Boswell bestsellers, week ending February 24, 2018

Here are the Boswell bestsellers for the week ending February 24, 2018

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Philosopher's Flight, by Tom Miller
2. The Woman in the Water, by Charles Finch
3. An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones
4. The Immortalists, by Chloe Benjamin
5. The Great Alone, by Kristin Hannah
6. Force of Nature, by Jane Harper
7. Down the River Unto the Sea, by Walter Mosley
8. The Power, by Naomi Alderman
9. Sing, Unburied, Sing, by Jesmyn Ward
10. Enigma Variations, by André Aciman

Kristin Hannah is totally dominating the hardcover fiction list for the last few weeks. Her new novel, The Great Alone, is set in 1970s Alaska. It's gotten many great reviews, including Kim Ode's in the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Hannah has created an atmosphere of brooding paranoia and simmering violence that can set your heart racing. Anticipated plot twists unravel unexpectedly. Leni is, by all marks, the strong woman here. But she’s how many of us would be strong: in fits and starts, undone by errors of judgment and misplaced trust."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Educated, by Tara Westover
2. What Are We Doing Here?, by Marilynne Robinson
3. Leonardo Da Vinci, by Walter Isaacson
4. Enlightenment Now, by Steven Pinker
5. Feel Free, by Zadie Smith
6. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan
7. The Deepest Well, by Nadine Burke Harris
8. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Marie Kondo
9. My Canadian Boyfriend Justin Trudeau, by Carrie Parker
10. Obama, by Pete Souza

My ears first perked up about Tara Westover's Educated when I heard her on Fresh Air. There are lots of reviews too, including Dan Cryer's in Newsday: "Religious fundamentalism can also generate its own freaky hazards. In Stolen Innocence, a teenage Elissa Wall is forced into polygamy by a breakaway sect of Mormons. Tara Westover, raised by Mormons in rural Idaho, cautions that her memoir, Educated, is “not about Mormonism.” But, unquestionably, it is about what happens when religious fanatics split the world into true believers and followers of Satan."

Like The Great Alone, Celine's cover is using trending muddy brown cover palette. This replaces the green hardcover, which is always blamed for any book's last of breakout bestsellerdom.

Paperback Fiction:
1. Call Me by Your Name, by André Aciman
2. Enigma Variations, by André Aciman
3. Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders
4. Beartown, by Fredrik Backman
5. The Sun and Her Flowers, by Rupi Kaur
6. Celine, by Peter Heller
7. A Separation, by Katie Kitamura
8. Pachinko, by Min Jin Lee
9. Nix, by Nathan Hill
10. The Women in the Castle, by Jessica Shattuck

It's nice to see several books that got a nice amount of attention in hardcover get a pop in paperback. One is Peter Heller's Celine, his third novel, which is once again something new. Here's Jason Sheehan on NPR: "Celine, the novel, by Peter Heller (of Dog Stars and The Painter) is a difficult thing to get your head around. Not the subject matter (the process of finding lost people, the complications that such things can cause) because that's rote, if handled here with an odd and engaging sort of flair. And not the subject herself, because Celine (the character) comes from a long and solid tradition of aristocratic detectives; of moneyed and over-smart and ridiculously capable persons who give up society life for what thrills might be gotten from rolling around in the gutters with the rest of us."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. It's Never Too Late to Begin Again, by Julia Cameron
2. Evicted, by Matthew Desmond
3. We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, by Samantha Irby (event at Boswell, Thu 5/10, 7 pm)
4. The French Art of Not Giving a Sh*t, by Fabrice Midal
5. The Nature Fix, by Florence Williams
6. The Most Beautiful Walk in the World, by John Baxter (part of Liam Callanan's Paris talk for Paris by the Book)
7. Wisconsin and the Civil War, by Ronald Paul Larson
8. Waking Up White, by Debby Irving
9. Runaway Inequality, by Les Leopold
10. Light on Yoga, by BKS Iyengar

One new paperback having a sales pop in paperback nonfiction is The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative. This is a theory that pops up with some frequency, at the same time that we wind up doing the opposite. Jason Mark wrote in The New York Times: "You’ve probably heard a version of this before. Two centuries ago, the Romantics trumpeted the virtues of nature as the antidote to the viciousness of industrialization. In 1984, the biologist Edward O. Wilson put a scientific spin on the idea with his book Biophilia, which posited that humans possess an innate love of nature."

Books for Kids:
1. Nephilim V2, by John Barrowman and Carole E. Barrowman
2. Here We Are, by Oliver Jeffers
3. A Is for Activist, by Innosanto Nagara
4. A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle
5. Calvin Can't Fly, by Jennifer Berne
6. Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls V1, by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo
7. The Day the Crayons Came Home, by Drew Daywalt, with illustrations by Oliver Jeffers
8. Tower of Dawn, by Sarah J. Maas
9. Library of Fates, by Aditi Khorana
10. Thunderhead, by Neal Shusterman

This week's top 10 is YA heavy, which is in part accounted for by some school sales. One recent release is Thunderhead, the follow-up from Scythe by Neal Shusterman, who visited Milwaukee for his previous book (and spoke at the Shorewood Public Library). Shusterman is profiled by M.J. Franklin in Mashable: "The Arc of the Scythe series dives into a utopian world where death has been defeated. In this perfect world, a governing body called the Scythes decides who dies "but everyone accepts it because everybody knows that this order is made up of the most compassionate humans in the world." But all is not as it seems. Corruption has started to develop within the organization, and now it is up to two teens apprenticed to a scythe — Rowan and Citra — to investigate, but they soon learn that a perfect world comes with a heavy price."

Over at the Journal Sentinel TapBooks section, Jim Higgins reviews Kelly Barnhill's Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories. Here's a snippet: "In two stories, a clergyman has loving eyes for a woman who commands nature and the attention of animals around her, to the chagrin of regressive forces. Every man desires the attractive widow in the delightful 'Mrs. Sorensen and the Sasquatch,' but she has rekindled romance with someone hairier. Quicker than most of his flock, the priest arrives at the Mirandan conclusion that love is love is love, and the comedy moves to a climax that is positively Franciscan.

"I think Jorge Luis Borges would have liked 'Elegy to Gabrielle — Patron Saint of Healers, Whores, and Righteous Thieves,' with its formally satisfying frame story. In this 17th-century tale, a healing woman and a pirate captain help each other, but also wage a turf war for control of her daughter, Gabrielle. Gabrielle becomes the next pirate captain, a Robin Hood who torments the Governor by stealing tax gold and freeing the occupants of slave ships."

Barnhill will be at the Lynden Sculpture Garden next Thursday, March 1, 7 pm reception, 7:30 talk. Tickets are $30 including admission, light refreshments, and a copy of Dreadful Young Ladies. Lynden members get in for $25. Visit lyndensculpturegarden.org/kellybarnhill or call (414) 446-8794.

Event alert: Joseph Cassara, Bhupendra O. Khatri, Kelly Barnhill, Miche Moreci

Boswell at home and on the road!

Tuesday, February 27, 7:00 pm, at Outwords Books, Gifts, and Coffee, 2710 N Murray Ave:
Joseph Cassara, author of The House of Impossible Beauties

Boswell is pleased to cosponsor a special evening with Iowa Writers Workshop grad and debut novelist Joseph Cassara, in conjunction with Outwords Books, Gifts, and Coffee. The House of Impossible Beauties is a gritty and gorgeous debut that follows a cast of gay and transgender club kids navigating the Harlem ball scene of the 1980s and ’90s. The story is inspired by the real House of Xtravaganza, made famous by the seminal documentary Paris Is Burning.

This is our second collaboration with Outwords. You can purchase copies in advance at either store. On the night of the event, Outwords will have books for sale. If they run out, Boswell will have backup.

Here's what Entertainment Weekly had to say about Cassara's debut. David Canfield wrote: "The House of Impossible Beauties is a work of unrestrained passion, a novel both unabashedly queer - flamboyant and proud, built out of chosen families, pulsating with club vibes whilst clouded in the haze of trauma - and unmistakably Latin. This is not a book that boasts of inclusion on the basis of mere identity markers; rather, it’s a full-on, transporting immersion. The ensemble’s speech patterns are breathtakingly specific. The way relationships unfold consistently surprises, if only because of how rarely we see LGBTQ people of color depicted with such texture, fleshed out and funny and flawed. The book helps to fill one of adult fiction’s deeper holes. This, here, is the exciting narrative and literary potential of intersectionality, realized on the page."

Joseph Cassara was born and raised in New Jersey. He holds degrees from Columbia University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been a writing fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Wednesday, February 28, 6:30 pm (note time), at Boswell:
Bhupendra O. Khatri M.D., author of Healthcare 911: How America's Broken Healthcare System Is Driving Doctors to Despair, Depriving Patients of Care, and Destroying Our Reputation in the World

American doctors are experiencing the worst crisis since the dawn of western medicine. They are losing their autonomy, their health, and a good part of their income. Their burnout rate has reached critical proportions. They are retiring early or leaving the field altogether. The suicide rate is rising. Essentially, doctors are dealing with their own silent killer disease - unrelenting stress. In this scenario, patients will also be losers.

In his new book - Healthcare 911: How America’s Broken Healthcare System Is Driving Doctors to Despair, Depriving Patients of Care, And Destroying Our Reputation in The World – renowned Wisconsin neurologist Bhupendra O. Khatri explains the causes and consequences of this urgent problem.

“I cannot over emphasize the seriousness of this situation,” says Khatri. “In this era of corporate takeovers, it is becoming almost impossible to maintain a private medical practice. Many physicians, who are now employees of hospital and insurance companies, are pressured to see more patients in less time, bring computers into exam rooms, and spend many hours entering complicated codes into patients’ electronic health records - all of which interfere with quality patient care.”

Bhupendra O. Khatri M.D. is the Medical Director of the Center for Neurological Disorders, one of the largest MS Centers in the US. He has won numerous awards for his compassionate care and research in the field of multiple sclerosis.

Thursday, March 1, 7:00 pm reception, 7:30 talk, at the Lynden Sculpture Garden, 2145 W Brown Deer Rd, River Hills:
A ticketed event with Kelly Barnhill, author of Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories

The Women’s Speaker Series, produced by Milwaukee Reads, presents Kelly Barnhill, the Newbery Medal-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon. Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories is a stunning first collection of acclaimed short fictions, teeming with uncanny characters whose stories unfold in worlds at once strikingly human and eerily original.

Here's Jim Higgins writing about the book in the Journal Sentinel: "Gentle readers, if you like your fantasy fiction female powered, with a Minnesota accent, may I introduce you to Kelly Barnhill? Your children may already know her; Barnhill's previous books include The Girl Who Drank the Moon, which won the Newbery Medal for children's literature in 2017. Now Barnhill has magicked into being a collection for adults, Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories."

Tickets for this event are $29, $24 for members, and include admission to the event, refreshments from MKE Localicious, and a copy of Dreadful Young Ladies. Visit lyndensculpturegarden.org/kellybarnhill or call (414) 446-8794 for more info.

Minnesota’s Kelly Barnhill is the author of four novels, most recently The Girl Who Drank the Moon, winner of the 2017 John Newbery Medal for the year's most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. She is also the winner of the World Fantasy Award, the Parents' Choice Gold Award, and the Texas Library Association Bluebonnet Award, and has been a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, the NCTE Charlotte Huck Award, the SFWA Andre Norton Award, and the PEN/USA literary prize.

Thursday, March 6, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Michael Moreci, author of Black Star Renegades.

The author of the acclaimed SF trilogy Roche Limit and stories for DC Comics’ Suicide Squad, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman now offers up a galaxy-hopping space adventure about a galactic kingdom bent on control and the young misfit who must find the power within before it’s too late.

From Andrew Liptak in The Verge: "Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A young man discovers that he’s destined for greater things in the galaxy, joins a mysterious, semi-religious order that act as the guardians of peace in said galaxy, and finds himself fighting an oppressive, genocidal regime bent on controlling the collective, galactic civilization. If that sounds like Star Wars, you’d be right, but it’s also the plot of comic book author Michael Moreci’s debut novel, Black Star Renegades. The book is a conspicuous tip-of-the-hat to George Lucas’ space opera franchise, and it’ll appeal to fans of Ernie Cline’s easter egg-laden novel Ready Player One."

As our friends at St. Martin's said, Black Star Renegades is a galaxy-hopping adventure that blasts its way from seedy spacer bars to sacred temples guarded by deadly creatures - all with a cast of misfit characters who have nowhere to go and nothing to lose.

Chicago-based Michael Moreci’s comics include the critically acclaimed sci-fi trilogy Roche Limit and the military horror drama Burning Fields. He's also written Suicide Squad for DC, Planet of the Apes for Boom!, and his other original titles include Curse, Hoax Hunters, ReincarNATE, and the forthcoming Black Hole Repo. As a novelist, Moreci is currently writing Spy Swap, an espionage thriller.

More upcoming events on our, wait for it, upcoming events page.

André Aciman with Suzanne Jurva, Tom Miller's Philosopher's Flight, a daytime event with Charles Finch of the Charles Lenox mysteries, and an early peek at next week's event with Joseph Cassara for his acclaimed debut, at Outwords

Here's the Boswell event calendar for this week (and an early preview for next Tuesday).

Monday, February 19, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
André Aciman, author of Call Me by Your Name and Enigma Variations

We are thrilled to present André Aciman, the author of Call Me by Your Name, as well as the just-released paperback edition of Enigma Variations. This event is cosponsored by Milwaukee Filmmaker Alliance as well as the Milwaukee LGBT Film/Video Festival. Our event will feature a conversation between Aciman and Suzanne Jurva, discussing Call Me by Your Name’s long journey (ten years) from page to screen.

Here's Aciman talking about the film in Vanity Fair: "It had taken me two whole days and five pages to capture the diffident dialogue between the two would-be lovers. But Guadagnino had distilled it in just a few minutes. They shot it three to four more times. For me, the message was clear: film cuts and trims with savage brevity, where a shrug or an intercepted glance or a nervous pause between two words can lay bare the heart in ways written prose is far more nuanced and needs more time and space on the page. But the thing is, I couldn’t write silence. I couldn’t measure pauses and breaths and the most elusive yet expressive body language." Read the whole article here.

The film version of Call Me by Your Name just won a BAFTA Award for best adapted screenplay, which was written by legendary screenwriter James Ivory. It is also nominated for three Academy Awards, for adapted screenwriter, best actor, and best picture.

André Aciman teaches comparative literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and is the author of multiple novels, the memoir Out of Egypt, and is editor of The Proust Project. Suzanne Jurva is Director of Milwaukee Filmmaker Alliance. She is also a documentary director and producer and was formerly creator of the research department at Dreamworks SKG.

Tuesday, February 20, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Tom Miller, author of The Philosopher’s Flight

From a Wauwatosa native turned Madison ER doctor and now debut novelist, The Philosopher’s Flight is an epic historical fantasy set in a World-War-I-era America where magic and science have blended into a single extraordinary art.

18-year-old Robert Weekes is a practitioner of empirical philosophy - an arcane, female-dominated branch of science used to summon the wind, shape clouds of smoke, heal the injured, and even fly. Though he dreams of fighting in the Great War as the first male in the elite US Sigilry Corps Rescue and Evacuation Service, a team of flying medics, Robert is resigned to mixing batches of philosophical chemicals and keeping the books for the family business in rural Montana, where his mother, a former soldier and vigilante, aids the locals.

When a deadly accident puts his philosophical abilities to the test, Robert rises to the occasion and wins a scholarship to study at Radcliffe College, an all-women’s school. He hones his abilities and wins the respect of his classmates. Then he falls for Danielle Hardin, a disillusioned young war hero turned political radical. However, Danielle’s activism and Robert’s recklessness attract the attention of the same fanatical anti-philosophical group that Robert’s mother fought years before. With their lives in mounting danger, Robert and Danielle band together with a team of unlikely heroes to fight for Robert’s place among the next generation of empirical philosophers - and for philosophy’s very survival against the men who would destroy it.

From Boswell's Olivia Schmitz, a review of The Philosopher's Flight: "In a re-imagined World War I era America, the arcane science of empirical philosophy allows those skilled at it to control certain aspects of the physical world. It's thought that only women possess the natural power and prowess for philosophy, but Robert Weekes is determined to join the all-female Elite Corps of Rescue Flyers. Miller's timely story and stunning feat of world building will get you hooked, and you'll stay as Robert and his friends (incredible philosopher ladies) encounter adventure and adversity in a war-torn, challenging world. I LOVE this book!"

Tom Miller grew up in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. He graduated from Harvard University and went on to earn an MFA in creative writing from the University of Notre Dame and an MD from the University of Pittsburgh. While writing The Philosopher’s Flight, he worked as a travel guidebook writer, EMT, and college English instructor. He's now an emergency room doctor in Madison, Wisconsin.

Wednesday, February 21, 2:00 pm, at Boswell:
Charles Finch, author of The Woman in the Water

Enjoy a special afternoon with Charles Finch, who takes readers back to Charles Lenox’s very first case and the ruthless serial killer who would set him on the course to become one of London’s most brilliant detectives. In the tradition of Sherlock Holmes, Finch pits the young detective against a maniacal murderer who would give Professor Moriarty a run for his money.

London, 1850: A young Charles Lenox struggles to make a name for himself as a detective…without a single case. Scotland Yard refuses to take him seriously and his friends deride him for attempting a profession at all. But when an anonymous writer sends a letter to the paper claiming to have committed the perfect crime, and promising to kill again, Lenox is convinced that this is his chance to prove himself. You can only imagine that Lenox tries to solve the crime, only to find the stakes raised, trapping our detective hero in a desperate game of cat and mouse. Marilyn Stasio reviews The Woman in The Water in The New York Times Book Review.

Chicago-based Charles Finch is a graduate of Yale and Oxford. He is the author of the Charles Lenox mysteries, including The Inheritance and A Beautiful Blue Death, which was nominated for an Agatha Award and was named one of Library Journal’s Best Books of the year. The National Book Critics Circle just named Finch 2017 winner of the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing for his work at the Chicago Tribune.

Tuesday, February 27, 7:00 pm, at Outwords Books, Gifts, and Coffee, 2710 N Murray Ave:
Joseph Cassara, author of The House of Impossible Beauties

Boswell is pleased to cosponsor a special evening with Iowa Writers Workshop grad and debut novelist Joseph Cassara, in conjunction with Outwords Books, Gifts, and Coffee. The House of Impossible Beauties is a gritty and gorgeous debut that follows a cast of gay and transgender club kids navigating the Harlem ball scene of the 1980s and ’90s. The story is inspired by the real House of Xtravaganza, made famous by the seminal documentary Paris Is Burning.

It’s 1980 in New York City, and nowhere is the city’s glamour and energy better reflected than in the burgeoning Harlem ball scene, where seventeen-year-old Angel first comes into her own. Burned by her traumatic past, Angel is new to the drag world, new to ball culture, and has a yearning inside of her to help create family for those without. When she falls in love with Hector, a beautiful young man who dreams of becoming a professional dancer, the two decide to form the House of Xtravaganza, the first-ever all-Latino house in the Harlem ball circuit. But when Hector dies of AIDS-related complications, Angel must bear the responsibility of tending to their house alone.

As mother of the house, Angel recruits Venus, a whip-fast trans girl who dreams of finding a rich man to take care of her; Juanito, a quiet boy who loves fabrics and design; and Daniel, a butch queen who accidentally saves Venus’s life. The Xtravaganzas must learn to navigate sex work, addiction, and persistent abuse, leaning on each other as bulwarks against a world that resists them. All are ambitious, resilient, and determined to control their own fates, even as they hurtle toward devastating consequences. Told in a voice that brims with wit, rage, tenderness, and fierce yearning, The House of Impossible Beauties is a tragic story of love, family, and the dynamism of the human spirit.

It is a mark of the times that The House of Impossible Beauties has been reviewed in both The Economist and The Financial Times, and excerpted in The Wall Street Journal's website. Boyd Tonkin at Financial Times wrote: "For all his immersion in the ball scene of the 1980s, Cassara never overdoes the period costumery of sequins, glitter and gold lamé. Indeed, sartorial spangles have far less appeal for Angel and her homegirls than sheer classic elegance. They come from poor immigrant homes in the Bronx. Hence 'her goal was to look like a wealthy woman with purpose.'"

Of Puerto Rican and Italian lineage, Joseph Cassara was born and raised in New Jersey. He holds degrees from Columbia University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been a writing fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Photo credits!
André Aciman: Sigrid Estrada
Charles Finch: Timothy Greenfield-Sande
Joseph Cassara: Amanda Kellis