Sunday, May 29, 2022

Boswell bestsellers, week ending May 28, 2022

Here's what's selling at Boswell.

Hardcover Fiction:
1. This Time Tomorrow, by Emma Straub
2. All the Secrets of the World, by Steve Almond
3. The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles
4. Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St John Mandel
5. Either/Or, by Elif Batuman
6. Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt (Register for July 11 virtual event here)
7. The Book of Night, by Holly Black
8. Hide, by Kiersten White
9. Trust, by Hernan Diaz
10. The Hurting Kind, by Ada Limón (Register for June 1 virtual event here)

Our top hardcover fiction title from among this week's new releases is Either/Or (referring to Kierkegaard), the sequel to 2017's The Idiot, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Starred Booklist, plus this from Publishers Weekly: "Batuman's light touch and humor are brought to bear on serious questions, enabling the novel to move quickly between set pieces like an S&M-themed student party, poignant recollections of Selin's parents' divorce, and a harrowing travelogue as Selin begins a summer job in Turkey. As accomplished as The Idiot was, this improves upon it, and Batuman's already sharp chops as a novelist come across as even more refined in these pages."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Atlas of the Heart, by Brené Brown
2. Recessional, by David Mamet
3. Inviting Interiors, by Melanie Turner
4. Trailed, by Kathryn Miles
5. The Midwest Survival Guide, by Charlie Berens
6. Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
7. Fly Girl, by Ann Hood (Register for June 16 virtual event here)
8. Forest Feast Road Trip, by Erin Gleeson
9. The Geography of Wisconsin, by John A Cross and Kazimierz Zaniewski
10. The 1619 Project, created by Hannah Nikole Jones and The New York Times

John Grisham is one of the blurbers for Kathryn Miles's Trailed: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders. The publisher notes that this 1996 case is is well-known among true-crime enthusiasts. In addition to trying to solve the case, Miles, per Publishers Weekly, "takes a comprehensive look at police procedures in federal parks and violence against women in rural areas."

Paperback Fiction:
1. Book Lovers, by Emily Henry
2. The Great Mistake, by Jonathan Lee
3. The Promise, by Damon Galgut
4. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
5. In the Country of Others, by Leila Slimani
6. Conversations with Friends, by Sally Rooney
7. Great Circle, by Maggie Shipstead
8. A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara
9. Shards of Earth, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
10. The Guide, by Peter Heller

A local book club selection helped propel In the Country of Others by Leila Slimani into this week's top 10. Slimani previously won the Prix Goncourt for the novel Adèle while her novel The Perfect Nanny was one of The New York Times top 10 books of 2018. From Meena Kandasamy in very same The New York Times: "Classic war fiction depicts the struggle for identity and territory amid violence, courage and sacrifice. In the Country of Others shifts the spotlight away from men and their fragilities. In the first installment of a planned trilogy loosely based on the lives of Slimani’s grandparents, the character of Mathilde lays bare women’s intimate, lacerating experience of war and its consequent trauma."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
2. Steering the Craft, by Ursula K Leguin
3. A Poetry Handbook, by Mary Oliver
4. The Milwaukeean, by Joey Grihalva and Kellen "Klassik" Abston (Register for June 3 in-person and virtual event here)
5. Shape, by Jordan Ellenberg
6. Invisible Child, by Andrea Elliott
7. Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer
8. At Swim in a Pond in the Rain, by George Saunders
9. Giannis, by Mirin Fader
10. Somebody's Daughter, by Ashley C Ford

It's the first week of sale for the paperback of Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else, from Jordan Ellenberg. From his Wisconsin Public Radio To the Best of Our Knowledge interview with Anne Strainchamps: "There's a wonderful thing I found — in the 1950s, there was a giant survey asking teachers of high school geometry, 'Hey, why are you doing this? What's the point of what you're doing?' They offer a long list. One of the items was, 'so that the students will know facts about geometry, know how triangles and circles and lines behave.' And that did pretty well, it was number two. But number one was 'to develop the habit of rigorous and logical thinking.'"

Books for Kids:
1. Starla Jean, by Elana K Arnold
2. All the Things We Never Knew, by Liara Tamani
3. From Nerd to Ninja! (Ninja Kid #1), by Anh Do
4. Out of My Head, by Sharon M Draper
5. Cat Kid Comic Club V3, by Dav Pilkey
6. King and the Dragonflies, by Kacen Kallender
7. Starla Jean Takes the Cake, by Elana K Arnold
8. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse, illustrations by Renée Graef
9. The Last Cuentista, by Dona Barba Higuera
10. The First Cat in Space At Pizza, by Mac Barnett, illustrations by Shawn Harris

Anh Do is an accomplished writer, actor, producer, and stand-up comedian, as well as a runner-up on Australia's Dancing with the Stars. To find your next favorite writer, you need to watch more reality shows. From Nerd to Ninja! is the first book in the Ninja Kid series. This book is the first in a series - Flying Ninja is also available. But I can only find releases for books three and four in Spanish from Molino, distributed by Penguin Random House. 

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