Labor Day Weekend Poster Sale for the Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund, Blood Drive Signup, Saturday Evening Filming

A post in three parts about what's going on this Labor Day weekend at Boswell.

1. So many of you ask us what we do with our blown-up book jackets which decorate Boswell. The truth is that we keep a lot of them a long time, but some do get discarded. By popular demand, we're offering you the opportunity to purchase a select assortment of these posters during Labor Day weekend. Fifty posters and blow-ups will be included in this program - we'll be donating 100% of our proceeds from these purchases to the Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund, the preferred charity of our Texas bookstore friends, in the wake of this tragedy.

This sale runs from Friday, September 1 through Monday, September 4. Because we're raising money for charity with this program, we're using an auction system. Each poster will have a form where you can pay whatever you want, with bids starting at one dollar. After Labor Day, we'll contact the person with the highest bid, and they'll have a week to purchase the item. If the purchase isn't made, we'll contact the person with the second highest bid. And so forth. Decorate your home, your office, your classroom, or your dorm space.

Most are foam core posters. We've also got cardboard blowups for Jenny Lawson's Furiously Happy, Nick Offerman's Gumption, and Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid #8: Hard Luck. A few of the cardboard pieces are a bit shopworn, but all will be available to review before bidding to determine whether it's worth the purchase. Please note that you're purchasing from us and we're donating the money, so all sales are taxable. If this is successful, we'll do this again. If not, we won't!

Here's the complete list, not in any order:
1. Bad Monkey, Carl Hiaasen
2. Binge, Tyler Oakley
3. Absolutely on Music, Haruki Murakami
4. Your Fathers, Where Are They? Dave Eggers
5. Buried Giant, The Kazuo Ishiguro
6. Furiously Happy, Jenny Lawson (Rory)
7. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck, Jeff Kinney (cardboard)
8. Day the Crayon Came Home, Drew Daywalt
9. What the Dog Knows, Cat Warren
10. And Again, Jessica Chiarella
11. Barbara the Slut, Lauren Holmes
12. Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert
13. Thickety Well of Wishes, J.A. White
14. The Painter, Peter Heller
15. Becoming Wise Krista Tippett
16. A Lowcountry Christmas, Mary Alice Monroe
17. Herbert Hoover, Glen Jeansonne
18. Searching for Howard Hughes, Jason Diamond
19. Will it Waffle, Daniel Shumski
20. Bream Gives me Hiccups, Jesse Eisenberg (small)
21. Little Bee, Chris Cleave (smaller)
22. The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion (also smaller)
23. Dave Hill Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Dave Hill
24. Avenue of Mysteries, John Irving
25. Life on Mars, Jon Agee (cardboard)
26. Gumption, Nick Offerman (the lifesize blowup)
27. Second Life of Nick Mason, Steve Hamilton
28. Daredevils, Sean Vestal
29. Calling, David Isay
30. The Confessions of Young Nero, Margaret George
31. Reunion, Hannah Pittard
32. Books for Living, Will Schwalbe
33. Ruby, Cynthia Bond
34. The Secret of Dreadwillow Carse, Brian Farrey
35. Mr Wuffles, David Wiesner
36. Church of Marvels, Leslie Parry
37. In the Unlikely Event, Judy Blume
38. Glow, Ned Beaumann
39. Super Freakonomics, Steven Levitt
40. Of Noble Family, Mary Robinette Kowal
41. California, Eden Lepucki
42. Girls from Corona Del Mar, The Rufi Thrope

43. On the Move, Oliver Sacks
44. Water Knife, The Paolo Bacigalupi
45. Zero Zero Zero, Roberto Saviano
46. Automobile Club of Egypt, The Alaa Al Asany
47. Modern Romance, Aziz Ansarai
48. White Collar Girl, Renée Rosen
49. Here, Richard McGuire
50. The Happiness of Pursuit, Chris Guillebeau
51. The Black Country, Alex Grecian
52. Dream Big with BFG, Roald Dahl (cardboard)
53. This Is Your Life Harriet Chance, Jonathan Evison
54. The Heart Goes Last, Margaret Atwood
55. The Kindness Diaries, Leon Logothetis
56. And the Mountains Echoed, Khaled Hosseini
57. The Great Jumperee, Julia Donaldson/Helen Oxenbury
58. Not My Father's Son, Alan Cumming
59. God Help the Child, Toni Morrison
60. Evergreen, Rebecca Rasmussen
61. Presence, Amy Cuddy
62. The Infatuations, Javier Marias
63. Doomed, Chuck Palahniuk
64. Cheever, Blake Bailey
65. Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins
66. South of Broad, Pat Conroy
67. The Drifter, Nick Petrie (don't worry, Nick. We kept one for the store)
68. Notorious RBG, Irin Carmon
69. The Orenda, Joseph Boyden
70. The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri

Please note that you are purchasing the item, so alas, we have to add tax onto your bid. Please take that into account.

2. On Saturday evening, a crew will be shooting a film scene at the store. It's happening around 7:30 pm. Most likely, we'll be open a little later than normal to accomodate the crew. If you sign a release, you might be able to be an extra.

3. On Sunday, we'll have a signup for a 9-11 blood drive in front of the store. The blood drive itself will be from 3 to 7 pm at the War Memorial Veterans Center on Monday, September 11 (obviously).

4. Don't forget, we're open Labor Day. We open at 10 am (regular time) and close at 5 pm (irregular time).

Why you can't miss Bill Goldstein's "The World Broke in Two," and why, because I am biased, it's a good thing lots of other booksellers at Boswell are loving it.

Being that there are no events at Boswell this week, I thought I'd use the time to talk about a special program coming in mid September. It's an event over thirty years in the making!

Our featured author is Bill Goldstein and the book is The World Broke in Two: Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster and the Year That Changed Literature. It was published on August 15 and it's gotten all sorts of great attention:

--Glen Weldon on NPR wrote: "The ingenious conceit of Goldstein's book is to follow, using excerpts from both their correspondence and their diaries, the intertwined personal and literary lives of four writers — Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, and Eliot himself — as the three seismic shocks of those publications ripple through their lives, and their work. To do so, he narrows the focus and imposes strict parameters. Very strict, as it turns out: Apart from some contextualizing commentary, The World Broke in Two rigorously limits itself to the span of days from January 1st to December 31st, 1922.

And later he notes: "The book comes alive in the ceaseless churn of these intersecting egos, as they turn their withering writerly gazes upon one another — and, less eagerly, upon themselves. Their professional and personal jealousy, spite, anxiety and outrage — the familiar hallmarks of the writer's personality — become a kind of humanizing background noise, drawing us in and allowing us to see them more fully."

--Eric Bennett writes in The New York Times Book Review: "In his fresh account of four modernists, Bill Goldstein, a former editor of the books section of this newspaper’s website and an interviewer for NBC New York, does not tell this story. Instead The World Broke in Two chronicles Morgan (Forster), David (Lawrence), Tom (Eliot) and Virginia (Woolf) as they wage personal battle in tremendous earnest against blank sheets of paper to create important new works from the inner recesses of their genius. Goldstein offers a snapshot history of their careers in deference to the American now, embracing not only the chatty familiarity of first names but also, and more significant, the biographical details of authorship that most 21st-century interest in literature seems to depend upon."

--And just one more, Tom Zellman in the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Goldstein’s insightful and graceful prose reveals four authors during troubled moments of their careers, and he is fortunate in having a trove of writings from which to draw. Forster, Woolf and Eliot knew each other very well, read one another’s writings with an eye to what might be artistically useful, and reviewed one another’s work in journals. This year-in-the-life chronicle gives us a remarkable look at the gestation of literature."

I could list all the amazing advance quotes that the book received, and I assure you, we've been using them as we promote our event. But there's another interesting story here that connects Goldstein, not just to these authors, but to Boswell.

So I have known Bill forever, or so it seems at this point in my life. We actually met when we were both in college, in New York, between our freshman and sophomore years. We met at a youth group, where coordinators would bring us together to, well, in the language of the times, rap. I met a lot of other kids at this program, but Bill and I clicked and remained close friends. And as an aside, my friend from college who dragged me to the group also wrote a book, about managing global health through innovative solutions in the developing world. So apparently I've always found good company with writers, even when I didn't know they were writers at the time.

I remember two things about Bill from his college years. He was obsessed with Publishers Weekly and had been reading it since he was a kid. And he was obsessed with Proust, the subject of his senior thesis in college. (editor's note: No, he wasn't! His senior thesis was on George Eliot. His close friend Scott was the Proustian. He didn't read all of Proust until grad school.) One has to put this in perspective - the book he went on to write is about a bunch of people obsessing over Proust. I find that fascinating. And yet I haven't written a book about the failed marriage of James Taylor and Carly Simon, so apparently not all teenage obsessions play out in the rest of our lives.

One of the things that we bonded over was our shared love of the written word. I will always be grateful to Bill for recommending Barbara Pym to me. And can you believe it? The New York Times did yet another story about her continuing influence in "The Enthusiast" column. I was very happy to read Matthew Schneier's essay, particularly because it singled out A Glass of Blessings, which is my favorite, but partly because it was the first Pym I read. And you know how it is about firsts.

We kept in touch. We wrote letters to each other. Remember letters? And then we graduated. I was desperately scrambling for a job. I toyed with the idea of the music industry (Bill's obsession with Publishers Weekly was paralleled by mine with Billboard), but for practical reasons, I focused on trying to get a job in advertising and, because I had a math degree, market research. I had a few interviews, but nothing was coming together. At this point, Bill, who to no one's surprise, was now working at Publishers Weekly, told me about an opening at Warner Books, a mass market house. Because their publicity department was structured as part of an in-house ad agency (for tax purposes, I assume), it would look great on my resume. And because they owned not one, but three record companies, I might have an in to transfer. It made sense.

I was offered the job. And after a time, I decided I liked the book part more than the advertising part. And a few lunches with friends who had similar entry-level jobs at the record companies (yes, that's what we called them in those days) confirmed that much as I loved music, I was more of a book person. So that's how my life in the book world began. And I really think that if it were not for Bill Goldstein, I might not be here today, at Boswell.

So that's only one of the reasons why I want to have a really great event with Bill when he comes to Boswell on Monday, September 11. But the other reason is because I know how enjoyable this evening is going to be and you're going to be sad if you miss out. So many of you tell us how much you love the classics, and Goldstein's book brings the authors behind several of the classics you most love to vibrant life.

Here's my recommendation: "Bill Goldstein’s history of this period, is an intensely researched, beautifully woven literary history, or perhaps it might be fairer to call it a group biography, focusing on a moment when everything changed, and modernism began to pervade the cultural consciousness. It’s an intimate and personal journey, and at the same time, a light into the creative minds of the day, sort of a nonfiction version of Colm Toibin’s The Master. The World Broke in Two made me want to drop everything and read each of the authors highlighted in the story." (Daniel Goldin)

But you're probably thinking, now that we know about Daniel's long-time friendship with Bill, how can we trust him? So here's one from Boswellian Conrad Silverberg: "Some years mark a stark division, separating what comes before from what comes after in uncompromising and irreversible terms: 1776, 1865, 1945 are obvious examples. For literature, 1922 is such a year. Bookended by the February publishing of James Joyce's Ulysses, considered by many to be the single greatest novel in the English language, and the translation of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time in the Fall, the year marks a clean break from traditional forms of linear narrative storytelling, and plunges us deep into the psychological explorations and innovative structures of modernist writing. As Willa Cather reflected in 1936, "The world broke in two in 1922 or thereabouts". Goldstein's book is a lively, nuanced, and utterly enthralling tale of how this break affected four writers in particular: Virginia Wolff, TS Eliot, EM Forester and DH Lawrence, who all struggled with and found renewed inspiration from this new world."

Or why not take the advice of Jane Glaser, another Boswell bookseller?: "I am so impressed with the research and detail that author Bill Goldstein put into The World Broke in Two that I feel as though I've been transported back to 1922 on a literary journey where I'm sitting at a roundtable discussion with Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, T.S. Eliot and D.H. Lawrence as they share the intense struggles they're having in trying to break out of writer's ‘inanition’ and meet the war weary readership whose world has been changed forever. This is an engaging and enlightening view into the birth of modernism in literature and is the best nonfiction I've read this year."

We have two more booksellers reading The World Broke in Two. No quotes from them yet, but maybe soon. So now it feels like time for an ending to this post. How about "If you love classic literature, you've got to read The World Broke in Two?" Eh, sort of sells the whole thing short, but endings are tough. Ask any writer. Hope to see you on September 11, which I just learned is D.H. Lawrence's birthday!"

Annotated Boswell bestsellers, week ending August 26, 2017: Sometimes a prize nominee is a big deal, and other times, winning it is not as good as a book club discussion. Plus, "Put an Eiffel Tower on it, part 700." Plus the Journal Sentinel TapBooks page.

Presenting the annotated Boswell Bestsellers for the week ending August 26, 2017

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Y Is for Yesterday, by Sue Grafton (and what after Z?)
2. A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
3. The Readymade Thief, by Augustus Rose
4. Mrs. Fletcher, by Tom Perrotta
5. Meddling Kids, by Edgar Cantero
6. Home Fire, by Kamila Shamsie
7. Sulfur Springs, by William Kent Krueger
8. Stay with Me, by Ayobami Adebayo
9. Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders
10. Hum if You Don't Know the Words, by Bianca Marais

Kamila Shamsie's latest, Home Fire, is already longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Rick Simonson from Elliot Bay in Seattle wrote for his Indie Next review: "One of the finest writers at work in English today, Kamila Shamsie has written her most heartbreaking, beautiful, necessary book yet.” And Vanessa Thorpe writes in The Guardian: "Inspired by the conflict between love and moral duty in Sophocles’s play Antigone, it tells of a tightly knit trio of orphaned siblings, sensible elder sister Isma and the headstrong twins Aneeka and Parvaiz, who are divided by romance, sex and the vampiric forces of Islamist fundamentalism."

Once again, I'm a big fan of this Riverhead book jacket.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan (Egan at On the Issues Wed Sep 6 at Noon. May be room left)
2. Al Franken, Giant of the Senate, by Al Franken
3. Theft by Finding, by David Sedaris (Sedaris was on Paula Poundstone's podcast Aug 5)
4. Hillbilly Elegy, by J.D. Vance
5. Why Buddhism Is True, by Robert Wright
6. When Breath Becomes Air, by Paula Kalanithi
7. Surfaces and Essences, by Douglas Hofstadter
8. Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari
9. Wisconsin Supper Clubs: Another Round, by Ron Faiola
10. The World Broke in Two, by Bill Goldstein (event Mon Sep 11, 7 pm, at Boswell)

Here's a recommendation for Bill Goldstein's The World Broke in Two from Boswell's Conrad Silverberg: "Some years mark a stark division, separating what comes before from what comes after in uncompromising and irreversible terms: 1776, 1865, 1945 are obvious examples. For literature, 1922 is such a year. Bookended by the February publishing of James Joyce's Ulysses, considered by many to be the single greatest novel in the English language, and the translation of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time in the fall, the year marks a clean break from traditional forms of linear narrative storytelling, and plunges us deep into the psychological explorations and innovative structures of modernist writing. As Willa Cather reflected in 1936, 'The world broke in two in 1922 or thereabouts.' Goldstein's book is a lively, nuanced, and utterly enthralling tale of how this break affected four writers in particular: Virginia Wolff, TS Eliot, EM Forester and DH Lawrence, who all struggled with and found renewed inspiration from this new world."

Paperback Fiction:
1. Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi
2. Commonwealth, by Ann Patchett
3. Do Not Bring Him Water, by Caitlin Scarano
4. Funhouse, by Robert Vaughan
5. Lilac Girls, by Martha Hall Kelly
6. News of the World, by Paulette Jiles
7. Still Life, by Louise Penny (two formats)
8. Behold the Dreamers, by Imbolo Mbue (more below)
9. Karolina's Twins, by Ronald H. Balson (Two events Tue Oct 24 at Ovation Chai Point 3 pm, and Boswell 7 pm)
10. The Sarbonne Affair, by Mark Pryor

You know the old saying: "Put an Eiffel Tower on the jacket and it twice as likely to sell at Boswell." And so I call attention to The Sorbonne Affair, the first mystery novel featuring Hugo Marston since The Bookseller, Pryor's debut, to feature the edifice, and the first in my knowledge to hit our top ten for the week. The series hook is that Hugo Marston is head of security for the U.S. Embassy in Paris. Several of the plots reviolve around authors, bookstores, and libraries - the previous book in the series is The Paris Librarian. David Hendricks in The San Antonio Express-News wrote "Pryor’s easygoing prose style and the witty, smart dialogue makes the story compelling and entertaining."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Evicted, by Matthew Desmond
2. The Magnificent Machines of Milwaukee, by Thomas H. Fehring
3. Against Everything, by Mark Greif
4. Stop Anxiety from Stopping You, by Helen Odessky (event with REDgen Sun Sep 17, 3 pm)
5. Blood in the Water, by Heather Ann Thompson (event at Turner Hall Mon Nov 6, 7 pm)
6. At the Existentialist Cafe, by Sara Bakewell
7. Writers Market 2018: The Most Trusted Guide to Getting Published, by Writers Digest
8. A Crowded Hour, Kevin Abing
9. Preservation, by Christina Ward
10. Live and Let Live, by Evelyn M. Perry

After a nice hardcover run, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Others has a nice pop in sales for the paperback. Bakewell also wrote How to Live, a book about Montaigne we're featuring for Michael Perry's event for his Montaigne in Barn Boots on November 14, 7 pm, at Boswell. Janet Maslin in The New York Times called Bakewell's work "a bracingly fresh look at once-antiquated ideas and the milieu in which they flourished" and it went on to be one of their ten best books of 2016.

Books for Kids
1. Such a Pretty Face, by Ann Angel
2. The Book of Dares for Lost Friends, by Jane Kelley
3. Things I'll Never Say, by Ann Angel
4. The Desperate Adventures of Zeno and Alya, by Jane Kelley
5. Nature Girl, by Jane Kelley
6. The Girl Behind the Glass, by Jane Kelley
7. The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas
8. Octo-Man and the Headless Monster, by Jane Kelley
9. Sol-Ray Man and the Freaky Flood, by Jane Kelley
10. Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo

Milwaukee-raised author Jane Kelley had a new early chapter book series from Grosset and Dunlap this spring called The Escapades of Clint McCool. The first two in the series are Octo-Man and the Headless Monster and Sol-Ray Man and the Freaky Flood. This week we had an order for the library binding (effectively hardcover) editions of the books for a school, but that's a great opportunity to give a shout out for the paperbacks, which I've linked to above. In the first book, Clint McCool runs into Octo-Man on the set of his new movie and has lot of ideas to improve the project, but gets a valuable lesson in processing one idea at a time.

Here's what's happening on the TapBooks page of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Book editor Jim Higgins is a fan of the young adult edition of Far From the Tree: How Children and Their Parent Learn to Accept One Another...Our Differences Unite Us. Higgins writes: "Published in 2012, Far From the Tree won a National Book Critics Circle award and other honors for its seriously researched exploration of how families raised children with disabilities and differences, including deafness, dwarfism, Down syndrome and autism. Now Simon and Schuster has published a young-adult edition of Solomon's valuable book. Working with adapter Laurie Calkhoven, an experienced writer for children, Solomon has slimmed the text and moved the extensive footnotes and bibliography sections online." Read this enthusiastic recommendation for this new edition of Solomon's book.

Charisse Jones writes about Rabbit: The Autobiography of Ms. Pat, the memoir of comedian Patricia Williams written with Jeannine Amber. In this review that was originalliy published in USA Today, Jones writes "With deadpan humor and more than a little profanity, Williams introduces us to the cast of characters that peopled her itinerant childhood in Atlanta." The message is to aim for the stars: "No matter what kind of hard times you face, remember you can do anything and be anything you want in life. All you have to do is dream."

And finally, here is Laurie Hertzel interviewing Imbolo Mbue about her novel, Behold the Dreamers, which is not just an Oprah's Book Club Pick, but the winner of the Pen/Faulkner Prize (which, by the way, was knocked off the front of the jacket once Oprah came a calling). Here's Mbue talking about how her image of America has changed: "My view of America before coming here was fairly naive, largely informed by movies and TV shows. It didn’t take long after I arrived here to learn that most people did not have the kind of wealth I saw on Dallas or Dynasty. That said, I still very much believe that this is a country of tremendous opportunity — that is the reason why millions around the world aspire to someday arrive here to achieve their dreams." To me, the most interesting aspect of the article, originally from the Star Tribune, is learning that Barnes and Noble, at least in Edina, is now doing true ticket-with-book events. I've seen "must by ticket to get on the signing line" but not this. Did they close the store for the event? Must find out!

One last post on "The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue" and how it connects to our store's namesake

Last week I was at Boswell talking to a YA library about what books he'd liked this year. #1 on his list, as it's been for many, was The Hate U Give. But almost immediately after that he mentioned The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue. And while we were talking, one of our other customers, who teaches high school English, joined in on the conversation. The ears perk up when you discuss an 18th century novel about two boys who are maybe in love and a girl who is secretly studying medicine.

You've heard me talking about The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue this season already, mostly because we hosted an event with author Mackenzi Lee in June, when she appeared with Brittany Cavallaro, author of A Study in Charlotte and The Last of August. Fans of Cavallaro's will be excited to know that the final book in the trilogy, The Case for Jamie, releases March 6, 2018. Lee, who also wrote This Monstrous Thing, also has a book coming out in March 2018, but it's completely different; Bygone Badass Broads: 52 Forgotten Women Who Changed the World is based on her social media series. Pub date is March 13!

Our sales rep Jenny Sheridan (whom you last met touting Orphan Island, and I'm sure you've noticed it keeps popping up on our bestseller list) offered this fascinating insight into selling the book: "We have seen a plethora of retellings for middle grade and teen readers of the Sherlock Holmes stories, but have yet to see someone attempt to translate the delightful P G Wodehouse hero Bertie Wooster. Monty Montague is the closest I've seen. When the novel opens, Monty is totally psyched to begin his months-long tour of 18th century Europe with his life-long bestie/secret crush, the delicious coffee-colored Percy. Visions of debauchery dance in his pretty head. Then he learns that his father has other plans for the trip and all fun bets are off. When the boys set out, with a humorless chaperone and a sullen younger sister in tow, there seem to be no adventures on the horizon. Fast forward to sympathetic pirates and a sinking island and lots more crazy stuff and a sincerely sweet romance between the boys and you have a wonderful read that YA fans will really dig. This struck me as one of those rare books that effectively uses middle-grade plot techniques to advance a YA plot." I love this last insight!

And how about this starred Booklist?: "Tongue-in-cheek, wildly entertaining, and anachronistic in only the most delightful ways, this is a gleeful romp through history. Monty is a hero worthy of Oscar Wilde ( What's the use of temptations if we don't yield to them? ), his sister Felicity is a practical, science-inclined wonder, and his relationship with Percy sings. Modern-minded as this may be, Lee has clearly done invaluable research on society, politics, and the reality of same-sex relationships in the eighteenth century. Add in a handful of pirates and a touch of alchemy for an adventure that's an undeniable joy."

The truth of the matter is that I never read the Lee's book. By the time we'd scheduled the event, all our advance reading copioes had disappeared, and with my to-be-read table piled high, and me not being the best advocate for YA novels, I sort of let it go. But then a funny thing happened. I was spending the day in Boston, on my way to meet up with my sister and brother-in-law to go back to Worcester, and I decided to go to Trident Booksellers and Cafe, the store in Boston where Mackenzi (or rather, Mackenzie) works.

The store, on Newbury Street in Boston's Back Bay, is bustling, due to its reputation not just as a bookstore, but as an eatery. There's another Trident Booksellers and Cafe in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but I don't think they are related. There's another one in Boulder on Pearl Street. I usually think of Boulder Book Store when I think of bookstores in Boulder, but I noted in the forthcoming Nick Petrie novel (Light It Up) that the bookstore he referenced had a cafe and was too small to be the store I thought it was. I guess this solves that question. This begs the question, why are there three Tridents in North America and why do all of them have cafes? Yes, there are other Boswells too, but I our name is a direct literary reference, though the one in Massachusetts did tell me it was actually the name of the original cat in the store.

After browsing the shelves, I wound up being drawn to their pile of The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, and I couldn't help but support a bookseller-author and bought my copy. I spent the next couple of days reading the book. I can only imagine what it would have been like for me to read a book like this when I was a teenager.

But here's the really crazy thing. As I was reading Lee's novel, I saw a reference to Boswell, and I thought, could this be our Boswell? And then later in the notes, Lee wrote about the Grand Tour: "In its simplest definition, the Grand Tour was a journey through the prominent cities of Europe, undertaken by upper-middle- and upper-class young men, usually after completing their formal education. The traditiona flourished from the 1660s to the 1840s, and is often credted as the birth of modern tourism." And later on she recommended "one of the most through primary accounts of the life of a young man on his Grand Tour, the journals of James Boswell (who Monty anachronistically impersonates - the real James Boswell wasn't born until 1740, but I couldn't resist playing homage to my favorite source."

I feel so silly! How did I miss mentioning that not only are we named after James Boswell, but that we have a display case featuring works by and about the author, including several works that cover his Grand Tour? Well, better late than never to acknowledge the connection. And as soon as I read Boswell's Life of Johnson, I'll get started on Boswell's journals.

By the way, if you want to know whether there's a sequel to The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, you'll be thrilled to know that The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy is said to be scheduled for 2018.

Event Alert: All the Great Books (Abridged) talk and scene preview on Wednesday, Augustus Rose with his Duchamp-inspired thriller on Tuesday, plus Robert Vaughan, Ben Tanzer, Caitlin Scarano, and Lee L. Krecklow tonight for "Mircro & Memoir, Poetry & Prose"

Monday, August 21, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Micro & Memoir, Poetry & Prose: Robert Vaughan, author of Funhouse, Ben Tanzer, author of Be Cool, Caitlin Scarano, author of Do Not Bring Him Water, and Lee L. Krecklow, author of The Expanse Between

Micro: Robert Vaughan leads roundtables at Red Oak Writing in Milwaukee. He also teaches workshops in hybrid writing, dialogue, and playwriting at places like The Clearing in Door County. He was the co-founder of Flash Fiction Fridays, a radio program on WUWM, where he premiered local flash fiction writers, and also featured writers from America and abroad. His new collection Funhouse is a delightful creative take on the form of short stories. Kirkus Reviews calls Funhouse “a highly entertaining and thought-provoking read.”

Memoir: Chicago-based Ben Tanzer is the author of Orphans, which won the 24th Annual Midwest Book Award, Lost in Space, and The New York Stories. He has also contributed to Punk Planet, Clamor, and Men's Health, serves as Senior Director, Acquisitions for Curbside Spendor. Tanzer’s Be Cool turns the microscope on the human phenomenon of being cool. With snapshot looks and comical insights into why humans are always stressing their cool factor, Tanzer explores his own experiences in a work that Wendy Ortiz calls “fresh, deep, funny, and unexpected.”

Poetry: Caitlin Scarano is from Milwaukee, at least for now, where she is completing a PhD in poetry. She has an MFA from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and was the winner of the 2015 Indiana Review Poetry Prize. Her work can be found in the Best New Poets 2016 and The Best Small Fictions 2016 anthologies. Her forthcoming collection, Do Not Bring Him Water, focuses on the lines that separate life’s clashing dualities and how delicious and dangerous it can be to walk them.

Prose: Milwaukee-area writer Lee L. Krecklow’s debut novel is The Expanse Between. Krecklow earned the 2016 South Million Writers Award for his short story “The Son of Summer and Eli.” Other stories have appeared in Oxford Magazine, Midwestern Gothic, and The Madison. His new novel tells the story of a reclusive writer desperate for inspiration. The writer obsessively begins to watch his neighbor for details of her life, but when her life takes a turn he doesn’t like he’ll take matters into his own hands to keep the story on track.

Tuesday, August 22, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Augustus Rose, author of The Readymade Thief

A thriller inspired by the works of Marcel Duchamp? Why not? Duchamp changed the course of modern art by submitting a urinal to an influential art show. While rejected, that urinal was then photographed by Alfred Stieglitz, helping make the said urinal a cause celebre. You can read the whole story here.

So it's not hard to imagine that one of Duchamp's other artworks might contain untold secrest. Augustus Rose tellst the story in The Readymade Thief, which was named an Indies Introduce title for summer/fall 2017. Betrayed by her family after taking the fall for a friend, 17-year-old Lee finds refuge in a cooperative of runaways holed up in an abandoned building they call the Crystal Castle. But the facade of the Castle conceals a far more sinister agenda, one hatched by a society of fanatical men set on decoding a series of powerful secrets hidden in plain sight. And they believe Lee holds the key to it all.

We’ve had four great reads on The Readymade Thief, with our buyer Jason calling it “such a great journey!” and Boswellian Kay praising it as “a very unusual, totally engaging thriller.” In addition, Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore wrote: "The Readymade Thief is my favorite kind of book: an improbable one. The novel is a map of things - urban exploration, secret societies, the city of Philadelphia, Marcel Duchamp, very possibly the Home Alone movies - and if those things don't seem to fit together, well, that's the magic of the improbable book, and the transmutation of obsessions, by energy and intellect, into something wholly new: a novel that's unexpected, uncategorizable, unputdownable."

About the Author: Augustus Rose is a novelist and screenwriter who teaches fiction writing at the University of Chicago.

Wednesday, August 23, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
In Tandem Theatre prevents a talk about and scene preview of All the Great Books (Abridged)

After hosting two playwrights this summer, it's time to get serious about fall theater. Here's a little more about a particularly bookish production.

Join us for a scene preview from In Tandem Theatre as they present All the Great Books! (Abridged). An English class eagerly awaits graduation until they realize they haven’t passed their final exam! The drama professor, student teacher, and gym coach team up to get them through all the great works of literature – in 90 minutes flat - as the literary canon explodes in this hilarious, high-energy comedy!

All the Great Books (Abridged) opens at the Tenth Street Theatre on Thursday October 5th 2017. The play is directed by Chris Flieller and features actors: Ryan Schabach (professor), Chris Goode (student teacher), and Doug Jarecki (coach). Purchase tickets for the play here.

In Tandem Theatre partnering with Literacy Services of Wisconsin (LSW) to collect books during the production's run. Illiteracy is no laughing matter, but donating great books can be a fun way to help support non-readers in our community.

Annotated Boswell bestsellers (including one that isn't quite out yet), week ending August 19, 2017

Here's what's been selling at Boswell this past week.

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Girl on the Leeside, by Kathleen Anne Kenney
2. A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
3. House of Spies, by Daniel Silva
4. The Readymade Thief, by Augustus Rose (event at Boswell Tue Aug 22, 7 pm)
5. Sleeping in the Ground, by Peter Robinson
6. Mrs. Fletcher, by Tom Perrotta
7. The Late Show, by Michael Connelly
8. The Store, by James Patterson
9. The Essex Serpent, by Sarah Perry
10. Girl in Snow, by Danya Kukafka

Danya Kukafka's day job is assistant editor at Riverhead Books, which can help if you're looking for folks to read your book early. Among her champions are Brit Bennett, Owen King, and Lee Child, who calls Girl in Snow "A sensational debut--great characters, mysteries within mysteries, and page-turning pace. Highly recommended." The story chronicles the death of a Colorado teen from the perspective of two fellow students and the policeman investigating the case. Boswellian Todd Wellman noted that this book is a great YA crossover, and Kakafka notes that her earlier work was even more YA focused, per this piece in Shelf Awareness.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. The Long Haul, by Finn Murphy
2. Why Buddhism Is True, by Robert Wright
3. Al Franken, Giant of the Senate, by Al Franken
4. Hillbilly Elegy, by J.D. Vance
5. The World Broke in Two, by Bill Goldstein (event at Boswell Mon Sept 11, 7 pm)
6. We Have No Idea, by Jorge Cham
7. Caesar's Last Breath, by Sam Kean
8. Everybody Lies, by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
9. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan
10. We Thought This Was a Good Idea, by Alyssa Mastromonaco

From the award-winning science writer andauthor of The Disappearing Spoon comes Caesar's Last Breath: Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us. Of this latest, Kirkus Reviews call this "a witty book that turns the science of the stuff we breathe into a delightful romp through history." Finally, someone writing for chemistry majors - why should physics and biology folks have all the fun?

Paperback Fiction:
1. Lilac Girls, by Martha Hall Kelly
2. The Trespasser, by Tana French
3. All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr
4. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
5. The Stone Sky, by Nik Jemisin
6. Commonwealth, by Ann Patchett
7. Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi
8. Underground Airlines, by Ben Winters
9. Man of Shadows, by Jeff Noon (SF Book Club, Mon Nov 13, 7 pm)
10. Escapology, by Ren Warom (SF Book Club, Mon Sep 11, 7 pm)

Like Louise Penny, it sometimes appears that Tana French's reviews get better than better. The Trespasser hit many best-of lists for the year, and we're not talking about "best mystery" but "best novel" here. Among its champions are Maureen Corrigan and Stephen King. Boswellian Sharon Nagel had the Indie Next quote for this one, which you can read in full on our link. Janet Maslin noted in The New York Times: "When you read Ms. French — and she has become required reading for anyone who appreciates tough, unflinching intelligence and ingenious plotting — make only one assumption: All of your initial assumptions are wrong."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Beer Lover's Wisconsin, by Kathy Flanigan
2. Evicted, by Matthew Desmond
3. Stamped from the Beginning, by Ibram X Kendi
4. Stop Anxiety from Stopping You, by Helen Odessky (event at Boswell Sun Sep 17, 3 pm, with REDgen)
5. Thousand-Miler, by Melanie Radzicki McManus
6. Rand McNally Road Altas 2018
7. Cream City Chronicles, by John Gurda
8. Against Everything, by Mark Greif
9. Come As You Are, by Emily Nagoski
10. Optimism Over Despair, by Noam Chomsky

Beer Lovers Wisconsin is not quite out yet but we took advance orders. Usually I unsell these into an advance sale item code and release the sales when the book comes out, but in this case, I did not. The point is that we're taking preorders.

Speaking of great reviews, Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America got many of them, and also recieved the National Book Award for nonfiction. Among his admirers is David Olusoga, who cautions in The Guardian that Kendi's work does not hesitate to call out racial thinking in abolitionists and even Civil Rights heroes: "Perhaps what is most disturbing about Kendi’s work is that it shows how the same racial ideas, dressed in different period costumes, have been repeatedly used to explain away the deaths of generations of African Americans, slaves, victims of Jim Crow lynchings and, in the 21st-century, casualties of police shootings."

Books for Kids:
1. Handbook of Mortals, by Lani Sarem
2. The Absolutely Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
3. Wonderstruck, by Brian Selznick
4. Echo, by Pam Munoz Ryan
5. Piecing Me Together, by Renee Watson
6. Empty, by Suzanne Weyne
7. The Crossover, by Kwame Alexander
8. Orphan Island, by Laurel Snyder
9. The Gauntlet, by Karuna Riazi
10. Prisoner 88, by Leah Pileggi

Wonderstruck is releasing to the general public on October 20. Here's what Variety noted: "Haynes’s film stars Julianne Moore in the story of two children — one in the 1970s, one in the 1920s — whose stories overlap on separate journeys to Manhattan. The New York Film Festival is considered a key launchpad for films that become a part of the awards-season conversation, and the high profile slot for Wonderstruck there could boost the title as it hits the campaign trail. Hayne’s last film, Carol, screened at NYFF in 2015 and was nominated for six Oscars. Wonderstruck is based on a 2011 novel by Brian Selznick, whose previous book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, was the inspiration for Martin Scorsese’s 2011 movie Hugo, which got its first public showcase as a secret screening at NYFF that year."

The lead review in the Journal Sentinel TAPbooks section is for a beloved Nobel Prize winner. Critic Mike Fischer writes: "On the surface, Orhan Pamuk's latest - a fable masquerading as a novel entitled The Red-Haired Woman - is an explorationn of 'the enigma of fathers and sons' that has always tangled love-hate relationship that Freud, in an essay referenced here, viewed as mysterious." Later on Fischer notes that "Turkey's slide toward dictatorship under Recep Tayyip Erdogan's nominally democratic regine is very much on Pamuk's mind..."

Bill Daley looks at What She Ate: Six Remarkable Woman and the Food That Tells Their Stories. The Daley details: "Learning Larua Shapiro's new book on women and food includes the stories of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt was marked by some of the worst White House meals ever; Eva Braun, Adolf Hitler's mistress; and Helen Gurley Brown...left me startled. It's sort of like klaudinng the Lucrezia Borgia of poisonous legent for a deft hand with seasoning." But he notes the book turns out to be quite fun. This review originally appeared in Chicago Tribune.

And finally, Marion Winik called Tom Perrotta "the Jane Austen of 21st-century sexual mores" in her review: "I loved the characters of Tom Perrotta’s new novel, Mrs. Fletcher, but I was worried about them. After all, they’re in a social satire by the author of The Leftovers, Little Children, and Election, and they’re making mistakes and misbehaving right and left — surely they’d have to pay. So convinced was I that comeuppance was at hand that the surprise happy ending almost brought me to tears." Likewise, this review kind of brought me to tears. Originally published in Newsday.

Bookstore road trip: A visit to Seminary Coop and Robie House

This summer my niece Jocelyn was in Chicago for some field training. What a great opportunity to meet up! If I were able to convince her to do a bookstore visit, so much the better.

Being that her program was at the Illinois Institute of Technology, she thought it might be fun to go to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House, especially as we’ve already done some Frank Lloyd Wright tourism together, coordinating a trip to the Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio in Oak Park, and another to Fallingwater outside Pittsburgh.

Since we were already close, we decided to head to Seminary Coop first, and then figure out how to get to Robie House afterwards. I had been to the Coop in their old location underground, but this was my first visit to the now-not-so-new store. We wound up having a little tea and a snack in the café, where we almost immediately ran into Jeff, the director. And then we started looking for Robie House, only to realize it was right next door. We were actually staring at it.

There are lots of great bookstores in Chicago that are worth a side visit, but Seminary is a bookstore where I could see many a book lover planning a trip to Chicago and a side-trip to Chicago to see everything else. They continue to have great depth in their academic sections. If you like history, philosophy, theology—any number of disciplines—you will likely find a number of gems in your field of interest that you didn’t previously know about. While we spent a lot of time browsing, I spent extra time looking at urban planning (or maybe it was studies), mathematics, and foodways (which I think is the academic way of saying cooking literature). We spotted this copy of The Eater’s Guide to Chinese Characters, a University of Chicago Press book from 2004, which we had to highlight, being that Jocelyn and her family have a lot of connections to China.

One thing I loved about their fiction was their attention to series. Their Library of America case was quite imposing; it was something we had at Harry W. Schwartz back in the 1980s, but I think I understand more the importance of the series. In these days of disposability, the Library of American hardcovers are printed with high quality paper that will last when other books’ pages yellow and crumble.

Similarly, I have admired the P.G. Wodehouse hardcover titles from Overlook, and while I passed on them when I was a buyer, I am thinking about them differently, and wonder if they might just work as a collectible. I was just as surprised to see a very nice assortment of David Lodge’s novels, these being in paperback. I wondered how well they were selling to a book friend and he considered Lodge is the probably the favorite writer of academics of a certain age. Nobody really captured the quirks of the profession better.

The store was doing major section moves over the summer. There were very nice notes explaining where the sections were moving, and sometimes why.

We enjoyed browsing the tables of their bargain books and finally settled on two for Jocelyn – Eugenia Cheng’s How to Bake Pi and Simon Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman. And then it was off the fifty feet or so to Robie House. The tour is great, filled with lots of history. Unlike some tours of this sort, the work is in progress with the room sometimes a bit bare. Philosophical guessed there is some hesitancy of using reproductions, but more practically, the space might still be used for university functions and needs to be regularly cleared out. Tickets are $18, with discounts for students. Can you imagine there was a time when you could rent a Robie House apartment?

Back at Boswell the next week, I was chatting a customer (Steve) who had just special ordered a Loeb Modern Classic. I asked if this was his first, and said no, he’d completely fallen in love with the series after studying Greek. I asked if he’d been to Seminary Coop. He said no. I showed him a photo of the store, specifically the case of Loeb titles. He said, “I’m going tomorrow.” And you know what? I haven’t seen him since; I think he moved in under the floorboards.

Boswell event preview: Trucking wtih Finn Murphy Tuesday, Kathleen Anne Kenney's Irish tale on Wednesday, Kathy Flanigan's Wisconsin beer tales on Thursday, plus previews for events next Monday and Tuesday

Tuesday, August 15, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Finn Murphy, author of The Long Haul: A Trucker's Tales of Life on the Road

Boswell is pleased to host the 45’ Wrapped Truck Tour. Finn Murphy offers up a long-haul mover's rollicking account of life out on the Big Slab. Since the time Murphy dropped out of college thirty years ago, he’s covered more than a million miles packing, loading, and hauling people's belongings all over America. And boy has he got some stories!

Murphy offers a trucker's eye view of America on the move. Going far beyond the myth of the American road trip, he whisks readers down the I-95 Powerlane, across the Florida Everglades, in and out of the truck stops of the Midwest, and through the steep grades of the Rocky Mountains. As he crisscrosses the country, Murphy recounts with wit, candor, and charm the America he has seen change over the decades, from the hollowing-out of small towns to changing tastes in culture and home furnishings.

Michael Perry, author of Population 485, Truck: A Love Story, and the forthcoming Montaigne in Barn Boots, offers this recommendation: “Finn Murphy is my kind of intelligent roughneck. He deploys a keen eye, frank tongue, and muscular thought to show us how the upper class and the working class are acting when they think no one is watching.”

Jim Higgins offered his take on The Long Haul in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Wednesday, August 16, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
An Irish Fest Literary Corner preview with Kathleen Anne Kenney, author of Girl on the Leeside

The Irish Fest Literary Corner always offers a great selection of Irish and Irish-American authors. This year’s lineup features Tony Macaulay, author of the memoir Paper Boy; Rex Owens, with Out of Darkness, a thriller set during the troubles; Valerie Biel with a YA trilogy based on Celtic mythology; John Sexton and his memoir Big Yank; and Michael McCarthy, with a saga about the Irish immigrant experience. Tonight we’re featuring one of those authors, Kathleen Anne Kenney, with a special preview event.

Siobhan Doyle grew up with her Uncle Kee at their family pub, the Leeside, in rural Ireland. Kee has been staunchly overprotective of Siobhan ever since her mother's death, but now that she's an adult, it's clear that in protecting her, Kee has unwittingly kept her in a state of arrested development. The pair are content to remain forever in their quiet haven, reading and discussing Irish poetry, but for both Siobhan and Kee, fate intervenes. A visiting American literary scholar awakens Siobhan to the possibility of a fulfilling life away from the Leeside. In the face of these changes, Siobhan reaches a surprising decision about her future.

Edward Rutherfurd says, "In its hauntingly evocative Irish setting, this is a book suffused with poetry--real poetry. It is a book of awakenings of every kind, and of moving surprises. Like all good stories, as this local tale unfolds it becomes universal."

And Katie Noah writes in Shelf Awareness: "Quiet, lyrical and sprinkled with verses of the Irish poetry Siobhan loves, Girl on the Leeside is a slim, beautiful debut about one woman taking her place in the world."

Former Wauwatosa resident Kathleen Anne Kenney is an author, freelance writer, and playwright. Her writing has appeared in Big River, Coulee Region Women, and Ireland of the Welcomes. Her play New Menu was a winner in the 2012 Rochester Repertory Theatre's national short-play competition. She is currently at work on a novel based on her 2014 stage play, The Bootleg Blues.

Thursday, August 17, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Kathy Flanigan, author of Beer Lover's Wisconsin: Best Breweries, Brewpubs and Beer Bars

It looks like we're cutting it very close for Beer Lover's Wisconsin. The books may not arrive in time, but we're going to host the program anyway.

Quality beer producers are popping up all over the nation, but you don't have to travel far to taste great beer. Some of the best stuff is brewing right in your home state. Beer Lover's Wisconsin features breweries, brewpubs, and beer bars statewide for those seeking the best beers the Badger State has to offer - from bitter, citrusy IPAs to rich, complex stouts.

Written by a beer expert, Beer Lover's Wisconsin covers the entire beer experience for the local enthusiast and the traveling drinker alike, including information on breweries and beer profiles with tasting notes, must-visit brewpubs and beer bars, top annual festivals and events, and city pub crawl itineraries with maps.

Kathy Flanigan is a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and TapMilwaukee.com, for which she covers the region’s craft-beer community.

Monday, August 21, 7:00 pm, at Boswell: Micro & Memoir, Poetry & Prose: Robert Vaughan, author of Funhouse, Ben Tanzer, author of Be Cool, Caitlin Scarano, author of Do Not Bring Him Water, and Lee L. Krecklow, author of The Expanse Between

Micro: Robert Vaughan leads roundtables at Red Oak Writing in Milwaukee. He also teaches workshops in hybrid writing, dialogue, and playwriting at places like The Clearing in Door County. He was the co-founder of Flash Fiction Fridays, a radio program on WUWM, where he premiered local flash fiction writers, and also featured writers from America and abroad. His new collection Funhouse is a delightful creative take on the form of short stories. Kirkus Reviews calls Funhouse “a highly entertaining and thought-provoking read.”

Memoir: Chicago-based Ben Tanzer is the author of Orphans, which won the 24th Annual Midwest Book Award, Lost in Space, and The New York Stories. He has also contributed to Punk Planet, Clamor, and Men's Health, serves as Senior Director, Acquisitions for Curbside Spendor. Tanzer’s Be Cool turns the microscope on the human phenomenon of being cool. With snapshot looks and comical insights into why humans are always stressing their cool factor, Tanzer explores his own experiences in a work that Wendy Ortiz calls “fresh, deep, funny, and unexpected.”

Poetry: Caitlin Scarano is from Milwaukee, at least for now, where she is completing a PhD in poetry. She has an MFA from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and was the winner of the 2015 Indiana Review Poetry Prize. Her work can be found in the Best New Poets 2016 and The Best Small Fictions 2016 anthologies. Her new collection, Do Not Bring Him Water, focuses on the lines that separate life’s clashing dualities and how delicious and dangerous it can be to walk them.

Prose: Milwaukee-area writer Lee L. Krecklow’s debut novel is The Expanse Between. Krecklow earned the 2016 South Million Writers Award for his short story “The Son of Summer and Eli.” Other stories have appeared in Oxford Magazine, Midwestern Gothic, and The Madison. His new novel tells the story of a reclusive writer desperate for inspiration. The writer obsessively begins to watch his neighbor for details of her life, but when her life takes a turn he doesn’t like he’ll take matters into his own hands to keep the story on track.

Tuesday, August 22, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Augustus Rose, author of The Readymade Thief

Boswell presents an evening with Augustus Rose, the first novelist whose debut was named an Indies Introduce title by the American Booksellers Association. Betrayed by her family after taking the fall for a friend, 17-year-old Lee finds refuge in a cooperative of runaways holed up in an abandoned building they call the Crystal Castle. But the facade of the Castle conceals a far more sinister agenda, one hatched by a society of fanatical men set on decoding a series of powerful secrets hidden in plain sight. And they believe Lee holds the key to it all.

We’ve had four great reads on The Readymade Thief, with our buyer Jason calling it “such a great journey!” and Boswellian Kay praising it as “a very unusual, totally engaging thriller.” In addition, Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore wrote: "The Readymade Thief is my favorite kind of book: an improbable one. The novel is a map of things--urban exploration, secret societies, the city of Philadelphia, Marcel Duchamp, very possibly the Home Alone movies--and if those things don't seem to fit together, well, that's the magic of the improbable book, and the transmutation of obsessions, by energy and intellect, into something wholly new: a novel that's unexpected, uncategorizable, unputdownable."

Adam Morgan writes in Chicago Magazine that The Readymade Thief is one of the best novels of the year from a Chicago writer. From his profile: "Augustus Rose has seen a lot of weird stuff. Driven by an obsession with hidden secrets, the University of Chicago professor has climbed through city drainage tunnels, snuck into Roman necropolises, and explored abandoned islands off the coast of Maine. But the strangest thing he’s ever seen hangs in the Philadelphia Museum of Art: a giant, inexplicable sculpture called The Large Glass by the father of 'readymade' art, Marcel Duchamp."

Augustus Rose is a novelist and screenwriter. He was born in the northern California coastal town of Bolinas, and grew up there and in San Francisco. Rose teaches fiction writing at the University of Chicago.