Display Roundup--Indie Bound Kids, Back Bay, Banned Books, and a Window for The President's Hat.

In the best of all worlds, we change displays monthly. Sometimes they last for much longer than that, like the "I love my British stories" display, which I can't seem to take down because someone is always looking at it. But our dog table and 30 American writers and baseball displays all seemed to be ready to go, so here's what went up instead.

1. Indie Bound Kids' picks. We have a dedicated case for the adult Indie Bound (or is it Indie Next or Indie Great Reads?) titles that go through a two-month rotation, but we only periodically have a table for kids. The kids' displays were full, but I had a space available in a display area which most parents pass on the way back to the kids' section. We put both the summer and fall brochures in an 11x17 holder and featured titles from both lists.

2. Back Bay 20th anniversary promotion. We pick and choose from the various publisher promotions that come out, but I am a sucker for a free bag promotion. Little, Brown renamed their literary paperback program Back Bay 20 years ago, and the assortment of titles on that list is pretty good, from Room to the Art of Fielding to The Lovely Bones and the backlists of David Sedaris, Malcolm Gladwell, and J.D. Salinger. And of course Anita Shreve, who is returning to Boswell on Monday, November 18 for her newest novel, Stella Bain. Mark your calendars!

Our promotion is buy any two Back Bay titles (second-hand and bargain book excluded, of course) and you get a free cloth tote bag, with zipper, no less. The bags should be arriving shortly, but I was getting antsy at how long the books were being staged. Our advice is that if you buy the two books, hang onto your receipt and bring it in for a bag.

3. The Banned Book Display is up because like any holiday, why limit the issue to just a week? We're calling attention to the issue for all of September. We've got a booklet with all the books that have been pulled in 2013. Apparently some folks think that John Green isn't appropriate for circulation. Our  poster comes from the American Library Association, which puts together kits every year. Jannis told me they used to come free to libraries, but now I think they pay for them, just like bookstores. Oh, and there are cool buttons too. Price to come. I need to check how much we paid for them first. And I think the ACLU has some materials for the table as well.

4. Stacie's going to do a more detailed post in the Boswellians, but I thought it would be nice to include our new window promoting Antoine Laurain's The President's Hat. Yes, folks who are on the ball will notice that it's a variation on the window we did for Toby Barlow's Babayaga. But that was one of the gifts of the two books and events--we realized we could have one basic window advertising several events, and that made the investment worthwhile. Antoine Laurain is coming to Boswell on Tuesday, September 24, 7 pm, co-sponsored by The Brass Rooster (where the hats come from) and Alliance Française de Milwaukee. The author will be reading in both French and English, but no, we aren't selling French copies of the book.