Chad Harbach Added to Our Event Calendar, Thursday, October 20, Plus the Bestsellers.

You've been asking and asking and asking and asking and asking, and I'm please to report that Chad Harbach will be joining Stuart Nadler (previously scheduled) at Boswell on Thursday, October 20, 7 pm. Harbach's novel, The Art of Fielding, has been among the best reviewed novels of the year, and with its Wisconsin setting and baseball theme, it has, needless to say, caught on in a big way at Boswell. Listen to Veronica Rueckert's interview this week on Wisconsin Public Radio with Chad Harbach and Bill James.

Nadler's stories are among my favorites of the year, recommended by both Darin Strauss and Frederick Reiken. I had actually been originally trying to figure out a way to get Reiken to read with Nadler, but that didn't work out. Someday! Someday!

We'll, needless to say, have more about our event with Harbach and Nadler in our next email newsletter.  I can tell you that it is a free event and a thrilling edition to an already amazing October. It's like a book festival without all the committee meetings.

Hardcover fiction:
1. The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach
2. American Boy, by Larry Watson
3. The Cat's Table, by Michael Ondaatje
4. Reamde, by Neal Stephenson
5. The Visible Man, by Chuck Klosterman
6. The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern
7. The Lost Memory of Skin, by Russell Banks
8. The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain
9. Habibi, by Craig Thompson
10. The Dovekeepers, by Alice Hoffman

Hardcover nonfiction:
1. Going Home, by Jon Katz
2. Cleopatra, by Stacy Schiff (yes, the hardcover again)
3. Boomerang, by Michael Lewis (Wash. Post review)
4. Just my Type, by Simon Garfield
5. A More Perfect Heaven, by Dava Sobel (at Discovery World 10/19)
6. The Destiny of the Republic, by Candice Millard
7. Don't Shoot, by David M. Kennedy (at Boswell tomorrow!)
8. Here Comes Trouble, by Michael Moore
9. The Better Angels of our Nature, by Stephen Pinker (NYTBR cover today--podcast)
10. Plenty, by Yotam Ottolenghi

Paperback fiction:
1. A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan
2. Montana 1948, by Larry Watson
3. Justice, by Larry Watson
4. Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen
5. The Potter's Field, by Andrea Cammileri

Still pretty soft in trade paperback fiction, with only Franzen (who got a complete Fresh Air show and is still scheduled with a number of book clubs) having a pop.  And then there's Camilleri, who's 13th installment finds Inspector Montalbano investigating a body hacked up into thirty pieces.

Paperback nonfiction:
1. Cleopatra, by Stacy Schiff
2. The Hare with Amber Eyes, by Edmund de Waal
3. How to Live, by Sarah Bakewell
4. Soul of a Dog, by Jon Katz
5. The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson

Compare the paperback fiction to nonfiction, and we see four books with sales momentum, or at least I hope so.  The Hare with Amber Eyes has been on our bestseller list off and on since its release, and I think Schiff would be there even without our event and perhaps even without the exhibit. Now we have newcomers How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer and The Warmth of Other Suns. We're excpecting better than normal paperback sales on both for serious nonfiction, and so far this is playing out.

We're reading The Hare with Amber Eyes at our next in-store lit group meeting, Monday, November 7, 7 pm.

Kids' Books
1. Son of Neptune, by Rick Riordan
2. Floors, by Patrick Carman
3. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
4. Wildwood, by Colin Meloy
5. Hush! a Thai Lullaby, by Minfong Ho

...which was probably a multi-copy order but sometimes, but sometimes a Caldecott 1997 honor book needs another day in the sun.