Guilty and Guiltier--On Attending Presentations Where I Haven't Read the Book, & a Teaser about My American Unhappiness at the Winstitute.

I seem to be apologizing all over this bookseller convention. No, I'm reading stuff that's out already. No, I haven't read this or that galley that everyone is talking about. Ugh. I feel like I'm letting the team down. You've got to read out 3-6 months so you can help talk up the books. Of course, you do fall into the trap of feeling that you have to like everything you read. The excuse is that the stuff you didn't like, you didn't bother to finish.

I didn't feel guilty that I hadn't read our morning speaker's book, the Retail Doctor's Guide to Growing Your Business. I'm not one for gimmicks, but I thought the paper airplane bit was quite clever and made a good point. Mine was worth $5 and went about 2 feet. I will probably take a look at it and might even read it cover to cover.

Now we go up the guilt meter. We have these speed dating publisher presentations where you get a 15 minute presentation. Sometimes there are 3-4 books presented, but one presentation seemed to approach two dozen titles. I had one several years ago where there were only two books to talk about. I learned that 8 minutes is a long time to talk about a book. We get a packet with the list of titles. Some publishers provide supplemental materials, but I've been told this is frowned upon. Here's a photo of Wendy presenting for Simon and Schuster. I felt very guilty whenever we got to a book she had tried to get me to read, but I hadn't yet. Oops!

I feel guiltiest that I didn't read Carol Edgarian's Three Stages of Amazement. But is it me or is every other book compared to Rafael Yglesias's A Happy Marriage? Of course I feel a little less guilty now that I replaced the picture of Wendy telling me about the book during the lunch. I never asked her if it was okay.

And I was surprised that so many booksellers hadn't really carried Incendiary until it got the Little Bee-esque cover. They were talking about it like it was a new book. This is the 4th edition we've carried of it. On the other hand (get it?) we brought the new edition back in a big pile that we put right next to the Bee-ster.

No where do I feel guiltier than at the after-show dinners that are set up for authors. Last night we had one with Dean Bakopoulos, author of the forthcoming novel, My American Unhappiness. He's a former bookseller. I read the last book and liked it. It's dedicated to friends of mine. It's funny. It rather screams Daniel Goldin. So I ducked out of a session to finish the Pearl of China, the Anchee Min novel (liked it! more on another post) and then I could at least start reading My American Unhappiness and say I was (true confession time) in the middle of it.

Here's a picture of Dean. I blacked out the other two booksellers because I don't think they knew I was taking their picture and I felt a little bad about it. Dean, on the other hand, knew that this is the price of writing about him in the blog.

The good news is that you've noticed that once I commit to something, I generally follow through. And I laughed about seven times by page 30. Very different from Please Don't Come Back from the Moon....but I'll save discussing the book for another post. That said, June is just around the corner so feel free to email or call us and put one on hold for you when it is released.

A Visit to Politics and Prose, a Dinner with Authors of Upcoming Books

It's our first full day of Winter Institute and already I'm feeling excited about books. Everybody's running around telling everyone else what to read. I'm embarrassed because I'm reading a lot of reprints (already confessed) but I can talk up the Hannah Pittard, which many other booksellers have enjoyed.

Last night Jason and I attended a dinner with Grove Atlantic and two authors, Alice LaPlante, who has a novel coming out in July called Turn of Mind, and Francisco Goldman, with a new novel called Say Her Name. Goldman's had some highly touted novels before (and at least one stop in Milwaukee in the Schwartz years) but this one seems to have more bookseller buzz about it. It's based on Goldman's own short-lived marriage to a woman who died while body surfing. Of course I immediately thought of Rafael Yglesias' A Happy Marriage, but honestly, I didn't read either. Before the dinner, both Lanora from Next Chapter and Mark from Politics and Prose told me how much they liked it.

And yes, Sheryl Cotleur of Book Passage has quotes on both advanced copies. Plus she also has a great advance read on Life, on the Line, the new joint memoir by Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas. The Journal Sentinel reported that we're having a ticked event with Achatz on March 13th. Tickets go on sale soon. Check in with Stacie for details. I could be a happy camper just reading Sheryl's recommendations. I'm sure there are folks in Marin who do just that.

Yes, we spent the afternoon visiting Politics and Prose, one of the great bookselling pilgrimages. All of our former DC customers get all excited while talking about the store, and news that partner Carla Cohen passed away in 2010 made national headlines. There was a sadness to be in the store without Carla, but a happiness that the store looked great and bustling. I bought a delicious sandwich in the cafe, a copy of The Three Weissmanns of Westport (coming momentarily in paperback and for some reason, I don't own a copy), and a set of Moleskine green volant notebooks, a discontinued color. Thanks, Mark, for the tour, and I hope you don't mind if I copy an idea or two.

Oh, and I brought along my camera and didn't take any pictures. What's that about?

Tomorrow is lectures, meetings, sales rep presentations, authors, and lots more conversations with booksellers, publishers, and writers. Hey, I don't want to look stupid when you ask me that stumper about a book you just heard about.

Travel Day to Winstitute 6 in DC

Winter Institute began today with some workshops and visits to elected officials. Jason and I came in this morning, having stayed behind to host Johnny Weir. Nice event, nice author, nice crew. Wish it had been bigger. Stacie did a bunch of extra contacting of local news and sports crews, but it was hard to get pickup. He signed some skates. Here's a picture of Mr. W. with Stacie and me.

We're supposed to be reading ahead to talk up books at the trade show. Jason's reading Mary Doria Russell's Doc, which he's enjoying. I'm of course reading an event book, Anchee Min's Pearl of China*. We have so many paperback reprint events this spring that I'm spending my time reading books already out. I'm not complaining; I'm just saying that the event books take priority for me over the next buzz galley. I'm hoping to read at least one of the galleys of the authors at the organized dinners, but I'm concerned about time.

Of course we got a little lost getting to the hotel. Jefferson Davis Highway or Old Jefferson Davis Highway? And we both instinctually went to the hotel we were last at for Book Expo, instead of looking it up. This is the textbook definition of "winging it."

Things will be busy for the next couple of days. I should have pre-written some posts (I did this last year) but who can keep up?

*Right now, Willow has just moved to Nanking to edit the daily newspaper. Pearl is teaching. Her marriage is not going well. Well, neither is Willow's because she was effectively sold off by her first husband, an opium addict. Willow was hot on Sun Yat-Sen, but is suspicious of Chiang Kai Shek. We'll see what happens next.

Hannah Pittard is Fated For Success? To be Argued Out at Various Bars? To Come to Boswell? (The Last One is a Sure Thing, on 3/2)

Though I only have a handful of high school friends that I keep in touch with (at this point, maybe 3, though it grew a bit at the beginning of social networking), I remember going to one of our reunions with my friend Rachel, who was a little bit more connected to the other alums (partly because she still lived in New York, partly because she was on the reunion committee) and thinking, "Gee, what have I missed by disconnecting from this?"

Maybe what I needed was to have one of my friends go missing. At least that's the thought that popped into my head while reading Hannah Pittard's The Fates will Find their Way, the accomplished first novel from Hannah Pittard, which is being published in February. It's about one group of boys, whose lives are shook and bended by the Halloween disappearance of one Nora Lindell, leaving behind her younger sister Sissy.

Of course the lack of connection could partly be because I came from a large high school in a large neighborhood in a large borough of a large city (Queens), whereas Pittard's story is in a more discrete neighborhood of a suburb, and most of the kids seem to be connected by a smaller school (seemingly Catholic, there are uniforms, though it is implied that some of the kids are Jewish), though one (seemingly poorer) kid goes to public school.

There are a lot of "seeminglies" here as that's the kind of book this is. It's told first person plural and meanders across time, moving along slowly but with lots of darting back and forth, almost like it was a group of men telling the story at a bar, after one such class reunion. But slowly you realize the group is smaller than first thought, as each boy proves to get pulled out of the crowd by divorce, an affair, a dalliance with another's daughter.

But the biggest "seemingly" seems to be what happened to Nora? Is she living out her life, as imagined by the boys? Has she died any one of a half dozen deaths? Has she been spotted in various photos, or on TV? Or could it not have gone further than that night? Pittard too imagines all options, and I would think readers would come to different conclusions.

I saw the word "elegiac" already used about the book, and that sort of captures the mood. Maybe not a reunion, maybe a wake (or shiva).

One of the things about hosting first-time novelists is that you really need some reads on the book. Of course, just because you read it doesn't mean you're going to love it. Most of the time we get an author without the budget for a tour large enough to encompass Milwaukee, there's some connection to Southeast Wisconsin.

But with our push to get more Chicago-area authors to make the trek, easy and inexpensive as it is, you can't count on hometown connections. So we either need to find a hook, a target audience, or if we luck out, let our customers know that we've got a special event.

There's no question that Hannah Pittard has the goods. Her fiction has already appeared in McSweeney's, the Oxford American, StoryQuarterly, and the Mississippi Reivew. She was awarded the 2006 Amanda Davis Highwire award (named in honor of the deceased author who left us before her buzz could flower into the major prizes and such) and made a Best American Short Stories shortlist.

And yes, she delivers. The Fates Will Find Their Way is mesmerizingly beautiful, one of those stories that stays with you for a long time.

Here's the Anne Beattie quote:
"Hannah Pittard's novel is about what's gone missing--not only literally but also metaphorically. The first-person plural certainly nods to Jeffrey Eugenides, but it seems to me the voice is rooted in the Stage Manager of Thornton Wilder's Our Town as well. Pittard gives the secret wink to the reader, becdause a story is only a story, but at the same time more than a story, aned that's why we love to invent and why we love to listen and to be taken in. At our peril."

Yes, it does seem an homage to The Virgin Suicides, doesn't it? Totally different, but playing off of it a bit. Of course it will turn out that Pittard never read Eugenides. No, it turns out she did. Here's an early interview with her on the blog Three Guys One Book.

I'm excited that Pittard is currently teaching at DePaul, which made her within convenient event distance to Boswell. DePaul is becoming our go-to school for events of late. After a very nice event with Rebecca Johns for her novel, The Countess, last fall, we hosted just last night Christine Sneed, author of the Grace Paley award for short fiction winner, Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry.

Just a word about our event last night with Sneed and Jaimy Gordon, author of the National-Book-Award-winning Lord of Misrule. There is something special about two authors reading together who share some chemistry. We had two attendees last night who said this event was the best one they'd ever been to, and one of our regulars told me the night was amazing. Here's a photo of Gordon and Sneed at our fun pre-event dinner at Cafe Hollander. If you're reading this today (1/18), Christine Sneed and Jaimy Gordon are reading tonight at DePaul. Info on the Chicago Reader website.

To make sure I didn't forget how I felt about Pittard's novel, I wrote this post a bit early, hoping that I would have another bookseller recommendation by the time I was ready to post (scheduled for the first day of Winter Institute, the coveted Day-for-Night slot. Sure enough, Stacie also read and enjoyed the book, and even got to have dinner with Pittard at a pre-pub dinner. If we play our cards well, she might even write about it).

Here are Stacie's thoughts:
"Hannah Pittard's debut novel is one long conjecture, and that's not a bad thing. Her clean, crisp prose takes a plain subject and turns it inward, sweeping the reader along with the tide. We are a group of teenage boys pondering the disappearance of one of our female classmates - we take the rumors and construct fantasies of what could have happened to her. The unsolved mystery will haunt us our entire lives, no matter the endings we construct for her: one of death, one of abandonment, or one of adventure. Our lives move forward in time, leaving us only our memories, filtered through an intimate connection; something that feels like a secret keeps us bound to each other into our futures, which come too fast. You, too, will want to know the truth and you will be so glad you looked for it with us."

Our event is Wednesday, March 2nd, at 7 PM. This is the kind of author reading where you someday might be kicking yourself for not attending.

All Ballet, All the Time! More on Our Apollo's Angels Event with Jennifer Homans and the Milwaukee Ballet on February 3rd.

After our shopping bag holiday window came down (I hated to see it go, so it lasted through the full 12 days of Christmas, we needed a good idea for what's next. Since we have the ballet event and had some nice ballet kids stuff, we put together an event promoting Jennifer Homans event for Apollo's Angels.

I wanted some of our plush animals posing in tutus, but I couldn't find tiny little tutus or tutu material for the right price. Then I went to the chain drugstore down the block and found a ballet doll marked down. I'm not going to tell you how little I spent on it (it looks it). First we sat Little Nina on the shelf, but it was only when we had her leaping across the window (I love fishing wire) that she came to life. It's still a bit of an odd window, I must admit, so I'm not posting a photo of it. We did sell a magnetic ballerina playset out of the window over the weekend, which I consider a triumph.

On Friday, I headed over to the Milwaukee Ballet Studio to take a few pictures and pick up materials about their upcoming show. I had never been in the space on National Avenue, the renovated former home of the Tivoli Palm Garden. There are two wonderful practice studios--here's a shot of some ballerinas in training. I took this photo from the viewing room upstairs.

In the end, our event really ties in with the Milwaukee Ballet program, as Homans wonders what's next for ballet in Apollo's Angels. What do you know, the Milwaukee Ballet is trying to answer that question with their upcoming show.

It's the fourth annual Genesis International Choreographic Competition, going on from February 10-13 at the Pabst Theater. In this competition, three choreographers chosen by artistic director Michael Pink to present an original 20 minute work with 8 dancers and a maximum of 90 hours rehearsal. The winner gets $3000 and a commission from the Milwaukee Ballet to create a new work. Get your tickets to the performances here.

Then on Saturday, somebody finally explained to me the plot of "The Black Swan," which is currently playing at the nearby Oriental Theatre. I was having trouble understanding the previews. But who has time for a movie? I'm using that time to put together our event with Homans and the Milwaukee Ballet. Thank you to Alyson and Leslie for all the hard work they've done helping put this together. And much appreciation to Ms. Homans too. So the program? There will be demos and dance too. I'm very excited and I hope you will be too. It's all happening Thursday, February 3rd, at 7 PM. Mark your calendars!

Weekly Bestsellers with ALA Award Sales Pop, Upcoming Events,

A quiet, and somewhat snowy winter week left us with some uninteresting bulk sale orders, one wonderful event (Karen Abbott) and a sales pop for the awards announced at the ALA (American Library Association) midwinter confernce. A Sick Day for Amos McGee won the Caldicott, and Moon Over Manifest was awarded the Newbery.

Top Hardcover Nonfiction Boswell Bestseller's for the week ending 1/15
1. American Rose, by Karen Abbott
2. The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson
3. Cleopatra, by Stacy Schiff
4. The Gourmet Cookie Book
5. The Bed of Procrustes, by Nassim Taleb.

The last is aphrorisms and meditations inspired by Taleb's The Black Swan.

Here are our bestsellers for hardcover kids books.
1. A Sick Day for Amos McGee, by Philip Stead, illustrated by Erin Stead
2. Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins
3. Moon Over Manifest, by Clare Vanderpool
4. Spy in the House, by Y.S. Lee
5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth, by Jeff Kinney

We had a pop in all of the Suzanne Collins. I think this from new information coming out about the upcoming film. Pam likes The Agency series, of which, Spy in the House is the first volume.

Three upcoming events this week to remind you about:

1. Monday (1/17) is National-Book-Award winner Jaimy Gordon, author of Lord of Misrule, along with Grace Paley winner Christine Sneed for Portraits of a Few People I've Made Cry. Some snow is expected. Be brave, Wisconsin!

2. Tuesday (1/18) is our Johnny Weir signing at 5 PM for Welcome to My World. Signature only, books only, and only line photos.

3. Wednesday (1/19) is our Poets Ink group reading, with Barbara Collignon, Cary Fellman, Mary Lux, Peter Piakoski, and Carolyn Vargo. Stacie will be running that one, as I'm off to Winter Institute in DC!

Saturday Gift Post with a Special Valentine Carol (That Goes "Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love, Fa La La La La, La La La La")

Have I mentioned that like every other store in the world, we put our Valentine's Day display up the day after Christmas? According to Jason, the fact that we didn't cover the entire front of the store with Valentine's Day stuff set us apart from many other retailers. The fact of the matter is that the product really has to come in before Christmas in order to get it in time, and so, as the only thing you really have that's fresh, you feel almost compelled to put it out.

And yet the holiday is a traditionally last-minute purchase. That said, we set up a display table and a card spinner in the center of the store and we've been selling some cards. I increased our assortment over last year as we pretty much sold out in 2010. Some of them say Valentine, others have hearts and will revert to being "blank" or "friendship" after the holiday. It is not unusual for card companies to repurpose love and anniversary artwork with Valentine messages. Now you know.

Our sales were so good that I brought back in many of the cards we sold last year. with the addition of some pop up cards, and some new designs from artists we do well with, like Misha Zadeh. We've got some nice pop up cards (only one person even noticed that I didn't bring in the Christmas pop ups*) and more designs from our fair trade Africa line.

I am still not going too heavy on Valetine gift items. Last year we sold through our heart-filled boxed cards, had a decent sell through on our Valentine ducks (there was some markdown involved) and had sadly, did not do well on the Valentine fortune teller. Somebody is making this work, as I saw it in the new catalog at full price. You can get ours at 75% off. Two dollars for a fortune? Seems like a good deal.

New? We've got Farrah the love bear, some thumb puppet love bugs and butterflies (with heart shaped wings), plus still to come are some heart-shaped puzzles. Hard to describe, but we all liked them. They are 3D. Sadly, I passed on a lot of product for either being too plain or too schmaltzy. I am looking for whimsy here. I think I am going to design my own stuff for 2012. Or I would if I could.

This year we are also selling multi-pack Valentines for kids to give out in class. We could only remember one year that Schwartz brought things like this in (I'm only going back about 10 years or so; our collective memories have issues) and they sold through quite well. The next year the buyer knew we were closing after Christmas and didn't restock. And the next year I didn't really see something in our price point that would still be nicer than what you find at mass merchants.

When I spotted these assortments at 20 for $5.95 with very nice artwork, I got excited, and so did other stores, as even though I placed the order in December, they were already out of three of the designs I requested. The minimums were a little high for us, not knowing how we'd do, so we contacted Next Chapter and decided to go in halfsies. The assortments we both have are monster cars, mermaids, monkeys, robots, and wacky animals. And if I may concur, these animals are nothing if not wacky. We're already selling them pretty well and we haven't even hit the prime sales time of February.

We've got a nice Valentine's display of books too. But I'll save that for a weekday. This is a gift post, dag nab it!

*I've got one customer who is saddened that we, like most other stores in metro Milwaukee, don't seem to be bringing in the high-end Robert Sabuda pop up cards anymore. I loved them too--having sent them to friends and business associates for a number of years, but their price point is tough. That said, he buys so many that we can probably put in an order just for him. So we might have something for holiday 2011.

A Rather Random Assessment of the Assortment of New Titles on the Boswell's Best This Week

After the pent up demand of last week's changeover, it's back to a peaceful and orderly transtion. Here are a few throughts on the new titles on Boswell's Best, which as you may know, are always 20% off the list price until at least next Monday, but we rarely put a book on the list for less than two weeks.

I was talking up Robert Crais to Carl last week. I have even read the first book in the Elvis Cole series, and now he's writing a second series featuring Joe Pike, of which The Sentry is the third. Crais's books hit the bestseller lists, with a budget enough to support a full-page ad in the New York Times. What I particularly love about Crais is that he doesn't bang out his titles; when I was a book buyer, it was not unusual to see one of his mysteries delayed. The new book has Joe (former cop) helping out a sandwich shop that is getting a gang shakedown, but it turns out that the proprietors are not the innocents rebuilding their lives after Katrina that they claimed to be.

Susan Vreeland's going to be in the Milwaukee area for Clara and Mister Tiffany, her newest historical novel that touches on a historical piece of art, which in this case is the lamps of Louis Comfort Tiffany. Vreeland imagines the life of Susan Driscoll, his chief designer. Driscoll oversaw his generally poor, unmarried female staffers called The Tiffany Girls. Will she get credit for her dragonfly (a once again trendy motif) lamp at the Paris Exposition? I'm worried. For more information about Susan Vreeland's appearance at Next Chapter on January 30th, visit their website. Tickets are $5 and include a spot of vittles.

One new book getting lots of press is Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. You might be thinking Chua would be writing another international policy book like World on Fire, but this is a parenting book. Chua and her husband chose to raise their kids religiously Jewish and culturally Chinese. That meant rigor and control, in a way that is contrary to current cultural trends, particularly among the intellectual and monied classes of the United States and Europe. The two kids are musical virtuosos. You can't miss the all the buzz about this, but if it's passed you by because you were watching a "Toddlers and Tiaras" marathon (I don't know why I immediately drifted to this), here's Chua being interviewed on NPR. Both audio and transcript are available.

And finally, one that got away. Charles Baxter's Gryphon: New and Selected Stories is scheduled to be on the front page of Sunday's New York Times Book Review. Since I've read every Baxter book in print (except for this one), I've probably read most of these stories before, though some are new. (Note that Boswellian Sharon read this and really enjoyed it). Do you think any of them have been in three books, as some stories from early collections were reworked into Saul and Patsy? Doesn't matter. I was talking to some folks at UWM Creative Writing (unnamed) and they noted that Baxter was one of their idols. Sadly, we came close to hosting Baxter for this book, only it was pushed back a bit and that took the book out of winter break. Since Baxter is teaching at Stanford this spring, it became too far to coordinate. But congrats to the lucky Northern California stores.

Speaking of events, we have Lord of Misrule on Boswell's Best, even though it is an event this Monday (1/17). Why?
a. It's a small press, and we want our sell-through to be extra clean.*
b. The book is coming out rather quickly in paperback (March), so we wanted to get the hardcover price (was $25, now $20) more in line with the paperback (scheduled to be $15).

Jaimy Gordon is appearing Monday with Grace Paley award winner Christine Sneed. Honestly, how many National Book Award winners will you see this year? You should hear at least one read in person, don't you think? More on events here.