A New Month of Indie Bound Recommendations, Featuring #1 Pick "The Rosie Project" and "The Tilted World," The New Novel from Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly (Coming to Boswell October 24, 7 pm)

It's time for another October Indie Next flier. This week's #1 book is The Rosie Project, by Graeme Simsion. We've had a number of folks read and enjoy this novel, including Sharon, Mel, and myself.

#1 Pick: The Rosie Project (Simon and Schuster), by Graeme Simsion
“Don Tillman is a brilliant geneticist, but he has always been rather socially maladroit. Imagine his surprise when a friend tells him that he would make a wonderful husband. Intrigued, he starts The Wife Project and commences the search for the perfect spouse. While in the midst of his extremely precise hunt for a wife, Rosie Jarman blows into Don’s life like a wild wind. Rosie is on a quest of her own — The Father Project — the search for her biological father. Rosie is the antithesis of Don's image of the perfect wife of his scientific calculations, but somehow he finds himself putting The Wife Project on the back burner to aid Rosie. Much ado about a comedy of errors ensues in this hilarious, quirky romance!” —Rachel King, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, NY

Another personal favorite of Hannah's is Men We Reaped, the new memoir from Jesmyn Ward.

Men We Reaped (Bloomsbury), a memoir by Jesmyn Ward
“Men We Reaped is one of the rare nonfiction books that seem destined to become a literary classic. National Book Award-winner Ward intertwines the story of her life growing up poor and black in rural coastal Mississippi with the lives of five young men she was close to — including her brother — who died within a two-year span soon after she finished college. Ward writes with fire and passion as she captures the day-to-day systemic injustices and struggles that she and her family faced. Also clear is the deep love and roots that tie her to the people and place where she was raised. This book will break your heart, make you think, and get you angry. In the tradition of I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, this is memoir at its finest." —Caitlin Caulfield, Odyssey Bookshop, South Hadley, MA

We've only got one event featured this month. It's for The Tilted World, the collaborative novel from husband-and-wife team Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly.

The Tilted World (William Morrow), by Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly
“In a compelling, poetic, and detailed manner, Franklin and Fennelly bring to life a little-known catastrophe in American history. The Tilted World weaves together the stories of two endearing characters — an orphan who grows up to be a decorated World War I hero turned Prohibition revenuer and a bootlegging firecracker of a woman who yearns for her lost child. Add the setting of a town on the brink of destruction by deluge and some unsavory characters looking to profit from calamity, and the reader will be swept away by their story.” —Sara Peyton, CoffeeTree Books, Morehead, KY

In conjunction with our in-store event on Thursday, October 24 (7 pm), Stacie has put together a display of flood books, including Five Days at Memorial, Southern Cross the Dog, and Jesmyn Ward's novel, Salvage the Bones.

Tom Franklin has proven to be a bookseller favorite over the years, from his short-story collection Poachers (thanks, Suzanne, for this correction!) to his novel Smonk, which was the obsession of many a Downer Schwartzian. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter had something like six recs from Boswellians, and was awarded one of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the coveted Golden Dagger Award.

The new novel is once again a different species, being a collaboration with Fennelly, a poet. Fennelly's most successful book to date, however, is Great With Child: Letters to a Young Mother, proving she's got the prose chops too. Of the latest, Library Journal gave The Tilted World a starred review, noting that their newest is "a pleasurable work of historical fiction rife with religious symbolism and romance."

We're very excited to welcome back Franklin to Milwaukee and welcome for the first time Beth Ann Fennelly. Show them some midwestern hospitality when they appear on Thursday, October 24.