Boswell bestsellers, week ending May 27, 2023

Boswell bestsellers, week ending May 27, 2023

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Late Americans, by Brandon Taylor
2. Yellowface, by RF Kuang
3. Happy Place, by Emily Henry
4. Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
5. The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese
6. The Guest, by Emma Cline
7. I Have Some Questions for You, by Rebecca Makkai
8. Pieces of Blue, by Holly Goldberg Sloan (Watch event recording here)
9. Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club, by J Ryan Stradal (Watch event recording here)
10. Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt (and watch this event video here)

The Late Americans is the top debut this week, with five raves, three positives, and mixed, and three pans from BookMarks, with an additional rave from Boswellian Chris Lee. My old friend Bill Goldstein at Weekend Today in New York also weighed in: "I love this book. It's such a brilliant evocation of life. And Brandon Taylor is a great novelist."

Hardcover Nonfiction
1. Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond (signed copies available)
2. Torn Apart, by Dorothy Roberts
3. Entertaining Race, by Michael Eric Dyson
4. You Could Make This Place Beautiful, by Maggie Smith
5. A Fever in the Heartland, by Timothy Egan
6. Dare to Lead, by Brené Brown
7 Social Justice for the Sensitive Soul, by Dorcas Cheng-Tozun (Register for June 6 virtual event here)
8. Bread Head, by Greg Wade (Register for June 13 Boswell event here)
9. The Wager, by David Grann
10. The Book of Nature, by Barbara Mahany (Register for June 20 Boswell event here)

Both Michael Eric Dyson and Dorothy Roberts appeared at the Fresh Start conference in Milwaukee last week. Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families - And How Abolition Can Build a Safer World was published in hardcover in April 2022, but the paperback doesn't come out until October 2023. I think the long-tail paperback seems to be more common with Hachette; other publishers seem to either publish in a year (or less) or skip the paperback altogether. Blurbs from Bryan Stevenson, Michelle Alexander, and Angela Y Davis.

Paperback Fiction:
1. Shrines of Gaiety, by Kate Atkinson
2. The Cartographers, by Peng Shepherd
3. The Late Mrs. Willoughby, by Claudia Gray (Register for June 8 virtual event here)
4. Trust, by Hernan Diaz
5. When Women Were Dragons, by Kelly Barnhill
6. Boy Parts, by Eliza Clark
7. Meet Me at the Lake, by Carley Fortune
8. Fox Creek, by William Kent Krueger (Tickets for September 22 Wilson Center event here)
9. Bunny, by Mona Awad
10. Red, White, and Royal Blue, by Casey McQuiston

Second week out in paperback for Kelly Barnhill's When Women Were Dragons, which had four raves and five positives from BookMarks in hardcover. From Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry: "Completely fierce, unmistakably feminist, and subversively funny, When Women Were Dragons brings the heat to misogyny with glorious imagination and talon-sharp prose. Check the skies tonight - you might just see your mother." 

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Evicted, by Matthew Desmond
2. Tears We Cannot Stop, by Michael Eric Dyson
3. Shattered Bonds, by Dorothy Roberts
4. Killing the Black Body, by Dorothy Roberts
5. Frank Lloyd Wright's Wisconsin, by Kristine Hansen (Register for June 9 Boswell event here)
6. Quietly Hostile, by Samantha Irby
7. Dopamine Nation, by Anna Lembke
8. Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
9. The Six-Minute Memoir, by Mary Helen Stefaniak
10. We Don't Know Ourselves, by Fintan O'Toole

Steady sales for Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence earns Anna Lembke a slot on this week's top ten, when unusually, the sales for the top books in paperback nonfiction are outpacing fiction. Two raves and one positives from BookMarks, two trades (Publishers Weekly calls it an "eye-opening survey on pleasure-seeking and addiction") and one from the New York Journal of Books, but there are also blurbs from Lori Gottlieb and Daniel Levitin, plus a note from the New York Times "Inside the Bestseller List" column, which is another indication that the book is working well.

Books for Kids:
1. Moving to Mars, by Stef Wade, illustrations by Erin Taylor
2. Every Day's a Holiday, by Stef Wade, illustrations by Husna Aghniya
3. Our World of Dumplings, by Francie Dekker, illustrations by Sarah Jung
4. One and Only Ruby, by Katherine Applegate
5. Gertie the Darling Duck of World War II, by Shari Swanson, illustrations by Renée Graef
6. Unequal, by Michael Eric Dyson
7. The Eyes and the Impossible, by Dave Eggers
8. The Labors of Hercules Beal, by Gary D Schmidt
9. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse, illustrations by Renee Graef
10. Peekaboo Moon, by Camilla Reid, illustrations by Ingela Arrhenius

Gary D Schmidt has done schools with us twice in person, but this time his visit was virtual (recording here). He joined us for The Labors of Hercules Beal from Stratford, Ontario, where he was with students attending the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. From the starred Booklist: "Fans of Schmidt's books will enjoy finding that a young character in The Wednesday Wars has a significant role in Herc's story, set several decades later. This memorable novel offers emotional honesty, wit, and a hard-won, heartening perspective."

I should rename this blog "Daniel is really obsessed with BookMarks."

Boswell bestsellers, week ending May 202, 2023

Boswell bestsellers, week ending May 202, 2023

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Hope You Are Satisfied, by Tania Malik
2. The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese
3. Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
4. Mastering the Art of French Murder, by Colleen Cambridge
5. Yellowface, by RF Kuang
6. Happy Place, by Emily Henry
7. The Making of a Major Motion Picture Masterpiece, by Tom Hanks
8. Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
9. In the Lives of Puppets, by TJ Klune
10. When in Rome, by Liam Callanan

Top debut of the week goes to RF Kuang's Yellowface, her follow-up to Babel. BookMarks has logged five raves, a positive, mixed, and a pan. It's also the #1 Indie Next Pick for June. The advances were all among the raves - this is from Kirkus: " An incredibly meta novel, with commentary on everything from trade reviews to Twitter, the ultimate message is clear from the start, which can lead to a lack of nuance. Kuang, however, does manage to leave some questions unanswered: fodder, perhaps, for a new tweetstorm. A quick, biting critique of the publishing industry."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond (Tuesday event is at capacity)
2. A Fever in the Heartland, by Timothy Egan
3. King: A Life, by Jonathan Eig
4. Milwaukee Rock and Roll, by David Luhrssen, Philip Naylor, Bruce Cole
5. The Creative Act, by Rick Rubin
6. Pathogenesis, by Jonathan Kennedy
7. The Wager, by David Grann
8. The Devil's Element, by Dan Egan
9. Bread Head, by Greg Wade (Rescheduled event! Register for June 13 here)
10. Smitten Kitchen Keepers, by Deb Perelman

While I would have expected King: A Life to come out in either January for MLK Day and Black History Month or fall for holiday and year-end max exposure, Jonathan Eig's biography makes an impact whatever the release date. Eight raves and a positive on BookMarks. From Dwight Garner in The New York Times: "Eig’s is the first comprehensive biography of King in three decades. It draws on a landslide of recently released White House telephone transcripts, F.B.I. documents, letters, oral histories and other material, and it supplants David J. Garrow’s 1986 biography Bearing the Cross as the definitive life of King, as Garrow himself deposed recently in The Spectator."

Paperback Fiction:
1. Trust, Hernan Diaz
2. The Boyfriend Candidate, by Ashley Winstead (Register for May 30 virtual here)
3. Ten Keys West, by Howard Seaborne
4. Last Summmer on State Street, by Toya Wolfe
5. The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig
6. Divisible Man, by Howard Seaborne
7. One Italian Summer, by Rebecca Serle
8. The Employees, by Olga Ravn
9. The Paris Apartment, by Lucy Foley
10. Fowl Eulogies, by Lucie Rico

The days of big books exploding even bigger in paperback are in the past, but that said, Matt Haig's The Midnight Library earned a spot on The New York Times bestseller list as well as the Boswell top ten in its second week on sale. Back in 2020, we hosted Matt Haig virtually for one of our early Readings from Oconmowaukee sessions. you can watch it here. And don't forget to tune in for our latest, with Holly Goldberg Sloan, discussing Pieces of Blue on Wednesday afternoon - Register here.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Quietly Hostile, by Samantha Irby
2. The Climate Action Handbook, by Heidi Roop
3. Evicted, by Matthew Desmond 

4. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan

5. Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
6. Brewtown Tales, by John Gurda
7. Entangled Life, by Merlin Sheldrake
8. Let This Radicalize You, by Kelly Hayes
9. Birds of Wisconsin Field Guide, by Stan Tekiela
10. Frank Lloyd Wright's Wisconsin, by Kristine Hansen (Register for June 9 event here)

Today would have been our event with Samantha Irby with Lindy West, only a number of the programs had to be cancelled for personal reasons. Quietly Hostile has earned two raves and three positives from BookMark for her humorous essay collection. Per Booklist: "Don't be fooled, though - there's tons of emotional depth hidden under the layers of comedy, especially in the essays about the author's family and her mother's death from MS. Some readers might get bogged down in the chapter about rewriting episodes of Sex and the City or the one about Irby's favorite Dave Matthews songs, but Irby's many fans, and anyone whose anxiety and hermit-like qualities ramped up during the pandemic, will celebrate and identify with her latest."

Books for Kids:
1. The One and Only Ruby, by Katherine Applegate
2. Gertie the Darling Duck of World War II, by Shari Swanson, illustrated by Renee Graef
3. LOL 101, by David Roth and Rinee Shah
4. She Persisted: Kaplana Chawla, by Raakhee Mirchandani
5. The One and Only Bob, by Katherine Applegate
6. When Clouds Touch Us, by Thanhha Lai
7. Inside Out and Back Again, by Thanhha Lai
8. The School for Good and Evil, by Soman Chainani
9. The Eyes and the Impossible, by Dave Eggers
10. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse, illustrated by Renee Graef

The tail of sales from our virtual event with Katherine Applegate for The One and Only Ruby continues. There's at least one more book in the series - can you guess which animal will be featured? From Publishers Weekly: "Lovable baby elephant Ruby is the delightful narrator of this follow-up to The One and Only Bob, which further chronicles the animal's difficult journey to the wildlife park and sanctuary where she now lives...Applegate details dire circumstances facing elephants in the wild, including climate change and poaching, while elucidating their fierce loyalty and highlighting, via the three protagonists' unforgettable bond, myriad interspecies relationships."

Alas, my alt key is working so it has becomes difficult for me to include accents. Hope this is fixed soon!

Boswell Book Company bestsellers, week ending May 13, 2023

Boswell Book Company bestsellers, week ending May 13, 2023

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese
2. Happy Place, by Emily Henry
3. Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
4. Hang the Moon, by Jeanette Walls
5. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin
6. Pineapple Street, by Jenny Jackson
7. Hello Beautiful, by Ann Napolitano
8. Romantic Comedy, by Curtis Sittenfeld
9. Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
10. Atalanta, by Jennifer Saint

No major pops, but several debuts skirted the bottom of our bestseller list, with Jennifer Saint's Atalanta breaking into the top ten by a hair. The number one bestselling author of Elektra and Ariadne gets this rave from Publishers Weekly: "Saint continues to breathe new life into Greek myths in this exciting and intelligent reimagining of the story of warrior Atalanta...For readers who can't get enough of feminist retellings, this will more than do the trick."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Built to Move, by Kelly Starrett and Juliet Starrett
2. Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond (MPL May 23 event registration here - this is close to capacity)
3. The Wager, by David Grann
4. The Creative Act, by Rick Rubin
5. A Fever in the Heartland, by Timothy Egan
6. You Could Make This Place Beautiful, by Maggie Smith
7. The Magnolia Table V3, by Joanna Gaines
8. Knowing What We Know, by Simon Winchester
9. The Light We Carry, by Michelle Obama
10. Outlive, by Peter Attia and Bill Gifford

Kelly and Juliet Starrett have built a fitness platform from The Ready State and a previous book, Becoming a Supple Leopard. Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully  came out in April - a quantity order helps push this to #1. Publishers Weekly writes: "The authors detail 10 ways to make the body more resilient, focusing on how readers can achieve greater ease of movement and improve overall health. Eschewing intensive workouts, the Starretts focus on boosting mobility through simple exercises." It reminds me of the kind of book touring I used to organize at Warner (Grand Central) when I was young.

Paperback Fiction:
1. Daughters of Nantucket, by Julie Gerstenblatt
2. Fifth Avenue Glamour Girl, by Renée Rosen
3. Trust, by Hernan Diaz
4. The Cat Who Saved Books, by Sosuke Natsukawa
5. The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman
6. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
7. Lucky Girl, by Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu
8. Search, by Michelle Huneven
9. The Candy House, by Jenifer Egan
10. Practice Makes Perfect, by Sarah Adams

Lucky Girl is a paperback original from Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu, who was raised in Nairboi, schooled in the United States, and now lives in Cape Town. Kirkus writes: “A young Kenyan woman in New York City faces an identity crisis while coming to recognize how issues of race, culture, and religion are different for Black Americans than for Black Africans...A thought-provoking exploration of the complicated experience of an African woman in America.” It also has a nice blurb from Charmaine Wilkerson, author of Black Cake.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Burn Rate, by Andy Dunn
2 Somos Latinas, Andrea-Teresa Arenas and Eloisa Gómez
3. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
4. How the Other Half Eats, by Priya Fielding-Singh
5. America the Beautiful, by Blythe Roberson
6. How to Tell a Story, from the Moth
7. Last Call, by Elon Green (Edgar winner)
8. Trailed, by Kathryn Miles
9. Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann
10. All About Love, by bell hooks

Now in paperback, How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America is a must-read for fans of Evicted. Priya Fielding-Singh's fieldwork takes her inside the homes of families "from varied educational, economic, and ethnoracial backgrounds" (publisher) to look at their food habits. From Beth Dooley in the San Francisco Chronicle: "Fielding-Singh dispels the myth that access to good food is the primary driver of the nation’s food and health disparities. Access isn’t the only, or even the main, obstacle to eating well, she argues. Rather, it’s the societal norms and unrealistic expectations shouldered by mothers across cultures and classes."

Books for Kids
1. When Clouds Touch Us, by Thanhhà Lai
2. Inside Out and Back Again, by Thanhhà Lai
3. The One and Only Ruby, by Katherie Applegate
4. LOL 101, by David Roth and Rinee Shah
5. The One and Only Bob, by Katherine Applegate
6. The Fall of the School for Good and Evil, by Soman Chainani
7. The School for Good and Evil, by Soman Chainani
8. Global, by Eoin Colfe, Andrew Donkin, illustrations by Giovanni Rigano
9. The Eyes and the Impossible, by Dave Eggers
10. When you Can Swim, by Jack Wong

Thanhhà Lai is doing several school visits in Milwaukee for the sequel to Inside Out and Back Again, winner of the National Book Award for Young People. Booklist offers this on When Clouds Touch Us: "While rooted in the 1970s, this memoiresque novel captures experiences that refugees in many times and places face: the sense of longing, the confusion, and the family dynamics that shift and change." And from the Horn Book: "The 1976 setting - America's bicentennial - reinforces the idea that Ha and her family's experiences are just as American as anyone's. Strongly recommended for fans of the first book and readers interested in realistic, hardscrabble immigrant stories."

Boswell bestsellers, week ending May 6, 2023

Boswell Bestsellers, week ending May 6, 2023

 

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese
2. Happy Place, by Emily Henry
3. Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club, by J Ryan Stradal
4. Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
5. Hello Beautiful, by Ann Napolitano
6. Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt
7. Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
8. In the Lives of Puppets, by TJ Klune
9. Romantic Comedy, by Curtis Sittenfeld
10. Mastering the Art of French Murder, by Colleen Cambridge (Register for May 18 event here)

It's been a long time since Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone! It's hard to say whether The Covenant of Water will hold the lead with the chains and online the way he likely did at independents. Maybe, as the Oprah Book Club factor is powerful in other channels. The new book, a multi-generational story set in Kerala, has 11 raves, two positives, and a mixed on LitHub. From Kirkus: "By God, he's done it again... What a joy to say it is, to experience the exquisite, uniquely literary delight of all the pieces falling into place in a way one really did not see coming." 

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond (May 23 event is almost at capacity - check here)
2. The Wager, by David Grann
3. Bread Head, by Greg Wade (Event rescheduled for June 13, 6:30 pm)
4. You Are a Badass Every Day, by Jen Sincero
5. Knowing What We Know, by Simon Winchester
6. The Devil's Element, by Dan Egan
7. A Fever in the Heartland, by Timothy Egan
8. The Language of Trees, by Katie Holten
9. Sit in the Sun, by Jon M Sweeney
10. Magnolia Table V3: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering, by Joanna Gaines

Simon Winchester's latest, Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic, is reviewed in The Washington Post, The Times (UK), and all the trades, but for some reason, it's not being aggregated in LitHub. Booklist's starred review called it "a testament to his abiding interest in history, human innovation, and his distinctive ability to share his insatiable curiosity with enthusiastic readers. He has written engagingly about etymology, engineering, explorers, and inventors, as well as maps, oceans, rivers, land, earthquakes, and volcanoes." The book was also reviewed by Peter Sagal (of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me) in The New York Times.

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, by VE Schwab
2. The Candy House, by Jennfer Egan (Check out the Boswell-run book clubs here)
3. The Seven Moons of Maali Almedia, by Shehan Karunatilaka
4. Ithaca, by Penelope North
5. Fifth Avenue Glamor Girl, by Renée Rosen (Register for May 11 event here - daytime!)
6. The Cabinet, by Un-Su Kim, translated by Sean Lin Halbert
7. 1984, by George Orwell
8. Meet Me at the Lake, by Carley Fortune
9. The Murder of Mr Wickham, by Claudia Gray (Register for June 8 virtual event here)
10. Women Talking, by Miriam Toews

The Cabinet received the Munhakdongne Novel Award, South Korea's most prestigious literary prize. Per the publisher, "Cabinet 13 looks exactly like any normal filing cabinet, except this cabinet is filled with files on the 'symptomers', humans whose strange abilities and bizarre experiences might just mark the emergence of a new species."  From Sam Tyler in SFBook: "Science Fiction can take itself too seriously, so it is great to read an offbeat genre novel and they don't come much more leftfield than The Cabinet. It stands on similar ground as A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, filtered through the macabre gaze of Chuck Palahniuk." The Books and Beer Book Club is reading The Cabinet on May 15 at Café Hollander.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. You Are a Badass, by Jen Sincero
2. Badass Habits, by Jen Sincero
3. You Are A Badass at Making Money, by Jen Sincero
4. The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel van der Kolk
5. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
6. How to Be Perfect, by Michael Schur
7. America the Beautiful, by Blythe Roberson
8. How to Tell a Story, from The Moth
9. Mushrooms of the Upper Midwest, by Teresa Marrone
10. A Gardener's Guide to Prairie Plants, by Neil Diboll (Register for June 17 event here)

Three weeks out in paperback and second placement in the top 10 for How to Be Perfect, after a long run in hardcover. Michael Schur's guide to living an ethical life. From Julian Baggini's rave in The Wall Street Journal: "There is no more to quibble over here than there is in any academic text. That makes How to Be Perfect one of the most accessible entry points to philosophical ethics available - in short, a very good place to start." You'll notice, by the way, that we have just expanded our philosophy section in the store.

Books for Kids:
1. When You Can Swim, by Jack Wong
2. The One and Only Ruby, by Katherine Applegate (Register for May 9 virtual school visit event here)
3. Fall of the School for Good and Evil V2, by Soman Chainani (Register for May 10 event here)
4. The Sun and the Star, by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro
5. The Eyes and the Impossible, by Dave Eggers
6. Rise of the School for Good and Evil V1, by Soman Chainani
7. Gertie the Darling Duck of WWII, by Shari Swanson, illustrated by Renée Graef (Register for May 20 event here)
8. Weather Together, by Jessie Sima
9. A World Without Princes V2, by Soman Chainani
10. LOL 101: A Kids Guide to Writing Jokes, by David Roth and Rinee Shah (Register for May 8 Shorewood Library event here)

Following Perfectly Pegasus, Jessie Sima's Weather Together is about friendship and mental health. From Kirkus: "Harking back to Not Quite Narwhal in both cast and tone, Sima offers a friendship tale in which Kelp's close and aptly named pal Nimbus acquires a dark little cloud that rains when she feels down... If some young readers subject to or familiar with similar storms (or a bit foggy on what a metaphor is) need explanation or discussion about depression to clear the air, the comforting message nonetheless shines brightly."

I also have to give a shout out to When You Can Swim. We hosted school visits with Jack Wong on Friday. It was a really great day. It's also one of Jenny's favorite picture books of 2023!

Boswell bestsellers, week ending April 29, 2023

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending April 29, 2023

Hardcover Fiction:
1. I Have Some Questions for you, by Rebecca Makkai (signed copies!)
2. Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club, by J Ryan Stradal (likewise!)
3. Happy Place, by Emily Henry
4. In the Lives of Puppets, by TJ Klune
5. Small Mercies, by Dennis Lehane
6. Romantic Comedy, by Curtis Sittenfeld
7. Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
8. Hang the Moon, by Jannette Walls
9. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin
10. When in Rome, by Liam Callanan

11. Hello Beautiful, by Ann Napolitano

12. Mastering the Art of French Murder, by Colleen Cambridge (Register for May 18 event here)  

Sometimes it is a question when an author who has been publishing in paperback original jumps to hardcover, but that's not the case with Happy Place from Emily Henry - we couldn't keep the book in stock. It's the #1 Indie Next pick for May, has a rave from Rachel (her romance book club is discussing it), and also one from Annie Berke in The Washington Post: "With her latest, Happy Place, Henry covers new territory. It is, in many ways, the least 'happy' of her works, less swooning and more longing, with a sense of melancholy permeating throughout," but also notes it is infused with "wit, charm and heart, satisfying to the last page."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond (Register for May 23 MPL event here)
2. Sit in the Sun, by Jon M Sweeney
3. The Wager, by David Grann
4. A Fever in the Heartland, by Timothy Egan
5. Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, by Lucinda Williams
6. Dinners with Ruth, by Nina Totenberg
7. Be the Bus, by Mo Willems
8. The New Art of Coffee, by Ryan Castelaz
9. The Creative Act, by Rick Rubin
10. An Intimate City, by Michael Kimmelman

While Lucinda Williams is not on tour to Milwaukee (and I think there was only one event that was specifically book related), you might have seen her at the Pabst Theater back on September 25, 2022. Her memoir, Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I've Told You, had five raves and a positive on Booklist, including this in The Wall Street Journal from Elizabeth Nelson: "Now 70 years old, she (Lucinda Williams) has garnered a slow-burn success, owing largely to a hardwired impulse to trust her own judgment when all those around her were calling it into question. The often hilarious, occasionally harrowing Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You is a bracingly candid chronicle of a sui generis character plotting a ramshackle but ultimately triumphant trajectory. 'I don’t want it to be one of those sugarcoated books like you find at Walgreens,' she says in a brief intro. 'I want them to see the truth.'"

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Great Believers, by Rebecca Makkai
2. Fifth Avenue Glamour Girl, by Renée Rosen (Register for May 11 event here)
3. Yours Truly, by Abby Jimenez
4. The Swimmers, by Julie Otsuka
5. The Cartographers, by Peng Shepherd
6. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
7. The Sentence, by Louise Erdrich
8. The Candy House, by Jennifer Egan
9. The Lager Queen of Minnesota, by J Ryan Stradal
10. The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles

Staying in genre, but highlighting the April #1 Indie Next Pick, Abby Jimenez's Yours Truly, is, also like Emily Henry, out of stock after the Independent Bookstore Day rush. Grand Central/Forever kept Jimenez's latest as paperback original, but also made a nice hardcover edition for libraries, something that we see a lot with HarperCollins, but rarely with Penguin Random House. Not sure why. She's also got four trade reviews plus another on BookPage, but unlike Henry, she doesn't get a listing on LitHub. Someone explain this to me. Publishers Weekly writes: "The laugh-out-loud scenes - including Briana's tale of glitter-bomb revenge and the introduction of a foul-mouthed parrot - are the real highlight. Add in sparkling prose, skillful plotting, and a sensitive approach to Jacob's clinical anxiety, and the result is contemporary romance gold."

I don't know if it's connected, but I asked Rebecca Makkai what book she was recommending, and she mentioned Julie Otsuka's The Swimmers. 

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. America the Beautiful, by Blythe Roberson
2. Paper Valley, by David Allen and Susan Campbell (signed copies)
3. Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
4. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
5. The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel van der Kolk
6. All About Love, by bell hooks
7. Birds of Wisconsin Field Guide, by Stan Tekiela
8. The Gardeners Guide to Prairie Plants, by Neil Diboll (Register for June 17 event here)
9. We Don't Know Ourselves, by Fintan O'Toole
10. Every Good Boy Does Fine, by Jeremy Denk

This was a particularly great week for events, including our visit with Blythe Roberson, author of America the Beautiful, who did her conversation with Emmy Yates, who accompanied her on part of her National Park journey. There was a giveaway for a thematically linked paint-by-numbers set. Signed copies are available, including a couple of those nice HarperCollins dual edition hardcovers we talked about earlier. Hoping it catches on - three of us read and really liked the book. Not surprisingly, Roberson is doing a road trip to promote the book. Also not surprisingly, Roberson contributed a column on road tripping for The New Yorker. On road consumption: "Your stepdad is obsessed with something called 'hyper-miling,' whereby he supposedly optimizes fuel efficiency by putting the car into neutral every time he drives down a hill. We don’t really want to get into it, but doing this could result in death or serious injury." But maybe not, right? It could be fine. Must defend Milwaukeean stepdad!

Books for Kids:
1. The Dreadful Fairy Book by Jon Etter
2. Once Upon Another Time, by James Riley
3. Becoming a Queen, by Dan Clay
4. Tall Tales V2, by James Riley
5. The Eyes and the Impossible, by Dave Eggers
6. Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea, by Dav Pilkey
7. The Story Thieves, by James Riley
8. Gertie the Darling Duck of WWII, by Shari Swanson, illustrations by Renée Graef (Register for May 20 event here)
9. Bigger than the Sun, by Daniel Aleman
10. Are You There God? It's Me Margaret, by Judy Bluem

I have read only delightful things about the new film adaptation of Are You There God? It's Me Margaret. The classic novel that's been off-and-on banned forever has been named a Time Magazine best YA book of all time. The film features Abby Ryder Fortson as the titular Margaret. It's a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes! From Lisa Kennedy in The New York Times: "The director-writer Kelly Fremon Craig’s rendering of the book about puberty, family and nascent spirituality offers lessons in how a cherished object, when treated with tender and thoughtful regard, needn’t turn precious."

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending April 22, 2023

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending April 22, 2023

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club, by J Ryan Stradal (Register for 4/26, 6:30 pm Boswell event here)
2. Earth's the Right Place for Love, by Elizabeth Berg (a few signed copies left)
3. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse, by Charlie Mackesy
4. Hello Beautiful, by Ann Napolitano
5. Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
6. When in Rome, by Liam Callanan
7. Goldenrod, by Maggie Smith
8. A Day of Fallen Night, by Samantha Shannon
9. Homecoming, by Kate Morton
10. Pineapple Street, by Jenny Jackson

So glad to see a nice preorder and first-week sale for J Ryan Stradal's Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club! For this book, we have put together the most complicated Readings from Oconomowaukee yet. Like we did for Search last year, Stradal will do a 2 pm at Books & Co (Register here) and 6:30 pm event at Boswell. In addition to Lisa and myself, Stradal will be joined by Amy E Reichert at the daytime event and Christi Clancy in the evening. No Book Marks on this one - hard to figure this out. But Kirkus notes: "The Midwest setting is written with love and respect, and while the story is often heartbreakingly sad, there’s also real warmth and comfort in Stradal’s writing." 

My very favorite write up is a profile in The Hastings Star Gazette, the Minnesota newspaper for the town where Stradal grew up. From the article: “'I still wake up every day pinching myself,' he said. 'I've been doing this for almost 10 years and I still think someone's going to come along and say it was all a dream. What keeps me going is that it's not only my dream, it was my mom's dream, one she never had the chance to attempt, and no matter how hard the work can be, or how dry the dry years get, I keep going for her.'"

  

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. You Could Make This Place Beautiful, by Maggie Smith (signed copies available)
2. Sit in the Sun, by Jon M Sweeney 
3. Poverty by America, by Matthew Desmond (Register for May 23 MPL event here)
4. They Called Us Enemy, expanded edition, by George Takei, with Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, and Harmony Becker
5. Wager, by David Grann
6. A Fever in the Heartland, by Timothy Egan 
7. Keep Moving, by Maggie Smith
8. The Creative Act, by Rik Rubin
9. The New Art of Coffee, by Ryan Castelaz
10. Bread Head, by Greg Wade (Register for May 2 Boswell event here)

Top debut honors go to David Grann, whose Wager: A Tale of a Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder is the follow up to his bestselling Killers of the Flower Moon, soon to be a major motion picture. Nine raves and two positives on Book Marks, including Julia Flynn Siler in The Wall Street Journal, who wrote: "The Wager, David Grann’s account of the punishing travails of the 250 men aboard an 18th-century British man-of-war, shipwrecked on an island off the coast of Patagonia, is the most gripping true-life sea yarn I’ve read in years." I'm reminded of the success of Endurance many years ago. 

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Last Thing He Told Me, by Laura Dave
2. Daisy Jones and the Six, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
3. The Candy House, by Jennifer Egan (info on upcoming book club discussions here)
4. The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, by VE Schwab
5. City of Brass, by SA Chakraborty
6. The Paris Apartment, by Lucy Foley
7. Legends and Lattes, by Ray Bradbury
8. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
9. Groundskeeping, by Lee Cole
10. A Lady's Guide to Fortune Hunting, by Sophie Irwin

Lots of selections from the national book clubs pop, but it's a rare title that sells well enough for prized two-years-in-hardcover status. Often it's a film or streaming release that finally demands paperback, and that's the case with The Last Thing He Told Me, which debuted on Apple TV+ on April 14. Reviews of the series will likely please the book's fans, as it seems like one of the complaints that's come up is that it's too faithful. The Book Marks status on the original book was three raves, four positives.

I am fascinated that both The Last Thing He Told Me and The Wager went with such a similar color palate for very different books. What does it mean when water is green instead of blue? A sign of treacherous waters?

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Miseducated, by Brandon Fleming
2. They Called Us Enemy, by George Takei, with Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, and Harmony Becker
3. Fighting Times, by Jon Melrod
4. America the Beautiful, by Blythe Roberson (Register for April 25 event here)
5. Make Someone Happy, by Elizabeth Berg
6. The Gardener's Guide to Prairie Plants, by Neil Diboll (Register for June 17 event here)
7. Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
8. All About Love, by bell hooks
9. The Dawn of Everything, by David Graeber and David Wengrow
10. How to Be Perfect, by Michael Schur

Brandon Fleming's Miseducated was the featured title of the annual DMEF luncheon, and what an inspiring speaker he was - among our best day-of event sales for this program. The publisher positions the story as "an inspiring memoir of one man's transformation through literature and debate from a delinquent, drug-dealing dropout to an award-winning Harvard educator by age 27." Fleming has been championed by fellow Atlantans Nic Stone and Kiese Laymon. And yes, he's working on another book.

Books for Kids:
1. Thirst, by Varsha Bajaj
2. Global (both editions, by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin, illustrations by Giovanni Rigano
3. Tiny T Rex and the Grand Ta Da, by Jonathan Stutzman, illustrations by Jay Fleck
4. Tiny T Rex and the Impossible Hug, by Jonathan Stutzman, illustrations by Jay Fleck
5. Best Wishes V2: Sister Switch, by Sarah Mlynowski and Debbie Rigaud
6. The Eyes and the Impossible, by Dave Eggers (McSweeneys edition)
7. Every Day's a Holiday, by Stef Wade, illustrations by Husna Aghniya
8. Dog Man V11: Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea, by Dav Pilkey
9. Best Wishes V1, by Sarah Mylnowski
10 What Feelings Do When No One's Looking, by Tina Oziewicz, illustrations by Aleksandra Zajac

School events and one private signing dominate the list this week, accounting for eight of the top 10 selections. Last time out, Eoin Colfer, Andrew Donkin, and Giovanni Rigano capped their day of schools with a public evet for Illegal, but this time, time would not allow for such a program, and instead we had three wonderful school visits. That said, we have signed copies of Global - with signatures from both authors and the illustrator.

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending April 15, 2023

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending April 15, 2023

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Society of Shame, by Jane Roper
2. I Have Some Questions for You, by Rebecca Makkai (Tickets for April 27 MPL lunch here)
3. The Guilty One, by Bill Schweigart
4. Pineapple Street, by Jenny Jackson
5. Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton
6. Hello Beautiful, by Ann Napolitano
7. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin
8. Above Ground, by Clint Smith
9. When in Rome, by Liam Callanan
10. Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver

Clint Smith, who received the National Book Critics Circle for How the Word Is Passed, hits our bestseller list for his second collection of poetry, Above Ground. He is also a staff writer for The Atlantic.I'm not sure why this isn't tracked by Book Marks. Elisabeth Egan at The New York Times discusses the rare feat of Smith - having books in the nonfiction and fiction lists in short order.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. A Fever in the Heartland, by Timothy Egan
2. Building Boys, by Jennifer LW Fink
3. Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond (Register for May 23 MPL event here)
4. You Could Make This Place Beautiful, by Maggie Smith (Tickets for April 21 event here)
5. The New Art of Coffee, by Ryan Castelaz
6. The Devil's Element, by Dan Egan
7. It Goes So Fast, by Mary Louise Kelly
8. The Language of Trees, by Katie Holten
9. Dinners with Ruth, by Nina Toltenberg
10. Sit in the Sun, by Jon M. Sweeney

The Language of Trees: A Rewilding of Literature and Landscape is a new anthology edited by Katie Holten. Tin House sent out attractive customized posters to bookstores for display. The book has two raves and a positive from Book Marks. Kristin Millares Young notes in The Washington Post that "Holten has designed an entire typeface wherein each letter of the alphabet is assigned a tree whose popular name shares that first letter: P is a pine, E is an elm and so forth. The book’s poems, quotes and short essays are all translated into Holten’s tree language; the resulting groves illustrate the text."

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Short End of the Sonnenalee, by Thomas Brussig, illustrated by Jonathan Franzen and Jenny Watson
2. The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen
3. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
4. The Sentence, by Louise Erdrich
5. To Swoon and to Spar, by Martha Waters
6. Groundskeeping, by Lee Cole (Boswell book club selections and meeting dates here)
7. The Drifter, by Nick Petrie
8. Heroes Like Us, by Thomas Brussig
9. Olga Dies Dreaming, by Xochitl Gonzalez
10. Portrait of a Thief, by Grace D. Li

Former wedding planner, tarot card reader, and Iowa Writers Workshop grad got much attention for Olga Dies Dreaming, and her debut novel is on our bestseller list this week. It had four raves and four positive reviews from Book Marks. From Ron Charles in The Washington Post: "Aside from a collection of winning characters and an ingenious plot, what’s most impressive about Olga Dies Dreaming is the way Gonzalez stretches the seams of the rom-com genre to accommodate her complex analysis of racial politics."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Born Extraordinary, by Meg Zucker
2. Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
3. Fighting Times, by Jon Melrod (Register for April 19 event here)
4. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
5. The Book of Delights, by Ross Gay
6. The Gardeners Guide to Prairie Plants, by Neil Diboll (Register for June 17 event here)
7. 111 Places in Milwaukee That You Must Not Miss, by Michelle Madden
8. They Called Us Enemy, by George Takei (Tickets for April 18 event here)
9. Every Good Boy Does Fine, by Jeremy Denk
10. The Icepick Surgeon, by Sam Kean

Another paperback reprint with strong Book Marks creds (5 raves, 4 positives) is Jeremy Denk's Every Good Boy Does Fine: A Love Story, in Music Lessons, by MacArthur Fellowship recipient Jeremy Denk. From Simon Callow in The New York Review of Books: "The book is laid out in musical form: three substantial sections on harmony, melody, and rhythm...Denk writes feelingly on the artist’s self-dramatization, the formation of a self, sometimes manifesting as arrogance, the conviction that you have something special to contribute to the appreciation of what you are performing, grasping whatever gives you the audacity to present yourself before the public."

Books for Kids:
1. Global (2 editions), by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin, illustrated by Gioavanni Rigano
2. She Persisted: Sally Ride, by Atia Abawi
3. The Eyes and the Impossible, by Dave Eggers
4. Dog Man: Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea, by Dav Pilkey
5. School Trip, by Jerry Craft
6. Inheritance Games, by Jenifer Barnes
7. Big Tree, by Brian Selznick
8. The World and Everything in It, by Kevin Henkes
9. Better Than the Movies, by Lynn Painter
10. Peekaboo Sun, by Camilla Reid, illustrations by Ingela P. Arrhenius

School Trip is the third in the graphic series that follows New Kid and Class Act. Jordan goes to Paris, but the bully is coming along. Fortunately, as School Library Journal notes: "The characters that readers love grow and mature while they travel across the globe...This heartfelt, must-read title belongs on all library shelves." Publishers Weekly (also a starred review) called it "a zestful graphic novel adventure that mixes lighthearted fare with thought-provoking observations on lasting friendship in the face of future-based anxieties."

Boswell bestsellers, week ending April 8, 2023

Boswell bestsellers, week ending April 8, 2023

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Romantic Comedy, by Curtis Sittenfeld
2. Hello Beautiful, by Ann Napolitano
3. Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
4. Pineapple Street, by Jenny Jackson
5. Intrigue in Istanbul, by Erica Ruth Neubauer
6. Homecoming, by Kate Morton
7. Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt
8. Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton
9. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin
10. When in Rome, by Liam Callanan

From the publisher on Homecoming: "The highly anticipated (first in five years) novel from The New York Times bestselling author of The Clockmaker’s Daughter, a sweeping saga with a thrilling mystery at its heart tracing a shocking crime whose effects echo across continents and generations." The Publishers Weekly reviewer called it her best yet.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. The New Art of Coffee, by Ryan Castelaz
2. A Fever in the Heartland, by Timothy Egan (Register for April 12 event here)
3. Bad Vibes Only, by Nora McInerny
4. The Devil's Element, by Dan Egan
5. Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond (Register for May 23 MPL event here)
6. All the Presidents' Gardens, by Marta McDowell
7. Smitten Kitchen Keepers, by Deb Perelman
8. Outlive, by Peter Attia with Bill Gifford
9. Building Boys, by Jennifer LW Fink (Register for April 11 event here)
10. The Nation That Never Was, by Kermit Roosevelt III

It's always a bit of a nail biter when you host a launch event for a book that has a street smart date; that is, a book where you're required not to sell the book early, as opposed to the old fashioned pub date, where the book goes on sale when it shows up. And so it's a good thing that the publisher put through our event order for Ryan Castelaz's The New Art of Coffee, as our original stock order for the book didn't show up until Wednesday, the day after our April 4 event. I met up with Ryan at Discourse Coffee Workshop after the event and got our stock signed. Castelaz told us the book is ranked #2 on the coffee and tea list of a major bestseller list.

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Killer Speech, by Kevin Kluesner
2. The Candy House, by Jennifer Egan
3. Groundskeeping, by Lee Cole
4. The Killer Sermon, by Kevin Kluesner
5. Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller
6. Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, by Jesse Q Sutanto
7. The Cartographers, by Peng Shepherd
8. A Court of Thorn and Roses, by Sarah J Maas
9. The Maid, by Nita Prose
10. The Last to Vanish, by Megan Miranda

Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers made the April 2023 Indie Next list and has a staff rec from Boswellian Jen Steele: "I enjoyed every moment and found myself rooting for Vera at every turn." And Tristan Draper for School Library Journal calls her latest, "A mystery with warmth, humor, and many descriptions of delicious teas and foods. Recommended for fans of Sutanto and of character-driven cozy mysteries."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. They Called Us Enemy, by George Takei (Tickets for April 18 UWM event here)
2. Fighting Times, by Jon Melrod (Register for April 19 Boswell event here)
3. Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
4. All About Love, by bell hooks
5. Brewtown Tales, by John Gurda
6. Body Horror, by Elizabeth Anne Moore
7. It's Okay to Laugh, by Nora McInerny
8. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan
9. Last Call at the Hotel Imperial, by Deborah Cohen
10. Invisible Child, by Andrea Elliott

Deborah Cohen visited Boswell to discuss Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took on a World at War in hardcover. She's coming back to Milwaukee for the College Endowment Association lecture series, but not until the 2023-2024 season. From Krithika Varagur in The New Yorker: "Last Call is as effervescent, for more than four hundred pages, as its winsome and hyperactive characters, and it blends scholarly attention to ideas like psychoanalysis and Wilsonian liberal internationalism with novelistic renderings of these writers’ dizzying trajectories abroad. Group biographies sometimes fail to congeal, but the members of this cohort did in fact have deeply enmeshed lives."

Books for Kids:
1. Dog Man: Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea V11, by Dav Pilkey
2. Peekaboo Chick, by Camilla Reid, illustrations by Ingela P Arrhenius
3. I Am a Bunny, by Ole Risom, illustrations by Richard Scarry
4. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse, illustrations by Renée Graef
5. The Very Hungry Caterpillar's Garden Friends, by Eric Carle
6. Dog Man V1, by Dav Pilkey
7. The Moth Keeper, by K O'Neill
8. What Feelings Do When No One's Looking, by Tina Ozeiwicz, illustrations by Aleksandra Zajac
9. How to Write a Poem, by Kwame Alexander
10. Pete the Cat and the Easter Basket Bandit, by Kimberly and James Dean

Today is Easter and that means the kid bestseller list is filled with chicks and bunnies and Easter baskets. While neither Peekaboo Chick or I Am a Bunny are holiday specific, I'm guessing that the pop is not accidental. More holiday specific is Pete the Cat and the Easter Basket Bandit, and bubbling below the top 10 is Happy Easter, Little Pookie Pookie is a pig, but in this book, he is wearing a rabbit ear hat, much like Louise Belcher.