What's Going on This Week? Milwaukee-set novels, Sports Stories, Nature Principles, Fiction from Writing Teachers, and Food For One.

Five days, five events!  Hope you find something for you. At Boswell except as noted (Wednesday). 

Monday, May 16, 7 pm

Terry Gavin, author of When Men are Young, and Shaving Without a Razor. It's not easy to promote small-press fiction, even for local authors, but Terry Gavin did a great job getting the word out for Shaving Without a Razor.  Now his second novel, When Men are Young, is out. This week he received the Book Preview from the Shepherd Express. From Jenni Herrick's column:

"A trio of close-knit confidants—Kevin, Zach and Mike—spent their lives growing up together in Milwaukee. On the day of their college graduation, their futures should seem promising and bright. Tragically, it is on this day that these three friends must confront a crisis so unexpected and catastrophic that it forever tears apart their friendship."

Lots of local color here, which is always fun.  And read the rest of the Shepherd Express column here. And Gavin is also an actor, having appeared in a number of productions around town, and has recently completed a feature film which will be released this fall.  More on his website.

Tuesday, May 17, 7 pm
Dale Hofmann and Cliff Cristl, authors of 365: Best Wisconsin Sports Stories. 365 came out just before Christmas, but it seemed that in scheduling an event with the authors, it was best to wait for Father's Day season. We actually met Hofmann when he came for an event with son-in-law Peter Geye, author of Boswell favorite, Safe from the Sea. 

To paraphrase from our event site, which paraphrases from somewhere else, Dale Hofmann has covered every major sport as a columnist for the Milwaukee Sentinel and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from the Super Bowl to the World Series to the Olympics. A member of the Milwaukee Press Club Hall of Fame, he has won numerous state, local and national writing awards. A Northwestern University graduate, he has co-authored two other books, Sportsbiz and Green and Golden Moments: Bob Harlan and the Green Bay Packers.

Co-author Cliff Christl (not appearing at the event) has been named Wisconsin Sportswriter of the Year five times by The National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, and he has, twice, placed in the top ten in the national Associated Press Sports Editors contest in the enterprise writing category. Born in Green Bay, the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh graduate spent 12 years covering the Green Bay Packers in the 1970s and 1980s. He is the co-author of two other books, Sleepers, Busts and Franchise Makers: The Story of the Pro Football Draft, and Bicycling Wisconsin.

Come here both authors talk about the best moments in Wisconsin sports.  Or play stump the sportswriter, and ask them a difficult question without letting them look at their smart phone. It's up to you.

Wednesday, May 18, 7 pm, at the Urban Ecology Center, $5 tickets at (414) 964-8505.

Richard Louv, author of The Nature Principle and Last Child in the Woods.

When we first contacted the Urban Ecology Center about hosting Richard Louv for The Nature Principle, Jamie told me that their mission was heavily influenced by his seminal Last Child in the Woods.  So they were very excited about the partnership.  Louv's new book, The Nature Principle, makes the case for a nature-based existence.

And Louv takes inspiration from the Urban Ecology Center too. Here's an excerpt from one of his essays:

"Not long after the first publication of Last Child in the Woods in 2005, I found myself wandering down a path toward the Milwaukee River, where it runs through urban Riverside Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At first glance, nothing seemed unusual about the young people I encountered. A group of inner-city high school students, they dressed in standard hip-hop fashion. I expected to see in their eyes the cynicism so fashionable now in urban, suburban, and even rural communities, the jaded look of what D. H. Lawrence long ago called the "know-it-all state of mind." But not today.

"As they cast their fishing lines from the muddy bank, they laughed with pleasure, delighted by the lazy brown river and the landscape of the surrounding park. Ducking a few backcasts, I walked through the woods to the two-story Urban Ecology Center, made of lumber and other material recycled from abandoned buildings." Read the rest of the essay here.

Thursday, May 19, 7 pm

Cris Mazza, author of Various Men Who Knew Us as Girls, reading with Elise Blackwell, author of An Unfinished Score.

We've hosted a number of literary writers in groups over the past year, but when Gina Frangello put together a veritable vanload of writers from Chicago last fall, there was one problem. It turned out that Cris Mazza's collection was not out yet. We wisely decided to reschedule her appearance until the book was available.

In Various Men Who Knew Us as Girls, Hester, a struggling journalist, confonts the unjustice of a prositution ring, as she also confronts the failings of her former mentor.  She's been reading around Chicago, including with Lidia Yuknavitch, the author of The Chronicle of Water, a memoir praised by Chuck Palahniuk recently in this blog. Mazza is the author of more than sixteen books, including Trickle-Down Timeline and Homeland.

Melanie Page reviews the book on Dzanc Books' online journal, The Collagist. "Mazza carefully complicates black and white concepts that ask women to stand by their physical boundaries; Hester is helped by the machismo, and so readers are forced to ask what right we have to deny such women happiness." Mazza teaches writing at the University of Illinois Chicago. Read the rest of the review here.

Also on the bill on Thursday is Elise Blackwell, author of several novels, most recently An Unfinished Score, the story of a composer who discovers that her lover has died in a plane crash. Blackwell, who teaches writing at the University of South Carolina, has written her newest novel in the form of a concerto.  From the Mostly Fiction online journal comes an excerpt from this review by Terez Rose:

"The story’s climax is well-paced and satisfying, casting new light on all that came before it, deepening each character, enriching the story as a whole. A coda neatly clears up loose bits and leaves us with one final image of music and the redemptive power it offers to those who serve it." More of the review here.

Friday, May 20, 7 pm

Joe Yonan, author of Serve Yourself: Nightly Adventures in Cooking for One. The acclaimed editor of the Washington Post food section (recent winner of the James Beard award for his editing work) presents a new book of recipes tailored for single diners. You want paella for one? Yes, it's possible.

Here's an excerpt of an interview that Yonan had with Kelly DiNardo, of the Washington Independent Review of Books, who asked Yonan about the inspiration for this work.

"I had been writing the monthly 'Cooking for One' column for The Washington Post food section for a couple of years and was surprised that even though the fastest-growing household size in the country is single-person, and has been for many years, there were only a few other books on the topic. Ultimately, though, it was a Facebook comment that really did it. Someone posted in response to something I wrote on using up leftover wine that all my problems would be solved if I just got myself a relationship because, obviously, 'the pleasures of the table are best shared.' That naiveté about the lives of single people is what really motivated me. I want single folks to realize that they don’t have to resort to takeout all the time, or processed food, but that they can follow their own cravings and have fun doing so."

Read more from DiNardo and Yonan here.  And after that, I leave for BookExpo and I promised I wouldn't book more than a couple of events for Stacie to host.  I kept my promise, pretty much.

Bestsellers for the Week, How Did Our Events Go, and Where to See Erik Larson.

It's Sunday, and when I have nothing else pressing on my mind, there are always bestsellers.  Something interesting always comes up in passing.

fiction hardcover

1. Caleb's Crossing, by Geraldine Brooks

2. Doc, by Mary Doria Russell

3. Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss

4. The Pale King, by David Foster Wallace

5. Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen

Thank you to everyone who came to Geraldine Brooks event on Thursday, as well as everyone involved with putting the event together.  We got wonderful feedback for the $5 tickets (known as the Boulder Bookstore model, where the customer gets the $5 back in a discount off the featured book. The only issue so far?  At least one customer didn't see the sign in our main door that we were asking everyone to enter and exit through Starbucks and didn't walk around to the other side to enter.  My apologies to anyone else this happened to.

nonfiction hardcover

1. The President is a Sick Man, by Matthew Algeo
2. In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson
3. Bossypants, by Tina Fey
4. Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand
5. The Social Animal, by David Brooks
In our store at least, Larson can thank Geraldine Brooks.  More than half our copies for the week were sold the evening of her event by attendees.

Though Larson did not come to Milwaukee for this book, perhaps you'd like to catch him over the next few weeks if you are elsewhere.  He's actually pretty close, hovering around the Chicago area for at least three events. According to the Random House site:

Sunday, May 15, 2 pm: Centuries and Sleuths, Forest Park, Illinois (today!)

Monday, May 16, 2 pm, Burton Manner, Livonia, Michigan

Tuesday, May 17, 7:30 pm, Free Library of Philadelphia

Wednesday, May 18, 7 pm, Prairie Lights, Iowa City
Thursday, May 19, 7:30 pm, First Presbyterian Church of Dallas
Saturday, May 21, 6:30 pm, Third Place Books, Lake Forest Park, Washington
Monday, May 23, 11:30 am, Union League Club, Chicago
Monday, May 23, 6 pm, Chicago Public Library

paperback fictoin

1. A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan
2. The Invisible Bridge, by Julie Orrginer
3. People of the Book, by Geraldine Brook
4. Room, by Emma Donoghue (first week out)
5. Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese
6. The Solitude of Prime Numbers, by Paolo Giordano

I'm excited to include #6, as momentum on our April event book has still been strong.  In fact, we're still the #1 book on Treeline, but other stores are nipping at our heels.

Oh, and Room was still was on our hardcover list for the week.

paperback nonfiction

1. The Bread of Angels, by Stephanie Saldana
2. Inside of a Dog, by Alexandra Horowitz
3. The Nine Parts of Desire, by Geraldine Brooks
4. Writing to Make a Difference, by Dalya Massachi
5. Life, by Keith Richards

You'd think there is only one Geraldine Brooks event book on this list, but there are actually two.  I read that Brooks was an evangelist for The Bread of Angels on Shelf Awareness, and so ordered in a pile.  When someone asked Brooks what she was excited about, among the other books, I handed her a copy and we sold out everything.

kids hardcover

1. A Tale of Two Castles, by Gail Carson Levine
2. A World Without Fish, by Mark Kurlansky
3. Throne of Fire, by Rick Riordan
4. We are in a Book, by Mo Willems
5. Built to Last, by David Macaulay

Our paperback list is all Gail Carson Levine, all the time.  We were talking to a Shorewood teacher who said their event was really wonderful. 

A Last Minute Plug for Jerome Pohlen's Progressive Nation, Saturday, May 14, 2 pm. That's Today!

For several months, many of my customers have been involved in voicing public reaction to some of our state governmenment's changes in laws and policies. I guess there's nothing like a 53% margin to declare that you have a mandate and change 50 years of laws. OK, that's about as political as I'm going to get here.

Several of my customers emailed me (oddly enough, nobody actually spoke to me), asking why I wasn't doing more programming that addressed collective bargaining and other issues.  Actually not too many other issues, mostly collective bargaining.  And I wrote back and said various things, but mostly I said I'm a bookstore, not a political forum, and that I have customers with a wide variety of political viewpoints (though being where we are, it certainly leans left but not exclusively), but I would certainly program author events if they gave me the right author. And just to prove the right author was out there, one of my booksellers turned her rec shelf into a union studies section.

But nothing fell into my lap, and nobody gave me $10,000 for honorariums and travel budgets. Then I went to the UWM Spring Writers Festival. I had to bring in books from the speakers.  Jerome Pohlen, who was speaking as an editor at Chicago Review Press, had written a number of the Oddball Travel Guides, including Oddball Wisconsin, but had also written a collection of guides to lefty travel sites, called Progressive Nation.  After his talk, I asked Mr. Pohlen to come up and do an event for the store, which is happening today, Saturday, May 14, at 2 pm.

Progessive Nation came out a couple of years ago, but we'd never hosted the author at Schwartz. How could this be? Well, it was partly because we never did much with Pohlen's publisher/distributor, Independent Publishers Group, whereas now they seem to be one of our major sources for interesting events. In fact, Pohlen edited Matthew Algeo, author of last Monday's event, The President is a Sick Man.  Independent Publishers Group also distributed the author of Wednesday's featured book, June Skinner Sawyers' Bob Dylan: New York, and the upcoming event for Douglas Jacobson's The Katyn Order. By the way, Douglas Jacobson's first public book event for his new novel is Monday, June 13, 7 pm. Details to come.

Progressive Nation is a travel guide, armchair or otherwise, to major pivotal moments in American history (and I paraphrase):

--The home of abolitionists Levi and Catharine Coffin, Grand Central Station on the Underground Railroad

--Alice's Restaurant Church, the namesake of Arlo Guthrie's song protesting the draft

--The courthouse where Susan B. Anthony went on trial for attempting to vote

--The site of the Haymarket Riot in Chicago, where laborers protested working conditions

--The former camera shop where Harvey Milk launched his campaign to become America's first openly gay elected official

And did I mention Pohlen was the Green Party candidate for Congress several years ago?  Credentialed enough for you?

So here's the question? Did you really want this programming or not? It's time to find out, today at 2 pm.  And if this event is a bust, I'm going to put in a proposal for Dinesh D'Souza, my buddy from college.*

*Full disclosure. Not really my buddy. We only went to the same college at the same time.

House Arrest author Ellen Meeropol Has Some Recs for You...

No, we don't know why several of our posts disappeared from Blogger. We're hoping they eventually show up again.

I'm sure you noticed that our event schedule this spring has about double the number of events we had in 2010 (which in turn was higher than 2009). Though we can't say yes to everything, we've put our necks on the line with a number of smaller press fiction titles.  Many stores will not book these kinds of events, because they fear small turnouts.  I learned this firsthand when I tried to help some local authors get gigs in other cities; even though I knew the event coordinators, I couldn't get a green light. I illustrate this with a photo of Matthew Algeo, author of The President is a Sick Man.  His book is not fiction, and our turnout was pretty good.  So does that prove my point or not?  I'm not sure, but I wanted to use one of the photos that Mary K. sent me.

So this month, we've had some disappointments among our successes.  Sometimes it's a weekend that's just too nice. Sometimes the author doesn't help us get the press we need to get the word out--we try, of course, but did I mention we have 25 events this month? But sometimes you do everything and a worthy book and author gets overlooked.  And that's why I'm sad that we had a smaller crowd than we should have for Ellen Meeropol's novel, House Arrest, her novel about a home care nurse and her house-arrest pregant patient who find they have more in common than they expected.

In part, I blame the car.  Before I got the vehicle, I was reading on my commute, which could be up to 90 minutes if I did rush hour with stops both ways. And partly it's a function of so many events--I find myself working even more hours just for logistics, and that cuts into reading time. 

So I didn't finish the book in time.  And fiction, more than most nonfiction which has more targetable angles, needs a read to work.  Look at Carsten Jensen's event for We the Drowned.  A nice showing and I credit Jason in part for that.  And Stacie's viral video of course. Meeropol was worth reading too, with raves from Julia Glass ("smart, provocative, and moving"), Rosellen Brown ("a fascinating story about the unquenchable promise of healing") and Heidi W. Durrow (a "compelling debut").

Though I was very, very tired and not scheduled for this event, I stayed on and listened to her talk and reading, which I really enjoyed. Check Meeropol's schedule, and if she's coming to your city, I'd recommend stopping by to here her. More on the Meera-blog.  One thing I found very interesting was that in some cities, she couldn't get an event at a local bookstore so she set up house parties. It sounds like they were quite successful!

Ellen Meeropol is a writer, yes, but also a great reader.  And I don't just mean she's a good reader for the event (though she was); she's also a great reader from her years at Odyssey Bookshop, coordinating events, running a book club, and picking titles for their first edition club. So I asked her to tell me about some books she's excited about, as I need guidance as much as the next schmo.

The title she's hottest on right now is Alexi Zentner's novel Touch.  It's a family saga of three generations, mixed with forest sprites and ghostly beings.  Think north-of-the-border magical realism.  It's beautifully written, and Meeropol assured me we'd have a copy when I starting worrying.  In fact, we had six and it's currently on Boswell's Best.   Hooray!

Recently out in paperback is Amy Bloom's Where the God of Love Hangs Out.  Meeropol loves Blume's short stories, and how Bloom looks at all the different ways people love each other.  In her new collection, she brings her characters into pre-geezerhood, and that's just great.  Her comment reminded me of Alice Adams' later collections, which featured heroines into their seventies. Sigh, Alice Adams.  Hey, sigh, Amy Bloom too.

Right now Meeropol is reading Tayari Jones' Silver Sparrow, which is the #1 Indie Next pick for June.  "I'm loving the writing" is her direct quote.  Everything else is paraphrased. Everything.

Hey, I was just about to read Silver Sparrow!  But I'm bogged down in five other things. Sad, huh?

Three Events with Food, Including One (Geralding Brooks) Tonight.

Today is Geraldine Brooks day (5/12, 7 pm) Thanks for the shout out in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for the event, and we've also been doing some underwriting on WUWM.  Hope you heard one of our spots? I did while doing errands on Tuesday. 

And there's news on the factual front of Caleb's Crossing too. Louise at Penguin just let me know that Harvard will be honoring Joel Iacoomes, one of the first Native Americans to attend the school, with a special posthumous degree at its 2011 Commencement exercises on May 26. 

Speaking of public radio (which I was doing before that last aside), we just did a deal to underwrite some spots on WHAD for Ann Patchett's wonderful novel, State of Wonder (it's in the title so it must be true), and Wisconsin Public Radio is going to co-sponsor that event with us when Patchett visits on June 22, 7 pm.  Hooray.

 Back to today. At 5 pm, I pick up a little something from Beans and Barley, catering if you will. I can't take requests because you need to get your catering orders in 24 hours in advance. Now that we're offering $5-plus off the book (Boswell Benefits price) to anyone who buys the $5 ticket, the catering isn't as necessary for the value, but hey, I promised, and it makes the whole thing festive.  And I put a bug into Andy's ear (you know him, he's the friendly manager of the Starbucks next door) that this was a good crowd for sampling.

Speaking of food, we've put together a last-minute event for Joe Yonan, author of Serve Yourself, Nightly Adventures in Cooking for One, on Friday, May 20, 7 pm.  I haven't finalized it but I'm contracting with a local caterer (yes, I'll talk them up when it's all confirmed) to make several dishes from the book, which looks lucious.  Yonan is the food editor for the Washington Post.  I'm going to to a little outreach on this, but I'm trying to set up a group interview with food bloggers beforehand.  If you write about food, contact me so I can include you in the group.

And because it gives me a sense of accomplishment, I just finished putting together our latest author lunch, this time with charming and thoroughly personable Darin Strauss, author of the National Book Critic Circle award winning memoir, Half a Life.  He'll be doing a traditional talk-signing with Next Chapter on Monday, June 20, but since we have known each other a long time (I hosted events with him twice at Schwartz), he's agreed to join us for lunch at Downer's Cafe Hollander on Tuesday, June 21, at Noon.

Details to come.  We don't even have the tickets ready, but it will be $40 all inclusive, including a copy of Half a Life.

Chuck Palahniuk Does it Again--And the Whole Store Crowds Around Me As The Magic Box is Opened

A couple of days ago, we received a package from Chuck Palahniuk in Portland.  Since we've gotten on this mailing list, it's become a ritual that when I open the box, it definitely shoots to the top of the most interesting thing goin on in the bookstore, particularly on a Wednesday afternoon post Mother's Day during finals. And all the kids are at school.  And everyone's working.  And it's after lunch at Via and Hollander. Et cetera.  Yes, we were quiet.

We'd already received a bonus box, containing Lydia Vunavitch's essay of a competitive swimmer-artist who battles violence, addiction, loss.  Palahniuk loved it, as did several other writers, including Andrei Codrescu, who wrote "This intensely powerful memoir touches depths yet unheard of in contemporary writing. I read it at one sitting and wondered for days after about love, time, and truth."  I think Stacie grabbed it!

So the new box comes, and Jason already knows it's the advance copy of Damned (yes, Palahniuk moved to the fall), since he's buying from rep Jason next week.  And Amie starts reading and she catches that it's sort of a riff on Are You There God? It's Me Margaret.

And then Jason puts on the devilish mask inside. And then the crowds start grabbing at the Halloween candy. And I think, "What if it's poisoned?" Wouldn't that be a clever way to promote a Palahniuk novel? But that thought is fleeting, and I grab a couple of Milky Way Midnights, the really tiny bite-size ones. They used to be called Milky Way Dark.  I'm not sure why the name changed.

In the end, Jason grabbed the galley because he's a really fast reader.  Yes, but admit it, Jason. Greg gives the best quotes.  Our friend Margaret came in a few weeks ago and said to me, where are Greg's new recs? I've already read everything on his shelf. I'm just saying that never happens to me.

I always said to the gang who started the original Schwartz blog, "Don't write about books that aren't coming out for a long time as you're just pushing folks to buy it on Amazon." But hey, we've already got a couple of holds on 1Q84, the new Murakami that is also out in October. And besides, Palahniuk sent us candy.

Just a Few Other Bookish (or Cardish) Things Happening this Week

Remember yesterday, when I mentioned that we didn't have any events on Friday, May 13th?  Well, that doesn't mean there aren't great author events as the fine writer Jennifer Haigh will be at Next Chapter in Mequon for her new novel, Faith. It's about an Irish-American family in Boston, and the sister that attempts to redeem the name of her disgraced brother, a beloved Catholic priest.  I enjoyed reading Mrs. Kimble and Baker Towers, and had a great time at Haigh's event for her last novel, The Condition. This is a $5 ticketed event, so visit Next Chapter's website or call them at (262) 241-6220 for more information. Kirkus calls Faith, "beautifully, sometimes achingly poignant."  More here.

Did I tell you about the lovely cards we brought in from local painter James Steeno?  Boswellian Anne spotter his work at an art show last summer, and this spring we finally brought in his cards.  These are watercolors from previous Plein Aire competitions.  Remember when that used to be on Downer Avenue?  Those were the days.  So anyway, I was chatting with Steeno and asked him to let me know when his next show is.  Lucky you, it's this Saturday and Sunday, May 14 and 15, at the Grove Arts Festival at the Elm Grove Women's Club. It's 10 am to 5 pm on Saturday and 11 am to 4 pm on Sunday.

And here's an event that I'm definitely attending.  When I got the email from Lake Forest Bookshop that Elinor Lipman was appearing at Ragdale (1260 North Green Bay Road, Lake Forest) for an open-to-the-public event this Thursday, May 12, at 10 am, I immediately reserved a place.You can reserve one too!  As you may remember, Lipman was one of the ribbon cutters for our grand opening.  Her joyous novel The Family Man is available in paperback. Lake Forest is about an hour south of Milwaukee. More information on the Make it Better website.

There's a lot going on Saturday too.  Woodland Pattern is hosting local fave Nick Demske with Chicago's Travis Nichols this Saturday, May 14, at 7 pm.  Nick's not just a great poet himself, but a champion of other poets as well.  More at his blog Nicki-poo. Nichols read at Boswell last fall, and you can see the poetic influences in his novel, Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder, which makes sense, as he's an editor at he Poetry Foundation.

Also on Saturday, don't forget about the Socrates Cafe, which meets on Saturday, May 14, at 1:30.  It's back to meeting at Boswell, and I can tell you the philosophical conversations are heated. New members are welcome.

Want us to talk up one of your bookish events?  I can't promise anything, but we can't mention it if we don't know about it. We also welcome submissions to our much-read-over vestibule.  Drop a sign up to 11x17 off at our front desk and we'll review it.  Just be aware that if you post a sign yourself, it's not going to stay up for very long, as the board is carefully curated. One of our customers with a long Schwartz legacy was recently visiting, and remarked again how the messy vestibules used to drive him crazy and how pleased he would have been to see how organized ours is.

Bestsellers, with a Lot of Asides--What's Our Bestselling Non-Event Hardcover of 2011?

A little meandering never hurt anyone, particularly on a Sunday.  Unless you are going to a Mother's Day brunch, and then you might miss your reservation.  Let's start with some bestseller action:

Hardcover Fiction

1. Missing the Boat, by Dwellephant & Justin Shandy
2. Caleb's Crossing, by Geraldine Brooks
3. We the Drowned, by Carsten Jensen
4. The Tragedy of Arthur, by Arthur Phillips
5. A Moment in the Sun, by John Sayles
6. The Sixth Man, by David Baldacci

Sayles' new novel is set in the 1890's and runs nearly 1000 pages.  The McSweeney's folks are no stranger to that and more power to them.  Publishers Weekly says the novel is among his finest work.  Don't you think the cover recalls Amy Stewart's Wicked Bugs You think this wouldn't be appropriate, but Sayles documents his own wicked bugs, only in this case, they are people. A Moment in the Sun seems like something Boswellian Conrad would read, but I know he was reading The Tragedy of Arthur, as he just finished it.  Hooray for introductions of lost plays as novel!

Oh, and the event with Geraldine Brooks for Caleb's Crossing is this Thursday, May 12. We just sold a lot of books the first week out. Five dollar tickets available here. And if you buy a ticket, you get the book at Boswell's Best price. Forgive me for harping.

The Carsten Jensen event went well. Expectations were all over the map. Cerebral European novel? Oh, that might be tough.  Several Boswell raves, a Journal Sentinel shout out, and a viral video from Stacie? How could it miss? The results were 25 folks, which is respectable for this sort of thing. If we had hosted Tranyra, the tattoo-artist-pawn-broker-single mom who has a daughter who competes in "little miss" beauty pagents and is somewhat embarrassed by her mom's untraditional sexuality which leads to some crazy situations and serious wine throwing, and has two concurrent reality series airing (and a cooking show in the works) and an inspirational memoir just published (launched concurrently with her new clothing line*), we might have done a bit better, but maybe not. And besides, they would have probably held the event in a store that carried the clothing line.

Hardcover Nonfiction
1. Bossypants, by Tina Fey
2. Reason to Believe, by Deval Patrick
3. My Germany, by Lev Raphael
4. Creating Dangerously, by Edwidge Danticat
5. Lost in Shangri-La, by Mitchell Zukoff

My rule of thumb on bestsellers is that bulk sales don't count (unless the book is new and they are mixed in with other sales) but events do, because multiple people are making the purchasing decision. That might be why we never get the call to order 100 copies of whatever book for whichever author. That said, I couldn't help a call out to Edwidge Danticat's book of essays from Princeton, especially because we have been selling the book pretty steadily since it came out.

Oh, and congrats to Tina Fey, whose Bossypants officially becomes our bestselling, non-event, non-bulk-sale hardcover book of 2011. And what did it beat out? Believe it or not, it was Patrick Rothfuss's Wise Man's Fear. If you know Rothfuss (and you might, as he lives in Madison), please suggest an event at Boswell.

While we're counting, #3 is The Tiger's Wife, and #4 is Room, which is particularly impressive as that novel came out last fall and will be out in paper shortly. It's what I gave my mom for Mother's Day. And it's Jim Higgins' Mother's Day pick in today's Journal Sentinel. The paperback is out May 18.

In paperbacks and kids books, we're very event heavy. It was hard to find a non-Mo-Willems sale amongst them, but we did have a nice first week for Rick Riordan's Throne of Fire, volume two of the Kane Chronicles. 

For photo wrap-ups, there are plenty of shots of authors at the podium, both from the side view and further back straight on.  I noticed that several authors have had to slump a bit when talking, as they like to grip the podium's sides.  It does not make for a gracious photo, so I do not include them here.  I did like one shot of Alexander MacLeod and Clark Blaise, who I learned that night had taught at UWM at the beginning of his career.  It showed them signing in the audience chairs, because the podium doesn't work for two and a signing table winds up being lonely unless you have at least 50 people at the event.  But I'm not including this photo since it makes it look like we had less folks at the reading than we actually did.  So there.  All photographic illusions must enhance the reputation of the store!

On Thursday, Mo Willems posed for a few shots so the audience could get their photo snapping out of the way and concentrate on enjoying the reading. Good idea!

*Oh, and a new scent called "Valuptuous!" It started as a spelling error, but then everyone realized that it would be easier to trademark, and might work better on Valentine's Day. Who knows?