Fin and Lady is Intensely New York in the 1960s. It's a Wonderful New Novel From Cathleen Schine (Visiting Boswell on Monday, July 22, 7 pm).

I’ve written before about my childhood in New York. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, partly because of talk about the new Donnell Library, and partly because I just read Cathleen Schine’s wonderful new novel, Fin and Lady, which just went on sale. 

While I was raised in Queens, I have strong memories of heading to Manhattan with my family, just to walk through neighborhoods, window shop, get a cheap meal. When I was in high school, I started going in by myself, first to read Billboard at said library, which I preferred to the Mid Manhattan branch, even though the Mid-Manhattan location was the old Arnold Constable department store, and later to take science classes at Columbia, and visit my sister who was living on the Upper West Side.

One time in college I went to New York with a fellow student and we picked up a friend of his whose family lived in a Park Avenue apartment. I was sort of flabbergasted that this said apartment stretched over two floors and was bigger than a fancy suburban home. And then later, when I was working in publishing, I would visit friends whose apartments were so tiny you could barely squeeze through the halls. Fire code? Most likely.

I have snippets of memory of that world before the corporate takeover of Manhattan. When neighborhoods were distinctive, and low rise, and artists could afford to live there. And that’s one of several reasons why I am so taken with Fin & Lady. She captures 1960s New York with such vividness, without letting the details overwhelm the story.

The story, you ask? Fin is a young boy living in Connecticut who has lost first his father and then mother to illness. His closest relative would be Lady, a half-sister (through his dad). His only previous memories of her was attending her wedding (where she didn’t show up) and then accompanying her parents on a chase through France and finally Capri to find and bring back the runaway bride.

Lady’s family is pretty wealthy and she brings Fin home to her late mom’s apartment, watched over by their housekeeper Mabel. But Lady wants more than a staid uptown home, and dreams of moving into a Greenwich Village townhouse. The rebellion of the sixties tempts her, and Fin is immersed in the world of alternative schools and sit ins while Lady juggles three distinctive beaus, a Hungarian artiste, a beefy but not particularly junior exec, and the lawyer she left at the altar, who is also Fin’s financial guardian.

Lady seems to aspire to be an Audrey Hepburn type, a sophisticate in the middle of a wild jungle, not exactly Holly Golightly, but perhaps the woman Holly Golihtly pretended to be. I’m also reminded a bit of Elaine Dundy’s The Dud Avocado, which doesn’t even take place in New York, but you kind of get the sixties girl vibe in both stories.

The thing is, the sixties might be more than a woman like Lady can handle, and the wilder things have the potential to get, the more she clamps down, perhaps even considering sending Fin to boarding school. When I think of how young she is in the story, and the burden she puts on herself, I’m not surprised about some of the decisions she makes.

The story is just packed with lovely New York details, from the legendary Schaffts and Bonwit Teller to the beloved Donnell Library (see above, and this article about its redevelopment) to even sneak little details in, like that lavender shopping bag, which was clearly from Bergdorf Goodman. I love that Lady paints at the Art Students League, where my mom’s best friend (an artist, also named Lily), took her with some frequency.

This is very much a novel that contemplates the pull between freedom and responsibility and it plays out in the choices of many of the characters, even in miniature when a student at Fin’s Greenwich Village school is dressed down for raising her hand to speak instead of saying whatever she wants. What exactly was she being trained for?

It turns out that despite owning hardcover copies of both The New Yorkers and The Three Weissmanns of Westport, I hadn’t read either. I know, everyone thinks I read the former since I sold it so hard at Schwartz, but in fact I was using other people’s recs. I didn’t lie, but could tell folks what all my trusted booksellers were saying. It was a varied lot that took to Schine, and I always see that as a good sign.

My journey to Fin & Lady started at Winter Insitute in Kansas City. They bring these authors to meet booksellers, and hope the booksellers fall in love with them and read their books. Some of these booksellers are so good they read the featured titles in anticipation of meeting the authors. Very impressive, but alas not too common with me. Jason and I got to meet Cathleen Schine, and I realized that she had to go on my to-be-read list.

I’d only read a bit of Schine before, The Evolution of Jane actually, so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. I’ve always thought of Schine as being akin to Elinor Lipman in style, and I’d certainly recommend fans of one to the other, but there’s a bit more wistfulness in Schine’s work. It’s hard to describe—Lipman's are almost classic drawing room comedies, whereas there seems to be a whistfulness that permeates Schine's stories. Schine and Lipman's characters grow differently, and the pacing is a bit different, though I'd certainly recommend fans of one to the other. I'm having trouble explaining this.  In my head, there's a sort of bookend quality to the two authors. I could ask Dominique Browning, who reviewed both The Three Weissmanns of Westport and The View From Penthouse B for The New York Times Book Review and liked them both. She'd understand what I was talking about!

As you know by now, we wound up reading The Three Weissmanns of Westport for our in-store book club, and if I had more time, I would have finally read The New Yorkers too. But alas, time is one thing I don't have. I do have time to show you the original jacket of Fin & Lady. I understand why they changed it, but I still have to show it to you, being that it so cleanly matched the Alverno College billboard I passed while I was reading it.

But you probably don’t want to know about that. You want to know when are you going to meet this wonderful author for yourself and hear more about Fin & Lady? That date, my friend, is Monday, July 22, 7 pm. Trust me, you’ll get to meet her and want to read her books too.

Monday Events Preview--Joelle Charbonneau, Melissa Mohr, Barry Blackwell, Claire Conner, Tricia O'Malley, Plus a Preview for Next Monday.

Monday, July 8, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Joelle Charbonneau, author of The Testing.

Joelle Charbonneau is author of two popular mystery series for adults. The Testing is her first novel for young adults. Move rights have been sold. You can read more on last week's blog.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Isn’t that what they say?
But how close is too close when they may be one in the same?

The Seven Stages War left much of the planet a charred wasteland. The future belongs to the next generation’s chosen few who must rebuild it. But to enter this elite group, candidates must first pass The Testing—their one chance at a college education and a rewarding career.

Cia Vale is honored to be chosen as a Testing candidate; eager to prove her worthiness as a University student and future leader of the United Commonwealth. But on the eve of her departure, her father’s advice hints at a darker side to her upcoming studies – trust no one.

But surely she can trust Tomas, her handsome childhood friend who offers an alliance? Tomas, who seems to care more about her with the passing of every grueling (and deadly) day of the Testing. To survive, Cia must choose: love without truth or life without trust.

Download the free prequel here.

Tuesday, July 9, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Melissa Mohr, author of Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing.

In Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing, Milwaukee-native Melissa Mohr looks at swearing over thousands of years (Rome, Middle Ages, Renaissance) to show that as long as there has been swearing, there have been fears that it would bring about some sort of moral collapse, the end of civility, and eventually civilization. Holy Sh*t is partly a record of how swear-words have changed throughout the years. But it is also a study of the cultural concerns that gave rise to those words, and a look at what has mattered most to English-speakers over hundreds of years, and how this is revealed by swearing.

Steven Poole writes in the Wall Street Journal "Ms. Mohr leads us on an often ear-boggling tour of verbal depravity, through the medieval and early-modern periods (via a fascinating analysis of scatological phrasing in early Bible translations) to the Victorian era and then our own time. She also makes a serious point, cutely captured in the book's title. Our idea of 'swearing' is irredeemably muddled—caught between the sacred, as in the taking of oaths (the title's 'Holy'), and the profane, as in the use of terms for evacuatory and erotic adventure (the title's other word)."

Wednesday, July 10, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Barry Blackwell, author of Bits and Pieces of a Psychiatrist's Life.

In addition to his work as chairman and professor of psychiatry, pharmacology, and behavioral medicine at two medical schools, Barry Blackwell worked at a local hospital, studied religion and philosophy at a Catholic seminary, developed a not-for-profit program to provide support for people dealing with mental illness in faith communities, and ended his career at age 76 after working for four years at a women’s prison.

From the Shepherd Express: "Born in the United Kingdom and a Royal Army veteran of World War II, Barry Blackwell eventually became a psychiatric professor at UW-Madison as well as working in the trenches at Milwaukee’s Mount Sinai. Retired now, he has put many thoughts and memories about medicine and life into an engaging set of essays (and even a few poems) in Bits and Pieces of a Psychiatric Life. Blackwell reminds us that Apollo was both the god of poetry and of healing."

Thursday, July 11, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Claire Conner, author of Wrapped in the Flag: A Personal History of America's Radical Righ.

Claire Conner's father was a national spokesperson for the John Birch Society for more than thirty years; her mother was also a staunch follower. Drawing on records and documents, her parents’ files and personal writings, historical archives and firsthand knowledge, Conner’s book weaves back and forth between personal memoir and history to give readers an insider’s look at The John Birch Society and its legacy.

From Frank Schaeffer, author of Portofino, and Keeping Faith: "The John Birch Society had a huge impact on American politics. They were responsible for the lurch into insanity. The religious right, the Tea Party and the takeover of the Republican Party by extremists can’t be understood unless you understand the paranoid xenophobia Birchers injected into America. This book is about a journey through and out of that Bircher netherworld. It’s a vital piece of the puzzle to understanding the madness that overcame America and a moving story about one person’s journey back to sanity."

Friday, July 12, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Tricia O'Malley, author of The Stolen Dog.

Thursday, May 17, 2012 was a sunny, cool day. Briggs, a 2-year old Boston Terrier, was on the back deck of the East Side home where his owners, Tricia and Josh O’Malley, lived. Sleeping in the sunshine on a chair was where he last was seen by Josh, who stepped inside his house and missed the moment when a man slipped into the backyard and snatched the little dog.

Within hours, Tricia jumped into action and the search began, starting with the neighbor who witnessed a man getting into a car with the dog, continuing with police and friends, and ending with an entire community of people who posted flyers, shared alerts across social and traditional media, and even the rescue of another Boston Terrier.

A mere 18 days later—an eternity for the O’Malleys—Briggs was spotted wandering by a church near the home where he had been living before his disappearance. Within hours, he was back in the arms of his owners, and an entire city rejoiced.

And a preview for next week:
Monday, July 15, 7 pm, at Boswell:
All Star Break Baseball Night.

While we know we’re competing with the Major League Baseball Home Run Derby this night, it’s not like this spectacle is exactly baseball, though we wouldn’t necessarily turn down tickets to see it live. But we’ve got an alternative for folks who like their games classic and their fans fanatic. It’s the All Star Break Baseball Night, featuring three Milwaukee-area authors writing about their favorite subjects.

Tom Haudricourt, author of 100 Things Brewers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die

Greg Pearson, author of Fenway Fanatics: 50 Boston Red Sox Fans Tell Their Stories

Dave Heller, author of Facing Ted Williams: Players from the Golden Age of Baseball Recall the Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived.

Whatever your team loyalties, you should have a good time.

Sunday Bestseller Round Up for Boswell Book Company, Week Ending July 6, 2013.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. The Guns at Last Night, by Rick Atkinson
2. Let's Explore Diabeters with Owls, by David Sedaris
3. The Unwinding, by George Packer
4. Dad is Fat, by Jim Gaffigan
5. I Could Pee on This, by Francesco Marciuliano

When Rick Atkinson's new The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945, volume three of his Liberation Trilogy, came out, it had a huge first week nationally, but was relatively quiet here. Now in our eighth week of sales, we have our best week yet. Among its champions is David Shribman in the Boston Globe, who states "this volume is a literary triumph worthy of the military triumph it explores and explains."

Hardcover Fiction:
1. And the Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini
2. The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman
3. The Illusion of Separateness, by Simon Van Booy
4. Sisterland, by Curtis Sittenfeld
5. TransAtlantic, by Colum McCann

Last week's top five in this category was a boys' club, but this week we at least have Curtis Sittenfeld's Sisterland, about two psychic twins. Alana Semuels in the Los Angeles Times writes "by the end of the book readers will wish that Kate and Violet were real people, both because they're relatable women and because it's fun to imagine that psychics exist who can know things with such an impressive degree of accuracy — that they're out there in the American heartland, living in this world, but also in one that's full of mystery and adventure."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1 Daughter of the Queen of Sheba, by Jackie Lyden
2. Bicycle!: A Repair and Maintenance Manfesto, by Sam Tracy
3. The Stolen Dog, by Tricia O'Malley (event on Fri. July 12)
4. Wild, by Cheryl Strayed
5. Sic, by Joshua Cody

I'm happy to say that ex-Milwaukeean Joshua Cody's memoir Sic has done as well in paperback as it did in hardcover. Adam Curry, who interviews Cody in this video, compares reading the book to first hearing the Rolling Stones.

Books for Kids:
1. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs
2. Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins
3. The School for Good and Evil, by Soman Chainani
4. Dork Diaries V6: Tales from a Not-so-Happy Heartbreaker, by Rachel Renee Russell
5. Little Blue Truck, by Alice Schertle and Jill McElmurray

Here's our rec from Mel for The School for Good and Evil: "In this book, you will find a completely original idea, several layers of meaning, and a few meta moments. Soman Chainani's The School for Good and Evil is a splendid tale of friendship and growth between two girls who are trying to figure out who they are while stuck in the clutch of a school divided in which labels are necessary for survival. Sophie and Agatha demonstrate the value of friendship, regardless of social expectations. This entertaining novel takes the young adult fantasy genre to new places with strong female protagonists, and will give Harry Potter fans something new to look forward to."

Piet Levy reports that Shank Hall hosting the lauch party for Steve Nodine's The Cease is Increase: An Oral History of Milwaukee's Punk and Alternative Music Scene on Saturday, July 13, 9 pm. Tickets are $10 in advance, $15 at the door. And here's a piece from Jim Higgins on the same subject.

Levy also talks to Rick Springfield at Summerfest about his forthcoming novel, Magnificent Vibration (May 2014).

Jim Higgins reports on The Best of Connie Willis, which he contends includes "both one of the most poignant World War II time-travel tales and, I feel completely confident in writing this, the greatest alien-first-contact-at-Christmas story ever."

And finally, Jim Higgins also reports on new short story collections by speed-dating through eight collections, including those of Shawn Vestal, Eliot Treichel, Rebecca Lee, and Ethan Rutherford, who recently appeared at Boswell for The Peripatetic Coffin.

The Only Gifty Thing About This Saturday Post is My Suggestion That You Read "The Illusion of Separateness."

Several years ago I read the short story collection Love Begins in Winter. It was a collection of stories where a random encounter led back to a memory. I had enjoyed the book and recommended it to a couple of people (including booksellers) and we sold a fair number of copies for a short story collection, nine altogether, as it got some nice reviews and was featured as an Indie Next Pick for two months.

Fast forward two years later, and Stacie is sent a manuscript by Cathy, our HarperCollins rep. It's Simon Van Booy's second novel (he's also get a second book of stories and several volumes of essays and a picture book and...well, he doesn't seem to suffer from writer's block) and Stacie immediately falls in love. She wrote her Indie Next rec (the deadline is about 2 months before the list came out) and started talking it up to the other booksellers. Our deadline for September books was Friday--I spend at least an hour processing recommendations from various booksellers, including two for Hannah Kent's Burial Rites.

The first to get hooked was Sharon. Her rec is "Swoon." and she's been talking it up to all sorts of customers. It's become a bit of a competition, with Sharon and Stacie recommending The Illusion of Separateness, and Anne and Hannah favoring Colum McCann's TranAtlantic.

What's interesting about that is the books actually are quite similar, but I should say up front that this is without me having yet read McCann's latest, though I've read both Dancer and Let the Great World Spin. Both authors like to play with structure, circling through characters and jumping about in time. And both authors have a heartfelt connection with their creations, and seem to touch on themes of dignity and kindness and the strange ways that these qualities can play out.

I've had both books on my to-be-read list since before they came out, but I find that upcomign event books and potential event books tend to overwhelm my best intentions for outside reading. Hannah calls the books that she reads without express purpose "selfish reading" and her idea of setting aside some time is a great idea. That was the point of my book club selections--books that slipped by me that I wanted to read, but I have found that the deadline has turned into something closer to event reading. And we should note that all books I read seem to have some sort of pressure attached, even that Happy Hollisters book from several weeks ago.

On my recent trip to Massachusetts, I tried to sneak in Van Booy in between Paul Harding's new novel Enon (he's coming to Boswell on September 25) and Cathleen Schine's The Three Weissmanns of Westport, which I wrote about last week (and she's coming July 22). And how could you not get carried away with this novel? It's got all the elements I like in a book, plus a big heart that nonetheless avoids being cloying.  So even though we have a perfectly good rec from Stacie, what's wrong with a second one? Or a third?

"It starts in a Los Angeles nursing home, where an older man carefully tends to his patients. But then it switches to England, where another older man helps out his Nigerian neighbor by taking care of her son while she’s at work. And then a blind young woman on Long Island, who helps vision impaired attendees appreciate art exhibits. These and other characters have bumped against each other in time, some directly, others through intermediaries with all their lives pivoting on a fateful incident on a World War II battlefield. And yes, it reminds me of one of my favorite books of the last several years, Frederick Reiken’s Day for Night, but as my fellow bookseller Stacie notes, with The Illusion of Separateness, you don’t need a map to keep track of everything. I can only second my fellow Sharon, another Boswellian and Van Booy fan, and swoon." (Daniel's rec)

Yes, a coveted Day for Night comparison. I don't throw those out willy nilly. And having read it, I hope it's on the radar of the folks running the Dayton Literary Peace Prize because I think that someone who liked Richard Bausch's Peace (another book that my booksellers and I hand-sold very well some years ago) might want to know about this. I was just looking at the site and never realized that Francine Prose's A Changed Man had won this. I liked that book too, as well as Chang-Rae Lee's The Surrendered.

And though we didn't get to host Mr. Van Booy for this book, someday Mr. Van Booy will be in the midwest for something or other, and he'll think, "There's that bookstore in Milwaukee that sells my book like crazy. Maybe I should visit them."

Maybe his agent, who is from the area and still has ties here, can talk us up as well.

Oh, I know we featured Stacie's rec in our email newsletter, but I don't think it ever made the blog.

"The incandescent prose of this slender novel transfixed me until my heart shattered. Each character I met—with such deep longing in their souls and generosity of their spirits—seemed to be painstakingly carved from the granite of profound emotional truths, and I quite literally collapsed under the weight of it all. Moving backwards and forwards in time, we follow a starburst of people, from France to Los Angeles, whose smallest gestures have grand, echoing reverberations over the course of 66 years. I was (and continue to be) rendered utterly speechless for the magnificence of it." (Stacie)

So now I have a lot of event books to read, but can I somehow fit in more selfish reading? Will it be TranAtlantic, or will the customer who yesterday talked up Roald Dahl's My Uncle Oswald win (I recommended The Dud Avocado to him, by the way) be successful? Oy, tall order.

But first I have to say something to Stacie and Sharon, who encouraged me to read Van Booy's novel. Thanks!

Independence Day Post--A Few Visitors, A few Tattoos.

Today is the 4th of July and we're open 10 am to 5 pm. One day on our website we'll say that we're open every day except for Thanksgiving and Christmas and list the five days when we're open 10 am to 5 pm, which by the way, is New Year's, Easter, Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day. My apologies in advance go to veterans, presidents, and civil rights leaders where we have normal hours.

One of the sad thing about summer is that our regular visitors go away. The nice thing is that other folks visit. Ex-Schwartzian Brian was in from Atlanta who was enjoying The Orphan Master's Son immensely. His brother Kevin, on the other hand (not in person, but via Brian) was touting Jess Walter's The Financial Lives of Poets, which my sister Merrill also just finished. After Beautiful Ruins, that seems to be the Walter novel that is selling the best, due to the news about a Jack Black starring role in the film. Brian and I had lunch at Love Handle, a nice artisan sandwich and small plate shop on North Avenue, that Halley has been talking up. Pork cheeks sounds like the next hot term of endearment, doesn't it?

Another visitor was Therese (there are some accents there I suspect) who was visiting from Phoenix. She has a good amount of tattoos, but the one stands out to me is of course the Boswell on her shoulder. As the niece of my former boss (and co-owner of Schwartz Bookshops) Carol, she is just one of many people who was touched by the bookstore. Only her touch was with indelible ink!

Speaking of tattoos, I asked if I could show the arm of the Becky of Coral-Gables-and-beyond Books and Books. She is famous for getting kids' artists to draw on her arm, and then she gets the drawing permanently inked. I had read about her in Publishers Weekly and it was very exciting to see Otis and Pigeon and friends up close.

I have no idea who we'll see today. If it's you, say hi.

How Did the Book Club Go? The In-Store Lit Group Discusses Cathleen Schine's "The Three Weissmanns of Westport" (Plus My New Favorite Hobby, Which is Searching for International Editions).

This month the in-store lit group discussed The Three Weissmanns of Westport. So here's the story. Betty and Joe (Josie to the family) Weissmann separate after fifty years (no, 48!) of marriage. Joe is leaving for a better life, and that life includes Felicity, his vice president of online sales. Joe wants to be generous to his wife and two stepkids, Annie and Miranda, and if he has to cut off their finances so they'll leave their deluxe apartment in the Upper West Side (so much nicer than Felicity's Lincoln Towers abode with the now-blocked view), well, it's all for their own good. The taxes are killer! (American paperback jacket at right--replacing a comfy chair incongruously place in a beach setting. I like the cloth jacket better, but they share a style).

Miranda got her own problems. She's an agent, and it appears that the memoir meltdown has hit her hard. In fact, she's represented so many frauds that Oprah herself has taken her to task. Her sister Annie's life is a bit more dull, coordinating author appearances for a private library, but things are looking up in the dating department, when Frederick Barrow, Felicity's sister, shows some romantic interest in her. He seems like a good catch, kind of.

Then Cousin Lou makes an offer for them to all move into a cottage he owns in Westport. Betty will have a place to live, Miranda can escape from the bad publicity, and Annie can still commute to work. Things continue to get more complicated, with several younger lovers, a little complicated scheming to get a hold of money, and a lot of misunderstandings. (Note how the Brits added a woman at the beach--who is that? I think she's too young for anyone in this book except for the house sitter. Not a fan.)

Most of you know that the story is modeled on Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility with Miranda standing in for Marianne and Annie being a modern-day Elinor. Instead of a death causing a loss of fortune, it's divorce. We had some disagreement over whether Sense and Sensibility was worth remaking at all, with one attendee proclaiming it was her worst book and another saying it was her best. The person who said it was the worst (S.) also noted that Schine had fixed an ending that never seemed to work for her.  (The French deluxe paperback jacket, which is equivalent to our hardcover. The paperback was more playful, with beach umbrellas. I'm not sure it would work in an American cover, but I do like this--so French!)

We all decided this book is about age, and interestingly enough, the only one of the dozen of us who didn't really like it was by far the youngest person present. First of all, you have two sisters trying to find love who are probably a generation above Austen's heroines, if not almost two generations. Then you have the numerous lopsided-in-age relationships. There's Joe and Felicity, Annie and her older beau, Miranda and her younger one, Kit Maybrook, and the competitor for Annie's affection is the even younger Maggie, what I call the homewrecker housesitter. Schine seems interested in our own sense of relevance as we age, N. thought. She was probably the most exuberant about this story and I was not totally surprised, as she loves a book with a lot of literary allusions, and that was the case here.

I noted to J. that here was a book where the daughters seemed to have a good relationship with their Mom. J. duly noted that I was correct, but later on when she learned the author was older than she originally thought, the actual argument turned out to be that younger women writers seem to have problems with mothers.

J. noted that Annie's relationship with her sons, and her thoughts on the matter seemed so true, so it was particularly surprising that she got the age of the author wrong. But deception is a very important part of the book, with a lot of lovers creating some large falsehoods. The most egegious case is of course Miranda's clients, also known as the awful authors, but there's also Felicity rewriting Josie and Betty's relationship and some quite brazen identity appropriation. (Note the German cover is close in title and style to the paperback, with only the more appropriate beach chair substituting for the more fish-out-of-water stuffed chair. They lost the joke!)

There was some grumbling about Betty's perceived helplessness. Of course, she was fighting for her own relevance, and at least at first was coming from a perspective of less knowledge (Joe had Felicity in her court) and being blindsided. She was also being, in her own way, selfless, which is another recurring thing in The Three Weissmanns of Westport. Who is self-centered, who is selfish, who is selfless? Can one be more than one at the same time? (Spanish language cover, on the other hand, kept the armchair joke but reworked the title to get rid of that Weissmann name. I wonder if they even kept it in the body of the book. Yes they did.)

I'm guessing that this book was Ms. Schine's biggest sales success in hardcover, hitting the top ten of The New York Times fiction list for several weeks. Dominique Browning was a big fan of the book, with her enthusiastic review featured on the front page of The New York Times Book Review. I would say the naysayer seems to be Adam Kirsch, whose review in Tablet magazine seemed to make it's way around the web, to The New Republic and then being reprinted verbatim on a Jane Austen website.

Kirsch didn't seem to like the Jewish angle on the story, thinking it an improper updating of the landed gentry. I don't know--has Kirsch hung around wealthy Jews much? But I think the problem is that the homage to Austen was taking by a lot of JASNA people way too seriously. You just look at the review websites and all these people complaining "this is no Jane Austen!"  I had a similar discussion with our own Jane when we hosted Mary Robinette Kowal. There are a lot of purists out there. (Polish jacket at right. I think the women's feet are too young and I'm never a fan of the cut off body part.)

Hey, modern writers would play off of other books if we'd only fix copyright laws. Right now, everything past 1923 is off limits unless it's satire. But this will not be an issue for her next book, Fin & Lady, which of course we're featuring at a Boswell event on Monday, July 22, because I have no idea what she was channelling there. I'll soon find out.

For more book clubbish type discussion, here are a list of questions on the Reading Group Guides website. Next up we discuss Laura Moriarty's The Chaperone on Monday, August 4, 7 pm. Our September selection is E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime, a timely discussion before the Milwaukee Rep production. Due to the Labor Day holiday, we'll be meeting on Tuesday, September, September 3, 7 pm. (And finally, that's the Italian cover at left. The only cover that tried to interpret what this cottage amidst newly renovated and rebuilt mansions might look like. I don't mind the people in this one, because they are so far away).

Tuesday Post--New Releases on the Paperback Table, and What Do You Know, We Have Staff Recs on All of Them.

In the past few years, we've seen an increase of July hardcover releases of note, but Jason says that 2013 is a little softer.  We're wondering if a lot of the August releases moved up last year because of the presidential election and this year we might be back to normal.

That said, there's an awful lot of paperbacks coming out this month, so that seems to be a good focus this week. One of our favorite story collections of last year, The News from Spain, by Joan Wickersham. Interestingly enough, a lot of our focus tends to be on changed book jackets. There's no way we expected Vintage to keep a type cover for the paperback edition, but there's been some disagreement over whether we like this one or not.

From Stacie: "You know how when you fall in love, you treasure every word, glance, and moment? How crisply the laughter comes, how intelligent you sound, how charming the other person is, how you connect with a profound depth and honesty? And, you know how the reverse happens, just as tightly focused, when you fall out of love, and every tiny, agonizing detail is burned into your soul? Yeah, that. That's what it's like reading this exquisite collection; which happens to be about exactly all of that."

And here's The Collective, from Don Lee. Unlike Lee's last, where the jacket went from Brussels sprouts to elephant, The Collective jacket is close to the hardcover. I put a copy in our friend Gloria's hands last week and when I ran into her at the coffee shop this morning, she told me she liked it. I thought it was up her alley on several levels, but the fact that it began with the ending was something I knew she'd particularly enjoy, as she is one of those folks who likes to read the ending first.

My rec: "In this sometimes heartbreaking, other times hilarious new novel, Eric Cho contemplates the life of Joshua Yoon, the Korean novelist with whom he, along with provocative visual artist Jessica Tsai, once formed the 3AC or Asian American Artists Collective, first in college and later in Cambridge. What may have led him to commit suicide (or was it) by running into the path of an oncoming car? Lee tackles identity themes he’s contemplated in the past (the allure of the cultural bond, the bristle of the stereotype), but this time through the lens of the college novel. With the pump already primed by recent successes from Eugenides and Harbach, I’m hoping that folks will be ready for this triumphant literary addition."

Another book we had fun with last summer was Natalie Bakopoulos's The Green Shore. True to form for most paperbacks, it is certainly not a green jacket though one has to say that there's always a strong feeling about focusing on the blue with a Greek themed book, and I think Simon decided to play up the Greek angle in paperback, not a bad thing.

My rec: "As we follow the current economic travails of Greece, it is hard not to recall its turbulent history, particularly The Regime of the Colonels, which ruled from 1967 to 1974. In Natalie Bakopoulos's new novel, she humanizes this period through the eyes of one family--a widowed doctor, her three children, and her brother, a notorious local poet. The personal and political mash up in this passionate story; it is at once of a particular place and time, yet also a timeless mirror of the struggles of life under any repressive government. Yes, the women of this family have trouble navigating the mine fields of family life, but each of them have the strength and grace to anchor this compelling story-together they're a power trio."

I have to update that rec. We no longer seem to be paying attention to Greece.

One paperback that comes in advance of a new hardcover is The Beautiful Mystery, by Louise Penny. We'll be hosting the U.S. launch for her new novel, How the Light Gets In, on August 27. It will be a ticketed event, with a copy of the book and refreshments. We'll have tickets on sale soon and the event is co-sponsored by Mystery One. But here's her previous tale, set in a monastery.

From Sharon: "Saint-Gilbert-Entre-Les-Loups is a closed monastery deep in the wilds of Quebec. When one of the brothers is murdered, the outside world, namely, Inspector Gamache and his lieutenant, Beauvoir, must intrude on its peaceful existence. Saint-Gilbert is an order under a vow of silence, however, and no one is talking. Once again, Louise Penny has outdone herself by providing readers with an engrossing mystery whose characters are as intriguing as the crime."

Patrick Somerville's This Bright River has actually been on our paperback able for a few weeks, but I feel remiss in not getting this in a new paperback post. The jacket, not surprisingly, is a little closer to The Cradle, which continues to make the book club circuit, with one of our in-store lit group attendees mentioning that her daughter's book club had just finished it. I think the new jacket is very nice, though it might

Stacie's rec: "When Ben's mother says "It's darker and stranger in small towns than almost anywhere," it's as if a thunderclap booms down from the sky, scoring the mild darkness that has come before and foreshadowing what still lies ahead in Somerville's twisted new novel. A puzzle of a story, its opening presents a mystery that even when we finish, we're not entirely sure what exactly happened, and yet, it's immensely satisfying."

And finally, Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures, by Emma Straub is also on the paperback table. Jason's not sure he likes the jacket but I think I'm a fan, at least enough to look up more about the artist, Christopher Silas Neal. I love this drawing from The New York Times science section article about how men with sisters are happier.

"This story begins in Door County, Wisconsin in 1920. Elsa Emerson is the youngest of three daughters, and her parents run a playhouse. She dreams of becoming a movie actress, and she marries and runs away to Los Angeles while still very young. She is discovered and becomes a star named Laura Lamont. The atmosphere of old Hollywood is certainly intoxicating, but I didn't really appreciate Laura until things started to go south for her. Then, the reader learns what strength Laura possesses, and can appreciate her as a person, and not just a glamorous actress."

Monday Event Post--Find Waldo Starting Today and All Through July, Repair Your Bicycle on Saturday.

Due to the July 4th holiday, we've got an abbreviated event schedule.

Monday, July 1, 4-6 pm, at Boswell:
Find Local Milwaukee Launch and Activity Day. (Here's our Facebook page)

Team Waldo (Nick, Hannah, Halley, and Jannis) decided to take this project on, a promotion that worked very well in other cities in the summer of 2012. We got over 30 other local merchants to sign up, in Shorewood, Whitefish Bay, Wauwatosa, and Milwaukee (on the East Side, Riverwest, The Third Ward, and Bay View) to play. Each location should have a cling outside identifying themselves as a Find Waldo store. Then somewhere inside the store should be Waldo. When you spot him, the retailer will sign your passport.

Passport? Yes, it's a programming you can pick up at Boswell (and yes, the other retailers have them too) with a list of participating locations, including places like Fischberger's Variety, Just Kidding Kids Cuts, Indulgence Chocolatiers, Zoom Room, Yo Mama, Outpost Natural Foods, and the Downer Avenue Cafe Hollander These are also the retailers offering prizes to the winners.

So you fill out fifteen (or more stamps), bring the passport back to Boswell, and it gets you a $2 coupon off Waldo books, a Waldo sticker, and entry into our drawing for prizes from the above retailers (there are plenty of others participating, but it made sense to single out the ones who offered prizes, right?), one of ten $10 Boswell gift cards, or a deluxe set of Find Waldo titles.

We start offering passports today, and from 4-6 pm, we'll have Waldo activities at the bookstore with refreshments from Outpost. You'll want to finish finding Waldo by July 30, as on the Wednesday, July 31, we'll announce the winners and give out the prizes, also at 4 pm.

Saturday, July 6, 2 pm, at Boswell:
Sam Tracy, author of Bicycle!: A Repair and Maintenance Manifesto, second edition.

The pitch: Written by a long-time bicycle mechanic and former bike messenger, Bicycle! offers detailed descriptions of all maintenance tasks and repair situations, clearly illustrated with photographs and drawings. Cutting through technical jargon, and injecting his own dose of humor and radicalism, Tracy encourages riders to learn for themselves how to make their bikes work, in a way that is clear and fun.

This guide has served as the serious rider’s manual, with numerous professional bicycle workers—messengers, mechanics, pedi-cab drivers—and bicycle commuters eagerly awaiting this updated edition, which includes an abundance of helpful photos, an expanded index, and an updated resources section. Tracy also includes low-cost and no-repair solutions he developed while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mauritania.

And a sneak peak at next week...
Monday, July 8, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Joelle Charbonneau, author of The Testing

The pitch: It’s graduation day for sixteen-year-old Malencia Vale, and the entire Five Lakes Colony (the former Great Lakes region) is celebrating. All Cia can think about—hope for—is whether she’ll be chosen for The Testing, a United Commonwealth program that selects the best and brightest new graduates to become possible leaders of the slowly revitalizing post-war civilization. When Cia is chosen, which is considered a great honor, her father finally tells her about his own nightmarish half-memories of The Testing. Armed with his dire warnings (“Cia, trust no one”), she bravely heads off to Tosu City, far away from friends and family, perhaps forever. Danger, romance—and sheer terror—await.

Joelle Charbonneau is well-known for her mysteries series, and in fact will be doing a signing at Mystery One on July 8 at 5 pm. This is her first foray into young adult fiction, and it's already winning raves. The Testing is the #1 pick from indie booksellers on the Summer 2013 Kids Indie Next List.

Here's our rec from Hannah: "Cia has just been selected for university, a huge honor in the new country that formed after the destruction of the USA. Just before she leaves home to start her learning, her dad warns that school may be dangerous and her life may be at risk. Who can Cia trust and will she survive the ordeal ahead? Perfect for fans of Hunger Games."

Part two of the trilogy, Independent Study, comes out next January, while Graduation Day drops in June 2014. We're all wondering how folks are going to react to this speeded up publishing schedule--books in a series like this tend to be published annually. More on last week's blog post.

Alas, the Jackie Lyden talk on July 2, sponsored by the Charles Kubly Foundation, is now full.