More About Our Indies First Author/Booksellers--What Exactly are They Recommending?

While Black Friday has morphed into simply the second half of post-Thanksgiving shopping for bargains, Saturday has become a bit of a counterpoint. From American Express's Small Business Saturday to the American Booksellers Association Thank You for Shopping Indie to the Sherman Alexie driven Indies First campaign, these programs are trying to spotlight community-based independents.

Is there financial incentive? Well, yes. If you register through the American Express program and spend $10 or more at a registered Small Business Saturday participant, you'll get a $10 credit on your statement.

We also have a great lineup for our Indies First promotion. We'll have authors between 11 am and 5 pm (they are working in two-hour shifts, and I'm hoping to update the blog with exact times). You can of course buy one of their books, or also take recommendations. They are our honorary booksellers for the afternoon (and more than one of them actually spent time on a bookstore selling floor).

Liam Callanan recommends:
So Long, See You Tomorrow, by William Maxwell
Wolf Willow, by Wallace Stegner
Beautiful Ruins, by Jess Walter
The Penderwicks, by Jeanne Birdsall
Pulphead, by John Jeremiah Sullivan

Lois Ehlert recommends The novels of Laura Ingalls Wilder:
Little House in The Big Woods
Farmer Boy
Little House on the Prairie
On the Banks of Plum Creek
By the Shores of Silver Lake
The Long Winter
Little Town on the Prairie
These Happy Golden Years


Lauren Fox recommends:
Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Stolen Child, by Keith Donohue
The Invisible Bridge, by Julie Orringer
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee Bender
Falling to Earth, by Kate Southwood

Jessie Garcia recommends:
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
Slow Getting Up, by Nate Jackson
Sundown, Yellow Moon, by Larry Watson
The Year We Left Home, by Jean Thompson
The Middlesteins, by Jami Attenberg

C.J. Hribal recommends:
Our Story Begins, by Tobias Wolff
So Long, See You Tomorrow, by William Maxwell
Gryphon, by Charles Baxter
Fools, by Joan Silber
Maps of the Imagination, by Peter Turchi

Valerie Laken recommends:
Fools, by Joan Silber
Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson
The Street of Crocodiles, by Bruno Schulz
The Complete Stories, by Flannery O’Connor
The Heart of Darkness, by Matt Kish

JoAnn Early Macken recommends:
Touch a Butterfly, by April Pulley Sayre
The Folk Keeper, by Franny Billingsley
All the World, by Liz Garton Scanlon with illustrations by Marla Frazee
Bubble Trouble, by Margaret Mahy
What the Heart Knows, by Joyce Sidman

Rochelle Melander recommends:
Still Life, by Louise Penny
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley
The Spellman Files, by Lisa Lutz
Too Big to Miss, by Sue Ann Jaffarian
The Gifts of Imperfection, by Brene Brown

Julia Pandl recommends:
A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese
To Kill a Mockbird, by Harper Lee
Naked, by David Sedaris
The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, by Jonathan Evison

Larry Watson recommends:
All That Is, by James Salter
Sweet Tooth, by Ian McEwan
The Patriarch, by David Nasaw
Joseph Anton, by Salman Rushdie
Boleto, by Alyson Hagy

and Robert Vaughan recommends:
In The Carnival of Breathing, Lisa Fay Coutley
A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness, by Amy L. Clark, Elizabeth Ellen, Kathy Fish, and Claudia Smith
Bound By Blue, by Meg Tuite
Eternal Patrol, by Russell Dillon
Alone with Other People, by Gabby Bess

If you're not in Milwaukee for the holiday weekend, it's likely that your favorite indie bookstore is hosting its own slate of author/booksellers. Michelle Huneven (a new novel is out in 2014!) is working at Vroman's in Pasadena, for example. Jess Walter? Why he's at Auntie's Bookstore in Spokane, while Sherman Alexie (the guy behind the whole idea) is spreading himself to five bookstores in the Seattle area.

It's gotten to be a game to me. I want to know who's selling where and if I read their books or not? Prairie Lights has both Ethan Canin and Mary Helen Stefaniak. And if I hadn't found this USA Today article, I wouldn't have known that Wally Lamb is recommending Hannah Kent's Burial Rites at R.J. Julia. 

While you're thinking small and local, our friends at Local First Milwaukee are suggesting the Local First Challenge. Make a commitment to shift 10% of your shopping to local first stores, and consider shopping at the Buy Local Gift Fair on Sunday, December 8, from Noon-4 pm at Lakefront Brewery on Commerce.