Suzette Mayr and The Sleeping Car Porter

I wish I could predict awards better. It would be so nice if as the major awards were announced - the Booker Prize, The National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize - I could say, "I already read that!" But that isn't going to happen too often. But it happened with this year's Scotiabank Giller Prize winner, The Sleeping Car Porter. Buy it here from Books & Company. Register for January 10 event.

It all started with our commission rep John Mesjak. He was in the store visiting and I asked him to pick one or two of his fall books to read. Not something that was the highest priority, but something that I would like. He's served me well in the past, most notably in turning me on to Antoine Laurain's The President's Hat. If John hadn't convinced me, there almost definitely wouldn't be a character from Milwaukee in Laurain's novel Vintage 1954. 

I'm so glad John directed me to The Sleeping Car Porter, the sixth novel from Calgary-based writer Suzette Mayr. My affair with Canadian fiction has been longstanding. It's so underappreciated in the United States - so close and yet so far. For a few years, publishers were doing Canadian border tours for their authors - Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Detroit, Buffalo - but I haven't seen that of late. It's served us well in the past - I don't think I would have read Miriam Toews's All My Puny Sorrows otherwise. We've sold over 200 copies of that wonderful novel and I still have folks coming in to talk about how much they loved it. The Toews novel Women Talking is also making an impact as a film adaptation. Allegra Goodman (the author - watch her event here) recommends you read the book Women Talking first. 

I read The Sleeping Car Porter and couldn't stop talking about it. First I picked it for our Lit Group book club. Then I recommended it to Lisa Baudoin and Books and Company, and we wrote a proposal to talk to author Suzette Mayr for our Readings from Oconomowaukee series. We set up the event and then The Sleeping Car Porter received the Giller Prize, one of the most prestigious awards given to Canadian writers. So exciting!

Here's my recommendation for The Sleeping Car Porter: "While many readers know about the American porters of George Pullman, Suzette Mayr’s eloquent new novel, shortlisted for Canada’s prestigious Giller Prize, chronicles the life of an attendant on the trans-Canadian railway. One thing not different was the job was filled almost exclusively by Black men, who were subject to the whims of riders and faced much racism on the job. In the case of Baxter, he carries an extra burden, as he is also closeted, and burns with the memories of past encounters and the constant fear that any wrong move could lead to losing his job. His dream is to be a dentist, and if there is levity in the story, it is in Baxter’s propensity to focus on the teeth of the folks around him. Through these details, George and his plight are brought to vibrant life. And how can I not love a story where one of the referenced works is an Eaton’s Department Store catalog?" 

From my colleague Tim McCarthy: "This is intensely researched historical fiction that doesn’t feel like history. It feels like heart."

I liked The Sleeping Car Porter so much that I went back and read Mayr's fifth novel, Dr. Edith Vane and the Hares of Crawley Hall. I should note that I didn't mention Baxter's hallucinations because I thought it might scare people off. They are a bit over the top, and our book club had a vigorous discussion over whether they were real or the result of extreme fatigue. But reading the previous novel, about a newly tenure professor fighting for her university position amidst some very bad behavior, I realized that Mayr's tendency towards the bizarre was reined in in the new novel! I can't wait to ask her about this.

Suzette Mayr talks to Lisa Baudoin and me tonight at 7 pm Central. Register here and if you can't attend, we'll send you a link to the recording.

Photo credits
Suzette Mayr by Tonya Callaghan

Addendum - here are the Giller Prize winners I have read in addition to The Sleeping Car Porter.

1996 - Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood

1999 - A Good House, by Bonnie Burnard

2004 - Runaway, by Alice Munro

2018- Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan

In several cases, I have read multiple books from Giller winners Mordecai Richler, David Adams Richards, and Michael Ondaatje, but not their Giller winers. All the winners here.

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending January 7, 2023

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
2. Sam, by Allegra Goodman (Watch our virtual event recording here)
3. All This Could Be Different, by Sarah Thankam Mathews
4. Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan
5. Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
6. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin
7. Before the Coffee Gets Cold, by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
8. The Rabbit Hutch, by Elinor Lipman
9. Ms. Demeanor, by Elinor Lipman (Register for January 17 in-person event - see below)
10. The House in the Pines, by Ana Reyes

We've started featuring four of the more influential book club selections in our book club case, and Reese's Book Club pick for January is The House in the Pines, by Ana Reyes. She's got nice blurbs from Riley Sager, Andrea Bartz, and Lisa Gardner, but I think it's most appropriate to reprint the Reese rec: "This is an absolute, can't-put-it-down thriller... It's truly a wild ride that had me flying through chapter after chapter - which I think is the perfect way to kick off your year of reading."

Ms. Demeanor is Elinor Lipman's second book to be published as a paperback original, but Harper also made a hardcover edition, which is selling for us as well. When they do these dual editions, sometimes the cloth version turns out to be a weird paper-over-board thing that looks like an elementary school textbook. That is not the case here - I bought the hardcover for myself! Here's a nice Q&A with Lipman on the Barnes & Noble website.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. The Light We Carry, by Michelle Obama
2. An Immense World, by Ed Yong
3. The Philosophy of Modern Song, by Bob Dylan
4. And There Was Light, by Jon Meacham
5. What's for Dessert?, by Claire Saffitz
6. Birds and Us, by Tim Birkhead (Register for January 18 virtual event here)
7. Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, by Matthew Perry
8. The Book of Days, by Patti Smith
9. I'm Glad My Mom Died, by Jennette McCurdy
10. Inciting Joy, by Ross Gay

My apologies for not doing the appropriate research, but I think this is the first week in our top 10 for Matthew Perry's Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, after nine weeks on the NYT bestseller list. 

Not in The New York Times top 10 though it should be is Ross Gay's Inciting Joy, which Publishers Weekly called a "stunning collection how joy deepens when accompanied by grief, fear, and loss." I think we've featured Gay's latest before, but it just seems like a great book for the new year. Here's the author talking to Leah Asmelash at CNN: "Ultimately, it's a book about noticing what you love, articulating what you love, and sharing what you love. And in a certain kind of way this book wonders how do we do that. How do we do that structurally; how do we do that in our practices?"

 

Paperback Fiction:
1. Ms. Demeanor, by Elinor Lipman (Register for event)
2. The Drifter, by Nick Petrie
3. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, by Shehan Karunatilaka
4. The Maid, by Nita Prose
5. The Secret History, by Donna Tartt
6. Cursed Bunny, by Bora Chung
7. The Sleeping Car Porter, by Suzette Mayr (Register for January 10 virtual event here)
8. Once Upon a December, by Amy E. Reichert
9. Clark and Division, by Naomi Hirahara
10. Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir6

Cursed Bunny has been a hot book at indie bookstores, and with Jason's rec, we are in the thick of things. The book was a finalist for the Booker International Prize. Though Chung attended Yale, the stories were written in Korean and translated by Anton Hur. Chung teaches Russian and translates Russian and Polish works into Korean! From the Booker bunch, on Cursed Bunny: "A genre-defying collection of short stories, which blur the lines between magical realism, horror, and science fiction."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Global Nomad, by Tom Haig (today! 2:30 pm at North Shore Library - Facebook registration)
2. Adolescents and Their Social Media Narratives, by Jill Walsh (Register for January 18 USM event here)
3. A Short History of Queer Women, by Kirsty Loehr
4. Rough Magic, by Jonathan Gillard Daly (Register for January 9 in-person event here)
5. A History of Milwaukee Drag, by BJ Daniels and Michail Takach
6. Architects of an American Landscape, by Hugh Howard
7. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
8. Giannis, by Mirin Fader
9. The Icepick Surgeon, by Sam Kean
10. The Way of Integrity, by Martha Beck

It's nice to see Architects of an American Landscape, the dual biography of  HH Richardson and Frederick Law Olmsted, having a paperback pop after a nice hardcover run at Boswell, helped along by a virtual event tied into a year-long Olmsted celebration. Alex Beam in The Wall Street Journal called it "the literary equivalent of a rolling, Olmstedian greensward."

Books for Kids:
1. The Roof Over Our Heads, by Nicole Kronzer
2. The Stolen Heir, by Holly Black
3. What Feelings Do When No One's Looking by Tina Oziewicz, illustrations by Aleksandra Zajac
4. Wings of Fire V6: Moon Rising graphic novel, by Tui T. Sullivan
5. Cat Kid Comic Club V4: Collaborations, by Dav Pilkey
6. Turtle in a Tree, by Neesha Hudson
7. Nick and Charlie: a Heartstopper novella, by Alice Oseman
8. Diary of a Wimpy Kid V17: Diper Overlode, by Jeff Kinney
9. The Snowy Day board book, by Ezra Jack Keats
10. The Little Book Story Reader for a Free Ukraine, by Mykola Matwuczuk

I am beginning to wonder if every early reader and middle grade series of any level of popularity will be turned into graphic novels. The latest installment of the graphic-ization of Wings of Fire: Moon Rising, not only hit our bestseller list in paperback, but came close in hardcover as well. No info yet on when the adaptation of #7, Winter Turning, will be available. 

More on Allegra Goodman - being a reading completist and so forth.

I can be a bit of a completist. When it comes to authors, that means reading everything they publish, though sometimes I have caveats. When the author is prolific, that can be quite a challenge, and what happens when you realize that 25 pages into the book that you really don't like it. Do you decide to exclude this author from this less-than-coveted pantheon? Or do you plow through, hoping at best that the book had a slow start and at worst, that it's just a hiccup and the next book will be better?

I was thinking about this upon hearing about the death of writer Fay Weldon at 91. I read a lot of Fay Weldon in the 1980s and 1990s, even working backwards through her older titles. But I just couldn't keep up. The Guardian obituary didn't even bother to count. The Fantastic Fiction website lists 36 novels, six collections of short stories, and seven works of nonfiction. I have read 16 of her books, including her memoir, Auto da Fay, and the book she wrote for hire for Bulgari, titled The Bulgari Connection. I don't think I will ever catch up.

That said, I am intrigued by her writing book, Why Will No-One Publish My Novel: A Handbook for the Rejected Writer, which came out in paperback through Head of Zeus, imported by IPG, in 2019. 

After reading the forthcoming Künstlers in Paradise (March 14), I thought maybe I should start trying to catch up on Cathleen Schine. She has 12 novels and I have read seven of them. I have three options: 1) Start at the beginning 2) Work backwards 3) Take whatever I can get! I'll keep you posted. 

And so we return to Allegra Goodman. There were times when I might have fallen off the completist wagon (here are the caveats - I have read neither her kids book nor her cowritten textbook), but there were champions out there who helped me through, most notably our sales reps, those unsung (or at least undersung) heroes of publishing. A sales rep (Mark) got me to read The Family Markowitz. A fellow bookseller Dave, who, no surprise, went on to be a sales rep (he's talking to our buyer right now!), convinced me to go back and read The Cookbook Collector, one of my favorite Goodman works. There are so many recommendations of his that have steered me well over the years. 

And then there's Sam. I started, I stopped. It felt so different from his other books. And am I in that moment of life when I want to read a coming of age story? But then I spoke to our rep John, and he convinced me to go back. It was the kind of pep talk you expect a coach to give one of his players. I was convinced. And I soon became entranced by the story, and more than that, saw how the book was different and yet was so clearly an Allegra Goodman novel. I wrote my staff rec. And sent it in. I try to get at least one rec in for each monthly deadline, but you're at the mercy of pub dates. 

Crazy thing - it wound up being selected as the Indie Next recommendation, my first in years. As is the case for the new shorter recs with 25 books being featured, it was too long and needed to be cut. But I guess, unlike some things I write, it was actually cuttable. Reprinted here: "You’ve never read a novel like Sam. Sam’s seminal years leave her insecure at best, entering adulthood with a number of missteps. Rock climbing gives her purpose; it doesn’t take her where she wants to go, but leads to unseen paths. Powerful.”

I followed this up with a virtual event request. And being that I've been writing back and forth with Goodman's agent about books, it struck both of this that this would be an interesting and unique conversation. She has gotten me to read many terrific books (shout out to Belinda Huijan Tang's A Map for the Missing!), but I love that she reads books from authors that aren't current or potential clients. And I love that she was a fan first, and only started representing Goodman with Sam. And I really love that she is a former bookseller. 

I am excited that I found my old write up of Intuition. It was still back in the days when most of my reviews weren't meant for the public, but apparently I did write this up (or a something very similar) for one of the old Harry W. Schwartz newsletters. 

Intuition: "A Cambridge research lab is the setting for Intuition the keenly insightful new novel by Allegra Goodman.  Cliff, a young postdoc on the verge of career failure may have made a cancer breakthrough.  Another associate, Robin, suspects a problem, but she’s also his ex-girlfriend, whose own research has been sidetracked by his success. Don’t think, however, that this is just a two-character study.  The lab itself is having funding problems, and this breakthrough could be just what they need, but the controversy splits the partners, one of whom is more interested in chasing the limelight and funding more than the research itself.  Oh, and the director of the competing lab who is encouraging Robin along the way is just deliciously icky.   I’ve already been debating the finer points of the story with friends in publishing; one thought it stupendous, the other was exasperated by the whistleblower.  I agree with both, but I thought the exasperation with Robin was well thought out; this is a book that is as much about perspective and moral ambiguity as anything else - Robin isn’t a heroine in a Robin Cook novel, after all."

Not that there's anything wrong with being a heroine in a Robin Cook novel. It sounds thrilling!

As a bonus, I transcribed my write up of The Family Markowitz, which until now was only available if you happened to be my pen pal in the 1990s: "Rose Markowitz has been uprooted from her New York apartment to an old-age home in Venice, California. Her neighbor tells her to stop being so old fashioned and take off those plastic slipcovers. Is Rose saving her furniture for her own death? Well, Rose gives up the slipcovers only to watch the material go, and finds out that her neighbor sold the slipcovers at a yard sale. So goes Goodman’s hilarious novel/inter-connected stories about one family’s travails through life. Henry and Ed, Rose’s sons, are respectively gallery manager.Laura Ashley manager/poet and college professor/terrorism expert. Ed’s wife Sarah has set aside her own writing to raise  their children, and daughter Miriam has returned to the Orthodox faith. Whether writing about Henry’s super-Anglo wedding, the oral history project for which Rose is a subject, or the spiritual/academic conference in Minnesota that Ed attends, Goodman mixes hilarity and truth in equal parts, totally fulfilling the promise of 1989’s Total Immersion.

I only just now realized that the heroines of The Family Markowitz (Rose) and Künstlers in Paradise (Mamie) are living out their golden years in Venice, California. More than coincidence?

Join us for the virtual event on January 5, 7 pm Central Time, or use the link here (should be live by January 10) to watch the recording.

Allegra Goodman's SAM is out today! Here's a little bit about why I am such a fan.

One of great things about virtual events is that we get to host authors who in most cases, would probably never come to Milwaukee. Now that programming has returned to mostly in person, we talked about letting our virtual programming go. But this winter, we're trying to keep it up, seeing if our interviews can move the needle. And so, the first of two blog posts about Allegra Goodman, one of my favorite writers, whose new novel Sam is out today.

During the holiday season, two books sold well off our upcoming event case that have virtual events later in January - Suzette Mayr's The Sleeping Car Porter and Tim Birkhead's Birds & Us on January 18 (More info here). But our January 5 program with Allegra Goodman was a little tougher to promote in this manner. For one thing, her new novel Sam did not release until today, January 3. And because she doesn't publish too frequently and her last novel, The Chalk Artist, did not come out in paperback, we had to go back to 2011's The Cookbook Collector to find a book for our upcoming event case. And guess what? We sold the copies we brought in. And why not? It's great book, which I speak more of below.

I have been reading Goodman since her debut collection of stories, Total Immersion, in 1989, and I was immediately hooked. I actually have what I wrote about the book! "Though it starts off slowly, Total Immersion soon becomes what it promises – a fascinating world of Hawaiian and London Jews, where life seems a paradox of religious discipline and worldly concerns. 'And Much Cattle' tells of the attempts to build an ocean-front Orthodox synagogue. As in many of the stories, the plan runs amuck as petty grievances erupt into idealistic schisms. Goodman’s characters are amusingly consistent in their ability to get along with anyone. I found this very funny – people shouting about the finer points of nursery school, using the Torah and Piaget as their sources. It is shocking that the author is only 21 – her characters are often over 50. I must note that the Hawaiian-Yiddish glossary in the back is too cute."

I actually found what I wrote about all of Allegra Goodman's adult fiction work. I never read her kids book, The Other Side of the Island, or her cowritten writing book, Speaking of Writing: A Brief Rhetoric. In the case of the latter book, I did not know it existed until this moment, and textbooks don't count, right? But I should note it's out there.

I enjoyed 1996's The Family Markowitz a lot as well. At the time, I would rank the books I read as I documented them, and would send (mail!) monthly lists to friends, usually three or four months at a time. The Family Markowitz was my top book of the month. Total Immersion was #3 of 10, and I should note that 2001's Paradise Park was #2 of 7., I'll skip over those and go directly to Kaaterskill Falls, the 1998 novel that was also my #1 book of the month. I have very distinct memories of that book because we sold it quite well at the old Schwartz Bookshops, but because of Ken and a few other booksellers, the location that sold it best was Brookfield, which shows the power of the hand-sell. 

Allow me to share my write-up on Kaaterskill Falls: "Just in time for high-holiday observance, Goodman’s first fully-realized novel of an Orthodox Rav and his followers who divide their time between Washington Heights and summers in Sullivan County arrived to spectacular acclaim, much of it from me. As in The Family Markowitz, many of the character face choices between the spiritual and the specular. My favorite, Elizabeth Shulman, would like to find time while raising her five daughters to open a summer grocery store. Raised Orthodox since birth but in culturally different England, Elizabeth is one of several characters that never questions her faith while struggling with her problems. Even the Rav, near to death, must choose between his two sons, one pious and obedient, the other filled with worldly knowledge, more interesting but defiant of ritual. Altogether Goodman juggles about a dozen characters, each sparkling with life. Kaaterskill Falls is like a 19^th century English novel set in a synagogue. We drove down to Chicago to hear Goodman read at Women and Children First, and it was a genuine treat. Goodman is a great reader, did a splendid introduction, took questions graciously, and answered them informatively."

I had no memory of going to Chicago to see Allegra Goodman!

I stopped writing up my Booklists in the early aughts, as recommending books moved online. It was the rise of the Booksense (now Indie Next) nomination and at the bookstore, we could finally repurpose our staff recs beyond shelf talkers. And of course there was a time before shelf talkers too - we picked up that practice from other stores - the two I remember doing it early were Elliot Bay (Seattle) and Unabridged (Chicago) - shout out to them! But those were the days of backing up computers onto drives that held very little information, and for the life of me, I can't find my rec for 2006's Intuition. I know I wrote something. 

I know why I don't have a staff rec for 2010'sThe Cookbook Collector - I read the book late and was finally convinced to read it by Dave, my former fellow bookseller who is now our W.W. Norton rep and is also a big fan. And so I did what I did a lot more in those days - I wrote a blog post. 

The Cookbook Collector: "The first thing I realized after finishing the book is that the title is a bit misleading; the story is not quite as much a foodie novel as you'd think. Only one sister has a cookbook story arc, and it's not central to much of the story. Jess is a philosophy student at Berkeley, a vegan and would-be environmental activist, though her sister Emily would say she flits a bit from cause to cause. Yes, she does work at a second-hand bookstore, and yes, a collection of cookbooks does play into her transformation. 

You should also know that The Cookbook Collector plays off Sense and Sensibility, Jessamine is the Marianne, while the Elinor character in the book is best represented by Emily, the older sister of the family, who is running a tech start-up in the Silicon Valley. She has a boyfriend, Jonathan, who runs a similar sort of business in Cambridge, and both operations are expecting (as this is the late 1990s) to cash in big on an upcoming IPO.

"In this way, the story is much like Intuition, which uses a cancer lab as its setting, but at its core is a novel about relationships and honor. But both novels use social issues to play off personal ones, most notably power struggles in relationships. Not that Goodman leaves behind the Jewish themes she explored in her earlier fiction. Both sisters lives are touched by the Bialystocker Rabbis (and brothers-in-law) who have set up shop respectively in Berkley, and in their home town of Canaan. Coincidence yes, but if that bothers you, you should not be reading comedies. It's intrinsic to the plot, so just accept it.

"Perhaps I loved this book so much because it is more clearly a comedy. Yes, bad things happen, but it ends with a party of some sort, which is sort of in the playbook for these types of novels. It was just the kind of party I love, where you're happy and sad and happy that you read The Cookbook Collector, but sad to see it go. And because I read this book on the late side, I feel bad about missing part of the ceremony. But at least I got there before they cut the cake."

It's so unusual that so much of Goodman's work is still available in print, especially because she was at several publishers at the beginning of her career. These are the days when publishers would still pick up paperback rights from other publishers. I wish that still happened more. I can't talk about this much or I will get in a funk.

But back to happier thoughts. It's 2022 and Allegra Goodman's long-awaited novel Sam is out today! But I'll save my thoughts about that book for later. But I hope this blog explains a little more about why I am both excited and nervous for our event!

Register here for our virtual event with Allegra Goodman, in conversation with agent Julie Barer and myself on January 5, 7 pm Central. Even if you can't join us at the time, registration will make sure you get a link to the recording afterwards. Photo credit by Nina Subin.

And breaking news! Sam is the Read with Jenna pick for January. More here.

Boswell bestsellers for 2022

Here are our bestsellers for 2022. 

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John Mandel
2. Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
3. Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
4. This Time Tomorrow, by Emma Straub
5. The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles
6. Horse, by Geraldine Brooks
7. The Runaway, by Nick Petrie
8. Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt
9. All This Could Be Different, by Sarah Thankam Mathews
10. A World of Curiosities, by Louise Penny
11. Lucy by the Sea, by Elizabeth Strout

12. The Cartographers, by Peng Shepherd
13. The Passenger, by Cormac McCarthy
14. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin
15. The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig
16. Liberation Day, by George Saunders
17. The Marriage Portrait, by Maggie O'Farrell
18. Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr
19. Marrying the Ketchups, by Jennifer Egan
20. The Candy House, by Jennifer Egan
21. Our Missing Hearts, by Celeste Ng
22. Last Summer on State Street, by Toya Wolfe
24. Search, by Michelle Huneven
24. Less Is Lost, by Andrew Sean Greer
25. Signal Fires, by Dani Shapiro

26. The Rabbit Hutch, by Tess Gunty
27. Violeta, by Isabel Allende
28. Danger on the Atlantic, by Erica Ruth Neubauer
29. Carrie Soto Is Back, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
30. The Good Left Undone, by Adriana Trigiani
31. The Sentence, by Louise Erdrich
32. Lapvona, by Ottessa Moshfegh
33. Fairy Tale, by Stephen King
34. Upgrade, by Blake Crouch
35. Fox Creek, by William Kent Krueger
36. Time Is a Mother, by Ocean Vuong
37. The Women Could Fly, by Megan Giddings
38. Trust, by Hernan Diaz
39. Ithaca, by Claire North
40. Lark Ascending, by Silas House

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Happy-Go-Lucky, by David Sedaris
2. What's for Dessert?, by Claire Saffitz
3. Atlas of the Heart, by Brené Brown
4. Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
5. The Light We Carry, by Michelle Obama
6. I'm Glad My Mom Died, by Jennette McCurdy
7. Bad Vibes Only, by Nora McInerny
8. The Constitution in Jeopardy, by Russ Feingold and Pete Prindiville
9. Path Lit by Lightning, by David Maraniss
10. The 1619 Project, by Nikole Hannah Jones and The New York Times Magazine
11. Crying in the Bathroom, by Erika L. Sanchez
12. Slenderman, by Kathleen Hale
13. Slaying the Dragon, by Ben Riggs

14. An Immense World, by Ed Yong
15. Dinners with Ruth, by Nina Totenberg
16. Modern Classic Cocktails, by Robert Simonson
17. The Book of Boundaries, by Melissa Urban
18. Reading for Our Lives, by Maya Payne Smart
19. What If 2, by Randall Munroe
20. Atomic Habits, by James Clear
21. The Philosophy of Modern Song, by Bob Dylan
22. The Midwest Survival Guide, by Charlie Berens
23. Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson
24. Painting Can Save Your Life, by Sara Woster
25. The Dawn of Everything, by David Graber and David Wengrow

26. The Book of Joy, by Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu with Douglas Abrams
27. The Book of Days, by Patti Smith
28. Half-Baked Harvest Every Day, by Tieghan Gerard
29. Don't Text Your Ex Happy Birthday, by Nick Viall
30. Surrender, by Bono
31. Smitten Kitchen Keepers, by Deb Perelman
32. Life on the Mississippi, by Rinker Buck
33. And There Was Light, by Jon Meacham
34. Mother Noise, by Cindy House
35. How We Live Is How We Die, by by Pema Chodron
36. Go-To Dinners, by Ina Garten
37. Stay True, by Hua Hsu
38. Bar Menu, by André Darlington
39. Dinner in One, by Melissa Clark
40. Cinema Speculation, by Quentin Tarantino

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
2. Shady Hollow, by Juneau Black
3. Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro
4. Book Lovers, by Emily Henry
5. It Ends with Us, by Colleen Hoover
6. Verity, by Colleen Hoover
7. Circe, by Madeline Miller
8. Send for Me, by Lauren Fox
9. The Coyotes of Carthage, by Stephen Wright
10. The House in the Cerulean Sea, by TJ Klune
11. Once Upon a December, by Amy E. Reichert
12. The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller
13. Daisy Jones and the Six, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
14. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens

15. The Priory of the Orange Tree, by Samantha Shannon
16. The Glass Hotel, by Emily St. John Mandel
17. The Court of Thorn and Roses, by Sarah J. Maas
18. The Sentence, by Louise Erdrich
19. Leonard and Hungry Paul, by Rónán Hession
20. The Thursday Night Murder Club, by Richard Osman
21. The Drifter, by Nick Petrie
22. The Harlem Shuffle, by Colson Whitehead
23. The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, by Sangu Mandanna
24. Bunny, by Mona Awad
25. The Parable of the Sower, by Octavia E. Butler
26. The Personal Librarian, by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

27. The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett
28. My Year of Rest and Relaxation, by Ottessa Moshfegh
29. The Witches of Moonshyne Manor, by Bianca Marais
30. Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel
31. It Starts with Us, by Colleen Hoover
32. The Anomaly, by Herve Le Tellier
33. A Deadly Education, by Naomi Novik
34. The Lost Apothecary, by Sarah Penner
35. All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthon Doerr
36. The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
37. A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara
38. Still Life, by Sarah Winman
39. Cold Clay, by Juneau Black
40. Shadows of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Brewtown Tales, by John Gurda
2. The Book of Delights, by Ross Gay
3. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
4. Educated, by Tara Westover
5. Life in Short, by Dasha Kelly Hamilton
6. The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel van der Kolk
7. Entangled Life, by Merlin Sheldrake
8. Giannis, by Mirin Fader
9. Owning Grief, by Gael Garbarino Cullen
10. Heart Speak, by Sherrill Knezel
11. Growing Up Little Chute, by John Van Lieshout
12. The Fran Lebowitz Reader, by Fran Lebowitz

13. Fuzz, by Mary Roach
14. The History of Milwaukee Drag, by BJ Daniels and Michail Takach
15. Mushrooms of the Upper Midwest, by Teresa Marrone
16. The Milwaukeean, by Joey Grihalva and Klassik
17. Evicted, by Matthew Desmond
18. A Voyage Long and Strange, by Tony Horwitz
19. The Invention of Nature, by Andrea Wulf
20. Tacky, by Rax King
21. Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann
22. Walking Milwaukee, by Royal Vrevvaxling and Molly Snyder
23. New York Times Cooking No-Recipe Recipes, by Sam Sifton
24. Voices of Milwaukee Bronzeville, by Sandra E. Jones
25. The Invisible Child, by Andrea Elliott
26. Cream City Chronicles, by John Gurda
27. The Icepick Surgeon, by Sam Kean
28. The Splendid and the Vile, by Erik Larson
29. There Is No Backstage, by Linda Stephens
30. All That She Carried, by Tiya Miles

Books for Kids:
1. All Are Neighbors, by Alexandra Penfold, illustrations by Suzanne Kaufman
2. A Rover's Story, by Jasmine Warga
3. Believe in Yourself, by by Marc Brown
4. Our World of Dumplings, by Francie Dekker, illustrated by Sarah Ung
5. Construction Site: Farming Strong, All Year Long, by Sherri Duskey Rinker, illustrations by AG Ford
6. The Greatest in the World, by Ben Clanton
7. Chez Bob, by Bob Shea
8. Shot Clock, by Caron Butler, illustrations by Justin A. Reynolds
9. Moving to Mars, by Stef Wade, illustrations by Erin Talor
10. Fierce, by Aly Raisman
11. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse, illustrations by Renée Graef

12. Scattered Showers, by Rainbow Rowell
13. I Love You as Big as Wisconsin, by Rose Rossner, illustrations Joanne Partiss
14. The Weight of Blood, by Tiffany D. Jackson
15. First Cat in Space Ate Pizza, by Mac Barnett, illustrations by Shawn Harris
16. Stuntboy: In the Meantime, by Jason Reynolds, illustrations by Raul the Third
17. The Truth About Mrs. Claus, by Meena Harris
18. I Must Betray You, by Ruta Septys
19. Other Words for Home, by Jasmine Warga
20. Best Wishes, by Sarah Mlynowski
21. The Ogress and the Orphans, by Kelly Barnhill
22. Heartstopper V1, by Alice Oseman
23. Peekaboo Sun, by Camilla Reid, with illustratios by Ingela Arrhenius
24. Turtle in a Tree, by Neesha Hudson
25. Narwhal, Unicorn of the Sea, by Ben Clanton

26. Ain't Burned All the Bright, by Jason Reynolds, Jason Griffin
27. Remarkably Ruby, by Terri Libenson
28. Firekeeper's Daughter, Angeline Boulley
29. The Snowy Day board book, by Ezra Jack Keats
30. Operation Do Over, by Gordon Korman
31. A Place for Pluto, by Stef Wade, illustrations by Melanie Demmer
32. Heartstopper V4, by Alice Oseman
33. Cat Kid Comic Club: On Purpose V3, by Dav Pilkey
34. Farmhouse, by Sophie Blackall
35. A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, by Holly Jackson
36. Love Radio, by Ebony Ladelle
37. What Feelings Do When No One's Looking, by Tina Oziewicz, illustrations by Aleksandra Zajac
38. Green Is for Christmas, by Drew Daywalt, illustrations by Oliver Jeffers
39. Noodle and the No Bones Day, by Jonathan Graziano, illustrations by Dan Tavis
40. The Three Billy Goats Gruff, by Mac Barnett, illustrations by Jon Klassen

Four upcoming events: Allegra Goodman for Sam (virtual), Nicole Kronzer for The Roof Over Our Heads (at Boswell), Tom Haig at North Shore Public Library for Global Nomad, and Jonathan Gillard Daly for Rough Magic (at Boswell)

Allegra Goodman, author of Sam
in conversation with Julie Barer and Daniel Goldin for a virtual event
Thursday, January 5, 7 pm - click here to register. 

Boswell hosts a virtual event featuring Allegra Goodman, author of Sam, an unforgettable portrait of coming-of-age offers a powerful reflection on class, addiction, parenthood, longing, and ambition. Goodman will be joined for a conversation by her agent, Julie Barer, and Daniel Goldin of Boswell.

Allegra Goodman’s beautiful and wise novel is deceptively simple: it is about a girl who becomes a woman. But underneath its straightforward chronology and spare sentences lie layers of extraordinary depth, sensitivity, and tenderness. This ode to girlhood asks, What happens to a child's sense of joy and belonging, her belief in herself, as she grows up? The answer will break your heart but will also leave you full of hope.

From Lily King, author of Writers and Lovers: "I’ve been an Allegra Goodman fan for years, but Sam is hands down my new favorite. I loved this powerful and endearing portrait of a girl who must summon deep within herself the grit and wisdom to grow up." And here’s Daniel Goldin’s take: "Even if you’ve read Allegra Goodman before, you’ve never read a novel like Sam. It’s told completely from her perspective, keeping just the amount of distance you might expect from an adolescent who values her privacy. With any number of childhood setbacks, Sam’s seminal years leave her insecure at best and entering adulthood with any number of missteps. It’s rock climbing that gives her a sense of purpose, and while it doesn’t take her where she wants to go, it does lead to unseen paths - she just needs to find the right footholds. Quiet but powerful."

Allegra Goodman is the author of five novels, two short story collections, and a novel for young readers. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and elsewhere, and has been anthologized in The O Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories.

Nicole Kronzer, author of The Roof Over Our Heads
at Boswell
Friday, January 6, 6:30 pm - click here to register. 

Boswell Book Company presents an evening with Nicole Kronzer, author of The Roof Over Our Heads.

Finn lives in a family of theater lovers. His older brothers are both actors, and one of his moms is an actor and the other one is a director. They even live in an enormous historic mansion owned by the Beauregard, Minnesota's largest regional theater. Finn is desperate to be an actor, too, despite the fact that he can never seem to remember his lines. When a new artistic director threatens to sell the Jorgensen house and kick his family out of the only home he's ever known, his family puts on a show - an immersive 1890s experience unlike anything else out there. But will it be too much for his mom Lula, who is recovering from cancer? Will Finn connect with his crush and deal with his long-time rival, Jade? Will saving the house save Finn's acting career? Funny, warm, and full of Victorian hijinks, this is a novel for anyone looking for a place to belong.

Nicole Kronzer is a former professional actor and improvisor who now teaches English and creative writing, and she is the author of Unscripted. She loves to knit and run (usually not at the same time) and has named all the plants in her classroom.

Tom Haig, author of Global Nomad: My Travels Through Diving, Tragedy, and Rebirth
at North Shore Public Library, 6800 N Port Washington Rd
Sunday, January 8, 2:30 pm 

North Shore Library and Boswell Book Company present an afternoon event featuring Glendale native Tom Haig, who will chat about his new book, Global Nomad, a memoir of his astonishing journey, from state diving champion at Nicolet High School to traveling the globe as a professional high diver and finally, to rolling the streets of Katmandu and Dakar in a wheelchair.

No registration required, but please RSVP via Facebook. Click here to visit the Facebook event page. 

In Global Nomad, Haig shares his early free-wheeling life of traveling to more than 50 countries as a professional diver, tells the story of the life-changing accident that resulted in being wheelchair-bound, and relates his extraordinary return to adventure: racing in marathons, traveling solo in some of the poorest countries in the world, meeting the Dalai Lama, jamming with jazz great Oscar Klein, holding disability seminars, and starting the International Rehabilitation Forum with his physician brother, Andy. In the process, he bares the unvarnished aftermath and heartbreaking vulnerabilities that follow permanent paralysis and inspires us all to take risks and live remarkable, generous, lives.

From John Naber, author and Olympic swimming champion: "Haig has led an amazing life, and he is still living it. This global nomad meets interesting people as he overcomes challenges that might frighten an Olympian. Tom and his life are an inspiration!"

Tom Haig speaks and writes on disability issues, and will be inducted into the Nicolet High School Athletic Hall of Fame in January. Global Nomad is his first book.

Jonathan Gillard Daly, author of Rough Magic: Scenes from an Actor's Life
at Boswell
Monday, January 9, 6:30 pm - click here to register.

Boswell hosts an evening with Milwaukee actor and playwright John Gillard Daly, who appears with his memoir Rough Magic, in which he offers a glimpse backstage and gives an intimate account of the challenges, sacrifices, and triumphs of a creative life.

Rough Magic takes readers on a journey through the life of a creative, introverted young boy who, much to his own surprise, grows up to become a professional stage actor. And Jonathan Gillard Daly set out on a journey of self-discovery as he drew from the personal journals that he kept throughout his life, and wrote an account of how he discovered his inner talent and passion for acting.

Rough Magic abounds with anecdotes of a life in the theatre, the kind of backstage drama, onstage disasters, and sublime moments of true artistry that theatre fans love to hear about. But this memoir also steps away from the footlights, changes into street clothes and exits the stage door into the world of a satisfying, demanding, uncertain and meaningful life. It's a look at the offstage life of an actor, told with openness and candor.

Rough Magic is dedicated to Daly’s sister, the late Anne McMahon, a bookseller for close to 40 years, at Waldenbooks, the Book Nook, Harry W Schwartz Bookshops, and Boswell Book Company.

Jonathan Gillard Daly has acted in hundreds of productions and has taught professional acting as well. He has written five plays, three of which have enjoyed professional productions, and was a resident actor at Milwaukee Repertory Theatre for twenty seasons.

Photo credits
Allegra Goodman by Nina Subin

Boswell Bestsellers, week ending December 31, 2022

Boswell Bestsellers, week ending December 31, 2022

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
2. A World of Curiosities, by Louise Penny
3. All This Could Be Different, by Sarah Thankam Mathews
4. Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
5. Lucy by the Sea, by Elizabeth Strout
6. Old Woman with the Knife, by Gu Byeong-mo
7. The Candy House, by Jennifer Egan
8. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin
9. The Marriage Portrait, by Maggie O'Farrell
10. The Rabbit Hutch, by Tess Gunty

With gift buying mostly out of the way, the Books and Beer Book Club selection about a senior-age assassin for January muscles into the top 10. With paperback prices creeping up, the occasional $20 hardcover is now a true bargain, and we're discounting it 10% through January 16, 7 pm, when the group meets at Cafe Hollander. No registering at this time, but you can let Jen know you're planning to go at jen@boswellbooks.com. And as for The Old Woman and the Knife? Becky Meloan in The Washington Post wrote: "Darkly funny, this South Korean novel examines the universal challenge of aging while maintaining societal relevance." The publisher is comparing it to Lucky Grandma and Convenience Store Woman.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Don't Text Your Ex Happy Birthday, by Nick Viall (signed copies available)
2. The Light We Carry, by Michelle Obama
3. What's for Dessert?, by Claire Saffitz
4. I'm Glad My Mom Died, by Jennette McCurdy
5. Stay True, by Hua Hsu
6. Financial Feminist, by Tori Dunlap
7. Smitten Kitchen Keepers, by Deb Perelman
8. What If 2, by Randall Munroe
9. Dinners with Ruth, by Nina Totenberg
10. Atomic Habits, by James Clear

We don't see too many new releases on the week between Christmas and New Year's anymore - it used to be much more common. But HarperCollins has Financial Feminist: Overcome the Patriarchy's Bullsh*t to Master Your Money and Build a Life You Love from Tori Dunlap, host of the #1 rated business podcast and a viral TikTok star. Like Don't Text Your Ex Happy Birthday, the book is packaged as paper over board, which means it's structurally a paperback, but reads like a hardcover. Apparently image matters, so we count them as hardcovers.

Paperback Fiction:
1. Ms. Demeanor, by Elinor Lipman (Register for January 17 in-person event here)
2. The Sleeping Car Porter, by Suzette May (and this virtual January 10 event here)
3. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
4. Circe, by Madeline Miller
5. Factory Girls, by Michelle Gallen
6. The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller
7. Still Life, by Sarah Winman
8. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, by Shehan Karunatilaka
9. A Deadly Education, by Naomi Novik
10. Black Cake, by Charmaine Wilkerson

Michelle Gallen's Factory Girls had its best sales in its fifth week at Boswell. I'm not sure what drove this - do our customers read The Irish Echo? From Peter McDermott's review roundup and short profile: "'Michelle Gallen’s second novel Factory Girls is 'a great read if you’ve already finished Season 3 of Derry Girls.'" Arlington Magazine wasn’t the only review to make the comparison. Several did. And it’s certainly a great hook to be linked with the Netflix streaming hit that Martin Scorsese has recently endorsed. However, there has been another notable feature of the reviews that is captured by this line from author Silas House: "Factory Girls is one of the best books ever written about the Troubles and one of the best books I've read in a very long time."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
2. The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel van der Kolk
3. The Power of Geography, by Tim Marshall
4. How I Became a Tree, by Sumana Roy
5. Ejacuate Responsibly, by Gabrielle Blair
6. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R. Covey
7. Bright Ages, by Matthew Gabriel
8. The Story of Jane, by Laura Kaplan
9. Best American Essays, selected by Alexander Chee, series editor Robert Atwan
10. Fuzz, by Mary Roach

Much like with paperback fiction, our big nonfiction paperback pop finds Tim Marshall's The Power of Geography: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World appealing more to self-gifters - its biggest week is its seventh on sale. It's the fourth book in a series called Politics of Place and turns out to be the hit, featuring maps that we didn't quite have over the holidays. Sadly, our hopes were pinned on a book that was delayed to the store because of the Workman-Hachette consolidation and pretty much missed the Christmas selling season. From Joshua Keating's Washington Post review for the hardcover: "Marshall, a British longtime foreign correspondent and former diplomatic editor of Sky News, makes the case that sea lanes, rivers and mountain ranges are as determinative of a nation’s actions as the ideological and cultural factors that get more attention, and that those factors are themselves partly determined by geography."

Books for Kids:
1. The Story of Civil Rights Hero John Lewis, by Jim Haskins, illustrated by Aaron Boyd
2. Melena's Jubilee, by Zetta Elliott, illustrations by Aaron Boyd
3. Calling the Water Drum, by Latisha Redding, illustrations by Aaron Boyd
4. Peekaboo Love, by Camilla Reid, illustrations by Ingela Arrhenius
5. Collaborations V4: Cat Kid Comic Club, by Dav Pilkey
6. How the Grinch Stole Christmas, by Dr. Seuss
7. Moving to Mars, by Steff Wde
8. A Good Girls Guide to Murder, by Holly Jackson
9. The Three Billy Goats Gruff, by Mac Barnett, illustrations by Jon Klassen
10. What Feelings Do When No One's Looking, by Tina Oziewicz, illustrations by Aleksandra Zajac

Another result of shopping for yourself - a YA title hits our list*. It's A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, and it's celebrating its first year of sale in paperback. It's also on our TikTok display, and yes, I checked - those are individual sales, not a school order. And yes, it hit #1 on the NYT, but they separate out YA titles from all their other kids books. From the publisher: "For readers of Karen McManus and Kara Thomas, an addictive, twisty crime thriller with shades of Serial and Making a Murderer about a closed local murder case that doesn't add up and a girl who's determined to find the real killer - but not everyone wants her meddling in the past." 

 *I have this theory that adults are afraid to buy books for teenagers, unless the book is a phenomenon and specifically asked for. It's just a theory. But the age level of our books in the kids section tend to skew younger during the holidays.