Boswell bestsellers for the week ending August 17, 2019

Here are the Boswell bestsellers for the week ending August 17, 2019

Hardcover Fiction:
1. A Dangerous Man V18, by Robert Crais
2. The Lager Queen of Minnesota, by J Ryan Stradal
3. The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
4. Inland, by Téa Obreht
5. Chances Are, by Richard Russo
6. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
7. City of Girls, by Elizabeth Gilbert
8. Lady in the Lake, by Laura Lippman
9. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong
10. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, by Olga Tokarczuk

In the review world, Tea Obreht's Inland was definitely the start of the new releases. Carolyn Kellogg imagines the panic of being lost in the desert without enough water in the current day: "Before hoofing it back to modern comforts, you consider what it was like to try to make it in the desert West a century ago: the relentless sun, the endless thirst, nothing between you and the elements but a scrap of determined hope. That is where Téa Obreht plops us down, in a whisper of a town in the Arizona Territory in 1893, in Inland, her first book since her 2011 bestselling debut, The Tiger’s Wife. Suffused with magical realism, “Inland” is a sweeping story of the outcasts who drift into this desolate corner of the West. There’s a huge cast, stretching back half a century, who orbit around two characters in particular."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Chase Darkness with Me, by Billy Jensen
2. The Art of Inventing Hope, by Howard Reich
3. Educated, by Tara Westover
4. How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X Kendi
5. On Spice, by Caitlin PenzeyMoog (event at Boswell Wed 8/21)
6. For the Good of the Game, by Bud Selig
7. The Source of Self Regard, by Toni Morrison
8. Three Women, by Lisa Taddeo
9. The Witch's Guide to Self Care, by Arin Murphy-Hiscock
10. Witcraft, by Jonathan Ree

Ibram X Kendi received the National Book Award for Stamped from the Beginning in 2016. Now his follow-up, How to Be an Antiracist, has arrived. Here's what Ericka Taylor says on the NPR website: "Despite the nature of its title, Kendi has gifted us with a book that is not only an essential instruction manual but also a memoir of the author's own path from anti-black racism to anti-white racism and, finally, to antiracism. Such critical self-reflection is, in fact, the responsibility of the antiracist. Kendi explains that, "like fighting an addiction, being an antiracist requires persistent self-awareness, constant self-criticism, and regular self-examination."

Paperback Fiction:
1. Ghosts of the Garfagnana, by Paul Salsini
2. Hope Rides Again V2, by Andrew Shaffer
3. Hope Never Dies V2, by Andrew Shaffer
4. Milwaukee Noir, edited by Tim Hennessy
5. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
6. Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng
7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
8. Madame Bovary, by Gustav Flaubert
9. Native Tongue V1, by Suzette Haden Elgin
10. A Thread So Fine, by Susan Welch (event at Boswell, Thu Sep 5, 7 pm)

Our Science Fiction Book Club is reading Suzette Haden Elgin's Native Tongue on Monday, September 9, 7 pm. It's got a Wikipedia entry! I don't think they thought through how the cover treatment would come off on websites. Definitely could have been on our what to read after our Handmaid's Tale table. Another book club surge has been for Flaubert's Madame Bovary. Here's Roxana Robinson's New Yorker piece on teaching Madame Bovary.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. A Prisoner of Her Past, by Howard Reich
2. Spirit of a Dream, by David Rearick (event at Boswell, Wed Sep 4, 7 pm)
3. 111 Places in Milwaukee that You Must Not Miss, by Michelle Madden
4. I'll Be Gone in the Dark, by Michelle McNamara
5. Calypso, by David Sedaris
6. The Fall of Wisconsin, by Dan Kaufman
7. Locking Up Our Own, by James Forman
8. Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari
9. Milwaukee Jazz, by Joey Grihalva
10. Dear Friend, by Yiyun Li

The sales pop for I'll Be Gone in the Dark is definitely connected to our visit last Friday from Billy Jensen, the author of Chase Darkness with Me. For one thing, Jensen helped finish McNamara's bestselling true crime book. Though to my knowledge, Jensen is not credited on the book itself, the Murderinos in the audience (those are folks who follow My Favorite Murder podcast) were well aware. My apologies if I missed the credit, but I thought I checked the cover, the title page, and the acknowledgements.

Books for Kids:
1. Dog Man For Whom the Ball Rolls V7, by Dav Pilkey
2. Lulu and Rock in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse, with illusrations by Renée Graef
3. Pigeon Has to Go to School, by Mo Willems
4. Dear Black Boy, by Ebony Lewis
5. House of Salt and Sorrows, by Erin A Craig
6. King of Kindergarten, by Derrick Barnes, with illustrations by Vanessa Brantley-Newton
7. We Don't Eat Our Classmates, by Ryan T Higgins
8. Calling the Water Drum, by Latisha Redding, with illustrations by Aaron Boyd
9. Marvel Alphablock, by Peskimo
10. Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid, by Jeff Kinney

Back to school rules! One new release is King of Kindergarten, written by Derrick Barnes with pictures from Vanessa Brantley Newton. Trade reviews are ecstatic. School Library Journal called the book "joyful and empowering," while Booklist wrote: "This upbeat picture book follows an African American boy through his first day of school, from waking up in the morning to riding the school bus home. Taking hold of his mother's words that he'll be the King of Kindergarten, the royal metaphor gives him courage throughout the day as he meets new people and situations with bravery and excitement."

Though there's no printed book reviews this week in the Journal Sentinel, you can read the very hard-working and always reading Barbara VandenBurgh's review of Inland here, where she observes that "The Serbian-American writer displays dazzling dexterity and wit with the English language, transporting the reader to a fantastical late 19th century that borders on outright fantasy, where descriptions wax decadent and ghosts are treated as a matter of fact."

Romance in the Bookstore - The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, by Abbi Waxman

Today is Bookstore Romance Day, a new promotion conceived by Billie Bloebaum. While we didn't do any programming this year, I had a good excuse - I'm off to the 20th anniversary of a former bookseller. Boswell also generates a lot of romance too - we've had three proposals, one wedding ceremony, and countless dates at the store. I've even had requests for a wedding reception, but I think that would be hard to pull off.

One of the things about romance is that like several other genres that had lost presence in bookstores (true crime comes to mind), it's really made a comeback. The new romances have diverse protagonists, and are often LGBT and disability friendly. But more than that, the women have agency. These are trends that have been ascendant for years, but it's really noticeable now.

Another thing that I think is different is a generation trend about genre snobbishness. One of the things I remember about working in a bookstore when I was young was that it was okay to turn up your nose at other people's reading tastes. I don't see that among my younger booksellers - this my be part of a bigger change about the way we think about difference.

In celebration of sorts, I read, on my colleague Jen's recommendation, The Bookish Life of Nina Hill. And while the publishers didn't tag this book specifically as a romance, it does have an alternate designation as romantic fiction on our bibliographic website, and there is certainly a romance at the heart of the story. It is also published by Berkley, which is one of the imprints where we are seeing a lot of the new romance. This charming romantic comedy is also a nice bookstore novel - I got a copy, gave it to a friend, and then bought another. Can there be higher praise from a bookseller?

This is Abbi Waxman's third published novel and like the others, it's set in a Los Angeles neighborhood called Larchmont Village. It's kind of similar to our Downer Avenue neighborhood, functioning a bit like a small town, and a little out of the way, such that we often have locals come to the bookstore who were kind of surprised to find this nice shopping street. It's partly because it our main street doesn't really go anywhere.

At the center of the story is Nina Hill, a young bookseller at Knight's in Larchmont Village whose mom now lives in Australia. She has no relatives, because she was conceived in a tryst and her mom asked the gentleman involved to waive paternity. He was married and things were messy. Nina's made her family her new friends, and she is very scheduled. Each chapter beings with a page from her planner. Between work, her weekly book club meeting (a different genre every week of the month) and her champion trivia team, there's not a lot of spare time.

Three things happen.
a. She meets a guy on one of the other trivia teams who seems kind of interesting.
b. It becomes clear that her bookstore is having financial problems.
c. She gets a note saying that her birth father has died and that she's in the will

Regarding that last revelation, it turns out that she's gone from no family to lots and lots and lots of family. Some of her new relatives are happy with her discovery; many others are not. And there you have the three problems that need to be solved.

The romance is pretty straightforward, and kind of follows what I read to be the Harlequin formula, only without restrictions on which page each plot point must occur. The family drama takes a few more unexpected turns. But it's really Nina who drives the story. It's just hard not to love her. And there's no question that while she finds a few new loves (family, romantic partner), she will always love, love, love books.

Here's Boswellian Jen Steele's recommendation that convinced me to pick up the book: "I loved every bit of this delightful novel! Nina Hill has everything she could every want: a dream job working at her local independent bookstore, trivia nights with her friends, weekly book clubs, and the most observant cat, Phil. She may have every moment planned in her spectacular daily organizer. Nevertheless, there are some things you just can't plan. Nina gets a visit from a lawyer and learns that the father she never knew has died, leaving her with siblings and many questions. Overwhelmed with the sudden onslaught of new people in her life, not to mention the potential fling with the cute guy from a rival trivia team, Nina beings to realize real life is much harder than it is in books. She must learn how to navigate around her newfound family and all these new emotions. The Bookish Life of Nina Hill is a funny, wistful novel with a relatable bibliophile!"

As booksellers, we have two pieces of advice for Nina:

1) Why are you having all your author events on Saturday evenings. Monday through Friday are much easier nights to schedule, unless it's a launch party or has a strong entertainment element. But the book event we live through in Nina is hardly entertaining, nor is it a family/friends launch.

2) You had a street festival (family friendly, no less) and you closed the store? Now we do lose sales at the Downer Classic bike race, but my neighbor who like me is a shopkeeper, told me at one point that he did more than 10% of his annual sales at his neighborhood's annual street festival. 10% of the whole year's sales!

There is a real bookstore in Larchmont Village called Chevalier's. It's been open since 1940. You should go. Oh, and here's an interesting but not particularly new article on pressure to develop the neighborhood.

the books of Karen Dukess's The Last Book Party, a novel for the end of summer

I was cleaning up our break room when I came across The Last Book Party, a July novel from Karen Dukess. As the reading hoarder I can be, I wound up setting it aside for one last perusal before moving on. It had some bookseller love when it was published. So I tried it.

I know that I’m always supposed to be reading ahead, but like any number of readers in the publishing and bookselling world (including authors) who complain that reading, the thing we love that brought us to this industry, can sometimes feel more like work than pleasure. Sometimes it’s nice to read something that isn’t under deadline. There’s no Indie Next quote desired, the author isn’t coming. That said, I’m not sure I could handle reading a book that was out of print, unless my goal was to convince someone to republish it. So of course I turned my diversion into a blog post.

Here's the set up. Eve Rosen is an editorial secretary at Hodder, Strike who has dreams of moving up in the hierarchy. They read books off the slush pile, sometimes aloud to the co-workers. The editorial folks are different from the publicity people; they are introverted and don’t have progressive parties. I should note that when I was in publishing, I don’t think there was much outside socializing between the brains (editorial) and the money (sales, marketing, publicity). But it’s also possible I just wasn’t invited. I should note that one of the recent attendees at our book club worked in editorial and her closest friend was in publicity. So every house is different.

In any case, Eve* is passed over for a promotion and jumps ship to assist Henry Grey, an old-school, Cape-Cod-based New Yorker journalist who has been working on his memoirs for years. She first meets him through his son Franny, an unbookish artist type with whom she has a dalliance, back when she was still in publishing. But it turns out the connections are web-like. Franny’s roommate at Choate is Jordan Grand, the hot young author that is Hodder, Strike’s big property. Meanwhile, Henry Grey’s memoir languishes unedited in the drawer of Malcolm his editor.

Henry lives an artistic life with his spouse Tillie the poet, who worked for years in Henry’s shadow, but now has a flourishing career. Their lives seem so exotic to Eve, whose family may live nearby, but are world’s away in terms of this insular world. And the season will all culminate in the Grey’s end-of-season book party, a costume extravaganza where everyone comes dressed as book characters.

And did I imagine that there’s a lot of secrets and withholding of information? Some things are revealed pretty early, such as Jeremy Grand is actually Jeremy Greenberg, who like Eve is just a middle-class Jewish kid, only he's from New Jersey.

Well, you can only imagine what happens. The story is a bit of a play on the innocent whose clumsy maneuverings crash down the intricate house of cards that the other players have constructed. And it’s also a play on the mentor story, calling to mind two novels from 2018, Lisa Halliday’s Asymmetry and Sigrid Nuñez’s The Friend. I have this tendency when I’m reading to call out advice to the protagonist, “Please don’t do this,” but they always do what I hope they won’t.

In a way, the awful things that happen don’t destroy Eve so much as jump-start her. When I hear authors offer advice to others, one common refrain is “Read, read, read. Write, write, write.” And the thing about Eve is that she is just having trouble with the latter, and is even called out for it. But she has no such issues with the former, and that is one of my favorite parts of The Last Book Party. I loved Eve’s voracious reading habit, and from bookstores to libraries to flea markets, there were books everywhere. Classics mix with popular fiction of the time; mixed in are a number of lost treasures. I spent more than a few moments searching for the story behind obscure titles and authors. I wouldn't mind talking books with Alva the librarian.

If there were ever a book that demanded a reading list, this is one. So hereforth are the books of The Last Book Party.

The Cremation of Sam McGee, by Robert Service (12)

The detective novels of Ngaio Marsh (17)

The detective novels of P.D. James (17)

The Thorn Birds, by Colleen McCullough (17)

MyAntonia, by Willa Cather (17)

I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith (18)

Love in Bloomsbury: Memories, by Frances Partridge (37)

Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte (37)

Winesburg, Ohio, by Sherwood Anderson (38)

A Wreath for the Enemy, by Pamela Frankau (67)

Cape Cod, by Henry David Thoreau (73)

The Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Birds (Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and Central North America, 73)

The Encyclopedia of Ancient Battles, edited by Michael Whitby and Harry Sidebottom (73)

World’s Fair, by E.L. Doctorow (73)

Stones for Ibarra, by Harriet Doerr (73)

Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville (73)

The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins (73)

Rich Man, Poor Man, by Irwin Shaw (73)

War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy (73)

I’ll Take Manhattan, by Judith Krantz (84)

Harold and the Purple Crayon, by Crockett Johnson (85)

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, by Eric Hodgins (89)

Anna and the King of Siam, by Margaret Landon (91)

Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw (92)

Caddie Woodlawn, by Carol Ryrie Brink (92)

Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen (92)

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte (92)

Marjorie Morningstar, by Herman Wouk (93)

Exodus, by Leon Uris (93)

The Secret of the Old Clock, by Carolyn Keene (94)

Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier (94)

The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett (94)

Sweet Savage Love, by Rosemary Rogers (94)

A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett (96)

The Robert McCloskey books (103)

The novels of Dominic Dunne (113)

The novels of Bret Easton Ellis (113)

Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe (114)

Middlemarch, by George Eliot (114)

Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison (114)

Scoop, by Evelyn Waught (114)

Amelia Bedelia, by Peggy Parish (114)

Zuleika Dobson, by Max Beerbohm (114)

Snappy Eats of 1932, by the Temple Sisterhood of Pine Bluff, Arkansas (114)

Gentleman Prefer Blondes, by Anita Loos (114)

The novels of Don Delillo (116)

The novels of Thomas Pynchon (116)

Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson (116)

Thy Neighbor’s Wife, by Gay Talese (124)

Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert (139)

Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy (140)

Dr. Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak (140)

Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov (140)

Take Forty Eggs, by Basil Collier (152)

Eleanor and Franklin, by Joseph P Lash (153)

The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison (153)

Dracula, by Bram Stoker (194)

The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas (194)

Breakfast at Tiffany’s, by Truman Capote (194)

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (194)

Winnie the Pooh, by A.A. Milne (194)

The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins (196)

Goodbye, Columbus, by Philip Roth (197)

Dangerous Liaisons, by Pierre Choderlos De Laclos (198)

Bright Lights, Big City, by Jay McInerney (205)

Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle (205)

The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne (205)

Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston (226)

Cross Creek, by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (226)

Tourist Season, by Carl Hiaasen (226)

The novels of Edna Ferber (226)

The novels of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (226)

The novels of Sidney Sheldon (226)

Jonathan Livingston Seagull, by Richard Bach

This book so feels like the end of summer, what with a lot of high schools already in session. Dukess's novel sort of feels like a bookend to John Glynn's Out East, a memoir about another publishing person out of his league in another summer resort community.

*I called the protagonist Eva in our email newsletter. It was a last-minute addition and we didn't proof thoroughly.

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending August 10, 2019

Here's what's selling at Boswell.

Hardcover Fiction:
1. A Dangerous Man V18, by Robert Crais (event is today at 3 pm, registration has closed but we have space for you)
2. The Most Fun We Ever Had, by Claire Lombardo
3. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
4. The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
5. The Lager Queen of Minnesota, by J. Ryan Stradal (this event is at capacity, we're checking on cancellations)
6. Chances Are, by Richard Russo
7. City of Girls, by Elizabeth Gilbert
8. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong
9. The Chain, by Adrian McKinty
10. Knife V12, by Jo Nesbo

Richard Russo's Chances Are, his first stand-alone novel in a decade, hits our top 10 fiction for the second week in a row. While we've never hosted him at Boswell, I know he'd been to the Harry W. Schwartz stores and he continues to be an advocate for independent bookstores. He is one the father of Emily Russo, one of the co-owners of Print: A Bookstore, in Portland, Maine. Another friend of bookstores, Mameve Medwed, reviewed Chances Are for the Boston Globe, writing: "Along with his wry eye for irony and regret, [Russo] offers up a compelling mystery. Savvy readers who pride themselves on anticipating a plot twist, spotting a red herring, and identifying the who-did-it are in for a surprise."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Four Sacred Secrets, Preethaji and Krishnaji
2. Extreme Ownership, by Jocko Willink
3. Dare to Lead, by Brené Brown
4. One Country Club Drive, by Marty Peck (also in paperback)
5. Trick Mirror, Jia Tolentino
6. Becoming, by Michelle Obama
7. The Bastard Brigade, by Sam Kean
8. For the Good of the Game, by Bud Selig
9. The Source of Self Regard, by Toni Morrison
10. The Second Mountain, by David Brooks

Jia Tolentino's Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, has a strong first week at Boswell. I looked at the list of the reviews and they were almost all raves (that's an official designation, by the way), including this from Kirkus: "In these nine stunning pieces, New Yorker staff writer Tolentino seamlessly melds together journalistic social criticism and revealing personal essays. To varying degrees of intimate context, she places herself within each narrative, reporting on broad social currents while revealing very specific encounters."

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Overstory, by Richard Powers (In Store Lit Group Mon Oct 14)
2. The Incendiaries, by Ro Kwon (In-Store Lit Group Mon Nov 4)
3. A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
4. Death Takes a Bow V4, by David S Pederson
5. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
6. Vintage 1954, by Antoine Laurian
7. Severance, by Ling Ma (Books and Beer Book Club selection, Mon Oct 21, 7 pm, at Cafe Hollander)
8. Make/Shift, by Joe Sacsteder
9. My Year of Rest and Relaxation, by Ottessa Moshfegh
10. Call Me Zebra, Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi (In Store Lit Group Mon Aug 26, Pen Faulkner Prize)

All the In-Store Lit Group meetings are at 7 pm at Boswell. Needless to say, we met last Monday, which tends to help sales. All the books are featured in our front-of-store book club case, which Kay oversees. I'm happy to say that I've been pretty good at keeping up with the shelf talkers. Now I have to dig into Call Me Zebra, which I've heard will be an interesting experience. Another table that is featured in the store celebrates the life of Toni Morrison. Her most acclaimed novel, Beloved, also had the best sales for us last week. I still remember the experience of reading it when it came out and talking to other Schwartz people, most notably Carole and Monica.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. One Country Club Drive, by Marty Peck
2. Death Wins All Wars, by Daniel Holland (event at Boswell Wed Sep 25, 7 pm)
3. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R Covey
4. 111 Places in Milwaukee You Must Not Miss, by Michelle Madden
5. Calypso, by David Sedaris
6. Last Girl, by Nadia Murad
7. Milwaukee Jazz, by Joey Grihalva
8. The Fall of Wisconsin, by Dan Kaufman
9. Locking Up Our Own, by James Forman
10. Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah

With this week's sales, 111 Places in Milwaukee You Must Not Miss skirts ahead of the 2nd edition of 100 Things to Do in Milwaukee Before You Die. Both were written by local authors, but they are part of national series. We've got them displayed next to each other and we actually marketed them similar - both authors planned a number of events around town so we stepped back and gave them a feature in our newsletter. Have they ever done an event together? I guess you'd call it competitive touristing.

Books for Kids:
1. Fish in a Tree, by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
2. Fever 1793, by Laurie Halse Anderson
3. London Eye Mystery, by Siobhan Dowd
4. Out of My Mind, by Sharon M Draper
5. Seedfolks, by Paul Flesichman
6. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse/Renée Graef
7. Pigeon Has to Go to School, by Mo Willems
8. The Very Hungry Caterpillar Board Book, by Eric Carle
9. I Am a Bunny board book, by Ole Risom/Richard Scarry
10. You Go First, by Erin Entrada Kelly (event Wed Sep 25, 6:30 pm, at Greenfield Public Library - register here)

As the school year gears up, some districts are turning to Boswell to fill out their classroom libraries. The most popular title this week for that was Fish in a Tree, by Lynda McNally Hunt, a 2016 story about Ally, a young student who hides her inability to read by causing trouble. But Mr. Daniels sees the bright student behind the trouble maker. From the starred Booklist review: "Offering hope to those who struggle academically and demonstrating that a disability does not equal stupidity, this is as unique as its heroine."

Speaking of review, there are some today in the Journal Sentinel.

First up is a review from Book Editor Jim Higgins, focusing on Alan Paul and Andy Aledort’s Texas Flood: The Inside Story of Steve Ray Vaughan (on sale August 13). The book is an oral history, though Higgins, like much of Wisconsin, is focused on his death after an Alpine Valley concert in 1990. It was very foggy!

Ann Levin profiles Candace Bushnell, as the women of Sex in the City near 60. Regarding her new book Is There Still Sex in the City (now with six friends reporting in), Levin notes that "it would be a mistake to dismiss this book as romantic fluff. Bushnell’s style may be breezy, but many of the characters deal with disappointment, heartbreak and perhaps just as lethal — resignation."

The latest suspenseful novel from Shari Lapena has Mary Cadden at USA Today on the edge of her seat. Set in a Hudson Valley town, which is Mayberry for ex-pat New York City dwellers, Cadden notes that Someone We Know is another hit from the author of The People Next Door: "As the story quickly progresses, so do the clever plot twists and turns. Lapena’s prose is tight and the chapters unfold in staccato, unnerving and mirroring the hurried and scattered thoughts of the characters. With each passing page, the story unfolds at an increasingly breakneck pace. The reader begins to jump to conclusions as much as the neighbors do until the final reveal confirms our worst suspicions: that we don’t really know our neighbors at all."

Barbara VanDenburgh at USA Today spotlights five new releases:
1. Lost You, by Haylen Beck
2. Trick Mirror, by Jia Tolentino (featured above)
3. The Birthday Girl, by Melissa de la Cruz
4. The Mosquito, by Timothy C Winegard
5. The Women of Copper Country, by Mary Doria Russell

See you today at one of our events - Howard Reich as at the JCC at 2 pm, while Robert Crais is in conversation with Nick Petrie at 3 pm.

Thrillwaukee Focus: Robert Crais and "A Dangerous Man"

One of the things I like about mystery series is their placeyness. Laura Lippman knows Baltimore, William Kent Krueger is all about rural Minnesota, and Sarah Paretsky has kept most (but not all) of V.I. Warshawski's cases in Chicagoland. But when you're writing about Los Angeles, you have to compete with some bigwigs - Michael Connelly, Walter Mosley, James Ellroy, Ross MacDonald, Raymond Chandler, and Dorothy B. Hughes, an author who hits a lot of best-of lists, but is not as well known as some of these other writers. Her novels are currently being republished by New York Review of Books. It looks like her most noted title is In a Lonely Place. I'm told it's quite superior to the Humphrey Bogart adaptation.

The list goes on. My guess is that this is particularly fertile territory because, like New York, there are a lot of writers living there, and since many of them are screenwriters, the mystery/thriller works better as a genre than say, the linked short story collection from multiple perspectives.

One name that comes up again and again is Robert Crais, who has been writing Los Angeles mysteries since 1987. While many of you have read many of his books, his latest, A Dangerous Man, is only my second, following The Monkey's Raincoat, his first published novel in this very colorful Los Angeles series. And it's fascinatingly similar and yet different, much the way the mystery genre of the 1980s has morphed into the popular thrillers of today.

For one thing, while both books feature Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, their roles have reversed. In the early books, Elvis was the detective and star, while Joe was the sidekick. Elvis was quirky, dressed casually SoCal with a Disney-themed office. And one early novel's copy described Joe as sociopathic hardly the hero of a series. But that was then. Now Joe is more like a Hollywood action star, with the mandatory military credentials, a way with weapons, and the blessing of American secret forces of all stripes. He's shown in a much more positive light, hardly a sociopath. And Elvis is now like his gofer. At least in one of the action scenes, he shows he can carry a weapon. I was waiting for him to get kidnapped and have Joe save him. But that role is played by other actors here. 

In A Dangerous Man, the story starts with Joe being in the wrong place at the wrong time, a bank where two goons are getting ready to kidnap a teller. These hired hands don't know much, and when Joe goes after them, they don't have much of a chance. Isabel is a young woman who is trying to figure out what to do after the death of her mom. She's inherited the house, but living day to day. Her greatest solace is her childhood friend Carly and Carly's mom Joyce, who've become a second family.

But someone's after Isabel; she is not in the clear at all. And things get even stranger when the U.S. Marshalls enter the picture; her death is tied to the death of a retired Marshall in Palmdale, linked by the same killer syndicate. The villains might think Joe is a goon for hire, but really, he's just helping out because it's the right thing to do. In that way, he reminds me of Nick Petrie's Peter Ash, which is a good thing because Petrie is our conversation partner for Crais on Sunday, August 11, at Boswell. 

In this case, I'm not going to say too much more. This is not a "what did the book club think?" post, after all. I will note the action is fast-paced, the dialogue is prominent but doesn't overwhelm the story so much to seem like a film treatment (and since this is a series, you can't sell the film rights anyway, because somebody probably already owns Pike and Cole), and while it's probably lower-key in placeyness than the early Crais novels, there's still plenty of local color, from Los Feliz to Koreatown to Burbank to Malibu.

One thing I enjoyed about the Crais's work is how he tried to breathe life into his side characters. Witnesses, bit players, law enforcement folk all have their little tics that humanize them. Sometimes it gives them warmth, while other times they are infuriating. John Chen their inside person in forensics, is nothing short of a mess, but he's there when it counts. But really, has their been Crais novel when he went off the deep end, or is that coming in the future. Because he's definitely wired.

At this point in the game, writers with big names can submit passable stuff and still get substantial sales in mass merchants based on their past work. Others are using ghost writers, and just to show that writing can be a family business, it's not uncommon for the son or daughter of a series writer to take over the character. Being that Crais is writing only one book every two years, it's pretty clear he's still working hard.

And it appears that the extra year pays off. Reviews on Crais's books continue to be great. Kirkus Reviews wrote: "If you’ve always wished Lee Child’s Jack Reacher had a little more balance in his life - but the same formidable talents - you'll love Joe Pike and the latest book in this long, superb series." It's a trifecta of raves at the trades - Publishers Weekly and Booklist were also enthusiastic.

In the consumer press, Tom Nolan had this to say in The Wall Street Journal: "Mr. Crais unspools this tense and involving saga - which races all over the Los Angeles area, from the fading allure of the 'Miracle Mile' to the sun-blasted San Fernando Valley to the shores of Malibu - with dashes of wit, lots of local color, many bursts of sudden action and some 300 pages of relentless suspense."

So yes, Robert Crais is coming, for the first time to Boswell, this Sunday, August 11, 3 pm. As noted, he'll be in conversation with Nick Petrie (at left). This event is cosponsored by Crimespree. No signing restrictions, but if you have a pile of books to get signed, we'll ask you to wait until the end of the line. Over the years, Crais visited Mystery One many times, and sometimes Schwartz was able to get a second event as well. It's a homecoming, of sorts. The event is free, but we are registering through Saturday. Your click will help us make sure we've set out enough chairs. It's gonna be a good one! The link is craismke.bpt.me.

Future Thrillwaukee events:

Tuesday, August 13, 7 pm, at Boswell: Andrew Shaffer, author of Hope Never Dies and Hope Rides Again

Friday, August 16, 7 pm, at Boswell: Billy Jensen, author of Chase Darkness with Me, in conversation with Doug Gordon. Register at jensenmke.bpt.me

Tuesday, August 22, 2 pm (note time), at Boswell: Patricia Skalka, author of Death by the Bay, the latest Dave Kubiak mystery

Sunday, September 8, 3 pm, at Boswell: William Kent Krueger, author of This Tender Land, the #1 Indie Next pick for September. Register at kruegermke.bpt.me

Friday, October 4, 7 pm, at Boswell: Joe Hill, author of Full Throttle. This one is registration required at joehillmke.bpt.me and it's almost sold out.

Monday, October 7, 7 pm, at Boswell: Craig Johnson, author of Land of Wolves, the latest in the Longmire series. Tickets at craigjohnsonmke.bpt.me

What did the book club think of Esi Edugyan's Washington Black? Warning, there are spoilers in this post.

Spoiler warning. There, I said it twice.

The first thing I’m going to note about our In-Store Lit Group discussion for Washington Black is that we had 21 attendees, which is our largest turnout for an event without a special guest (author or theater person). And on top of that, to my knowledge, everyone who attended finished the book. That certainly didn’t happen often.

Washington Black was a New York Times top ten-best book for 2018. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Scotiabank Giller Prize, which Edugyan also received for novel number two, Half Blood Blues. It was noted on a recent podcast that the Giller Prize reward is ten times what the National Book Award is for fiction. But is that in Canadian dollars?

I will note that while many people loved it, some preferred the first part of the book set in Barbados, to the subsequent sections that involved the travel narrative. But it’s my feeling that this jump off, much like the Cloud-Cutter device pictured on the cover, sets the book apart. I’d also like to note that I am a big fan of the paperback jacket for this book – far superior than the hardcover treatment. I’m usually a grump about paperback changes, so let the record stand that this is not the case here.

Esi Edugyan (soft G, per an interview) didn’t mean to write Washington Black as a subversion of the Jules Verne narrative. It was an editor who pointed this out to her, per an interview with Moira Macdonald in the Seattle Times. But after some thought, she came to the conclusion that “that’s exactly the spirit in which it should be read.”

It’s also important to keep in mind when you have a couple people in your book club complaining that it was unbelievable. Unlike reading, for example, Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad or Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West, which are predicated on a speculative premise, Edugyan’s novel opens rather realistically and brutally. It's only later that you're asked to suspend disbelief. Could an amateur scientist on this remote plantation build a Cloud-Cutter of this nature?

But did you question Jules Verne when he wrote 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? Maybe you did, but then you’d have to have invited a time travel machine, and now who’s skirting reality? And on a related note, another attendee asked where they got all that money to travel. My answer? Not important.

As our sales rep Jason Gobble said (of our great event with Claire Lombardo on Tuesday), Washington Black is a rare book that appeals both to the critics and prize judges, and everyday readers looking for a plot-driven narrative. He didn’t quite say it like that – I should really carry around a recording device.

And now some spoiler plot points.

George Washington Black, or Wash for short, is raised on a Barbados plantation named Faith, ruled by a brutal master named Erasmus Wilde. He’s cared for by Big Kit, who nurtures him while still keeping a bit of distance. Into his life comes Christopher “Titch” Wilde, the master’s brother, who wants a slave to help him with his scientific experiment. When tragedy strikes on the island, Titch helps Wash escape, and so begin the adventures, to Virginia, Nova Scotia, London, and more, from the piercing cold to scorching heat.

After Titch and Wash make it to Canada, where Titch’s father is discovered (we thought he was dead!), Titch abandons Wash and leaves him to make a life in Nova Scotia. Wash is distraught but makes a living delivering packages for a local store. It turns out that Wash has great artistic talent and those skills lead to him falling in with naturalist G.M. Goff and his daughter Tanna. Goff has plans to build a fantastic aquarium called The Ocean House. But that doesn’t stop Wash’s dive to find Titch, which drives much of the narrative thrust of of the rest of the story.

And while Wash is on a quest, he’s also being chased. Because Erasmus Wilde, back at Faith, has put a price on his head as a runaway slave, and the bounty hunter is in the form of John Francis Willard, who will take him back dead or alive.

Despite the story being through Wash’s eyes, it doesn’t take much thought to realize that Titch doesn’t see Wash the way Wash sees Titch. Titch might well have been an abolitionist but this does not still allow him to see Wash beyond abstraction. The bias is still there. But Wash sees him as a father figure, much like Titch still searches for and seeks the approval of his father James. James has pretty much abandoned the family and though we don’t think he started the rumor that he was dead, he certainly wasn’t upset by it.

One of the other things I loved about the book was not just that Edugyan wrote a corrective to the Verne stories that put black and brown people in the background and in service positions, but that it also, as Edugyan noted in an interview with Sam Briger on Fresh Air, thought about black people in a different way regarding science. So many narratives have people of color being the subjects of experiments, and not the acting as the scientists themselves While Titch drives the creation of the Cloud-Cutter, it’s Wash whose innovation brings The Ocean House to life.

And as Lily noted, how interesting that a man chasing his freedom would spend so much time penning in sea creatures of the exhibit. But that is just one of the complications of Wash, who as Maureen Corrigan noted on Fresh Air, is focused upon “the search for transcendence above categories.”

A number of readers were bothered by the lack of a definitive ending. I have this open-ended ending discussion quite often and I think by avoiding closure, Edugyan has brought us out of a genre-influence novel of the past (the Dickensian ending) and back to the present. I'm not going to say exactly what that ending is, but the question is, did Wash achieve his own moment of transcendence

One last thing – I often note interesting connections between books I’m reading, but I hardly expected to find a link between Washington Black and Where the Crawdads Sing, but there is one. It’s two stories with non-traditional naturalist illustrators at their core.

If you've already picked up Half Blood Blues, Edugyan's first novel, The Second Life of Samuel Tyne, is also still in print.

Our next book we’re discussing is Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi’s Call Me Zebra on Monday, August 25, 7 pm. And then on Monday, October 14, we'll be reading The Overstory. We're experimenting with two sessions for that discussion, 2 pm and 7 pm.

Our Boswell-run book clubs page is updated through the end of the year. All the groups are reading some interesting selections. I’m hoping to attend the Books and Beer discussion of Matt Haig’s How to Stop Time on August 19 and we’ve got Layne Fargo coming for our November 25 Mystery Group discussion of Temper. They meet at 6, she’ll answer spoiler questions at 6:30, and then we’ll have a back-of-the-store traditional event at 7.

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending August 3, 2019

What's selling at Boswell?

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
2. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
3. The Most Fun We Ever Had, by Claire Lombardo (event at Boswell Tue Aug 6, 7 pm)
4. The Lager Queen of Minnesota, by J Ryan Stradal (this event at Cafe Hollander on Aug 14 is fully registered)
5. Big Sky (V5), by Kate Atkinson
6. The Chain, by Adrian McKinty
7. Lady in the Lake, by Laura Lippman
8. Chances Are, by Richard Russo
9. New Girl (V19), by Daniel Silva
10. City of Girls, by Elizabeth Gilbert

I think the new release pops are now going to come with more regularity as we move into fall. It took two weeks of on-sale and lots of media coverage including a great Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross for Lady in the Lake to pop onto our top 10. It was fortuitously good time for a novel about Baltimore. Booklist wrote: "This is a superb character study, a terrific newspaper novel, and a fascinating look at urban life and racial discrimination in the '60s."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Normal Sucks, by Jonathan Mooney
2. Furious Hours, by Casey Cep
3. For the Good of the Game, by Bud Selig
4. Educated, by Tara Westover
5. Three Women, by Lisa Taddeo
6. The Bastard Bridge, by Sam Kean
7. Last Witnesses, by Svetlana Alexievich
8. American Carnage, by Tim Alberta
9. Say Nothing, by Patrick Radden Keefe
10. Milwaukee: A City Built on Water, by John Gurda

Our afternoon events continue to go pretty well, with us slipping a 2 pm event with Casey Cep in between events in Madison and North Shore Chicago. Boswellian Tim McCarthy has this to say about Furious Hours: "In showing the humanity of everyone involved, she uses exhaustive research to arrive at smart, sweeping conclusions. She gives us remarkable depth in biographical pictures of Maxwell, Lee, Capote, and others, and along the way she captures the mood of both the landscape and the politics of civil rights era Alabama and New York, where Lee split her time. Cep has done marvelous work, expertly bringing a degree of closure to a monumental literary loss." It will definitely be in his top 5 for 2019.

Paperback Fiction:
1. Death Takes a Bow (V4), by David S Pederson
2. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
3. Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng
4. Adventure Zone: Murder on the Rockport Limited, by Clint McElroy
5. A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
6. Death Comes Darkly (V1), by David S Pederson
7. Good Omens (three paperback editions), by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
8. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson
9. Vintage 1954, by Antoine Laurain
10. Death Checks In (V3), by David S Pederson

I did see some great new paperback fiction releases this week that I hoped might have a pop, but in general, things will get a little quiet in this category come fall. Let's see if we can get one of our favorites from 2018, Virgil Wander, onto the list next week. Meanwhile, another great event with David Pederson, author of the Alan Keyes and Heath Barrington mysteries. Death Takes a Bow is set at (wait for it) a theater. It's his first that we tried on a weeknight - it had a talk, signing, singing, refreshments, and photo opps with a mannequin.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Inside Game, by Wayne Embry
2. Milwaukee Jazz, by Joey Grihalva
3. Oranumics, by Ben Callif
4. 111 Places in Milwaukee that You Must Not Miss, by Michelle Madden
5. How to See, by Thich Nhat Hanh
6. Calypso, by David Sedaris
7. North Point Historic Districts, by Shirley Du Fresne McArthur
8. When Women Were Birds, by Terry Tempest Williams
9. 100 Things to Do in Milwaukee Before You Die (2E), by Jenna Kashou
10. Bob Ross by the Numbers, by Bob Ross and Robb Pearlman

I can pretty much assure you that Bob Ross by the Numbers is not counting towards bestseller reporting. It's part of a long line of confusing categorization - is a book with stuff a book (qualifies) or stuff (not qualifies). It's sort of like that weird dividing line between nonfiction and miscellaneous. The Ross package (and calling it a package might be a hint as to whether it qualifies as a book) is part of Running Press Minis, a series that's been around for a long time. At one time at Schwartz, all our stores had Running Press Mini spinners. I still have a Moosewood mini; I think it's 16 pages or recipes. I don't know why I wanted it, and that is the driving force of these packages. You wonder, and then you buy them, also for someone else. And of course it's part of the Bob Ross revival.

Books for Kids:
1. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse, with illustrations by Renee Graef
2. The Day the Crayons Came Home, by Drew Daywalt, with illustrations by Oliver Jeffers
3. Poison Jungle (V13), by Tui T Sutherland
4. The Wild Robot Escapes (V2), by Peter Brown
5. Fancy Pants, by Roger Priddy
6. Crayon's Book of Colors, by Drew Daywalt, with illustrations by Oliver Jeffers
7. Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls (V1), by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo
8. The Day the Crayons Quit, by Drew Daywalt, with illustrations by Oliver Jeffers 9. How to Read a Book, by Kwame Alexander
10. Potato Pants!, by Laurie Keller

What a Crayon extravaganza! Three books in The Day the Crayons Quit series hit our top ten and that's because Amie bought a display of these titles that included plush crayons, two each of blue, green, red, and orange, which of course don't count towards the bestseller list. We're out of several colors, but don't worry, Jen is restocking from Merry Makers and this time, we'll be able to buy the colors according to demand, which we think is not just based on color but facial expression. We're pretty sure that blue will be the bestselling color. And yes, we're taking preorders for The Crayons' Christmas, which comes out October 15.

At the Journal Sentinel, some book reviews. Lincee Ray from the Associated Press: "In Reasons to Be Cheerful, author Nina Stibbe offers an intimate look at this uncertain time as the protagonist becomes a young adult. In this story, Lizzie Vo- gel ignores the part of an advertisement that asks for a 'mature lady' and applies for a job working in a local dentist’s office. She doesn’t feel the need to mention that she doesn’t have any knowledge of dentistry. (Lizzie is a quick learner.) Plus, the position includes an apartment above the practice."

Matt McCarthy from USA Today: "Every few years, Ebola would appear at random, killing nearly everyone in its path, and then it would vanish. Where did it go? And why did some people survive? My team never solved the mystery, and those questions have gnawed at researchers for years. In Richard Preston’s extraordinary new book, Crisis in the Red Zone, we finally get answers.

Also from Associated Press, Samantha Critchell reviews Chelsea Girls, the latest from Fiona Davis, her latest historical novel. This time struggling artists Hazel and Maxine join forces at the Chelsea Hotel for a life in theater. Critchell notes: "Davis, who has given juicy supporting roles to New York landmarks in The Masterpiece and The Address, uses Chelsea as a metaphor for the grandeur that was within reach but spirals into a much darker place."

This event on Tuesday is literally going to be the most fun you've ever had at a book event. Too over the top? Well, it's still going to be great - Claire Lombardo and Jason Gobble at Boswell on Tuesday, August 6, 7 pm - some background.

Once upon a time there was the traveling book representative. The arrived with a suitcase filled with book covers, a marked up catalog, and a long list of accounts. Selling in was really the only important part of the job. What happened afterwards was somebody else's problem. Some of the old school reps didn't even know much about their books; I recall one beloved old rep who would hold up a photo of the book jacket and read to you his notes printed on the back. If you asked him how the book was, he'd tell you what New York thought. Even at that time, however, there were passionate reps who took an interest in getting the word out about their titles - the best reps moved up from the field to the New York offices. You don't see that as much anymore, but that's for another post.

Nowadays a sales rep more like a territory manager, doing follow up, helping with author event proposals, displays, and reporting back to the publisher on how everything is working. They're expected to keep you informed of which book sales are taking off, which might have stock problems, and yes, which are not hitting expectations. Our best reps know our booksellers so well that they will recommend advance copies for early reading. In a sense, I call them wholesale hand-sellers. They help us find the books that we then tell you about. And if you come back to us, thrilled with your newly discovered treasure, we'll go back to them and thank them for the find.

One thing that has become commonplace in the industry is sales rep presentations to booksellers. Many regional trade organizations organize them formally; there's a series in Chicago, for example. Boswell, along with Books & Company, cohosts a series of these meetings every year. This tradition goes back decades; it was over thirty years ago that a bunch of us gathered in David Schwartz's home to hear from representatives (at right, a book that was featured at my the first evening I attended). Sales reps are brought in now to do presentations at our trade conferences too. At rep-arounds, booksellers eat lunch while sales reps and sales managers move from table to table pitching upcoming and sometimes just-released titles of interest.

If you enjoy my book presentations that I do on new releases book clubs, and holiday book suggestions (at Boswell, the Shorewood and Elm Grove Libraries, the Woman's Club, on the radio, and wherever I happen to be booked), I am just cribbing from the style of our best reps. And there's no question that one of our best reps at this is Jason Gobble from Penguin Random House. And after seeing enthusiastic responses to Jason's presentations for years at our rep nights, as well as popular public presentations at bookstores in the Midwest (including both Books & Company and InkLink in metro Milwaukee), I sort of begged him to be a part of an event at Boswell.

If you shop at Boswell, you already might be familiar with Mr. Gobble. He actually came up with the idea of the sales rep recommends display and had his picks up for about a year. Right now we have three other reps offering their picks, and we'll be doing a little more rotation this fall. He was at the heart of our obsession with Hannah Rothschild's The Improbability of Love, started off our love affair with Peter Heller by seeding the store with copies of The Dog Stars, and convinced Chris and I that Amy Jones was Canada's best-kept literary secret. Needless to say, her novel, We're All in This Together, is one of his picks on Tuesday.

But what author should he connect with? Matching authors into these presentations is a fine art. You have to work with a book you like, and you have to have an author who is game for this alternate format with a slightly shorter presentation. I found that last year's talks with Kathleen Rooney (at Weyenberg and Elm Grove) for Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk were a perfect match. We wound up having a lot of book clubs pick this book as a selection; we also wound up having the third best sales at an independent (according to the Edelweiss inventory program) in the country, despite the book not being set here and the author not being from here.

And of course in this case it had to be a book that was in Jason's sales bag.

And then a delightful thing happened. It turns out that Claire Lombardo was doing a swing through the Chicago area for her breakout debut novel The Most Fun We Ever Had and the publisher agreed to add on a few dates in Wisconsin*. The Most Fun We've Ever Had is a newly released hardcover that has been selling particularly strongly in the Milwaukee area, according to Bookscan. The author is a delight, from everyone I have talked to. And the book is family drama set in and around Chicago, and we do love Chicago novels. Though the rest of the state doesn't think of Chicago as regional, much of Southeast Wisconsin has strong connections. It's funny, it's warm, it's heartbreaking, and the writing is beautiful. And you know I love a good sister novel and this one has four. What more can you want?

David and Marilyn seem to have the perfect marriage, at least from the perspective of their four kids - Wendy, Violet, Liza, and Grace. But their kids are not having an easy time of it. Wendy is a self-medicating widow, Violet is an anxious, have-it-all mom of four, Liza is pregnant but her husband is struggling with depression, and Grace, struggling to live in the shadow of her wealthier (Wendy and Violet) or even middle class (Grace) sisters, has lied to the family about her professional prospects.  And things take a turn when Wendy makes a big discovery that bring another member of the family into the mix.

Reviews have been great, with Jade Chang in The New York Times offering: "Weddings and deaths, pregnancies and illnesses, ways for the sisters to measure themselves against one another as they continue to excavate the contours of their parents’ love and hold it up to their own. At this point you may be thinking that there’s no way four women can spend an entire book being obsessed with their happily married parents and that perhaps I just have some sort of older suburban couple kink. (Perhaps!) But here’s the thing - Lombardo renders that obsession with such skill and finely tuned interest that it feels like a quiet subversion of the traditional family saga, a new way for the past to bless or poison the present and an unexpected engine for the revelations about being human that she delivers so beautifully."

What's also interesting about this book is that it's the first published title from acclaimed editor Lee Boudreaux from Doubleday, whose acquisitions over the years have included The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, the Pulitzer Prize winner Less, and two beloved novels from Madeline Miller, Song of Achilles and Circe. The list goes on - Boudreaux has a great eye. In a sense, the book reminds me of one of her early acquisitions at Hachette, Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, in that it skillfully captures several characters' perspectives. Boudreaux also obviously has an ability to find humorous novels with enough depth and heart to be taken seriously by critics. I know what you're thinking - why can't you get an editor in conversation with one of their authors. I would like nothing more, and I've tried. It's not easy!

Boudreaux's new home at Doubleday is also her homecoming. It's where she started (though folks aware of changes in publishing note that it's now part of the Knopf division of Penguin Random House and not the independent publishing house of of the Doubleday family (they later owned the Mets) that owned book clubs and thus made lighter-than-air books with their own printing presses.

I love how Jaclyn Fulwood in Shelf Awareness notes that Lombardo always has one more surprise up her sleeve. The Most Fun We Ever Had is a great literary novel that also has an escapist element - and enough plot to keep you turning the pages. I'm fascinated by how Lombardo supposedly came to the Iowa Writers Workshop with this work in progress, and was able to finely form it into the book it became.  It turned out that Rebecca Makkai (author of The Great Believers, which I'm sure you know already) was one of her teachers at the program, and she's one of the book's biggest advocates.

I'm not going to lie. If I didn't have book club on Monday evening, August 5 (we're talking about Washington Black), I'd be off to the Book Table in Oak Park (or rather, the Beer Shop around the corner) to see Claire Lombardo in conversation with Makkai. But I'm also really excited about our event with Lombardo and Jason Gobble on Tuesday, August 6, and that one I get to attend. Would do both? Is this the literary equivalent of a Phishhead? Maybe Can't make our event on Tuesday? Lombardo and Gobble will also be at Books & Company in Oconomowoc on Wednesday, August 7, also at 7 pm. (Editor's note - she's also at Women and Children first on August 8, in conversation with Elizabeth Taylor).

*Thank you, Todd! Publicists are the unsung heroes of publishing. They get little credit when things go well, but are blamed when things go badly, or at least they were in my day. Did I mention I was a publicist before I was a bookseller? Only 75 times?

Photo credit Claire Lombardo - Michael Lionstar