Sunday, October 4, 2020

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending October 3, 2020

Boswell bestsellers, week ending October 3, 2020

Hardcover Fiction:
1. A Deadly Education, by Naomi Novik
2. Homeland Elegies, by Ayad Akhtar
3. Battle Ground, by Jim Butcher
4. All the Devils Are Here, by Louise Penny
5. Monogamy, by Sue Miller
6. One by One, by Ruth Ware
7. Jack, by Marilynne Robinson
8. The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig (register for October 26, 3 pm event here)
9. Shakespeare for Squirrels, by Christopher Moore
10. Whale Day, by Billy Collins

Jim Butcher is one of those authors that you think might not sell at an independent bookstore, but at least at ours, does. We carry a broad range of inventory from him too, as there always seems to be a customer working their way through his oeuvre. Maybe it's because Harry Dresden is a wizard in Chicago, though I don't know if any installments took him on a road trip to Milwaukee. But Dresden has the home field advantage when fighting The Last Titan in Battle Ground, his latest (#17) release in the series.

Also in a series of sorts is Jack, the fourth book in Marilynne Robinson's Gilead cycle. The story is of John Ames Burton, the son of Gilead's minister, and his relationship with Della Miles, the child of a Black preacher. Lily Meyer says on the NPR website, "In Jack, Robinson meets racial inequality head-on." 

And there's a new collection from Billy Collins, Whale Day

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Know Your Price, by Andre Perry
2. Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson
3. Solutions and Other Problems, by Allie Brosh
4. The Well-Plated Cookbook, by Erin Clarke
5. The Splendid and the Vile, by Erik Larson
6. Trumpty Dumpty Wanted a Crown, by John Lithgow
7. Be More RBG: Speak Truth and Dissent with Supreme Style, by Marilyn Easton
8. How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi
9. This Isn't Happening, by Steven Hyden
10. Having and Being Had, by Eula Biss

A major nonprofit is reading Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America's Black Cities, from Andre Perry.From the Op/Ed in Essence: "Real property devaluation creates a wealth gap, and Black children experience lesser intergenerational mobility when raised in devalued neighborhoods, he explains. They have fewer options, show weaker performance in school, and, generally, make longer commutes to school."

How can we not give a shout out to former Milwaukeean Steven Hyden? (Here's an OnMilwaukee interview with Hyden when he lived in Bay View). This Isn't Happening: Radiohead's 'Kid A' and the Beginning of the 21st Century is sort of a maxi-disc version of the 33 1/3 series, looking at the lingering influence of Radiohead's Kid A. 

Paperback Fiction:
1. Feast Your Eyes, by Myla Goldberg (register for JCC ticketed event on October 13 here)
2. Miracle Creek, by Angie Kim (register for October 16, 2 pm event here)
3. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, by Olga Tokarczuk
4. Readers' Room, by Antoine Laurain (register for October 20, 2 pm event here)
5. A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine
6. The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson
7. Persepolis Rising, by James Corey
8. The Great Alone, by Kristin Hannah
9. The Need, by Helen Phillips (register for October 5, 5:30 event here - spoiler warning)
10. The Girl in the Rearview Mirror, by Kelsey Rae Dimberg

A Memory Called Empire is the upcoming selection of our Science Fiction book club. It just won the Hugo Award. Amal El-Mohtar wrote in The New York Times: "With incredible clarity and precision, Martine folds layer after layer of complexity into this book, such that it, like Mahit, is a fusion of Lsel Station and Teixcalaan: welding beauty and efficiency, building engineering out of verse. It left me utterly dazzled." Visit our upcoming book clubs page for more.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. The Inextinguishable Symphony, by Martin Goldsmith (join this October 18 event here - no registration required)
2. Storied and Scandalous Wisconsin, by Anna Lardinois (register for October 8, 7 pm event here)
3. Walking Milwaukee, by Royal Brevvaxling and Molly Snyder (who will also be at October 8 event)
4. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
5. The Rise of Wolf 8, by Martin McIntyre
6. Emergent Strategy, by Adrienne Maree Brown
7. The Power of a Focused Heart, by Mary Lou Redding
8. The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin
9. Grey Matters, by Ellyn Lem
10. The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander

The Rise of Wolf 8: Witnessing the Triumph of Yellowstone's Underdog, has a nice staff rec from Kay and is just out in paperback. Jared El-Osta did a wolf roundup last year in The Washington Post, where he wrote: "The main attraction of the book, though, is the storytelling about individual wolves, including the powerful origin story of one of Yellowstone’s greatest and most famous wolves."

Books for Kids:
1. Dear Justyce, by Nic Stone
2. Skunk and Badger, by Amy Timberlake/Jon Klassen (register for October 12, 5:30 pm event here)
3. The Very Last Leaf, by Stef Wade/Jennifer Davidson
4. All Are Welcome, by Alexandra Penfold, with illustrations by Suzanne Kaufman
5. Be Kind, by Pat Zietlow Miller/Jill Hen
6. Enemy Pie, by Derek Munson/Tara Calahan King
7. A Tale of Witchcraft, by Chris Colfer
8. The Office: A Day at Dunder Mifflin Elementary, by Robb Pearlman/Melanie Demmer
9. Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure, by Jeff Kinney
10. Screaming Hairy Armadillo and 76 Other Animals with Weird, Wild Names, by Matthew Murrie

Dear Justyce is finally here. After a teaser where Stone was the conversation partner for Adib Khorram's Darius the Great Deserves Better, we were able to book a school event for Nic Stone's new book where we'd be able to use the video in Milwaukee Public School (and other) classrooms, as well as connect to the Vel E. Phillips Juvenile Justice School where multiple pods where able to tune in and see Nic Stone talk live to educator and advocate Shana Lucas. We'll have the recording up soon so you can watch it too. Stone talked to Scott Simon on NPR's Weekend Edition - read the copy or listen to the interview.

Two book segments of note on WUWM's Lake Effect this week.
--Lois Lowry about her virtual visit to First Unitarian Society - read here
--Joanne Nelson on This Is How We Leave - read here

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