And With Rep Night #4, We are Ready to Sell Anything to Anybody--Suggestions from Random House kids, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and HarperCollins Adult.

By rep night number four, the crowd is getting tired. No matter how you do it, one Sunday after another, spaced out, four nights of presentations are a lot. Of course we had six of them, but I could probably count on one hand the number of booksellers who would attend all six events in a season.

The ultimate event was back at Mequon's Next Chapter, where I believe we had Leonardo's pizza (did I mention that I am a big fan of their meatball subs, due to the oven toasing of the bread?) and some Panera salads.

Tim's big push at Random House was for the 50th edition of The Phantom Tollbooth. Who knew that Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer lived in the same apartment building. Just think, the other half of your classic is festering away in apartment 3B. For this event, there's a commemorative hardcover, an annotated edition, and Juster's new picture book called Neville.

I think I noted in a previous rep night roundup that the YA mystery/thriller genre always needs new entries. David Levithan's new novel, Every You, Every Me, is another nice option. With paintings by Jonathan Farmer, it's a story that keeps you guessing, and the art is part of the puzzle. Levitan is probably best known as the co-author of Will Grayson, Will Grayson.

Need some time travel with your adventure? Matthew Cody's The Dead Gentleman might be your ticket. Shuttling between the New York of 100 years ago and that of today, two kids, one from each period, team up to defeat titular Dead Gentleman, an arch villain about to conquer earth. Tim says it's like a modern Jules Verne with a spot of Harry Potter.

And finally, a nice holiday book from David Rubel and Jim LaMarche. The Carpenter's Gift is a picture book abou the very first Rockefeller Center Christmas tree and the impact it had across generations.

From Cathy, we've already been pondering Caroline Preston's The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt, a novel told, yes, in scrapbook form. It's a really cool, full-color package, and Preston, who also wrote Jackie by Josie (which I read) and several other novels, uses the imagery to tell a spirited and amusing tale. And I had also heard from Elinor Lipman that this was one of her fall fiction picks--she has a jacket quote on the book. I could see that several Boswellians were intrigued; here's hoping we have a rec by the end of the month.

A customer came into Boswell to chat with me about Food52, the website from Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs where participants vote on great recipes for classic dishes. he was very enthusiastic about the site and the new cookbook, The Food52 Cookbook to be exact, that collects the first year of recipes.

Another big cookbook is Paula Wolfert's lush The Food of Morocco. Wolfert is known for explorations of middle east cuisine, with Couscous being one of her classics. Along with Mouad, a contemporary take on the same cuisine in an equally beautiful package, north Africa is shaping up to be the culinary destination of the season.

Also from a website is Joseph Gordon-Levitt's new anthology, The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories. Filled with very tiny but apparently quite emotionall powering stories, this site is quite popular and apparently it is not all due in part to Gordon-Levitt's (or so I heard from the row behind me) dreaminess. And I guess he is turning the stories into films now. Tiny ones. Nice package. Could even be tinier, but it would be so hard to sell thimble-sized books, let alone the theft problems. Remember the tiny Langenscheit dictionaries?

And finally Ellen of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt brought both adult and kid books to the table. On the adult side, we've already talked about Umberto Eco's The Prague Cemetery, and We the Animals, by Justin Torres.  Jason's been talking up The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick.

The Essential Pepin is a very nice package that updates recipes from Jacques Pepin's six-decade career. And yes, there is a new 26-episode series.

The Chronicles of Harris Burdick is a new collection of short stories based on the illustations in Chris Van Allsburg's classic, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick.

Things start to blur together at this point. Which rep had which book about classical mythology.  Who had which book about unlikely animal friendships?  And while Joseph Gordon-Levitt has tiny stories, there's also 420 Characters, a collection of short stories that were originally Facebook posts.

Can we really be done? Now all we have to do is sell them all.

What's Going on This Week, Not Just at Boswell, But at Cudahy Family Library, Village Pub, Lake Park Bistro...Plus One Event Can't Go to Unless You are the Lucky School for Keir Graff.

Tonight, Monday, November 14, 6:30 pm, at Shorewood Village Pub, 4488 North Oakland Avenue, we'll be with Bob Berghaus, author of The First America's Team: The 1962 Green Bay Packers.
Monday night's game with the Vikings begins at 7:30 CST, but in lieu of a tailgate party, perhaps the best pre-game show might be Journal Sentinel sportswriter emeritus Bob Berghaus at the Shorewood Village Pub, talking about Vince Lombardi's 1962 Packers. More on the Journal Sentinel Packers blog.

Our second event for Norwegian November is tomorrow, Tuesday, November 15, 7 pm, at Boswell, co-sponsored by Outpost Natural Foods. Irene Sandvold, co-author of Gudrun's Kitchen: Recipes from a Norwegian Family joins us for a talk and signing. Part
cookbook, part immigrant story, and also family saga, we will have a little Norwegian sampling from Outpost.

And speaking of Outpost treats, I don't know if there is any left in the cold case, but on Sunday there was one of my favorites. Radicchio chicken salad, besides its titular ingredients, is tossed with celery, onions, snow peas, craisins and pecans in a slightly sweet champagne vinegar. It's ultradelicious and doesn't show up too often.

Also on Tuesday, November 15, we'll be helping the Cudahy Family Library for their event with Leanna Renee Hieber, author of Darker Still: A Novel of Murder Most Foul. This is Hieber's first foray (to my knowledge) into young adult fiction; she is better known for her adult paranormal activity. I like that Sourcebooks partnered up with Word in Brooklyn to get pre-signed copies out.

On Wednesday,  November 16, we are co-sponsoring not one but two events with Craig Thompson, author of the already classic Blankets, and the soon-to-be classic Habibi.  At 2 pm, he is appearing at MIAD's Todd Wehr Auditorium, 273 East Erie Street. This event is free and open to the public.

And then at 7, we're hosting a traditional in-store event at Boswell, also Wednesday, November 16. Thompson had a short stint at MIAD and a longer one at nearby Discovery World.  And may I super urge you to get your book signed? Thompson is said to do an amazing drawing/signature.

Thursday, November 17, is a kid-friendly evening with Kenneth Oppel, author of This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein, this time at Boswell. Don't worry, I promise we are continuing to do our library readings. We just have so many other offsites going on that I needed a little rest, and comparatively, an in-store event is a rest.

In this story, the start of a series which plays off the original material, Victor Frankenstein attempts to create an elixir of life to stem off the grave illness of his twin brother Konrad. To make this happen, he and his adopted sister and their friend Henry must procure the necessary ingredients. Publishers Weekly calls Victor a "mad scientist in training" and sees This Dark Endeavor as "melodramatic, exciting, disquieting, and intentionally over the top."

And for all you Canada-philes, Oppel received the Governor General's Award for his Airborn series, and lives with his family in Ontario.

Saturday, November 19, 2 pm, at Boswell:
James King, author of Bill Warrington's Last Chance.
A young girl and her ailing grandfather set off on a road trip to California in attempt to bring together their fractured family. Booklist praised the story as "part road odyssey, part coming-of-age tale, Kings novel achieves the exact right balance of humor, redemption, and reconciliation."

Sunday, November 20, 6 pm, Lake Park Bistro: Patricia Wells, returns to Milwaukee for a special dinner in celebration of Simply Truffles.
There are still tickets left for a special Patricia Wells truffle dinner. $125 gets you a complete meal, tax, gratuity. There is one autographed book per couple. More on Carol Deptolla's Journal Sentinel blog. Phone number is 414-962-6300.

And then there's one event you can't come to!  We're doing a school visit for Keir Graff's first novel for middle graders, The Other Felix. The author has done some great school visits in the Chicago area and though I thought it would be hard to get an public audience for this first novel, pairing Graff with right school is a great idea.

Felix is an only child who lives in the big city in a tall building. I'm not sure, but I think it's Chicago; we're told it's not New York. His mom works in a hospital, and his dad is doing some sort of business project. They are both rather distracted, as parents can be in these sorts of stories.  This turns out to be problematic when Felix starts being taunted by Chase, a bullying new student who frames him for, in true "Fugitive" style, a crime he did not commit.

But Felix has an escape. What starts out as nightmares where he is transported to another place, woodsy, yes, but not exactly bucolic as there are monsters lurking about, turns out to be an escape when Felix meets, of all things, another Felix. This Felix has no parents about, but he knows how to cook and even do his own hunting. Things like shoelaces, on the other hand, just show up. Most of all, he knows how to fight monsters. And being The Other Felix, pretty much identical except for his lack of family and his clothing, he becomes a friend that Felix could use, and he might even be able to help him in his problems...if the monsters don't get them first.

Interested? Well, we're whetting your appetite for a futre appearance. I expect more great books for kids to come from Graff, in between his other careers, one of which is as a novelist for grownups. His most recent thriller is The Price of Liberty.

What's Selling at Boswell? An NPR Interview with a Kids Book Author Wipes Us Out...for a Day or So, and No I'm Not Referring to Paolini.

Hardcover Books for Kids
1. Mastiff, by Tamora Pierce
2. Inheritance, by Christopher Paolini
3. Rrralph, by Lois Ehlert
4. Tortall, by Tamora Pierce
5. Wildwood, by Colin Meloy
6. Dog Parade, by Barbara Joosse

7. Dragon's Tooth, N.D. Wilson

8. Lots of Spots, by Lois Ehlert
9. Ten Little Caterpillars, by Bill Martin and Lois Ehlert
10. Oodles of Animals, by Lois Ehlert

You might have guessed that we had events with Tamora Pierce and Lois Ehlert. And yes, we had a nice pop on Christopher Paolini books (he apparently sold 500,000 in a day, or something like that). I'm also happy to see a pop on Barbara Joosse's Dog Parade. She'll be doing a Festive Friday storytime with us on Friday, December 2, at 4 pm, just before the doggie costume contest, as you may have heard here already (and you will hear again).

But the most interesting news was the pop on N.D. Wilson's Dragon Tooth, after a particularly good interview on All Things Considered with Guy Raz. It's about two boys who join a secret order of explorers, and it's set in Wisconsin!

Hardcover fiction:
1. 11-22-63, by Stephen King
2. 1Q84, by Haruki Murakami
3. The Katyn Order, by Doug Jacobson
4. Habibi, by Craig Thompson
5. The Litigators, by John Grisham
6. The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain
7. Reamde, by Neal Stephenson
8. The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides
9. State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett
10. The Cat's Table, by Michael Ondaatje

Looking forward to Craig Thompson's events on Wednesday, November 16, at MIAD at 2 and Boswell at 7. Both are free and open to the public.

Hardcover nonfiction:
1. Alive and Kicking, by Chester Marcol
2. Everyone Leads, by Paul Schmitz
3. Back to Work, by Bill Clinton
4. Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson
5. Healthy South Indian Cooking, by Alamelu Vairavan
6. Jerusalem, by Simon Sebag Montefiore
7. Blue Nights, by Joan Didion
8. Cook without a Book: Meatless Meals, by Pam Anderson
9. And So it Goes, by Charles Shields (one of the two Vonnegut bios)
10. Boomerang, by Michael Lewis

And no, to answer a customer, I don't know why these things always come out together. The other Vonnegut book is Unstuck in Time: A Journey Through Kurt Vonnegut's Life and Novels.

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Tiger's Wife, by Téa Obreht
2. Blankets, by Craig Thompson
3. The Great Enigma, by Tomas Transtromer
4. Night of Flames, by Douglas Jacobson
5. Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese

Nothing interesting here, except our bestseller sales continue to be soft. The Blankets hardcover turned out to be a hot seller and I didn't have time to get more for the event, but we'll have paperbacks there.

Paperback nonfiction:
1. Beyond the Pews, by Jillian Maas Backman
2. The Hare with Amber Eyes, by Edmund de Waal
3. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
4. Unlikely Frienships, by Jennifer Holland
5. Heaven is for Real, by Todd Burpo

You know Owen and Mzee, but what about that daschund that befriended the koi?

Paperback Books for Kids
1. Terrier, by Tamora Pierce
2. Bloodhound, by Tamora Pierce
3. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
4. Fancy Nancy: Our Thanksgiving Banquet, by Jane O'Connor
5. Wild Magic, by Tamora Pierce

Nancy wants a simple Thanksgiving, only the family insists on making it fancy. In the end, she realizes that celebrating baushaus style  means less dessert. Actually, this plot is made up; I haven't read the book yet, but I do know it is good because it has a lot of stickers.

Saturday Gift Post--A Few New Arrivals, then Off We Go to the Wine and Dine Show.

Since yesterday's post was all text (I added a photo this morning), I thought today's should be mostly pictures.

We don't sell too much Thanksgiving-related stuff, but I and some of the other booksellers liked this metal turkey table decoration. And we really liked that it was only $6.95.

Our felted coin purses have been quite popular for the last few years, so we decided to expand into a small selection of larger purses and totes. All are under $30.

And Lucy, from Children Make Terrible Pets and Do You Want to be My Friend, finally has a good friend in Peter from The Snowy Day. Both are under $20.

Shane and I are off to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Wine and Dine, which is going on at Frontier Airlines Center, sponsored by Southwest Airlines. I think Saturday is sold out, but Sunday tickets are said to be still available. They are $49, with an extra $19 for critic's choice. We're there today to sell books for Pam Anderson, whose newest book is Cook Without a Book: Meatless Meals: Recipes and Techniques for Part-Time and Full-Time Vegetarians.

The new book shows how to make fun and easy vegetarian and vegan made from accessible and wholesome ingredients. Her previous books include an IACP winner and two James Beard nominees.

Bookseller Task #249: Event Recaps

I don't think it's a great thing that I feel behind in everything, but if that's how I feel; I can't change it. Among other tasks that have been rather sloppy of late are my event recaps to publishers. Yes, every time we host an event, it's our duty to let the publisher know how many people showed up, how many books you sold at the event itself, and how many books you sold since the display went up.  If we have a particularly good after-event sale, I'll usually email the publicist again and let them know.

Other things you want to say are any interesting things that happened, were there any special requests from the author that the publicist might not be aware of, and were there any special people in the audience. We usually give the publisher a rundown of any publicity that happened, plus the efforts we made to get the word out about the event.

It seemed like as of two days ago I was a month behind in reporting, with a few exceptions for our highest profile events. When things go particularly well, the emails are ebullient.  When the numbers are disappointing, the tone is more apologetic. I've been told that some stores shy from taking on developing authors and I can see why--you have put in all that work with writing copy, making signs, ordering, paying shipping on returns, making up the Facebook page, writing things for the email newsletter, and sometimes even including the book in advertisements. Then there's the press release copy and the event calendar. And yes, another event might mean that Stacie is tied up from, say, getting our holiday print newsletter out, or that I work a 14 hour day. And now you know one more reason why folks shy away from these things--you have to do a write up afterwards, and you just feel bad aftewards.

I have to say no to a lot of events, but I certainly say yes to a number of events each month that will be an uphill battle. Even though I cringe at the though of having five people show up (or three, or zero), there is that joy in somehow getting a turnout of 25. Maybe there were friends of friends I didn't know about.  Maybe all the publicity came together. Maybe one of my booksellers fell in love with the book and hand-sold his or her heart out. Maybe someone famous will be spotted reading the book just before our event. Maybe some award will be announced.

There's a lot of hope in this business, isn't there?

How Much is That Doggie in the Curio Case?

Our friend Lynn has graciously put her awesome collection of Boston terriers on display in our curio case. I was hoping she'd write a little description of it, but alas, she's got writer's block. Instead, all we have is a woof.

We've had a great collection of dog events this fall, and we've got one more to share. On Friday, December 2, Barbara Joosse will be appearing for Dog Parade, her charming picture book about some dogs in costumes.

After our talk/storytime, we've got a special treat. It's Festive Friday, and that means our annual dog costume that goes on near Cafe Hollander. We're excited that Barbara Joosse will be the guest judge at the festivity.

Joosse's got more than a new book.  She's also written lyrics to a new album for kids. We'll soon have copies for sale and we'll be playing it during kid-friendly times, and certainly on Festive Friday.  More on her website.

How Did the Book Club Go regarding The Hare With Amber Eyes?

I was speaking to one of my bookseller friends about our success with The Hare with Amber Eyes (we just passed our 50 mark, which is good for us) and he said to me, "The what with what what who?" and that was my first indication that success with this book is not universal. I looked up the details on Treeline, and there are definitely haves and have nots with this title. But the truth is that if you latch onto it, the book is pretty sticky (see your Gladwell encyclopedia for explanation).

Edmund de Waal is a well-known potter (if you know your potters) who inherited a collection of Japanese netsuke figurines from his Great Uncle Iggie. He decides to write a history, following the family ownership from Charles in Paris, to Viktor in Vienna, to Iggie in Japan, and finally to Edmund in England. But de Waal is from no ordinary family. Despite being the son of a minister, his familiy line leads back to one of the great banking families of Europe in the 19th and early 20th century, the Ephrussis, whose story really begins in Odessa.

We had a nice crowd of folks to talk about the book, and though in the end, most folks liked The Hare with Amber Eyes (that's the British paperback pictured at left, German below) in retrospect , there was a lot of grumbling during the reading process, and lots of quibbling with detail. I think in this case it was a question of expectations. Not only did the book win the Costa Prize for biography, but reviews, particularly in England, were effusive, and though I can't verify the source, Caroline quoted a review saying it was the best book in a decade. How do you live up to that?  On the other hand, there were a few of us who felt the book well stood up to its praise and were quite passionate in its defense.

Some people felt that their wasn't enough about the netsuke as objects, but I saw them more as a framing device and perhaps as a metaphor for the stories themselves, often lost or hidden, but in this, case, rediscovered and passed on.  Gloria of course brought one of her netsuke, and noted that the Village Bazaar has a nice collection available for sale. And if you've never been to this store, located at 2201 N. Farwell Avenue, you absolutely have to go.

Also in the show and tell department, Peter brought several books that touched on Charles Ephrussi's life in Paris, and was able to find a print of Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party, where Charles is that guy in the upper right in top hat.

And there was some talk about the reconstruction of conversations. It's always nice if an author in a nonfiction book acknowledges in the preface that he recreated some scenes. That said, much of The Hare with Amber Eyes seemed to be reconstructed from letters and journals, which could mean he's just telling it as the participant saw it. So I'm not coming down either way on that one.

Roger had some issues with omissions in the history. I think that this is something that would hit some readers--this is a family of privilege, and should the author have acknowledged the awful conditions around them. Roger mentioned the movie "Y tu mama tambien" in comparison. There certainly could have been more class consciousness in the story, but that also would have made it a different story.

I was chatting with Elaine, one of our phone customers, trying to convince her for the second time to purchase the book, being that she has a strong interest in Jewish history, particularly concerning the Holocaust. You'd be savaged for looking too Jewish or not Jewish enough; you're savaged for being obsessed with the arts or with money. You're evil for being a communist; worse for being a capitalist. And yet de Waal also portrays the family in most if not all of their warts; this is not an Anne Frank story.

And the story also has an LGBT history element too. Iggie was a bachelor who adopted his Japanese companion, and while there was less clear evidence regarding Charles, he was said to have a mistress who had numerous other men in her stable, while Charles was content to be mentor to a series of younger accolytes, like Proust, for example. And yes, I would consider this must reading for all the Proustian scholars I know. I know one, by the way.

It works as group biography. It works as travel lit. Regarding some of the art history, I suspected that this manuscript was at one point longer, and that things you might have expected like the art theory and more of de Waal's own life might have been edited out for bogging down the story.  Who knows? I guess if the author ever tours again, you can ask him. I believe he only did museums for the paperback. You can also see some of his own beautiful ceramics on his website.

But in the end, I think the netsuke did hold the story together, and they triumphed.  They may not be in every scene, but there's at least one amazing escape story. I will tell you that I was a bit weepy at the end. The book had a quite powerful hold on me.

What are we reading next?

Monday, December 5, 7 pm: The Tiger's Wife, by Téa Obreht

We're journeying back to the Belgrade of Aleksandar Hemon, only this time after the war, in all its rubble. A young doctor in the Balkans tries to unravel the mystery of her grandmother's death.

Monday, January 2, 7 pm: How to Read the Air, by Dinaw Mengestu
A young man leaves his wife and job in New York to journey to his Ethiopian homeland and recreate his family history. As you can see, I'm slowly checking every country off a map in my head.

Rep Night Catch Up--Here's #3, with Penguin Adult and Kids, Perseus/PGW, and Random House Blue (Crown and Random House Groups).

Can it be two weeks since we had our rep night on October 23?  Indeed it has.  We had four publisher reps present to Next Chapter, Books and Company, and Boswell, just hours after our event with Jeffrey Eugenides. It feels like just yesterday, but also in some ways, like a year ago. That said, holiday gift ideas must be presented, though I've forgotten the order in which the reps spoke. Does it matter? Hey, if Edmund de Waal (yes, I'm already thinking about my next post) can recreate conversations from the 19th century, I can certainly paraphrase a few comments. Here are some choice selections, about three to four from each rep.

John H. from Random House has a very strong fall, with a number of titles out and several more to come. John's the first person to talk about Diane Keaton's Then Again (that would be David Ebershoff, the editor/author who stopped by over the summer), and he won't be the last. Keaton's biography is said to read more like a literary memoir than a conversation that resulted from two hours with the "as told to" partner. It's not just a film chronicle, but a mother/daughter story as well.

It's not easy to sell art and photography books in a bookstore nowadays, unless you limit accessibility, you have to worry about dirty-handed browsers. They are often above the price point that triggers many customers rush to the A-word.  That said, Leibovitz has often been an exception, and her new collection, Pilgrimage, will spark extra interest as there are new humans in the photos!

Tension City, by Jim Lehrer, is a memoir that you might put in the long-awaited category. It's an informative history of presidential debates from "the guy who was in the driver's seat for most of them." Next Chapter's Geoff echoed the positive sentiment.

And Death in the City of Light is David King's narrative history of a prolific serial killer in Paris during the Nazi occupation.  Jason, who read this, also gave thumbs up. It's for folks who read Devil in the White City, particularly those who enjoyed the serial killer angle over the urban planning part.

Betty at PGW/Perseus has been our rep for a few years after a long gap. I remember when she sold David Schwartz, and gave us this program from Doubleday/Dell, where we would sign up for certain lead titles each month to have pre-determined order quantities. I remember these visuals of piles of books. And before that, we had this guy who I only met once, and could only talk about how great The Firm was  As this all happened pre-release, he apparently had a good eye. Isn't it odd how you get fixated on these little details?

But that is long ago, now her bag of goodies is large an assorted, like a very, very, very, very big Whitman's Sampler that has flavors you'd ever want to eat, many that you've never heard of, but look delicious, and just a few that sound like those unpleasant jellybeans in Harry Potter. But perhaps this box's salted caramel is Lily Tuck's I Married You for Happiness. It's a portrait of a 42-year marriage, and what happens when the husband goes into cardiac arrest. If you read her National Book Award winning The News from Paraguay, you'll recall her writing style of layered recollections. There's plot and character too, but Tuck (I don't know where the original "Berg" came from) is most definitely a language writer.

Melvyn Bragg's The Book of Books is a celebration of the 400-year anniversary of the King James Bible. Booklist notes that Bragg "greatly values the book for its impact on the human worlds of culture and politics." 

We do very well with books on bicycling, at least of late, and New World Library has On Bicycles: 50 Ways the New Bike Culture Can Change Your Life, an anthology edited by Amy Walker, a cofounder of Momentum magazine.

I obviously was not able to keep my chocolate metaphor going, but can still mention Choclatique, by Ed Engoron, a luscious collection by a California chocolatier. I guess it's all about starting with a good ganache, isn't it?

 

Penguin has some high-profile kids books this fall, including The Artist who Painted a Blue Horse, by Eric Carle. Our rep Alex noted that his collage work reaches new heights of brilliance and exuberance, but all I could think about was whether it would mean a new plush would soon follow.

 
I was not aware of the cult following of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, but apparently he's got 11 million followers for the stop-motion videos. We were on the fence about whether this might have been even more popular as an impulse title with a smaller trim, but won't that likely be next. There was oohing. There was ahhing.
 
Harlan Coben's Shelter is his first thriller for kids. If you sell in the kids area, you'll not that there is no end of options for a kid who likes science fiction and fantasy, but options for mystery/thriller lovers are usually a bit more limited.
 
And for the holidays, there is of course a new version of The Twelve Days of Christmas, by Laurel Long. It's a beautiful book that has an interactive element--every spread has every thing mentioned in the lyric to that point, from rings to drummers to a partridge.  And don't get that confused with Loren Long's new Otis and the Tornado.
 

Joe from the adult hardcover side of Penguin had a number of titles of interest. Biography lovers would gravitate to award-winning Claire Tomalin and her newest subject, Charles Dickens. It was just reviewed with Becoming Dickens in The New York Times.
 
In the Scandanavian mystery/thriller sweepstakes, Jussi Adler-Olsen seems to have developed some big fans here, after wearing the "#1 crimewriter" sash in Denmark. The series, starting with The Keeper of Lost Causes, follows Carl Morck, a homicide detective that closely escaped death and is "promoted" to solving cold case crimes in Copenhagen.

It's already had some time on bestseller lists, but it feels like Amor Towles's Rules of Civility hasn't yet quite reached its potential. Set in the 1930's, it's the story of Katey Kontent, who rises from Wall Street secretary to the upper echelons of society.

 

And Jeanne Darst's Fiction Ruined my Family is a family memoir that's had some great reads and was launched on "This American Life." She grew up one of five children, daughter of a struggling novelist with an alcohol problem, and I'm sure there are plenty more problems that I don't have the space or the knowledge to mention. So when she grows up and has an urge to write and to drink, is she doomed to escape the family history?

 

Jason noted that he was sort of excited that the last rep night only had three presenters. I can see his point. I'll give you the scoop on that one soon, but meanwhile here's hoping that a book caught your interest. And yes, the food was from Beans and Barley.