Boswell bestsellers, week ending September 25, 2021

Here's what is selling at Boswell.

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Harlem Shuffle, by Colson Whitehead
2. Bewilderment, by Richard Powers
3. Beautiful World, Where Are You, by Sally Rooney
4. Under the Whispering Door, by TJ Clune
5. The Madness of Crowds, by Louise Penny
6. Matrix, by Lauren Groff
7. Apples Never Fall, Liane Moriarty
8. The Last Thing He Told Me, by Laura Dave
9. The Love Songs of WEB DuBois, by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
10. The Final Girl Support Group, by Grady Hendrix

The top fiction debut this week is Richard Powers's Bewilderment, which is both longlisted for the National Book Award and shortlisted for the Booker Prize. That said, if you look at Bookmarks, you can see mixed reviews and even pans, including Dwight Garner in The New York Times and Sam Sacks in The Wall Street Journal, unusual for a book already getting award mentions. Event Adam Roberts's rave in The Guardian should actually be classified as either positive or mixed, calling it "suffocating" and noting there's "much to admire" but "doesn't reach the heights of his previous work." He compares it to Flowers for Algernon.

I can't let that sit. Let's quote Ellen Akins in the Star Tribune: "This all might sound a bit sci-fi technical, but all the scientific razzle-dazzle, including the details of the planets that Theo elaborately imagines for Robbie, simply underlines the human story at its center - and makes the tenderness between father and son seem so real and heartfelt that the novel becomes its own empathy machine. What's more powerful, though, is how the emotions Bewilderment evokes expand far beyond the bond of father and son to embrace the living world and Robin's anguish at its plight, experienced ever more exquisitely as the experiment progresses."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X Kendi
2. Peril, by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa
3. Provoke, by George Tuff
4. Giannis, by Mirin Fader
5. Fuzz, by Mary Roach (Register for September 27 event here)
6. All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days, by Rebecca Donner
7. The Secret History of Food, by Matt Siegel (Register for October 5 event here)
8. Vanderbilt, by Anderson Cooper
9. Unbound, by Tarana Burke
10. Finding the Mother Tree, by Suzanne Simard

Our new releases about President Trump have taken a bit of a downward sales trajectory, but we saw strong sales of Peril, the conclusion of Bob Woodward's Trump trilogy, with help from Robert Costa. We'll be back in stock shortly. Chris Megerian in Los Angeles Times called it "tedious" - that was a pan, while Ron Elway's positive (per Bookmarks - so nice that I don't have to select the adjective, though as above, I can sometimes question their conclusion) NPR review says that while other revelations are familiar, others have an element of discovery.

One book with nothing but raves (albeit from trade sources rather than the big newspapers is Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement, by Tarana Burke. Kirkus Reviews called it "an unforgettable page-turner of a life story rendered with endless grace and grit." But maybe an endorsement and social media push from Brené Brown is more important that that. She notes: "Sometimes a single story can change the world. Unbound is one of those stories. Tarana’s words are a testimony to liberation and love.” The book is also from Oprah Winfrey's Oprah subimprint of Flatiron.

Paperback Fiction:
1. You Exist Too Much, by Zaina Arafat
2. Hamnet, by Maggie O'Farrell
3. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
4. Dune (two editions), by Frank Herbert
5. The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich
6. People We Meet on Vacation, by Emily Henry
7. Anxious People, by Fredrick Backman
8. The Lying Life of Adults, by Elena Ferrante
9. Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno Garcia
10. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid

When we get a multi-copy purchase, there are several things that will make it show up or not show up on our bestseller list. How new is the book? Is it selling individually as well? Is it a trade title we can easily get for other readers? How crowded is the list - will the bulk orders push out the titles selling to folks shopping at the bookstore or at events? You Exist Too Much passes on all counts, so allow me to share Gabino Iglesias's review on the NPR website: "Arafat tries to do a lot in this novel, and she pulls it off. This is a story about a woman trapped in the interstitial space between different cultures and religions, but it's also about sexual identity and the effects of fear of rejection and codependency. The main character knows what she wants, but she doesn't know why she wants it — and understands that her family will abandon her if she tells them what she wants. Her desires are always in conflict with what she's been told she should want — a good husband, babies, and a nice house. Her struggle with sexuality pushes her towards cocaine, alcohol, and random romantic encounters, but none of that stops the confusion and pain." Plus Roxane Gay called it "my favorite book of the year."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Stamped from the Beginning, by Ibram X Kendi
2. Being Lolita, by Alisson Wood
3. Milwaukee River Greenway, by Eddee Daniel
4. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kemmerer
5. The Best of Me, by David Sedaris
6. The Socrates Express, by Eric Weiner
7. New York Times Cooking No Recipe Recipes, by Sam Sifton
8. The Vapors, by David Hill (Join our virtual book club - details here)
9. Voice of Milwaukee Bronzeville, by Sandra E Jones
10. Inspired, by Rachel Held Evans

The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers has been out in paperback since May and this week pops onto our bestseller list. Eric Weiner (The Geography Genius and The Geography of Bliss, a recent WPR book club selection) gets this praise from Lucinda Robb in The Washington Post: "Part travelogue, part soul-searching memoir and part intellectual matchmaker, Weiner’s book packs an extraordinary amount into 287 pages of text. Erudite, funny and frequently self-deprecating, Weiner serves as your interpreter and guide along the way."

Books for Kids:
1. Change Sings, by Amanda Gorman
2. Antiracist Baby Picture Book, by Ibram X Kendi and Ashley Lukashevsky
3. Stamped, by Ibram X Kendi and Jason Reynolds
4. Last Kids on Earth and the Doomsday Race V7, by Max Brallier
5. Stamped for Kids, by Ibram X Kendi and Jason Reynolds
6. Fallout, by Steve Sheinkin
7. Egg Marks the Spot V2, by Amy Timberlake and Jon Klassen
8. Rite of Passage, by Richard Wright
9. Iron Widow, by Xiran Jay Zhao
10. Eek Halloween, by Sandra Boynton

National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, whose poem "The Hill We Climb" was featured at President Biden's inauguration this week released her first picture book. Change Sings has illustrations by Loren Long. From Booklist: "The positive messaging speaks to building bridges rather than walls and embracing differences, and with each new child encountered, the girl hands them an instrument, inviting them to take up the song. A lovely and loving call to action and kindness."

Over at the Journal Sentinel, Jim Higgins has a feature on 21 books by Wisconsin writers for the 21st Century, including works from Ayad Akhtar, Lydia Barry, Jane Hamilton, and Dasha Kelly Hamilton.

Boswell bestsellers, week ending September 18, 2021

Another exciting fall week at Boswell - here are the bestsellers for the week ending September 18, 2021

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Harlem Shuffle, by Colson Whitehead
2. Beautiful World, Where Are You, by Sally Rooney
3. Apples Never Fall, by Liane Moriarty
4. Matrix, by Lauren Groff (NBA Longlist)
5. The Paper Palace, by Miranda Cowley Heller
6. The Love Songs of WEB Du Bois, by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers (NBA Longlist)
7. Velvet Was the Night, by Silvia Moreno Garcia
8. Slow Fire Burning, by Paula Hawkins
9. Lightning Strike, by William Kent Krueger
10. The Guide, by Peter Heller

Another week of high-profile new releases is led by Colson Whitehead's Harlem Shuffle, his take on a mystery. Bookmarks collected 16 raves and 4 positives on his latest, which also got a great recommendation by Tim at Boswell. From Clifford Thompson in The Wall Street Journal: "The book might be called 'Colson Comes to Harlem,' because in bringing his singular gifts to this storied place, the novelist turns to the crime genre ... In his eminently enjoyable new novel, Mr. Whitehead’s various powers have attained something like equilibrium. The humor and flashes of the old word-wizardry are there, as is the philosophical subtext; race, while not foregrounded the way it is in The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, is woven inextricably into the background, like subtle but effective film music."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Fuzz, by Mary Roach (Register for September 27 event here)
2. Giannis, by Mirin Fader
3. Feed the Wolf, by Jon M Sweeney (Register for September 30 event here)
4. All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days, by Rebecca Donner (Register for September 23 event here)
5. Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson
6. Let's Do Dinner, by Antoni Porowski
7. The Reckoning, by Mary Trump
8. Redeeming Justice, by Jarrett Adams (Register for September 24 event here)
9. The Bomber Mafia, by Malcolm Gladwell
10. Wintering, by Katherine May

It usually seems like we have more bestsellers on the fiction side linked to upcoming events, but nonfiction takes the crown this week with four slots linked to programming. At the head of the pack is Mary Roach's Fuzz - the Fuzz patch give-away certainly helped. We're not quite out yet.

Peter Fish in The San Francisco Chronicle, with his of-the-moment comparison: "Mary Roach is the Deborah Vance of science writing. As played by Jean Smart in the HBO series Hacks, Vance is the raucous, sequin-suited Las Vegas comic who’s made a career mining laughs out of cheating husbands, sleazy boyfriends and botched plastic surgery. And Roach? She’s built her impressive literary presence in part by mining laughs out of topics that fascinate us but also make us squirm. In Stiff, the Oakland author explored what happens to our bodies after we die. (Spoiler alert: nothing pretty.)... Here is Roach’s and Vance’s shared secret: Beneath laughter lies wisdom. What the two grasp is that to truly understand life, death, sex, love and the other mysteries of the universe, it helps to wield some killer jokes."

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich
2. Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo (The current Literary Journeys selection)
3. People We Meet on Vacation, by Emily Henry
4. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
5. Circe, by Madeline Miller
6. Send for Me, by Lauren Fox (Register for September 28 event here)
7. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
8. Anxious People, by Fredrik Backman
9. The Book of Two Ways, by Jodi Picoult
10. Hamnet, by Maggie O'Farrell

Our bestselling Louise Erdrich hardcover (since we opened in 2009, and going back a little further looking at the Downer Schwartz numbers) remains The Round House by a bit, but It won't be too much longer until The Night Watchman tops that National Book Award winner in paperback sales. It becomes a question of when the award is given and how that falls into the paperback release schedule.

For its second week on sale, the paperback of Jodi Picoult's The Book of Two Ways jumps into our top ten. I can't say whether she's done this before, but this is Picoult's Sliding Doors novel, or should I now call it her Midnight Library novel, about a woman who has two possible futures after a crash landing. Karin Tanabe wrote in The Washington Post, "In the mood to contemplate your own mortality? Then Jodi Picoult has the book for you...The Book of Two Ways is a return for Picoult to the themes of her earliest books - motherhood, complicated romantic love...Picoult, at this point in her career, could skillfully build tension in a broom closet, but the best part of this book is not the suspense; it’s the look at the complexity of a woman as she enters middle age." If you love Picoult, her next book, Wish You Were Here, is coming late November. You might wish to put off preordering for a few weeks - fingers crossed.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. The Gift of Years, by Joan Chittister
2. My Meteorite, by Harry Dodge
3. New York Times Cooking No-Recipe Recipes, by Sam Sifton
4. We Keep the Dead Close, by Becky Cooper
5. The Lazy Genius Way, by Kendra Adachi
6. Milwaukee River Greenway, by Eddee Daniel
7. On Story Parkway, by Jim Cryns
8. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
9. The Dressmakers of Auschwitz, by Lucy Adlington
10. Universal Christ, by Richard Rohr

There's a story for just about every book in the top 10. We could shout out We Keep the Dead Close, a true crime book that had strong sales and several great recommendations from Boswellians. Or I could note that Milwaukee Greenway (we're getting this book indexed for our website still) inspired a walk with my friend John along the Milwaukee River on Saturday - we found steps to nowhere that probably were the remnants of a path from the train tracks down to the river, where there were several shacks in the past.

Congrats to Jim Cryns for getting his book On Story Parkway: Remembering County Stadium in our top 10 - he's written all kinds of books, but this is selling the best for us of the last few. It's a good year to have a Milwaukee baseball book - The New York Times just profiled Craig Counsell. On Story Parkway has 152 never-seen-before photos.

Books for Kids:
1. Fast Pitch, by Nic Stone
2. Stamped, by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X Kendi
3. Defy the Night, by Brigid Kemmerer
4. Egg Marks the Spot, by Amy Timberlake and Jon Klassen
5. The Last Kids on Earth and the Doomsday Race V7, by Max Brallier
6. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse and Renee Graef
7. How to Find What You're Not Looking For, by Veera, Hiranandani
8. Eyes of the Forest, by April Henry
9. Playing with Fire, by April Henry
10. Room on the Broom board book, by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler

Speaking of baseball, Jenny's been working on a school program for Nic Stone, the author of Dear Martin and other Boswell favorites. Fast Pitch is a middle grade (8 and up) story of the Fulton Firebirds, a girl's softball team and a pitcher, Shenice Lockwood, whose aiming for a regional championship, who is given her Great Grampy JonJon's baseball mitt and uncovers a mystery about his life. Kirkus writes, "This energetic, engaging, complex novel will appeal to readers whether or not they are fans of baseball. A grand slam of an adventure." And Publishers Weekly proclaimed, "Black Girl Magic hits a home run in Stone's latest novel." 

Boswell bestsellers - week ending September 11, 2021 - lots of new releases!

Boswell bestsellers for week ending September 11, 2021

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Beautiful World, Where Are You?, by Sally Rooney
2. Matrix, by Lauren Groff
3. The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All, by Josh Ritter (another debut)
4. The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig
5. The Madness of Crowds, by Louise Penny
6. The Magician, by Colm Tóibín (another debut)
7. We Were Never Here, by Andrea Bartz
8. In the Middle of Others, by Leila Slimani
9. The Nature of Middle Earth, by JRR Tolkin
10. The Heron's Cry, by Ann Cleeves (another debut)

Five debuts in hardcover fiction this week in our top 10. This is where the action is. Topping the newcomers is Sally Rooney's third novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You? It's unusual to see a publisher change after a breakout. Sometimes the new contract was already signed. There's always the case that an Irish author is more closely tied to the UK than the American publisher and FSG's publisher is Mitzi Angel, who came from Faber and Faber, Rooney's UK publisher. Who knows? I'm just watching from the peanut gallery. Over 50 reviews are indexed for this at Bookmarks.

Lauren Groff's Matrix has fewer reviews on Bookmarks (16), but it looks like that is due to an American launch, rather than a worldwide one. She does have a lot of raves. Ron Charles writes in The Washington Post: "Though Matrix is radically different from Groff’s masterpiece, Fates and Furies, it is, once again, the story of a woman redefining both the possibilities of her life and the bounds of her realm... Although there are no clunky contemporary allusions in Matrix, it seems clear that Groff is using this ancient story as a way of reflecting on how women might survive and thrive in a culture increasingly violent and irrational."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Giannis, by Mirin Fader
2. Feed the Wolf (Register for September 30 virtual event here)
3. All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days (Register for September 23 virtual event here)
4. On Freedom, by Maggie Nelson
5. The Afghanistan Papers, by Craig Whitlock
6. Poet Warrior, by Joy Harjo
7. Misfits, by Michaela Cole
8. History Makers, by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
9. American Experiment, by David Rubenstein
10. Noise, by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, Cass R. Sunstein

Actually half this list is debuts as well, only the numbers at the top are lower than fiction for the newcomers and the Journal Sentinel's History Makers Bucks chronicle isn't first-week new - it's just as fast as we could get it (Call to order it). Three-term poet laureate Joy Harjo's Poet Warrior gets six reviews, all but one raves, but it strikes me that four of the six are the trades (PW, Library Journal, Booklist, Kirkus) and the only traditional review is from Marion Winik in the Star Tribune. Don't know why, though I must acknowledge the heavy release schedule. Gabino Iglesias on the NPR website calls the memoir "a wonderful hybrid text that mixes memoir, poetry, songs, and dreams into something unique that opens a window into the most important events of Harjo's life and invites readers to reconnect with themselves - as well as with the land and the knowledge of their people."

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich
2. Dune (two editions), by Frank Herbert
3. Circe, by Madeline Miller
4. Shuggie Bain, by Douglas Stuart
5. Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller
6. Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi
7. Send for Me, by Lauren Fox (Register for September 28 event here)
8. People We Meet on Vacation, by Emily Henry
9. Dune Messiah, by Frank Herber
10. Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman

Not a lot of turnover here, but even without the once grand pops of paperback releases (the paperback prices are creeping up faster than hardcovers, making paperbacks less of a deal, exacerbated at Boswell because we discount a lot of hardcovers, but not many paperbacks), there's also the issue that publishers tend to release high profile paperback reprints from January to July more than in the fall. We close to hosting a virtual event for Richard Osman, but our format fell apart when Osman's schedule was condensed. Alas. Rochelle O'Gorman writes of The Thursday Murder Club in the Christian Science Monitor: "Humor is everywhere, and it is very British - smart and a little prickly - but it would not be lost on an American audience. The wit and the plot will bring readers back for more of this series." This paperback release was August, the traditional slot for a series whose hardcovers come out in September (The Man Who Died Twice). Lately we're seeing them faster, but this is the way they used to do them, with the paperback coming out 30-60 days in advance of the next hardcover.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. The Displaced, edited by Viet Thanh Nguyen
2. My Meteorite, by Harry Dodge
3. Milwaukee River Greenway, by Eddee Daniel
4. The Best of Me, by David Sedaris (Tickets for Riverside appearance on December 10 here)
5. The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls
6. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
7. Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah
8. Undocumented Americans, by Karla Corneyjo Villavicencio
9. Built for This, by The Athletic
10. Reaganland, by Rick Perlstein

We've got an actual first-week pop in paperback nonfiction with David Sedaris's The Best of Me, with his new release, A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries (2003-2020), coming out in October. Hey, it's another paperback 30 days in advance! As noted, the Sedaris appearance at the Riverside now looks firm at December 10, 2021. It was originally scheduled for 2020 spring. In addition to this rescheduling, there are a lot of new dates - my friends at fellow bookstores have been promoting. From Andrew Sean Greer writing about The Best of Me in The New York Times Book Review last year: " Is Amy here? Yep. His mom? His dad? The Rooster who becomes The Juicester? Bien sûr. In fact, this book is all about his family and … all right, I’ll say it: love."

Books for Kids: 

1. Willodeen, by Katherine Applegate
2. The First 100 Words, by Priddy
3. Everywhere Babies, by Susan Meyers
4. Giraffes Can't Dance, by Giles Andreae
5. Baby Faces, from DK
6. Fallout, by Steve Sheinkin (Register for September 14 virtual school visit here - open to the public)
7. Indigenous People's History of the United States for Young People, by Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz
8. Fast Pitch, by Nic Stone
9. Eyes of the Forest, by April Henry
10. It's Not the Stork, by Robie H Harris

I wish a switch was thrown and on the first of September, families streamed into Boswell to buy our favorite kids books in bestseller quantities, but that's not the case. However, something does happen, which is that our school visits (all but one virtual this fall) start having an impact. Like regular author tours, these school visits are scheduled by publishers not just to have the initial pops but to prime many of these titles for holiday sales later. Our first big appearance was for Katherine Applegate, whose new book is Willodeen. Booklist writes: " You know you're in for a treat with an Applegate fantasy, but when she dreams up hummingbears - tiny, winged bears that nest in bubbles - it's instantly catapulted into irresistible territory. For Willodeen, who happens to have a flightless hummingbear as a pet, her heart is far more occupied with the welfare of unlovable creatures, namely the widely detested screechers - grumpy combo of skunk (odor), warthog (snout, tusks), beaver (tail), and porcupine (quills)."

Over at the Journal Sentinel, I missed giving a shout out to Jim Higgins' piece on which Wisconsin writers appear in the New Yale Book of Quotations. 

Coming up next, four Boswell events on the docket.

Boswell bestsellers, week ending September 4, 2021

Boswell bestsellers, week ending September 4, 2021

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Madness of Crowds, by Louise Penny
2. Lightning Strike, by William Kent Krueger
3. The Last Thing He Told Me, by Laura Dave
4. A Slow Fire Burning, by Paula Hawkins
5. The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig
6. The Final Girl Support Group, by Grady Hendrix
7. The Comfort of Monsters, by Willa C Richards
8. Raft of Stars, by Andrew J Graff
9. Shoulder Season, by Christina Clancy
10. Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir

The top debut this week is Paula Hawkin's A Slow Fire Burning, following Into the Water and the megahit Girl on the Train. To me, four years is a long time for thrillers, but she can't beat Gillian Flynn. It's been nine years since Gone Girl. Malcolm Forbes called her latest a "compulsively readable whodunit" in the Star Tribune. The story focuses on three women who might have killed the man in the houseboat, repeated stabbed with a smile carved into his face. As Forbes notes, "The source of its narrative force is its compellingly unpredictable characters. As Miriam (one of the protagonist/suspects puts it, 'We all have our monstrous moments.'"

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days, by Rebecca Donner (Register for this now-virutal September 23 event here)
2. Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson
3. Giannis, by Mirin Fader
4. Refugee High, by Elly Fishman
5. Hero of Two Worlds, by Mike Duncan
6. Weekday Vegetarians, by Jenny Rosenstarch
7. Four Thousand Weeks, by Oliver Burkeman
8. The Afghanistan Papers, by Craig Whitlock
9. How the Word Is Passed, by Clint Smith
10. Finding the Mother Tree, by Suzanne Simard

Published on the date of the final withdrawal, The Afghansitan Papers: A Secret History of the War, is written by three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Craig Whitlock of The Washington Post. The book was reviewed with Carter Malkesian's American War in Afghanistan in The New York Times by Fredrik Logevall. He writes: "The two volumes constitute a powerful one-two punch, covering as they do the key developments in the war and reaching broadly similar conclusions, but with differing emphases. Malkasian provides greater detail and context, while Whitlock’s United States-centric account is fast-paced and vivid, and chock-full of telling quotes. Both authors paint a picture of an American war effort that, after breathtaking early success, lost its way, never to recover."

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich (Book Club authorless discussion on October 4)
2. People We Meet on Vacation, by Emily Henry
3. Dune (two paperback editions), by Frank Herbert
4. Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller
5. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
6. Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe 

7. The House in the Cerulean Sea, by TJ Klune
8. Lakewood, by Megan Giddings
9. Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
10. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong

Several authors on the paperback top ten have new releases coming this fall. Louise Erdrich's The Sentence is a ghost story mystery set in an independent bookstore in Minneapolis, much like the real-life Birchbark Books. It comes weeks after the In-Store Lit Group discusses The Night Watchman. The follow-up to Richard Powers's The Overstory is Bewilderment, a story about an astrophysicist set in Madison, Wisconsin. Pub date for that one is September 21, just two weeks away! Also out that day is Under the Whispering Door, the next novel for adults by TJ Klune, author of the bestselling The House in the Cerulean Sea, is about a newly dead man who is given a week to live out his life before crossing over. I think I got that right - we already have a great rec from Boswellian Jen Steele.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Indigenous People's History of the United States, by Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz
2. Banned Book Club, by Kim Hyun Sook
3. Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah
4. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
5. Life in Short, by Dasha Kelly
6. The Vapors, by David Hill
7. The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls
8. Epic Hikes of the World, by Lonely Planet
9. The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel van der Kolk
10. American Nations, by Colin Woodard

Speaking of the In-Store Lit Group, which hasn't met in store for the last 18 months, our November selection is The Vapors: A Southern Family, the New York Mob, and the Rise and Fall of Hot Springs, America's Forgotten Capital of Vice, a nonfiction book (I like to include at least one narrative nonfiction title) by David Hill. It is crime history of Hot Springs, which once looked like it might be the Southeast equivalent of Las Vegas, but it's also a family story, so in that way, it reminds me of Rich Cohen's work (Sweet and Low et al). 

From Jonathan Miles's New York Times review which convinced me to read it: "Most mob stories — even The Godfather — are essentially business stories, their dramatic conflicts arising from structure, succession and competition (and their appeal, I suspect, deriving from their portrayal of capitalism without its inert ingredients). In The Vapors, Madden and Harris’s rise is fueled by palm-greasing, ballot-stuffing, judge-bribing, loophole-hunting and various other tricks and ploys designed to keep the feds and rival mobsters at bay. The closest we get to a mob hit is when Frank Costello, the New York crime boss, visits the Maddens for dinner, and, after a single taste, insults Agnes Madden’s spaghetti and meatballs. 'Agnes did not hesitate,' Hill writes. 'She picked up the bowl and dumped it right on Costello’s head.' Southern hospitality has its limits."

Books for Kids:
1. Stamped, by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X Kendi
2. Ghostly Tales of Milwaukee, by Anna Lardinois (Register for October 2, 11 am outdoor event)
3. Rite of Passage, by Richard Wright
4. Egg Marks the Spot V2, by Amy Timberlake/Jon Klassen (Register for September 15, 2 pm virtual event with Timberlake)
5. Skunk and Badger V1, by Amy Timberlake/Jon Klassen
6. Mindful Mr Sloth, by Katy Hudson
7. Tomatoes for Neela, by Padma Lakshmi
8. Any Way the Wind Blows V3, by Rainbow Rowell
9. Ace of Spades, by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
10. Take Me With You When You Go, by David Levithan

The kids numbers are still a bit low before school starts and our schedule is crowded with virtual (and one in-person) school visits, but Ace of Spades has been selling consistently well since its spring release to deserve special mention. Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé is a contemporary YA thriller (and Indie Next pick) about two students attempting to confront an anonymous bully. School Library Journal noted in their star review that "readers will love this thriller-mystery reminiscent of Gossip Girl and Get Out. The plot keeps readers guessing."

Over at the Journal Sentinel, Book and Arts Editor Jim Higgins profiles two book about Marquette, Black Marquette: In Their Own Words, and Linked by Ink: Marquette Journalism Grads Reflect on Six Decades.

Three Books I Love About Communities - Refugee High, Karachi Vice, Squirrel Hill

I love books about community. Usually written by journalists, they follow a group of people over the course of a period time, giving multiple perspectives. Sometimes it's grounded in place, but sometimes the connection is some sort of subculture. Sometimes the author is a character in the story, like last year's Thinking Inside the Box, but more often they are an observer and attempt to be a fly on the wall. That doesn't always work - one never knows how your presence will affect the story. And of course when folks are struggling, there's a natural inclination to help. I'm sure this can lead to complicated situations. 

Though you'd not likely find the books shelved together, except perhaps in an amorphous nonfiction section, three of my favorite books of autumn fall into this category - notice how I had to avoid saying "fall fall."

The first book is Refugee High: Coming of Age in America, written by Elly Fishman, an award-winning Chicago journalist who is now teaching at UWM. I didn't even know that she had a Milwaukee connection when Chris recommended the book to me; the bio in the advance copy didn't mention her move north. But the subject was fascinating to me - one school year at a high school in Rogers Park. I have enjoyed this kind of narrative much over the years, such that I have a special shelf labeled "education" at home.  The most recent book I read of this sort was The Years That Matter Most, from Paul Tough, which was renamed The Inequality Machine in paperback. But no matter the title, what I liked about it was following the students as they tackled the college admissions process.

Here's my rec for Refugee High: "Chronicling a year in the life of Sullivan High, which has aimed to become the go-to public high school for refugees in the Chicago area, journalist Elly Fishman looks at the highs and lows of teaching kids from 35 different countries who speak 38 different languages. As she follows students from Myanmar, Iraq, Syria, Guatemala, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as their school principal and several teachers and administrative staff, Fishman does a great job bringing the players to life and documenting the pressures from families to marry early, gangs to affiliate, and jobs that provide financial security but eat up study time. Some students will succeed while others will struggle, mirroring the program itself, which is under pressure from a reduction of refugees allowed into the country as part of a former president’s policies. Refugee High is an enlightening and valuable reading experience."

Our event is tonight, August 31, cohosted by HOME and the Lynden Sculpture Garden - visit their website to learn more about their programs. We still have some in-person registrations available - register here for this option. We are also broadcasting the event on Zoom - register here for the virtual option. And we'll have a recording after the event if all goes well. If this sentence is linked, it will lead you to the recording.

The second book is Karachi Vice: Life and Death in a Divided City, by Samira Shackle. This book releases on September 7 from Melville House, and our virtual program is Monday, October 25, 2 pm Central Time. Shackle will be joining us from London, so it will be 8 pm British Summer Time. Shackle (below right), the editor of New Humanist magazine and a regular contributor to the Guardian, will be in conversation with Audrey Nowakowski (below left) of WUWM Milwaukee Public Radio's Lake Effect. 

I should note that while I have one shelf devoted to education, I have two shelves of urban planning and other city-oriented works of nonfiction.

I discovered this book through the efforts of Michael Barson, who was telling me about the book as I was recounting how many Leonard and Hungry Pauls we sold - the answer as of today is 214. Little did he know that I'd take to this book - following five people around in a city I know little about for five years? I have read some wonderful novels by Pakistani writers and Americans and British folk with Pakistani heritage (Mohsin Hamid, Kamila Shamsie, and the extraordinary Ayad Akhtar*, to name three of the best), but my nonfiction reading was lacking. Wow!

Here's my staff rec on Karachi Vice: "Journalist Shackle spent several years following Karachi residents, including a crime reporter, an ambulance driver, an educator and social activist, another advocate who maps the city’s resources and helps get things like sewers installed, and a young woman from a rural village watching a project for the wealthy encroach on their land. The Partition and other localized conflicts have created a megacity where Pashtuns, Sindhis, Baloch, and Mohajirs (Punjabis are a force in Pakistan, but not so much in Karachi) fight for land and resources, where each ethnic group has a political party which shares power with a criminal element. Underfunded police are almost incentivized to corruption. Social services are often underfunded or altogether absent; ambulances are run by a charity. Media channels are in fierce competition for viewers - with journalists putting themselves in great danger to get the best story. All this and The Taliban, too. Shackle’s detailed and sympathetic portrayal of life in this city of 20 million people is fascinating reading, always insightful, plus she’s a great storyteller. If you are one of the millions of people who loved Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers, this book is for you."

Here's a link to register for Samira Shackle's event on Zoom Webinar on October 25.

One last recommendation. Unlike Karachi Vice, I knew as soon as I read about Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood that I would want to read it. Sure I'm interested in Jewish culture. But I'm especially interested in Pittsburgh. Because of its setting, there was some fierce competition to read the advance copy, as we've got two other Yinzers on staff. It was as good as I hoped. 

Here's my written suggestion that you read it too: " Director of the Yale Journalism Initiative Mark Oppenheimer goes behind the headlines of the tragic Tree of Life shooting to explore the fascinating community of Squirrel Hill, a walkable Pittsburgh neighborhood that has retained both religious and secular Jews when so many others have scattered to suburbs. Even the Tree of Life building itself was home to three congregations of different denominations. In Oppenheimer’s exhaustive interviews, he found a pathway to healing that doesn’t always happen after other mass shootings – there wasn’t a single post-event suicide connected to the incident, and there were no controversies over how money flowed to victims and their families. But there was a cost too, at least for some, as activism was played down in favor of unity. 

"I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed Squirrel Hill, which is much more of an exploration of a community, rather than the crime drama or issue book you might have thought it was. There are so many interesting players in the story, not just the victims and their families, but folks like the Iranian student and his hugely successful fundraising efforts, and the young Christian woman who painted images in the Starbucks windows that became a symbolic center of the neighborhood. My top Hanukkah pick!"

The key is that the book is not about the shooting so much as the aftermath. Our event is Thursday, November 4, 7 pm Central Time, which is 8 pm Pittsburgh Time. Register here for this Zoom Webinar.

Oppenheimer will be in conversation with Rachel N Baum, Deputy Director of the Sam & Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies at UWM, who is also our cohost. Needless to say, I also recommend you read the book, which goes on sale October 5. 

If I may recommend one more city book, I'll include Sam Anderson's Boom Town, which is focused on Oklahoma City. It's a crazy book for a crazy place.  It was published in 2018, but I read it late and I'm still talking it up. It's also a great basketball book.

If you are in publishing and have an upcoming book that follows this kind of format, you should tell me about it! I've also noticed that I have read a lot of novels that are basically fictional variations of this concept. 

*Are you telling me you haven't read Homeland Elegies yet? It's now in paperback. My nephew Adam, who was recently visiting, told me how much he loved the book. It's called a purchase link for a reason.

Photo credits:

Mark Oppenheimer by Lotta Studio

Boswell bestsellers, week ending August 28, 2021

Boswell bestsellers, week ending August 28, 2021

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Madness of Crowds, by Louise Penny
2. Lightning Strike, by William Kent Krueger (Register September 2 virtual event here)
3. Shoulder Season, by Christina Clancy
4. The Blacktongue Thief, by Christopher Buehlman (signed copies available)
5. The Love Songs of WEB Du Bois, by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
6. The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig
7. Billy Summers, by Stephen King
8. Damnation Spring, by Ash Davidson
9. The Last Thing He Told Me, by Laura Dave
10. The Final Girl Support Group, by Grady Hendrix

Once again, a new Louise Penny trounces all comers. The Madness of Crowds is Gamache #17, and goodness, I still remember selling #1 at Schwartz and talking to the sales rep about how well we were doing. Booklist's starred review notes the setup: "It begins when Chief Inspector Gamache is ordered to provide security for a lecture by controversial statistics professor Abigail Robinson, who argues that further pandemics can be eliminated by a program of mandatory euthanasia targeting at-risk groups, including the elderly and the disabled."

I should note that The Love Songs of WEB DuBois from Honorée Fanonne Jeffers was just noted as the best reviewed fiction on LitHub's Bookmarks program this week with seven rave reviews, and that doesn't include Oprah. One is from Veronica Chambers in The New York Times, who wrote, "The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is quite simply the best book that I have read in a very, very long time. I will avoid the cliché of calling it 'a great American novel.' Maybe the truest thing I could say is that this is an epic tale of adventure that brings to mind characters you never forget"

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Giannis, by Mirin Fader
2. Hero of Two Worlds, by Mike Duncan
3. All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days, by Rebecca Donner (In person at capacity - we'll have a virtual registration by Monday)
4. Finding the Mother Tree, by Suzanne Simard
5. Anthropocene Reviewed, by John Green
6. This Is Your Mind on Plants, by Michael Pollan
7. All In, by Billie Jean King
8. Untamed, by Glennon Doyle
9. Dopamine Nation, by Anna Lembke
10. Refugee High, by Elly Fishman (Register to attend August 31 event here. Register to watch the event virtually here.)

Podcaster Mike Duncan had a very strong first-week showing for Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution, but he couldn't outperform the Giannis bio. Publishers Weekly called this "a comprehensive and accessible biography" while Booklist notes that "Duncan offers solid historical research in a hip, humorous, and appealing voice."

Paperback Fiction
1. The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich
2. Dune (two editions), by Frank Herbert
3. Anxious People, by Fredrik Backman
4. Hamnet, by Maggie O'Farrell
5. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
6. Circe, by Madeline Miller
7. People We Meet on Vacation, by Emily Henry
8. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
9. The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, by Grady Hendrix
10. The Paris Connection, by Lorraine Brown

The Paris Connection once again proves the adage that putting the Eiffel Tower on any book automatically increases sales. The publisher is calling this the One Day in December for 2021. Per the publisher, Brown "was one of 11 mentees chosen to be part of Penguin Random House UK’s 2017 WriteNow program, which aims to launch the careers of writers from under-represented communities."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1 .The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
2. In the Shadow of Powers, by Patrick Bellegarde-Smith
3. Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah
4. The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel van der Kolk
5. Agent Sonya, by Ben Macintyre
6. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
7. Van Gogh, by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith
8. Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, by Christopher De Hamel
9. Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari
10. Wisconsin Farms and Farmers Markets, by Kristine Hansen

Price point pressure - it's interesting to note that five of the top 10 paperbacks on this list are priced at over $20 and only #1, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, is as low as $17, which used to be the de facto for nonfiction narrative paperbacks. It's now $18-19, by the way. Is it unrelated that we're struggling to break out paperback nonfiction? Ben McIntyre's latest, Agent Sonya: The Spy Next Door has its best showing it its fifth week of paperback sale. Its paperback sales have now surpassed its hardcover total - that can be tough in nonfiction.

Books for Kids:
1. Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson
2. Pigeon Has to Go to School, by Mo Willems
3. Rite of Passage, by Richard Wright
4. Oh the Places You'll Go, by Dr Seuss
5. Skunk and Badger, by Amy Timberlake (Register for September 15 virtual event here)
6. Mindful Mr. Sloth, by Katy Hudson
7. Regina Is Not a Little Dinosaur, by Andrea Zuill
8. Three Cheers for Kid McGeer, by Sherri Duskey Rinker
9. Turtle in a Tree, by Neesha Hudson
10. We Don't Eat Our Classmates, by Ryan T Higgins

A lesson on mindfulness appears in the new picture book release, Mindful Mr. Sloth, by Katy Hudson, author of Bear and Duck and Too Many Carrots. I should note that this is Hudson's bestselling book to date at Boswell. Publisher notes that "story themes of mindfulness and friendship combine perfectly with SEL core competencies of social awareness and relationship skills."

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending August 21, 2021

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending August 21, 2021

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir
2. Shoulder Season, by Christina Clancy
3. The Cellist, by Daniel Silva
4. Yours Cheerfully, by AJ Pearce
5. We Were Never Here, by Andrea Bartz
6. The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig
7. Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro
8. Afterparties, by Anthony Veasna So
9. A Thousand Ships, by Natalie Haynes
10. The Final Girl Support Group, by Grady Hendrix

In its third week of sales, Afterparties increases sales enough to make it into our top 10. Reviews on this posthumous collection have been spectacular, such as The Washington Post, with Rosa Boshier noting that "So’s stories allow the past to well up into the present without force or preciousness. Afterparties insists on a prismatic understanding of Cambodian American diaspora through stories that burst with as much compassion as comedy, making us laugh just when we’re on the verge of crying." And Boswellian Chris Lee says says, "Call Afterparties the Goodbye, Columbus of Californian Cambodian-American life."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Giannis, by Mirin Fader
2. All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days, by Rebecca Donner (Register for September 23 event here)
3. Frankly We Did Win This Election, by Michael Bender
4. The Reckoning, by Mary Trump
5. Finding the Mother Tree, by Suzanne Simard
6. I Alone Can Fix It, by Carol Leoning and Philip Rucker
7. The Bomber Mafia, by Malcolm Gladwell
8. Refugee High, by Elly Fishman (Register for August 31 event here)
9. Our Own Worst Enemy, by Tom Nichols
10. World Travel, by Anthony Bourdain and Lauren Woolever

It is not common nowadays for me to be able to highlight a bestseller from Oxford, not like the old days when they had a thriving trade list where it was not unusual for their history titles to reach The New York Times top 15. Our Own Worst Enemy : The Assault from within on Modern Democracy is written by a Professor of National Security Affairs at US Naval War College and highlights the rise of illiberal and anti-Democratic movements. This Never-Trump Conservative's prescription includes more widespread military service.

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Restaurant Inspector, by Alex Pickett
2. Hamnet, by Maggie O'Farrell
3. The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich
4. The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, by Grady Hendrix
5. The People We Meet on Vacation, by Emily Henry
6. The City We Became, by NK Jemisin
7. The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller
8. Dune (two editions), by Frank Herbert
9. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong (Register for August 30 book club discussion - no author)
10. The Overstory, by Richard Powers

NK Jemisin's bestselling The City We Became was nominated for the Nebula, Locus, and won the BFSA (British Science Fiction Award). It was also a big hit - we sold almost 100 copies in hardcover. Our Science Fiction Book Club will be discussing it in November. Neil Gaiman called it "a glorious fantasy, set in that most imaginary of cities, New York. It's inclusive in all the best ways, and manages to contain both Borges and Lovecraft in its fabric, but the unique voice and viewpoint are Jemisin's alone."

Paperback Nonfiction: 

1. Milwaukee River Greenway, by Eddee Daniel 

2. Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah 

3. Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson 

4. Hidden Valley Road, by Robert Kolker 

5. The Beauty in Breaking, by Michale Harper 

6. Gift from the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindberg 

7. ABA Field Guide to Birds of Wisconsin, by Chuck Hagner 

8. Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes, by Anna Lardinois 

9. Stay Sexy and Don't Get Murdered, by Karen Gilbariff and Georgia Hardstark 

10. Grit, by Angela Duckworth

I was chatting with a reader about books at the store this week and recommended Hidden Valley Road off our book club table. The next day I ran into her at the coffee shop where she was reading outside. She'd already read half the book. I really enjoyed Robert Kolker's family history, but I never thought of it as a fast read. Apparently I was wrong. A relatively late review (January 2021) in Forbes from GrrlScientist notes that the book is "a skillful mix of biography, a history of mental illness and medical case studies - the author alternates, chapter-by-chapter, between sharing some of the Galvin family’s countless struggles and revealing how our scientific understanding of schizophrenia evolved rapidly during the past 50 years." I do not know why the reviewer doesn't use her name.

Books for Kids:
1. Harbor Me, by Jacqueline Woodson
2. The Assignment, by Liza Wiemer (Pre-order the paperback)
3. Mightier than the Sword, by Rochelle Melander
4. From Head to Toe, by Eric Carle
5. Peace Train, by Cat Stevens/Peter H Reynolds
6. Time for School, Little Blue Truck, by Alice Schertle
7. Mindful Mr Sloth, by Katy Hudson
8. Turtle in a Tree, by Neesha Hudson
9. What If, Pig?, by Linzie Hunter
10. This Is Not a Ghost Story, by Andrea Portes

What If, Pig? is a June release in the States, and is the first picture book from Linzie Hunter (born in Scotland, now in England, which as she notes, is similar but different). Publishers Weekly wrote "Lighthearted doodle-adjacent digital art in a vibrant color palette lends Hunter's 'porky panicker' protagonist levity in this cheerful picture book debut." School Library Journal noted its message: "Young readers will learn that being afraid is a common, temporary feeling, and that they can talk to others about it." Bulletin for the Center of Children's Books offered "plenty of silliness."

From Jim Higgins at the Journal Sentinel, a review of Rebecca Donner's NYT bestseller: "In the new biography All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler, Donner brings her ancestor to life through artful use of documents and interviews. Donner is also a novelist, and she tells Harnack's story with dramatic pace and vision. As the story unfolds in time, Harnack and her resistance comrades become like a small cluster of white blood cells targeting the seemingly overwhelming infection that was Nazism." Should we mention again that Donner is planning to visit on September 23? Registration required. We're working on a hybrid option.

Boswell bestsellers, week ending August 14, 2021 - Milwaukee novels, Shakespearean pain, time management, monsters, and more

Boswell bestsellers, week ending August 14, 2021

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Shoulder Season, by Christina Clancy
2. We Were Never Here, by Andrea Bartz
3. The Comfort of Monsters, by Willa C Richards
4. The Turnout, by Megan Abbott
5. The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig
6. The Women's March, by Jennifer Chiaverini
7. Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro
8. Malibu Rising, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
9. All's Well, by Mona Awad
10. Mrs. March, by Virginia Feito

It looks like novels set in and around Milwaukee are at the top of this week's list. Christina Clancy's Shoulder Season is mostly set right out the DMA in Walworth County, while Bartz's We Were Never Here jumps around to Chile, Cambodia, and Up North, but all three, including The Comfort of Monsters, which stays mostly within city boundaries, are firmly lodged in Southeast Wisconsin.

New to our top 10 is Mona Awad's All's Well in its second week of release. Her latest features a Shakespearean actor with chronic pain. Our buyer Jason notes in his recommendation, "She drowns her sorrows at the pub, where she meets three mysterious men who know all about her and her pain. After a golden drink, Miranda is able to start transferring her pain to others, and her life takes on a new light. Much like Mona Awad’s Bunny, All’s Well starts to get more and more surreal and fantastical. I loved every minute of this crazy, amazing novel." George Saunders is also a fan, who called this "a dazzling, wild ride of a novel."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Giannis, by Mirin Fader
2. Finding the Mother Tree, by Suzanne Simard
3. Refugee High, by Elly Fishman (Register for August 31 event here)
4. Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
5. Noise, by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass Sunstein
6. The Ugly Truth, by Sheera Frenkel and Cecelia Kang
7. Untamed, by Glennon Doyle
8. Anthropocene Reviewed, by John Green
9. This Is Your Mind on Plants, by Michael Pollan
10. Four Thousand Weeks, by Oliver Burkeman

It's not an exaggeration to say that we sold more Giannis than the other nine books combined - multiplied by five. We're out of bookplates and probably out of books, but we have more copies arriving by Wednesday. We should eventually get more bookplates too - request with your order.

Squeaking onto the list is Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, by Oliver Burkeman, which caught my eye enough for me to hold onto the advance copy for a bit, though I didn't actually read it yet. All the business gurus are loving this book - Adam Grant wrote "This is the most important book ever written about time management. Oliver Burkeman offers a searing indictment of productivity hacking and profound insights on how to make the best use of our scarcest, most precious resource. His writing will challenge you to rethink many of your beliefs about getting things done - and you'll be wiser because of it."

Paperback Fiction:
1. Dune (two paperback editions), by Frank Herbert
2. Transcendent Kingdom, by Yaa Gyasi
3. The People We Meet on Vacation, by Emily Henry
4. The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich
5. Death Foretold, by David S Pederson
6. Anxious People, by Fredrik Backman
7. Four Major Plays, by Henrik Ibsen
8. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong
9. Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
10. One Last Stop, by Casey McQuiston

As Jason mentioned when doing reorders, "Boy people seem really excited about this Dune movie." It's been on our bestseller list for months already (mass market and trade paperback) and has seemingly bested most of the literary tie-ins this year - none of the streaming hits seem to be driving major sales for us since Bridgerton quieted down. The film arrives October 22 and will be simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Built for This, by The Athletic
2. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
3. Rocket Fuel, by Gino Wickman
4. Wisconsin Farms and Farmers Markets, by Kristine Hansen
5. The Deepest Well, by Nadine Burke Harris
6. Classic Restaurants of Milwaukee, by Jennifer Billock
7. Trick Mirror, by Jia Tolentino
8. Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah
9. The First Three Minutes, by Steven Weinberg
10. The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson

Aside from Built for This, one of the only two Bucks tie-in books we have (the Journal Sentinel one is on order), and Braiding Sweetgrass, it's a very quiet paperback nonfiction list. It makes me long for some fad to drive sales - sudoku or Instagram poetry. No wait, we put that in fiction, a controversial move (we argued about it) that nonetheless follows the New York Times lead.

Books for Kids:
1. Pet, by Akwaeke Emezi
2. The Day the Babies Crawled Away, by Peggy Rathmann
3. Carry On, by Rainbow Rowell
4. The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo
5. Siege and Storm v2, by Leigh Bardugo
6. Rite of Passage, by Richard Wright
7. Left Handed Booksellers of London, by Garth Nix
8. Ada Twist Scientist, by Andrea Bety and David Roberts
9. Firekeeper's Daughter, by Angeline Bouley
10. Six Crimson Cranes, by Elizabeth Lim

I don't always shout out our school purchases, but being that Pet came out this year in paperback, it's still a release that qualifies as new and noteworthy. It was a National Book Award finalist, a Stonewall Book Award winner, and was on a Time Magazine best 100 YA books of all time list. The reviews I found don't exactly explain the book so I defer to publisher copy: "There are no monsters anymore, or so the children in the city of Lucille are taught. Jam and her best friend, Redemption, have grown up with this lesson all their life. But when Jam meets Pet, a creature made of horns and colors and claws, who emerges from one of her mother's paintings and a drop of Jam's blood, she must reconsider what she's been told. Pet has come to hunt a monster, and the shadow of something grim lurks in Redemption's house. Jam must fight not only to protect her best friend, but also to uncover the truth, and the answer to the question - How do you save the world from monsters if no one will admit they exist?"

Over at the Journal Sentinel, Carol Deptolla has a feature on Something and Tonic, a new book of mixology by Nick Kokonas, appearing at Bay View's The Mothership. Looks like the book is print on demand, non-returnable, and short discount from us, so my suggestion is to buy it at the event on August 18.