Sunday, April 5, 2015

Boswell's Not-So-Annotated Bestseller List for Week Ending April 4, 2015...Plus Journal Sentinel Reviews.

Happy Easter and 2nd day of Passover. I'm assuming that if you're reading this, you're not busy with religious observance, so I should note that Boswell is open 10 am to 5 pm today. Here is the schedule for films at the Downer Theatre:
--Danny Collins is playing at 11:45 am, 2:15 pm, 4:45 pm, 7:30 pm, and 9:50 pm
--Gett: The Trial of Viviane Ansalem is playing at 11:30 am, 2 pm, 4:30 pm, 7 pm, and 9:30 pm

Hardcover Fiction:
1. All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr
2. The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins
3. The Harder they Come, by T.C. Boyle
4. A Reunion of Ghosts, by Judith Claire Mitchell (signed copies available)
5. A Dangerous Place, by Jacqueline Winspear
6. The Buried Giant, by Kazuo Ishiguro
7. A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara
8. At the Water's Edge, by Sara Gruen
9. Patriot Threat, by Steve Berry (Skype event at Capitol Library on Tuesday, May 5, 6 pm)
10. Mrs. Grant and Madame Julie, by Jennifer Chiaverini (signed copies available)

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Dead Wake, by Erik Larson (signed copies available)
2. Between You and Me, by Mary Norris (event Sunday April 12, 3 pm)
3. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Marie Kondo
4. Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Little Golden Book, by Diane Muldrow
5. Being Mortal, Atul Gawande
6. H is for Hawk, by Helen MacDonald
7. In Defense of a Liberal Education, by Fareed Zakaria
8. Pabst Farms, by John C. Eastberg
9. Pioneer Girl, annotated edition, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
10. There is Simply Too Much to Think About, by Saul Bellow

Paperback Fiction:
1. Listen and Other Stories, by Liam Callanan
2. Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
3. Shotgun Lovesongs, by Nickolas Butler (event Thursday, April 16, 7 pm, Shorewood Library)
4. Ruby, by Cynthia Bond
5. The Rosie Project, by Graeme Simsion
6. The President's Hat, by Antoine Laurain
7. Meet Me Halfway: Milwaukee Stories, by Jennifer Morales (event Friday, April 17, 7 pm, Boswell)
8. Redeployment, by Phil Klay
9. Dept. of Speculation, by Jenny Offill
10. The Illusion of Separateness, by Simon Van Booy

I have never before said I have read the entire top ten of a bestseller list category but by May 4, I'll be able to say I got to 9 of the 10. I'm just about at 8 now, being almost finished with Dept. of Speculation, which we're reading for in-store lit group on Monday, April 6, and on May 4, we'll be reading Redeployment. I've just decided on June's selection, which is Lily King's Euphoria.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. The Boys in the Boat, by Daniel James Brown
2. Milwaukee Mafia, by Gavin Schmitt
3. Birds of Wisconsin Field Guide, by Stan Tekiela
4. The Internet of Things, by Samuel Greengard
5. How to Walk, by Thich Nhat Hanh
6. The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook, by America's Test Kitchen
7. Mad Men and Politics, co-edited by Lilly J. Goren (event Thursday, April 9, 7 pm, Boswell)
8. Zealot, by Reza Aslan
9. The Man Who Planted Trees, by Jim Robbins
10. Bad Feminist, by Roxane Gay

Board Books and Picture Books for Kids:
1. In Mary's Garden, by Tina and Carson Kugler
2. Oh the Places You'll Go, by Dr. Suess
3. The Imaginary, by A.F. Harrold
4. Little Chick Finger Puppet Book, by Klaartje Van Der Put
5. If You Plant a Seed, by Kadir Nelson
6. Home, by Carson Ellis (signed copies available)
7. Ms. Rapscott's Girls, by Elise Primavera
8. Ten Easter Eggs, by Vijaya Bodach
9. The Golden Egg Book, by Margaret Wise Brown
10. Easter Egg, by Jan Brett

By this list alone, someone coming across our bestsellers would know it was the week before Easter.

Middle Grade and Young Adult Books
1. The Thickety: A Path Begins V1, by J.A. White
2. The Thickety: The Whispering Treets V2, by J.A. White
3. Genuine Sweet, by Faith Harkey (event Monday, April 6 with four other authors and pizza, 6:30 pm, at Boswell)
4. Rad American Women A-Z, by Kate Schatz
5. The Arrival, by Shaun Tan
6. Allegiant, by Veronica Roth
7. Lost Track of Time, by Paige Britt
8. I'll Give You the Sun, by Jandy Nelson
9. The Boy in the Black Suit, by Jason Reynolds (event Monday April 13, 6:30 pm, East Library)
10. When I was the Greatest, by Jason Reynolds

In the Journal Sentinel, Elfrieda Abbe reviews Orhan's Inheritance, by Aline Ohanesian, the story of a Turkish man who goes to a Los Angeles retirement home to find out why his grandfather willed his childhood home to an Armenian woman that the family doesn't even know. Abee writes: "Much has been covered up in Aline Ohanesian's impressive debut novel,Orhan's Inheritance. She scrapes away the dusty layers with the skill of an archaeologist on a dig to reveal family secrets and shames set against a backdrop of historical atrocities."

Another novel that mines Turkish history, The Architect's Apprentice, by Elif Shahak, and is reviewed by Erin Kogler. Her take: "Set in 16th-century Istanbul and based on the career of Mimar Sinan, the chief architect of the Ottoman Empire during the time of sultans Suleiman the Magnificent, Selim II and Murad III, Shafak's tale moves swiftly from scene to scene telling the stories of bloody ascents to the throne, Ottoman conquests and defeats, civil unrest and the building of some of the greatest monuments in Turkish history...The Architect's Apprentice has an enormous cast of characters including sultans and sultanas, concubines, chief advisers, teachers, animal tamers, apprentices, laborers, soldiers and gypsies, and spans multiple decades of Turkish history."

Finally there is a profile of Stewart O'Nan by Patricia Sheridan, who was at Boswell last month for West of Sunset. If you're intrigued by their breakfast conversation, I think we still have some signed copies left. If you read the piece online, you also find out where Stewart O'Nan's true baseball allegiance lies, with the Boston Red Sox or Pittsburgh Pirates.

Alas, as I am one of the booksellers working today, I don't have time to do further annotations before we open at 10. Perhaps I'll fill in a bit later. Perhaps not. Meanwhile, if you don't subscribe to our email newsletter, it went out late yesterday. It wasn't the best day for it to go (it was supposed to go out Thursday), but the best laid plans...

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