Three new displays: space window, Montaigne and Perry, confronting mass incarceration

It's time for a tour of new displays.

a. Space window - We got the idea for this one because we are either sponsoring or cosponsoring two astronauts coming to UWM in October. First up is Kathy Sullivan, the first woman in space, who has a kids book called To the Stars. Her talk on Tuesday, October 3, 7 pm at the UWM Student Union is called Looking at Earth. It's free, but registration is requested.

Our second out-of-this-world event is with Scott Kelly, who is doing a ticketed event, also at the UWM Student Union, for his memoir Endurance: A Year in Space, a Lifetime of Discovery. He's in conversation with WUWM's Bonnie North on Tuesday, October 24, 7 pm. Tickets are $32 and include a book. On September 18, tickets go on sale for UWM students, faculty, and staff, at a slightly discounted price. ID is required for purchase.

Peter made the display with the help of Olivia V., who is called Olivia the Elder in house. The planets are made out of papier mache over balloon molds.

2. Montaigne and Perry display - I'm always looking for events in different ways. Frequent visitors to Boswell know that I almost always have a recommendation table from an upcoming author. The authors profiled in Bill Goldstein's The World Broke in Two were featured on a table. And what better way to talk up Michael Perry's forthcoming essay collection, Montaigne in Barn Boots, but to feature books by and about Montaigne. It's not a large table, so it doesn't need much to fill it. The only problem is that the Montaigne books keep selling off it!

Michael Perry will be at Boswell on November 14, 7 pm to talk about the book, which goes on sale November 7. I enjoyed the book so much - it really takes Perry in a slightly new direction, though Perry is still uniquely true to himself - that I lent it to one of our customers who is a Montaigne fanatic. He's now excited to be coming to the event.

3. Confronting mass incarceration table - this is inspired by a series of events sponsored by Milwaukee Turners this fall. Each event has a panel discussion in the afternoon and a talk at night. On October 26, Daniel Karpowitz appears for College in Prison: Reading in the Age of Mass Incarceration, and on October 30, Julilly Kohler-Hausmann talks about Getting Tough: Welfare and Imprisonment in 1970s America. Both of these author talks are 7 pm at Boswell. And then on November 6, Pulitzer Prize winner Heather Ann Thompson is the Frank P. Zeidler is the featured speaker at the Frank P. Zeidler lecture at Turner Hall on Monday, November 6, 7 pm. Her book is Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy.

This is just a small sample of the books in this topic that have come out in the last year. Some of the other books on display are Becoming Mrs. Burton, by Susan Burton, Cuz, by Danielle Allen, and Solitary: The Inside Story of Supermax Isolation and How We Can Abolish It, by Terry Allen Kupers.