Sunday, July 23, 2023

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending July 22, 2023

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending July 22, 2023

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Fourth Wing, by Rebecca Yarros
2. Crook Manifesto V2, by Colson Whitehead
3. Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
4. Sleepless City, by Reed Farrel Coleman
5. The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese
6. Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
7. The Collector, by Daniel Silva
8. Silver Nitrate, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
9. Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club, by J Ryan Stradal
10. Yellowface, by RF Kuang

Top debut honors go to Crook Manifesto, Colson Whitehead's second Ray Carney novel. Boswellian Tim McCarthy noted, of the latest: "I took my sweet time, savoring every literary morsel." Plus Gabriel Bump writes in The Washington Post: "With these books, Whitehead has identified deficiencies in the noir genre, and injected beauty and grace into its often too-predictable and clichéd conventions."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Owner of a Lonely Heart, by Beth Nguyen
2. Redeeming Justice, by Jarrett Adams
3. The Creative Act, by Rick Rubin
4. Peking Express, by James M Zimmerman
5. Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond
6. The Heat Will Kill You First, by Jeff Goodell
7. The Devil's Element by Dan Egan
8. Pageboy, by Eliot Page
9. Glucose Revolution, by Jessie Inchaupse
10. The New Cooking School Cookbook, by America's Test Kitchen

Lots of great press for The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet probably helped launch Jeff Goodell's book into a national bestseller, but a record breaking prolonged heat wave isn't hurting either. From Jennifer Szalai in The New York Times: "Complacency would only compound the horror, which perhaps explains the tenor of this book: scary, yes, though decidedly not alarmist, considering so much of what he describes is already happening." Also a staff rec from our buyer Jason and another read from Jenny.

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Cat Who Saved Books, by Sosuke Natsukawa
2. Trust, by Hernan Diaz
3. Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro
4. Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller
5. When the Hibiscus Falls, by M Evelina Galang (Register for August 8 Boswell event here)
6. A Death in Door County, by Annelise Ryan (Register for August 23 library event here)
7. When Women Were Dragons, by Kelly Barnhill
8. Shady Hollow, by Juneau Black (Register for November 7 Boswell event here)
9. The Blacktongue Thief, by Christopher Buehlman
10. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I noted that three of our top ten authors have upcoming events. I should note that the Annelise Ryan program on August 23 (A Death in Door County released this week in paperback) is sort of responsible for two of them, as Sharon Nagel (of Juneau Black) is the conversation partner for this event. Then in December for book #2, Ryan will talk to Patricia Skalka, her fellow Door County chronicler. And next week, Jimmy Julian's Dead Eleven is also set just off the peninsula.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Kodachrome Milwaukee, by Adam Levin
2. Jews in the Garden, by Judy Rakowsky (Register for August 10 Boswell event here)
3. Joy Ride, by Kristen Jokinen (Register for July 31 Boswell event here)
4. Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
5. Two Wheels Good, by Judy Rosen
6. A Year in the Woods, by Torbjor Ekelund
7. The Black Attache, by JK Cheema (Register for August 29 event here)
8. Walking Milwaukee, by Royal Brevvaxling and Molly Snyder
9. Murdle V1, by GT Karber
10. American Prometheus, by Kai Bird and Martin J Sherman

The paperback release of Two Wheels Good: The History and Mystery of the Bicycle was in June, but last week was its best showing, perhaps appealing to fans signing up for our Kristen Jokinen event for Joy Ride on July 31. From Charles Finch's review in The New York Times: "Two Wheels Good takes the form of bricolage, blending meticulous historical research, local reporting from bicycle-dependent locales like Bhutan and Bangladesh and personal memories of riding in New York and Boston. Rosen is arguably strongest in the first of these three styles, but the book excels across all of them and, in its curious, mingled character, calls to mind Bill Bryson, John McPhee, Rebecca Solnit — obsessives, for whom the material world and their own infinitesimal presence within it constitute the most natural subject of artistic inquiry."

Books for Kids:
1. Curious George's First Day of School, by Margaret and HA Rey
2. The Night Before Kindergarten, by Natasha Wing
3. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse, illustrations by Renee Graef
4. Nimona, by ND Stevenson
5. Heartstopper V1, by Alice Osema
6. Scythe,V1, by Neal Shusterman
7. Peekaboo House, by Camilla Reid, illustratios by Ingela P Arrhenius
8. True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp, by Kathi Appelt
9. The Eyes and the Impossible, by Dave Eggers
10. Goddesses and Heroines, by Jean Menzies, illustrations by Katie Ponder

Goddesses and Heroines: Meet More Than 80 Legendary Women from Around the World was released on July 11 and hits our top 10 in its second week. This looks like one of our oversized kids nonfiction books where the authors name might not even be listed on the cover, but this DK book is clearly branded - Jean Menzies is a podcaster, vlogger (I guess that's more generally described as YouTuber), and winner of the Books Are My Bag Breakthrough Author Award 2020 for Greek Myths.

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