Book Club Mondays

When Boswell first opened, our goal was to have a book club meet on each Monday. I started the Lit group on the first Monday, Jason led the Science Fiction Book Club on the second Monday, and Anne organized the mystery group on the fourth Monday, which I think actually continued from the Shorewood Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop. And then for the third Monday, another group asked us to meet and agreed to be open to new members and Boswell promotion. We actually had a few other book clubs asked to meet on weekends and afternoons and signed them up.

One thing you learn is that not every program goes the way as planned. And one thing we realized over time was that if a Boswell person wasn't running the book club, it's not really our book club. It's hard to get the titles, hard to move the meeting if we're hosting a large event, and hard to get the people to buy the books from us. Sometimes the clubs would get so popular they'd outgrow the space. Live and learn.

We'd been contemplating a fourth Boswell club for years. And after contemplating a few other ideas, we decided to copy the model in a few other cities and have a bar book club. Cafe Hollander signed on. Irony #1: After we set this up, the longtime club meeting in the store moved to a weekend daytime model. Irony #2: Just after the first meeting, another beer book club asked to meet at Holland on the same time. We saw it as proof that we had a good idea.

Our New Books and Beer Book Club is at Cafe Hollander on the Third Monday of Each Month, at 7 pm. Here are our next three selections:
--Monday, June 18: Underground Airlines, by Ben H. Winters
--Monday, July 16: Meddling Kids, by Edgar Cantero
--Monday, August 20: Mister Monkey, by Francine Prose

While you are reading, here are our other upcoming book-club selections.

In-Store Lit Group, run by Daniel on the first Monday at Boswell at 7 pm
--Monday, June 4: The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, by Lisa See
--Monday, July 2: Sour Heart: Stories, by Jenny Zhang
--Monday, August 6: Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann

Science Fiction Book Club, run by Jason on the second Monday at Boswell at 7 pm
--Monday, June 11: Embers of War, by Gareth L. Powell
--Monday, July 9: Borne, by Jeff VanderMeer
--Monday, August 13: Spaceman of Bohemia, by Jaroslav Kalfar

Boswell Mystery Book Club, run by Anne on the fourth Monday at Boswell at 7 pm
--Monday, June 25: The Professionals, by Owen Laukkanen
--Monday, July 23: Open Grave, by Kjell Eriksson
--Monday, August 27: Death on Nantucket, by Francine Mathews (just announced!)

And for those who care about these things, both the Science Fiction Club and the Books and Beer Book Club have selections titled to the end of the year and beyond.
I should note that with our event programming ramped up from what was a modest beginning, we no longer schedule regular groups at the magazine table on weekday nights and weekend days. But if your group meets weekday days, it still might be possible, if another group isn't already meeting. We suggest that it be for groups of 12 or less. And it is possible to schedule one-off meetings for book selection, based on availability.

Here's one more book club piece of news. We have two book club events at area libraries on Tuesday, June 26. At 2 pm at the Frank L. Weyenberg Library in Mequon, and again at 6:30 at the Elm Grove Library, I will be giving a talk with an area librarian (Paulette Brooks in Elm Grove) about great book club choices. As part of that, we'll be featuring Kathleen Rooney, the author of one of our favorite book club selections, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, who will talk about her book. We've done this before and it's a lot of fun!

We're trying to keep our book club page updated. You can find it here.