Were you planning to spend the night at Boswell Book Company? Neither was I, but despite that, among our assortment of couches was a classic futon, perched on an incredibly solid (read heavy) metal frame. I purchased it along with our other furniture when I bought the assets of the Schwartz Downer Avenue shop, but I never got a good answer on why the store needed a place to sleep.
Oh, and though I still wake people up fairly regularly (we ask you to leave the third time you doze off, by the way), you can only imagine what it was like when the store was open until 11 pm. And did I mention we have to move it on average four times per week (twice for each event)?
Several months ago, one of our customers mentioned to me that she's been looking for a futon like this for a long time, officially putting me on notice that if I found a new couch, I could sell this one. I had a list of requirements--dark, patterned, stubby legs, no country curves but not too modern either, plus of course there were price constraints.
I wound up buying the couch at Colder's, which is still locally owned by the Felker family, and to my pleasant surprise, the couch was also made in the United States, from the England division of Lazyboy. I believe it's the Conner model--still solid but much lighter than the metal-framed futon. It arrives Friday.
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So yes, we have three events this week (3 and a half, really) but all of them are outside the bookshop. The biggie is Stacy Schiff, appearing for Cleopatra: A Life, on Tuesday, October 4, 7 pm, at Milwaukee Public Library's Centennial Hall, 733 North Eighth Street.
1. This is an incredible deal--a free, unticketed event.
2. Stacie Schiff is an terrific speaker. This will surely be an entertaining and enlightening event.
3. The Milwaukee Public Museum exhibit opens October 14. What great preparation for your visit to see the artifacts of Cleopatra's reign! Buy tickets here.
4. Schiff's biography is a heavily researched, powerful read that is deftly told. Cleopatra was named one of the ten best books of the year by The New York Times, and Schiff received the Pulitzer Prize for Véra, her biography of Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov.
5. Can't come? Order a signed hardcover or paperback from us.
6. Watch this video and see you there!
On Wednesday, October 5, we are participating in Shorewood Public Library's two talks with Larry Watson for Montana 1948, in conjunction with the Shorewood Reads program. Watson will be appearing at 3920 North Murray Avenue at both 3 pm and 7 pm. And don't forget about his new novel, American Boy.
Thursday, October 6 brings another in-demand event, Jon Katz's return to Milwaukee after a several-year absence in conjunction with the release of his new book, Going Home: Finding Peace When Pets Die. Katz's tales of Bedlam Farm and his beloved dogs, chronicled in Soul of a Dog, A Dog Year, Izzy and Lenore, and other books.
Read a bit more about Katz's life with his dogs:
"A number of dogs have lived with me on the farm since I came, some still here, others not. I have no problem sharing dogs with other people, when that's appropriate, or even giving them away, if that makes the dogs happier. But I also have dogs I couldn't ever part with.
At the moment, I have three remarkable dogs I love to death, all quite different: Rose, the working dog, Izzy, the Soul Dog who brought me to hospice work, and Lenore, the Hound of Love. Rose came from a herding line in Colorado, Izzy was rescued off a farm near Cambridge, N.Y., and Lenore came from a wonderful breeder of Labs, Gretchen Pinkel of Kee-Pin Labradors." More on his website.
Jon Katz is appearing at the Wisconsin Humane Society, Thursday, October 6, at 7 pm. This is a ticketed event; buy tickets on their website. The $5 admission goes back to the Humane Society. Space is limited.
Just in case you've heard rumors about the distemper virus, the animals have been treated, and the adoption suspension has been lifted. All in a day's work, I guess.
One of the biggest hits of 2010, at least at Boswell, was Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra: A Life. After winning the Pulitzer Prize for Vera (Nabokov), being shortlisted for said prize Saint-Exupery, and winning countless other prizes for A Great Improvisation, Schiff finally found a popular biography subject that would take her talents to new levels of success. Some would say Benjamin Franklin of A Great Improvisation is a similarly worthy character, but Schiff's biography came after a string of popular Franklin tomes, and it being Franklin in France, it didn't necessarily have the same kind of widespread appeal as some of the other Franklin bios. Now at Boswell, a Franklin in France bio would have been a runaway bestseller. You know how we are about anything that remotely involves Paris.
Michiko Kakutani offered this praise in The New York Times: " As she did in “Véra: Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov,” her Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Ms. Schiff also demonstrates a magician’s ability to conjure the worlds her subject inhabited with fluent sleight of hand." and Cleopatra went on to lauded by said paper as one of the top ten books of the year.
So it was a wonderful honor when we were offered the opportunity to host Ms. Schiff on her Milwaukee visit for the paperback of the book. Schiff sold out venues all over the country for the hardcover edition of this book. Below Tavis Smiley discussing Cleopatra with Stacie Schiff. I'm sure you'll see be marking off your calendar for our event, which is Tuesday, October 4, 7 pm.
Liz from Little, Brown and I pondered all kinds of venues for her talk. In the end, we wanted to hit the most people we could, and decided to not have any barriers to entry, so we went with Centennial Hall at the Milwaukee Public Library. We're co-sponsoring the event with the Friends of the Milwaukee Public Library too, and like all our library events, we tithe our book sales to this cathedral of learning.
The hall holds 700, with another 100 folks able to listen in the overflow area. We decided not to ticket the event, with the caveat that folks would know that we would close the hall when we reached capacity. Will that happen? It hasn't happened to me yet with an author event, though back at Schwartz, we had an overflow crowd for Jon Krakauer. I think if we're prepared for that possibility, we'll be just fine. I'm saying to you now not to come at the last minute.
I don't read too many biographies, but who could resist Cleopatra? I think sometimes its just a question of alloting time; I have so many books to read, and biographies, to really appreciate them, need careful reading. Schiff packs so much detail into her story, and there's a lot of contemplation too. This woman led a great power in her teens, and held onto her power despite family treachery, and Rome's desire to expand their empire. She kept not one but two great men--Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony. She built back Egypt's coffers from near ruin, and helped revive Alexandria's cultural greatness.
I read it. It took me several weeks to devour it. It was worth it.
It's clear that anyone interested in seeing this event will get more out of it by reading Cleopatra first. And I'm not just saying that because Schiff, in another life, was a great editor who was responsible for one of my favorite books of all time, Elinor Lipman's Then She Found Me.
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To get the word out, we've got to pull out all the stops:
1) We'll have a special single-event email going out this week.
2) There will be a wee bit of public radio underwriting.
3) We're doing a feature Journal Sentinel ad this Sunday**, also featuring our other two high-profile events for October, Dava Sobel at Discovery World on October 19 and Jeffrey Eugenides at Boswell on October 23. We certainly have plenty of other high-profile events, but to just note one, Jon Katz, our partnership with the Humane Society is already getting the word out, and we already have some nice press in place. My big fear on our event for Meet the Dogs of Bedlam Farm (October 6, here's the link for tickets) is that it will be oversold. The Humane Society space fits 150 people--I could probably fit more in the bookstore, but come on, it's so much cooler to be at the Humane Society.
But I digress. Stacie (not the author, the Boswellian, they are spelled differently) also put together a great window. As always, there's a lot of glare and the photo didn't come out well, but you get the message.
I'm also trying to put signs up around town. Today you might have spotted me on a ladder at Beans and Barley (also had lunch there, also ordered catering for our rep night this Sunday. I highly recommend poppy seed torte as a sheet cake) and I hope to place the sign at a few more high-profile places. Want to help? Come by Boswell and pick up a sign from us.
So you're probably thinking, Daniel, you're not forcing the sale (it's the library, we don't do that there), it's a paperback, how are you going to make back the money you're investing in this event?*
And I would say, we're talking about Stacy Schiff here. This is the kind of event I dreamed that Boswell would be doing. An amazing speaker, an incredible book, an event that folks will be talking about for months. I love when folks come by the store, still whistfully talking about T.C. Boyle, Christopher Moore, Geraldine Brooks, Sherman Alexie, or Ann Patchett. I like to think maybe they made a few extra trips to Boswell because it triggers those happy memories, or cements our relationship. I think Stacy Schiff's talk will do the same. I'm hoping!
*Buying the book from us helps give us the track record to get more events like this to Milwaukee? Do you want to hear Pulitzer Prize winners speak in Milwaukee? Of course you do!
**There was a little confusion about the ad deadline with our new rep and the ad will now be in the Cue section on Sunday, October 2.
We had two very inspirational events this week. First Jeffrey Gingold spoke about his updated edition of Facing the Cognitive Challenges of Multiple Sclerosis. The next day, Sister Josephe Marie Flynn launched her book, Rescuing Regina: The Battle to Save a Friend from Deportation and Death and Mount Mary College. Sister Josephe spoke, and so did Regina Bakkala. The talk was great, and the music was pretty swell too--a jazz ensemble of high school students.
I had never been to Mount Mary, so I got lost. My apologies to everyone for coming later than I should have.
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I'm excited to announce that Stacy Schiff will be at the Milwaukee Public Library's Centennial Hall, on Tuesday, October 4, for the paperback tour ofCleopatra: A Life. This is going to be a free event, but the hall closes at 700 people, with 100 more able to hear the event from the overflow room. After that, we'll have to close the doors. However, you'll still be able to get your book signed--we'll be lining folks up outside. Pretty cool, huh?
I'm already discussing a fabulous kids' event with the Milwaukee Public Library for next spring. April! Can you believe it?
We've got two wonderful library events coming up much sooner than that. On Saturday, July 16, at 10:30 am, Sarah Mark Feldner, author of A Cook's Tour of Japan, will be speaking in the first floor meeting room, as a celebration of Culinary Arts Month.
I don't think I will ever get used to being surprised at books coming out without me knowing about them. I can browse through catalogs and Edelweiss (the electronic catalog that many publishers are using), read Publishers Weekly and Ingram Advance, but it just seems like without doing the actual buying, books seem to show up in the store, fully formed.
It's a rare thing when I can say to Jason, "Oh the Keith Richards memoir, Life, seems to be everywhere, and our customers are talking about it too." I told him it was more Bob Dylan than Motley Crue, whatever that means. If you look at lists from various sources, their group memoir, The Dirt, still sells quite well, but it for us, it seems like we could carry Bob Dylan's Elementary School Social Studies Notebook: The Annotated Edition and sell 15 copies. In any case, we went back for more (of the Richards, not of the Dylan, which doesn't exist, sadly).
This week I noticed there was lots of new history and bio on our featured titles. First Family: Abigail and John Adams, by Joseph Ellis, caught my eye, partly because the implication was that it was "first", partly because I continue to wonder how there can be so many John Adams books, and partly because I wanted to see whether a notes and index were included and how long they were--the book's about 300 pages, including 40 pages of notes. Oops, Mr. Ellis cancelled his event at Rainy Day Books in Kansas. I'm not sure why. He's still signing at Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi, on November 26th.
Another historian with good commercial sales is H. W. Brands, and his new book, American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism, 1865-1900, is sort of a group biography of the robber barons of the late 1800's (Rockefeller, Carnegie et al). The book is 614 pages with about 50 pages of notes and index. Yes, I have a customer who asks us by phone how long books are before she reserves them. Amity Shlaes in the Wall Street Journalhad some issues with the book because it perpetuated the myth of robber barons. Democracy v. capitalism--why can't you both get along?
Thomas C. Holt's Children of Fire: A History of African Americansis...(trumpets) a history of African Americans. The author is a professor at the University of Chicago, and has gotten some amazing advance praise on the book, comparing it to Roots (William Ferris) and being pronounced "a field-transforming book that will reshape our understanding of African American lives for generations to come." On the heels of Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns, and with the continued success of Annette Gordon-Reed's The Hemingses of Monticello(I replaced a copy yesterday on our MacArthur Genius Grant display. Yes, we have one, but it's pretty small), there is clearly a strong market for this scholarship. Most of all, it's 438 pages, and a full 73 pages of notes and index!
Michael Takiff's A Complicated Man: The Life of Bill Clinton as Told by Those Who Know Him, by contrast, is 496 pages, but only 56 pages of notes and index. Just kidding--that's plenty. Didn't I hear publishers were asking authors to eliminate the notes and make readers access them on line? I just think leaving them out makes a book seem less serious. Takiff is an independent scholar, which I would someday like to put on a business card. He uses interviews with more than 150 figures to create a picture of our former president. I did notice that at least one of the blurbs on the back jacket seemed to be reviewing Bill Clinton more than it was the book. Takiff is currently blogging for Huffington Post.
And though it is not on Boswell's Best, I would like to give a shout out to Cleopatra, a Life, by Stacy Schiff, who has been heavily lauded for past works. I had said to Jason that this was a a great figure for Schiff, both accessible and timely (I think she wrote a Franklin book after three or four other books had come to market successfully, and hers was a little smaller in scope.) Little, Brown knows who to get quotes from--accolades on the back jacket are from Joseph Ellis, Ron Chernow (his Washington: A Lifehas been out for several weeks now), Jon Meacham, Evan Thomas, Afar Nafisi, and Tracy Kidder. I love the endpapers, but the jacket looks too much like a novel to my taste. At 365 pages and 60 pages of notes, I think this would be the book of the five that I would most likely read. So guess what? Maybe that novel-like cover is a smart thing. I'd normally link to a review here, but why not mention that they sold the movie rights to Scott Rudin, and guess who will play the lead?
Of course, shortly after I made the pronoucement about Cleopatra not having a great bio in recent years, John presented the new Adrian Goldsworthy, Antony and Cleopatra. I sometimes worry that multiple books on the same topic leads to group reviews, which means the smaller book is more likely to get reviewed, but the larger book seems somehow less prominent. This is just one of my ridiculous theories, so please ignore me.
