Cambridge Day asked Porter Square Books to send us their current staff picks. – John Summers
Scodellaro, Giada. (2026). Ruins, Child. New Directions.
A community of Black women watches archival footage taken of their daily lives in this cinematic, experimental novel. Repetitive and hypnotic like the film “Jeanne Dielman,” though messier, choppier, and the opposite of lonesome, “Ruins, Child” explores empowerment rather than subjugation. Scodellaro debut novel follows her collection of short stories, “Some of Them Will Carry Me,” a “New Yorker” “Best Book of 2022.” “Ruins,” no less intimate, even more surreal, won the Novel Prize in 2024 for literary fiction in progress. — recommended by Rachael
Yu, Charles. (2020). Interior Chinatown: A Novel. Vintage.
This is one of the most unique books I’ve read. Written in the form of a script for a fictional TV cop show—imagine “Law & Order” in San Francisco, with scenes in Chinatown—the reader comes to understand the stereotyped roles that Asian Americans are often forced to play, both on screen and in life. With humor and pathos, Yu reveals the immigrant experience (pre-ICE) and humanizes the characters in in this compelling drama. — recommended by Gwen
Lemann, Nancy. (2026). The Ritz of the Bayou: the New Orleans Adventures of a Young Novelist Covering the Trials of the Governor of Louisiana, with Digressions on Smoldering. Hub City Press.
This radical take on true crime returns to print forty years after its first publication. Lemann focuses less on the facts of Governor Edwin Edwards’s two corruption trials and more on the environments, systems and social conventions that make crime possible, e.g., the ways people can be turned into characters, how longstanding cultural and social networks create opportunity and permission for wrongdoing, how climate influences behavior. The crime may have been an act of corruption by the sitting governor of Louisiana, but the story is much deeper than that. How do they get away with it? Charm, society, and humidity. — recommended by Josh
For younger readers
Pelham, David. (2015). Sam’s Sandwich. Candlewick.
Sam is asked by his hungry sister, Samantha, if he can please make her a sandwich. I can distinctly remember receiving this book as a four-year-old and obsessively studying the lift-the-flap pages of sandwich toppings that hid Sam’s “extra” ingredients: a slug, ants, and, most disturbing to me, a centipede. Yuck! The story of this nightmarish sandwich is delivered to young readers just as it is delivered to Samantha: through a physical sandwich. When I saw that the book was to be re-released on its 25th anniversary, I knew I had to make it a staff pick! — recommended by Nadia
Anderson, Tal. (2024). Oh, Tal! Not Today. Violet Sky Media.
When I discovered that Tal Anderson, who plays Becca King in the HBO drama “The Pitt,” was coming out with her second book my first question was what I have to do to read the first. Illustrated by Michael Richey White, whom she met through the comedy “Atypical,” the detailed and immersive watercolor pages are refreshing to see in a book for children. It evokes nostalgia for the stories read to me as a child, with the added value of finally seeing stories about autism told by autistic people. Publisher Violet Sky Media donates a portion of sales to under-represented communities. — recommended by Avery
A stronger
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