Boston Flora

Tag: Porter Square Books

  • Thursday, May 1, 7:00 pm – Good Soil

    Porter Square Books is excited to welcome author Jeff Chu to celebrate the release of his book, Good Soil. Author Kristin T. Lee will join Chu in conversation. This event will take place on Thursday, May 1 at 7pm at Porter Square Books (1815 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02140).

    In his late thirties, Jeff Chu left his job as a magazine writer and found himself at Princeton Theological Seminary’s “Farminary”—a twenty-one-acre working farm where students learn to cultivate the earth while examining life’s biggest questions. Now, he unpacks what he learned about creating “good soil,” both literally and figuratively, drawing lessons from the rhythms of growth, decay, and regeneration that define life on the land.

    In gorgeous, transporting reflections, Chu introduces us to the cast of characters, human and not, who became his teachers. While observing the egrets that visit the pond, the worms that turn waste into fertile soil, and the Chinese long beans that get passed over in the farm’s CSA, Chu considers our desire to belong, the story behind the food on our plate, and the significance of his own roots. What is the earth trying to tell us, if we’ll only stop and listen?

    Good Soil helps readers connect to the land and to one another at a time when we seem drawn most to the phones in our hands. For nature lovers, foodies, and anyone who has daydreamed about a more fulfilling life, this book is a tribute to friendship, to the sacredness of our bond with the natural world, and to how love can grow from the unlikeliest of places.

    Our Cambridge store offers validated parking in the lot on Roseland St. behind Lesley’s University Hall. Register at https://www.portersquarebooks.com/event/jeff-chu-author-good-soil-conversation-kristin-t-lee

  • Thursday, April 10, 7:00 pm – To Wildness

    Porter Square Books is thrilled to welcome Julia Thacker to discuss her collection of poetry, To Wildness. Author Katherine Hollander will introduce Thacker. This event will take place on Thursday, April 10 at 7pm at Porter Square Books (1815 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02140).

    To Wildness is winner of the 19th annual Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize, and was chosen by the internationally acclaimed poet, Paul Muldoon. As Joan Houlihan says in her enthusiastic endorsement, “Teeming with image, sensation and sound, the poems in To Wildness tumble us into a glorious exuberance of catalog and character, rural landscape and dark imaginings (‘We ate ants peeled from bark, a rain of plums / when he rattled the trees. Lumbering. Shackled.’). Ancestral voices speak from the grave; fabulist figures like the girl buried with a finch tell their stories; and contemporary ghosts only the narrator sees abound (Let me touch them as they pass.) A southern gothic atmosphere hovers here: shapes twisting in the dark and the language to conjure them near. What a rich and thrilling collection!”

    In recipes, spells, odes and elegies, To Wildness conjures what has been lost and what remains. These are poems of the body. They rub up against one another and knock elbows. Plum Jam calls preserving fruit as spiritual labor: To be elbow deep in a barrel/arms gloved crimson. In this collection, the dead reside alongside the living. Ancestors roost in trees, having forgotten language, their coats inside out. Others sulk in the eaves, their ears clogged with clover. The past made vivid renders an extravagant present and offers a balm to the isolation of the contemporary world.

    Our Cambridge store offers validated parking in the lot on Roseland St. behind Lesley’s University Hall. Register at https://www.portersquarebooks.com/event/julia-thacker-author-wildness

  • Sunday, July 30, 3:00 pm – Be The Change with Jane Hirschi

    Join Jane Hirschi, author of We Garden Together, for Porter Square Book’s July event, Be The Change! The talk will take place at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge, on July 30 at 3 pm. Autographed books will be available for purchase.

    Kids don’t need a big backyard or outdoor space to learn about gardening and how plants grow. This introductory garden book, We Garden Together, is packed with photos of 3 to 6 year olds in action, features hands-on planting and growing activities that can be done in a small yard, classroom, or community garden. Written by the staff of City Sprouts, a leading educational organization in promoting urban gardening and equitable access to nature, each activity—from Sorting Seeds to Going on a Worm Hunt to Planting a Tasty Salad—encourages kids to roll up their sleeves and learn about seeds, planting, and gardening. Step-by-step photos and on-the-page discovery prompts, presented in a lively design, make it easy and inviting for kids everywhere to become plant lovers and nature explorers.   

    Jane Hirschi is the founding director of CitySprouts, a nationally recognized program that provides early science and nature education in collaboration with 20 public schools in the greater Boston area. She is passionate about making sure that all children have opportunities for hands-on science education in the garden and the chance to get to know the natural surroundings in their own neighborhood. A regular presenter at conferences regionally and nationally, Hirschi has been recognized as a Social Innovator by Root Cause Social Innovation Forum and is the author of Ripe for Change: Garden-Based Learning in Schools. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

  • Thursday, May 5, 7:00 pm – Good Eats 4: The Final Chapter

    Porter Square Books is delighted to present an evening with Alton Brown for Good Eats 4: The Final Years. Join us at the Somerville Theatre to celebrate the release of this fourth and final installment in the iconic Good Eats cookbook series with a live Q&A moderated by one lucky audience member! A book signing will follow the talk. 

    This event will take place on Thursday, May 5 at 7pm] at the Somerville Theatre. Purchase a ticket here: Alton Brown for Good Eats 4: The Final Years Tickets May 05, 2022 Somerville, MA | Ticketmaster.  This event will sell out quickly.

    An all-new collection of must-have recipes and surprising food facts from Alton Brown, drawn from the return of the beloved Good Eats television series, including never-before aired material, this long-anticipated fourth and final volume in the bestselling Good Eats series of cookbooks draws on two reboots of the beloved television show by the inimitable Alton Brown—Good Eats Reloaded and Good Eats: The Return. With more than 175 new and improved recipes for everything from chicken parm to bibimbap and cold brew to corn dogs, accompanied by mouthwatering original photography, The Final Years is the most sumptuous and satisfying of the Good Eats books yet.

    Brown’s surefire recipes are temptation enough: the headnotes, tips, and sidebars that support them make each recipe a journey into culinary technique, flavor exploration, and edible history. Striking photography showcases finished dishes and highlights key ingredients, and handwritten notes on the pages capture Brown’s unique mix of madcap and methodical. The distinctive high-energy and information-intensive dynamic of Good Eats comes to life on every page, making this a must-have cookbook for die-hard fans and newcomers alike.

    Alton Brown was directing TV commercials when he got the crazy idea to go to culinary school and reinvent the food show. The result: Good Eats, which has kept Brown gainfully employed for more than 20 years and earned him a Peabody Award. Along the way he also hosted Iron Chef America, Cutthroat Kitchen, and Feasting on Asphalt. Brown’s live culinary variety shows have played to sold-out theaters across the United States. He lives in Marietta, Georgia. For more information visit https://www.portersquarebooks.com/event/alton-brown-good-eats-4-final-years-somerville-theatre

  • Friday, November 12, 7:00 pm – A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching, Online

    Join Porter Square Books on November 12 at 7 for a virtual event with Rosemary Mosco, author of A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching: Getting to Know the World’s Most Misunderstood Bird: Part field guide, part history, part ornithology primer, and altogether fun. Rosemary will be joined in conversation by Joan Walsh of Mass Audubon. This event is free and open to all, hosted on Crowdcast.

    Fact: Pigeons are amazing, and until recently, humans adored them. We’ve kept them as pets, held pigeon beauty contests, raced them, used them to carry messages over battlefields, harvested their poop to fertilize our crops–and cooked them in gourmet dishes. Now, with The Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching, readers can rediscover the wonder. Equal parts illustrated field guide and quirky history, it covers behavior: Why they coo; how they flock; how they preen, kiss, and mate (monogamously); and how they raise their young (on chunky pigeon milk). Anatomy and identification, from Birmingham Roller to the American Giant Runt to the Scandaroon. Birder issues, like what to do if you find a baby pigeon stranded in the park. And our lively shared story together, including all the things we’ve taught them–Ping-Pong, for example. “Rats with wings?” Think again.

    Pigeons coo, peck and nest all over the world, yet most of us treat them with indifference or disdain. So Rosemary Mosco, a bird-lover, science communicator, writer, and cartoonist (and co-author of The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide for the World’s Most Adventurous Kid) is here to give the pigeon’s image a makeover, and to help every town- and city-dweller get closer to nature by discovering the joys of birding through pigeon-watching.

    Rosemary Mosco is a science communicator, acclaimed cartoonist, and speaker on all things bird. She’s the creator of the webcomic Bird and Moon and has authored many science books for young people, including co-authoring the bestselling Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide for the World’s Most Adventurous Kid. She lives in Massachusetts.

    Joan Walsh has been an ornithologist and ecologist since 1979, and is the Bertrand Chair of Ornithology and Natural History for Mass Audubon. She has worked with Common and Roseate Terns in New York, Wood Storks in east-central Georgia, and  seabirds and Elephant Seals on the Farallon Islands off California. Her interests involve large-scale and long-term monitoring of threatened populations, and innovative recovery programs for wildlife. Currently she is working on projects involving offshore wind in New England, Roseate Tern wintering grounds in Brazil, and a long-term forestry project in Belize. Joan loves to travel, and while she hasn’t been everywhere, it is on her list. 

    Register to join the event on Crowdcast here: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/pigeonwatching

  • Sunday, September 19, 1;00 pm – 2:30 pm – Keeping a Nature Journal Book Launch with Clare Walker Leslie

    Join The Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery for a book launch for Clare Walker Leslie’s two most recent books – Keeping a Nature Journal 3rd edition (2021) and A Year in Nature (2020) including special drawing journal pages from her years of exploring Mount Auburn Cemetery.

    Enjoy a nature discovery walk led by Clare and a nature contest to win a free book. Books will be available for sale on-site through Porter Square Books.

    All ages welcome. For further information on Clare’s books and work: http://www.clarewalkerleslie.com/

    Registration required at www.mountauburn.org.

    To request an accommodation or for inquiries about accessibility, please contact friends@mountauburn.org or 617-607-1980.

  • Monday, May 10, 7:00 pm – Ms. Adventure: My Wild Explorations in Science, Lava, and Life, Online

    Join Porter Square Books in welcoming volcanologist, extreme explorer and field scientist Jess Phoenix on May 10 at 7 pm for a free virtual talk about her new memoir, Ms. Adventure: My Wild Explorations in Science, Lava, and Life! This event is free and open to all, hosted on Crowdcast.

    As a volcanologist, natural hazards expert, and founder of Blueprint Earth, Jess Phoenix has dedicated her life to scientific exploration. Her career path—hard earned in the male-dominated world of science—has led her into still-flowing Hawaiian lava fields, congressional races, glittering cocktail parties at Manhattan’s elite Explorers Club, and numerous pairs of Caterpillar work boots. It has also inspired her to devote her life to making science more inclusive and accessible.
     
    Ms. Adventure skillfully blends personal memoir, daring adventure, and scientific exploration, following Phoenix’s journey from reality television sites deep in Ecuadorian jungles to Andean glaciers, university classrooms to Death Valley in summer. She has even chased down members of a Mexican cartel to retrieve a stolen favorite rock hammer. Readers will delight in her unbelievable adventures, all embarked on for the love of science.

    Jess Phoenix is executive director and co-founder of the environmental scientific research organization Blueprint Earth. Since 2008, she has been a volcanologist, an extreme explorer, and a professional field scientist. She works with universities and major research institutions to study lava flows and natural hazards, perform climate research on glaciers, and more. Jess is a fellow in the Explorers Club and the Royal Geographical Society; a featured scientist on the Discovery and Science channels; and her writing has appeared on websites such as BBC Online, DailyKos, and Medium, as well as in Face the Current magazine and local print publications. Register for the event on Crowdcast here: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/MsAdventure

  • Thursday, October 15, 7:00 pm – Erosion, Online

    Porter Square Books is delighted to host Terry Tempest Williams for the paperback release of Erosion – fierce, timely, and unsettling essays from an important and beloved writer and conservationist. The October 15 virtual event is hosted on Crowdcast, and is free and open to all, although prior registration is required.

    Terry Tempest Williams’s fierce, spirited, and magnificent essays are a howl in the desert. She sizes up the continuing assaults on America’s public lands and the erosion of our commitment to the open space of democracy. She asks: “How do we find the strength to not look away from all that is breaking our hearts?”

    We know the elements of erosion: wind, water, and time. They have shaped the spectacular physical landscape of our nation. Here, Williams bravely and brilliantly explores the many forms of erosion we face: of democracy, science, compassion, and trust. She examines the dire cultural and environmental implications of the gutting of Bear Ears National Monument – sacred lands to Native Peoples of the American Southwest; of the undermining of the Endangered Species Act; of the relentless press by the fossil fuel industry that has led to a panorama in which “oil rigs light up the horizon.” And she testifies that the climate crisis is not an abstraction, offering as evidence the drought outside her door and, at times, within herself.

    Erosion is a book for this moment, political and spiritual at once, written by one of our greatest naturalists, essayists, and defenders of the environment. She reminds us that beauty is its own form of resistance, and that water can crack stone. Register to join the event at https://www.crowdcast.io/e/erosion/register

  • Wednesday, August 19, 7:00 pm – World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments, Online

    Please join Porter Square Books for a virtual event with Aimee Nezhukumatathil in conversation with Hanif Abdurraqib for her new book, World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments!  This August 19 event, beginning at 7 pm, is free and open to all, and is hosted on Crowdcast. From beloved, award-winning poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil comes a debut work of nonfiction–a collection of essays about the natural world, and the way its inhabitants can teach, support, and inspire us, gorgeously illustrated by Fumi Nakamura.

    As a child, Nezhukumatathil called many places home: the grounds of a Kansas mental institution, where her Filipina mother was a doctor; the open skies and tall mountains of Arizona, where she hiked with her Indian father; and the chillier climes of western New York and Ohio. But no matter where she was transplanted–no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the landscape–she was able to turn to our world’s fierce and funny creatures for guidance.

    “What the peacock can do,” she tells us, “is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life.” The axolotl teaches us to smile, even in the face of unkindness; the touch-me-not plant shows us how to shake off unwanted advances; the narwhal demonstrates how to survive in hostile environments. For it is this way with wonder: it requires that we are curious enough to look past the distractions in order to fully appreciate the world’s gifts.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of four collections of poems, including, most recently, Oceanic, winner of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award. She serves as poetry faculty for the Writing Workshops in Greece and is professor of English and creative writing in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program.

    Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist. and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His second collection of poems, A Fortune For Your Disaster, was released in 2019 by Tin House. 

    Register for the Porter Square Books virtual event on Crowdcast here: www.crowdcast.io/e/worldofwonders 

  • Friday, February 7, 7:00 pm – A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal

    In the twenty-first century, all politics are climate politics. The age of climate gradualism is over, as unprecedented disasters are exacerbated by inequalities of race and class. We need profound, radical change. A Green New Deal can tackle the climate emergency and rampant inequality at the same time. Cutting carbon emissions while winning immediate gains for the many is the only way to build a movement strong enough to defeat big oil, big business, and the super-rich—starting right now.

    A Planet to Win explores the political potential and concrete first steps of a Green New Deal. It calls for dismantling the fossil fuel industry and building beautiful landscapes of renewable energy, guaranteeing climate-friendly work and no-carbon housing and free public transit. And it shows how a Green New Deal in the United States can strengthen climate justice movements worldwide. We don’t make politics under conditions of our own choosing, and no one would choose this crisis. But crises also present opportunities. We stand on the brink of disaster—but also at the cusp of wondrous, transformative change.

    Alyssa Battistoni is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University and an Editor at Jacobin. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, n+1, the Nation, Jacobin, In These Times, Dissent, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. 

    Thea Riofrancos is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Providence College and the author of Resource Radicals. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, n+1, Jacobin, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Dissent, and In These Times. She serves on the steering committee of DSA’s Ecosocialist Working Group.

    The authors will speak and sign copies of their book on February 7 at 7 pm at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge. For more information visit www.portersquarebooks.com