy of the Event” by Vivian Blaxell
“How do we become who we are is an old question, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen someone punch it as hard as Blaxell does. She wanders, she rants, she gossips, she wonders, she asks, she does not relent and ultimately she reveals that no question is easy when you actually care about the answer. This book is an energizing jolt of intellectual caffeine.” – Josh
Blaxell transitions in the 1960s and takes the reader on a witty and expansive sweep through history, from Australia to Japan, to Hawaii to Mexico and to unmapped regions of the mind, in an essay ranging from the arson of a Japanese temple to an encounter with a coral reef, from Nietzsche and Hegel to Indigenous metaphysics, from a perplexing relationship with a beautiful man to the unknowable minds of animals.
A stronger
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