Tuesday, July 31, 2018

What did the book club think of Jenny Zhang's Sour Heart?

At our most recent meeting, the In-Store Lit Group discussed Sour Heart, a collection of stories from newcomer Jenny Zhang. The book won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, the Los Angles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and was named one of the best books of the year by The New Yorker, The Guardian, and Buzzfeed. The New Yorker review, from Zia Tolentino, was won of the best, calling the collection "astounding...combines ingenious and tightly controlled technical artistry with an unfettered emotional directness that frequently moves, within single sentences, from overwhelming beauty to abject pain."

I originally received a copy of Sour Heart and passed it on to my sister, who passed the book on again to her daughter-in-law, and came back to me in the form, not of the physical book, but a strong recommendation. One of the other early champions would have to be Lena Dunham, who picked this work as the debut of her Lenny imprint. At one point we were confirmed for selling books at a Lena Dunham event in Milwaukee, and Jenny Zhang was going to appear, only Sour Hearts wasn't quite out yet (I remember stewing about this), only it all got cancelled when Dunham got ill.

There are immigrants' tales with the twist. Through the eyes of girls, these stories take place in Brooklyn and Queens. The families are kind of sacrificing for their kids, living in cramped conditions with other families. The stories are connected through Christina, the protagonist of the first and last story, as most of the other girls know her family as they traveled to various living situations on their way to stability.

I had decided when selecting Sour Heart that it would make an interesting counterpoint to The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, and I think I was right. See's characters are poor in China and by the time they come to the United States, they are very wealthy. Zhang's characters, at least in some cases, were poorer in the States than they were back home. Both stories show the effects of the Cultural Revolution on families.

This was one of those collections where there wasn't a ton of middle ground - attendees either really liked the stories or didn't. Some found them depressing while others had trouble even processing that criticism (if it actually is a criticism). I should note that one reader who didn't like the collection wished he'd been in the conversation first before reading the book - he thinks that might have changed his perspective.

I should note that one particularly transgressive story led to one member telling me she had to stop reading and couldn't come to the event. I wished she had read through and come to talk about it but every reader needs to follow their own heart regarding such things, unless there's a test at the end semester.

I think it's an excellent book club selection but there's some skewing involved if you want to get the best reaction from your readers. If UWM's Creative Writing Program had a book club (maybe there is one?) I would fight for this to be on the inaugural list. If you want to read more about where Zhang is coming from in her writing, read this excellent conversation with Stephanie Newman in the LA Review of Books.

Upcoming In-store Lit Group meetings - not a number of adjustments for fall meetings!
--Monday, August 6, 7 pm, at Boswell - Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann
--Monday, August 27, 7 pm, at Boswell - Sing, Unburied, Sing, by Jesmyn Ward (moved to avoid Labor Day)
--Tuesday, October 2, 7 pm, at Boswell - The Essex Serpent, by Sarah Perry (moved to avoid Hank Green)
--Monday, November 5, 6 pm, at Boswell - The Winter Soldier, by Daniel Mason (time moved so that we could have a public event afterwards)

Other upcoming Book Club meetings
--Monday, August 13, 7 pm, at Boswell: Sci Fi Book Club Reads Spaceman of Bohemia, by Jaroslav Kalfar
--Monday, August 20, 7 pm, at Cafe Hollander on Downer Ave: Books and Beer reads Mister Monkey, by Francine Prose
--Monday, August 27, 7 pm, at Boswell: Mystery Book Club reads Death on Nantucket, by Francine Mathews

Note that on August 27, the In-Store Lit Group will meet in the rear of Boswell and the Mystery Group will meet in the magazine area.

Our Boswell-run book club page links to all our discussion books through mid-November. No registration required, though someday we're going to have Facebook pages for each group.

Monday, July 30, 2018

Events this week: Kelli María Korducki, Carla Anne Ernst, Stef Wade, Jo Piazza and Glynnis MacNichol

Events this week: Kelli María Korducki, Carla Anne Ernst, Stef Wade, Jo Piazza and Glynnis MacNichol

Monday, July 30, 7:00 pm, at Boswell
Journalist, cultural critic, and Jackson Park, Milwaukee native Kelli María Korducki breaks the news about breaking up in her history of the surprising politics of romantic love and its dissolution, from Jane Austen to Taylor Swift.
Whatever the underlying motives, be they love, financial security, or mere masochism, the fact is that getting involved in a romantic partnership is emotionally, morally, and even politically fraught. In Hard To Do, Kelli María Korducki turns a Marxist lens on the relatively short history of romantic love, tracing how the myth of economic equality between men and women has transformed the ways women conceive of domestic partnership.
With perceptive insights on the ways marriage and divorce are legislated, the rituals of twentieth-century courtship, and contemporary practices for calling it off, Korducki reveals that, for all women, choosing to end a relationship is a radical action with very limited cultural precedent.
Kelli María Korducki, an alum of Pius XI High School, is Senior Editor of News at Brit + Co, and has written for the Globe and MailNPR, and Vice. In 2015 she was nominated for a National Magazine Award for ‘Tiny Triumphs,’ a 10,000-word meditation on the humble hot dog for Little Brother Magazine. She is also a former Editor-in-Chief of the popular daily news blog, Torontoist.

Tuesday, July 31, 7:00 pm, at Boswell
Milwaukee writer Carla Anne Ernst shares the intimate, true story of her journey from male to female and offers her take on what it's like to "transition" in the context of societal expectations, while candidly revealing the mental, emotional, and physical impact of gender change on a human being.
Ernst’s memoir is a thought-provoking view on being transgender and the challenges of pretending to be someone society says you are until becoming the person you know you are. In response to the countless questions Ms. Ernst, like most trans people, receives about being transgender, the book is written in an engaging FAQ style.
Ms. Ernst has found her own sense of joy, peace, and happiness, and her wish is to help others better understand and cope with the confusion, pain, and fear inherent in the transgender experience. Whether you are on that journey yourself or are a loved one of a transgender person, Life Without Pockets is a powerful narrative that will transform the way you think and feel.
Carla Anne Ernst is a writer, hiker, swimmer, sailboat racer, dog lover, performing musician, composer, and communications professional, employee engagement advocate, and founder of CarlaAnne Communications.

Stef Wade, author of A Place for Pluto
Wednesday, August 1, 6:30 pm, at Boswell
Brookfield writer, parent, and Marquette graduate Stef Wade visits Boswell for the debut of her first picture book, A Place for Pluto, a fresh approach to a common science theme that mixes astronomy with themes of acceptance and self-awareness.
Pluto got the shock of his life when he was kicked out of the famous nine. His planet status was stripped away, leaving him lost and confused. Poor Pluto! On his quest to find a place where he belongs, he talks to comets, asteroids, and meteoroids. He doesn't fit it anywhere! When Pluto is about to give up, he runs into a dwarf planet and finally finds his place in the solar system.
This feel-good picture book combines a popular science topic with character education themes of self-discovery, acceptance, and friendship, and has bonus material that supports and connects the narrative matter to science curriculum. Kirkus Reviews insists you “make space for this clever blend of science and self-realization.”
Stef Wade holds a BA in advertising from Marquette University and an MBA in Integrated Marketing Communication from DePaul University. She was co-creator of the home and cooking blog Haute Apple Pie. Stef is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

Jo Piazza, author of Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win
Glynnis MacNicol, author of No One Tells You This
Friday, August 3, 7 pm, at Boswell
Longtime friends Piazza and MacNicol are heading out together to hit the open road for an old fashioned book tour road trip, and they’ll be stopping at Boswell along the way for a conversation about their latest books, a novel and memoir that are each, in their own ways, about modern womanhood.
Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win is a novel about what happens when a woman wants it all - political power, a happy marriage, and personal happiness - but isn’t sure how much she’s willing to sacrifice to get it. It’s a suspenseful story of ambition, class, marriage, sexual politics, and infidelity, and a portrait of what it takes for a woman to run for national office in America.
No One Tells You This starts with the question that plagued MacNicol on the eve her 40th birthday: if the story doesn’t end with marriage or a child, what then? Over the course of her fortieth year, chronicled in this memoir, Glynnis embarks on a revealing journey of self-discovery that continually contradicts everything she’d been led to expect, and she discovers that the power to determine her own fate requires a resilience and courage that no one talks about, and is more rewarding than anyone imagines.
Jo Piazza, an honorary Milwaukeean by marriage, is an award-winning journalist and editor who has written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Salon, and has appeared on CNN, NPR, and BBC. She is the author of The Knock Off, Fitness Junkie, and How to be Married. Glynnis MacNicol is a cofounder of The Li.st. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Daily Beast. Her series on Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood won a 2015 Contently Award. She is coauthor of There Will Be Blood, a guide to puberty, with HelloFlo founder Naama Bloom.
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Wow, who knew you could cut and paste from our upcoming events page and this would look pretty much formatted?  I don't think we'll do this every week, because it's nice to also add some additional links and the like. But today? It seems perfect. 

Here's our complete list of our upcoming events

Sunday, July 29, 2018

Coming to you from WBOS, the Boswell count-up for he week ending July 28, 2018

Coming to you from WBOS, the Boswell count-up for he week ending July 28, 2018

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Paris by the Book, by Liam Callanan
2. An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones
3. There, There, by Tommy Orange (Register for 9/25 event here)
4. The President Is Missing, by Bill Clinton and James Patterson
5. Clock Dance, by Anne Tyler
6. The Woman in the Window, by A.J. Finn
7. My Year of Rest and Relaxation, by Ottessa Moshfegh
8. Dear Mrs. Bird, by AJ Pearce
9. The Other Woman, by Daniel Solitzer
10. The Female Persuasion, by Meg Wolitzer

Hand-selling part one: A few month's ago, Jane came to me with a special request - "Find me a copy of AJ Pearce's Dear Mrs. Bird." She'd been reading lots of write ups from the British edition and she was convinced this was the next Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. It turns out that Scribner was hearing buzz from other booksellers too and sent out a finished-copy mailing. Both of us read it and loved it, with Jane noting that this is almost definitely going to reach her top 5 for 2018. From The Guardian's very positive review: "Along the way she shows some grown-up insights as well as true grit, and gives a voice to all those women who had to be “chipper and stoic and jolly good sorts and wear lipstick and … not cry or be dreary."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. The Fall of Wisconsin, by Dan Kaufman
2. The Bone and Sinew of the Land, by Anna-Lisa Cox
3. Calypso, by David Sedaris
4. Rendezvous with Oblivion, by Thomas Frank
5. Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah
6. The Death of Truth, by Michiko Kakutani
7. A Sloth's Guide to Mindfulness, by Ton Mak (#slothsummer)
8. The Soul of America, by Jon Meacham
9. The Russia Hoax, by Gregg Jarrett
10. Milwaukee: A City Built on Water, by John Gurda

The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump is not Michiko Kakutani's first book (there was a collection called The Poets at the Piano) but it's definitely her first Boswell bestseller. Louis P. Masur in The San Francisco Chronicle writes: "Kakutani, the Pulitzer Prize-winning former chief book critic for The New York Times, draws on her vast literary knowledge (she quotes dozens of writers, from Hannah Arendt to Tom Wolfe) to pen truth’s obituary in the era of Trump." If you feel otherwise, there's Gregg Jarrett's The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump.

Paperback Fiction:
1. Less, by Andrew Sean Greer
2. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, by Gail Honeyman
3. Hotel Silence, by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir
4. Manhattan Beach, by Jennifer Egan
5. Hope Never Dies, by Andrew Shafer
6. Sing, Unburied, Sing, by Jesmyn Ward
7. Crazy Rich Asians, by Kevin Kwan
8. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, by Arundhati Roy
9. The Little Paris Bistro, by Nina George
10. How to Find Love in a Bookshop, by Veronica Henry

Hand-selling, part two: Hotel Silence came out last February as a paperback original and sold very nicely off our front table, what with its appealing book jacket and French flaps. We even had a nice staff rec from Lynn. But then our buyer Jason's spouse Melissa picked it out, read it, chose it for a book club that included Jason, and he came to me and said that we could sell a lot of copies of this wonderful novel. I read it, and now Jane has read it, and now we want all of you to read it too. From Publishers Weekly's starred review: "The story moves at a consistently engaging pace, and Olafsdottir’s blend of sly humor and bleak realities makes for a life-affirming tale without any treacle."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Raising Rosie, by Eric and Stephani Lohman
2. American Prophets, by Albert J. Raboteau
3. The Color of Law, by Richard Rothstein
4. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan
5. Why We Sleep, by Mattthew Walker
6. Somos Latinas, edited by Andrea Teresa Arenas and Eloisa Gómez
7. Evicted, by Matthew Desmond
8. Not That Bad, by Roxane Gay
9. Life Without Pockets, by Carla Anne Ernst (event Tue 7/31, 7 pm, at Boswell)
10. Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann (book club discussion Mon 8/6, 7 pm, at Boswell)

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams has its best week at Boswell in its 6th week of paperback release, following a nice hardcover run. The book got much attention in hardcover, including Rob Ewing's review in The Scotsman: "Most compelling are his arguments against early school start times (particularly in the US), where teenage brains are being systematically sleep-deprived, and his description of the effects of sleep deprivation on the body are excellent, and should be required reading for anyone who thinks they can get by with less of it."

Books for Kids:
1. Miss Communication, by Jennifer L. Holm
2. A Place for Pluto, by Steff Wade (event Wed Aug 1, 6:30 pm)
3. Scythe, by Neal Shusterman
4. The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas
5. Click Click Quack to School, by Doreen Cronin, with illustrations by Betsy Lewin
6. Endling: The Last, by Katherine Applegate
7. The Girl Who Drank the Moon, by Kelly Barnhill
8. How to Sell Your Family to the Aliens, by Paul Noth
9. A Is for Activist, by Innosanto Nagaro
10. Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi

Can it be time for our back-to-school table? Yes it can! The first book to pop is Click, Clack, Quack to School, by longtime collaborators Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin. Kirkus notes there are " a few chuckles and opportunities for children to moo, cluck, and oink." I still remember the enthusiasm many booksellers (particularly our old friend Sylvia) had for the first book in the series, Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that Type.

It's a special State Fair issue of the Journal Sentinel Tap section so there's only one book review this week, for Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man, by Lynn Vincent and Sarah Vladic. Reviewer Chris Woodyard writes: "The disaster has been the subject of numerous books, including several excellent ones, and became part of popular lore when it was referenced in the movie Jaws. Like yet another Lincoln or Nixon biography, you wouldn’t think there would be much left to say. But, as it turns out, there is."

Thursday, July 26, 2018

You asked for it! All the books discussed on Wisconsin Public Radio's Morning Show with Carrie Kaufman


Here's every book mentioned on last week's Wisconsin Public Radio's Morning Show with Carrie Kaufman. You can listen (or relisten to the show here).

Daniel picks
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman
Asyemmetry, by Lisa Halliday
My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Homesick for Another World, by Ottessa Moshfegh
Bob, by Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead
Half Magic, by Edward Eager
Illegal, by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin, with illustrations by Giovanni Rigano
Annihilation and other novels in the Southern Reach series, by Jeff VanderMeer
Girl Waits with Gun, by Amy Stewart
The Bone and Sinew of the Land: America's Forgotten Black Pioneers and the Struggle for Equality, by Anna Lisa-Cox
There, There, by Tommy Orange
A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, by Kathleen Rooney

Call-in picks
Flight of the Great Wolf, by Mel Elliss (also out of print)
Educated, by Tara Westover
A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
Sabbath’s Theater, by Philip Roth
Nancy Drew
A Coyote in the House, by Elmore Leonard
Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver
Sceptical Essays and The History of Western Philosophy, by Bertrand Russell
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis
The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Jean-Dominique Bauby
My Favorite Thing is Monsters, by Emil Ferris
Blankets, by Craig Thompson
Good-bye, Chunky Rice, by Craig Thompson
Every Last Word, by Tamara Ireland Stone
Fan Girl, by Rainbow Rowell
and other novels, by Rick RiordanThe Lightning Thief
Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi
An Ember in the Ashes, by Sabaa Tahir
The Singularity Is Near, by Ray Kurzweil (not a novel)
The List, by Amy B. Siskind
Deathbird Stories and other works by Harlan Ellison
Dr. No and other books by Ian Fleming
The Deep Blue Good-by and other Travis McGee mysteries from John D. MacDonald
Staggerford and other novels by John Hassler
Danger, Man Working, and other books from Michael Perry
America's War for the Greater Middle Eat and other works of history, by Andrew J. Bacevich
A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn
The Imperial Cruise, by James Bradley
Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K. Jerome
The Eyre Affair, and other Thursday Next novels by Jasper Fforde
The Nightingale, by Kristin Hannah
Stranger in a Stranger Land, by Robert A. Heinlein
Foundation, by Isaac Asimov
Dune, by Frank Herbert
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig
The Relic and other books in the Pendergast series, from Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Sunday Sundaes and other books for kids in the Sprinkle Sundays series by Coco Simon
Almanac of the Dead, by Leslie Marmon Silko
Hunger, by Roxane Gay
Bad Blood, by John Carreyeau

Carrie’s pick

Winston the Book Wolf, by Marni McGee (alas, it’s out of print--somebody needs to bring this back!)

Monday, July 23, 2018

Boswell happenings: Anna-Lisa Cox, Dan Kaufman, Eric and Stephani Lohman, Ann McClain Terrell, Kelli María Korducki.

Here's are this week's Boswell happenings: Anna-Lisa Cox, Dan Kaufman, Eric and Stephani Lohman, Ann McClain Terrell, Kelli María Korducki.

Monday, July 23, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Anna-Lisa Cox, author of The Bone and Sinew of the Land: America's Forgotten Black Pioneers and the Struggle for Equality

Anna-Lisa Cox appears at Boswell with her breakout history of the long-hidden stories of America's black pioneers, the frontier they settled, and their fight for the heart of the nation. This groundbreaking work reveals America's Northwest Territory - the wild region that would become present-day Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

When black settlers Keziah and Charles Grier started clearing their Indiana frontier land in 1818, they were just looking to build a better life, but soon the Griers became early Underground Railroad conductors, joining fellow pioneers to confront the growing tyranny of bondage and injustice. Cox tells the stories of the Griers and others like them: the lost history of the nation's first Great Migration.

Black pioneers made a stand for equality and freedom, and their success made them the targets of racist backlash. Political and armed battles ensued, tearing apart families and communities long before the Civil War. These settlers were inspired by the belief that all men are created equal and a brighter future was possible.

Anna-Lisa Cox is an award-winning historian and author of A Stronger Kinship: One Town's Extraordinary Story of Hope and Faith. Currently a fellow at Harvard University's Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, she helped create two exhibits based on original research at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, including one on black pioneers.

Tuesday, July 24, 7:00 pm, at Boswell: Dan Kaufman, author of The Fall of Wisconsin: The Conservative Conquest of a Progressive Bastion and the Future of American Politics

Wisconsin native Dan Kaufman chronicles one of the most dramatic political upheavals in the country. The Fall of Wisconsin is an account of how the state’s progressive tradition was undone and turned into a model for national conservatives. Please note that C-Span will be taping this event for future broadcast. Please arrive early before our event starts so that you do not interrupt the taping.

For more than a century, Wisconsin has been known for its progressive ideas and government*. It famously served as a "laboratory of democracy," a cradle of the labor and environmental movements, and birthplace of the Wisconsin Idea, championing expertise in service of the common good. But following a Republican sweep of the state’s government in 2010, the state went red for the first time in three decades in the 2016 presidential election.

Laws protecting voting rights, labor unions, the environment, and public education have been rapidly dismantled. The Fall of Wisconsin is a deeply reported, neither sentimental nor despairing, account of the remarkable efforts of citizens fighting to reclaim Wisconsin’s progressive legacy against tremendous odds.

Originally from Wisconsin, Dan Kaufman has written for The New York Times and The New Yorker. Can't make our event? Dan Kaufman will be at Oconomowoc's Book sand Company on Wednesday, July 25, 2 pm.

Friday, July 27, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Eric and Stephani Lohman, author of Raising Rosie: Our Story of Parenting an Intersex Child

Milwaukee parents Eric and Stephani Lohman appear at Boswell to share the powerful story of raising Rosie, their intersex child, and how they have navigated medical pressures and cultural ideas of gender. When their daughter Rosie was born, Eric and Stephani Lohman found themselves thrust into a situation for which they were not prepared. Rosie was born intersex - born with a variety of physical characteristics that do not fit neatly into traditional conceptions of male and female bodies. Immediately, the Lohmans were pressured to consent to normalizing surgery for Rosie, despite their concerns, and without being offered any alternatives.

Part memoir and part guidebook, Raising Rosie tells the Lohmans’ experience of refusing to have their child’s gender reassigned at birth, how they spoke about the condition to friends and family, teachers and caregivers, and how they plan to explain it to Rosie as she grows. This uplifting and empowering story is a must-read for all parents of intersex children.

Rosie’s story is featured in the National Geographic documentary Gender Revolution: A Journey with Katie Couric. Discussing the challenges the Lohmans have faced, Couric told Teen Vogue, “You have to be your own best advocate so that you can educate yourself about this issue. You don't have to be cowed into making a decision by a member of the medical community who may think you have to do things a certain way."

Eric Lohman, PhD. in Media Studies, is lecturer and researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, focusing on gender, race, and class in the mass media. Stephani Lohman, BS, BScN, works in health care and science as an infection prevention nurse and has degrees in chemistry, biology, and nursing.

Sunday, July 29, 2 pm at Milwaukee Public Library's Loos Room at Centennial Hall, 733 N Eighth St:
Ann McClain Terrell, author of Graceful Leadership in Early Childhood Education

Director of the Milwaukee Public Schools Foundation Ann McClain Terrell shares the story of her professional journey and the lessons she’s learned as an award-winning, nationally renowned early childhood educator.

Told in a narrative, inspirational, and practical way, this book shares the values that the author has held onto in order to be successful. It shares how one woman maintained her grace and quiet dignity while on her leadership journey and overcame the challenges and hurdles that she faced. This is not a theoretical book but rather, one that shows how theory and personal experience can be used and put into action.

Graceful Leadership in Early Childhood Education is a book to turn to when there is a challenge that needs tackling, when you need a boost of inspiration, or when you just want to reflect on your own journey.

Ann McClain Terrell was formerly Director of Innovation and Director of Early Childhood Education for Milwaukee Public Schools. She holds an MS in Educational Leadership from Cardinal Stritch University and an MS in Cultural Foundations of Education from UWM.

Terrell received the Black Women's Network Legacy of Leadership in Education Award 2008, the National Black Child Development Institute-Milwaukee Affiliate Early Childhood Recognition Award 2007, and the Community Brainstorming Conference Children's Advocacy Award 2004. She was selected as a 2000 Children's Defense Fund Early Childhood Leadership Fellow, was recently nominated for the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators Bert Grover Advocacy Award, and in 2016 was named as one of the most influential African Americans in Wisconsin by Madison365.

Monday, July 30, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Kelli María Korducki, author of Hard To Do: The Surprising, Feminist History of Breaking Up

Journalist, cultural critic, and Jackson Park, Milwaukee native Kelli María Korducki breaks the news about breaking up in her history of the surprising politics of romantic love and its dissolution, from Jane Austen to Taylor Swift.

Whatever the underlying motives, be they love, financial security, or mere masochism, the fact is that getting involved in a romantic partnership is emotionally, morally, and even politically fraught. In Hard To Do, Kelli María Korducki turns a Marxist lens on the relatively short history of romantic love, tracing how the myth of economic equality between men and women has transformed the ways women conceive of domestic partnership.

With perceptive insights on the ways marriage and divorce are legislated, the rituals of twentieth-century courtship, and contemporary practices for calling it off, Korducki reveals that, for all women, choosing to end a relationship is a radical action with very limited cultural precedent.

Kelli María Korducki, an alum of Pius XI High School, is Senior Editor of News at Brit + Co, and has written for the Globe and Mail, NPR, and Vice. In 2015 she was nominated for a National Magazine Award for ‘Tiny Triumphs,’ a 10,000-word meditation on the humble hot dog for Little Brother Magazine. She is also a former Editor-in-Chief of the daily news blog, Torontoist.

For more information about upcoming events, visit the Boswell Upcoming Events page.

*Yes, we are aware that Wisconsin is also the state of Joseph McCarthy.

Sunday, July 22, 2018

How will you remember the summer of '18? Boswell Bestsellers for the week of July 21, 2018

How will you remember the summer of '18? Boswell Bestsellers for the week of July 21, 2018

Hardcover Fiction:
1. An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones (signed copies available)
2. My Year of Rest and Relaxation, by Ottessa Moshfegh (also signed copies)
3. The Other Woman, by Daniel Silva
4. There, There, by Tommy Orange (event 9/25 - register here)
5. The Immortalists, by Chloe Benjamin
6. Paris by the Book, by Liam Callanan
7. Noir, by Christopher Moore
8. A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
9. Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng
10. The Bookshop of Yesterdays, by Amy Meyerson

Amy Meyerson's The Bookshop of Yesterdays was kind of a shoo-in for our bestseller list. According to the publisher, "The story is about a woman who, upon inheriting a bookstore, discovers a series of literary clues hidden inside the books that lead her to uncover long-kept secrets about her family's past. They noted, "Definitely A.J. Fikry territory. Author did research at Stories Books & Cafe, Skylight, Book Soup, Chevalier's Books, The Last Bookstore, Vroman's and Explore Booksellers." Publishers Weekly wrote: "Filled with quotes from and allusions to The Tempest, The Wizard of Oz, and Jane Eyre, Meyerson's evocative novel is a fun homage to book lovers and the eclectic spirit of L.A."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Don't Make Me Pull Over, by Richard Ratay
2. The Fall of Wisconsin, by Dan Kaufman (event 7/24 - free, no registration, come early!)
3. Rendezvous with Oblivion, by Thomas Frank (signed copies available)
4. A Modern Hair Study, by Tara Bogart
5. Milwaukee: A City Built on Water, by John Gurda
6. You Can't Spell Truth without Ruth, edited by Mary Zaia
7. From the Corner of the Oval, by Beck Dorey-Stein
8. Educated, by Tara Westover
9. Calypso, by David Sedaris
10. A Higher Loyalty, by James Comey

From Paul Begala in The New York Times: "Beck Dorey-Stein’s addictively readable memoir, From the Corner of the Oval, carries the reader on a ride that is improbable even by White House standards. At 26, while working an array of jobs — waitressing, working the cash register at Lululemon and tutoring at the elite Quaker school Sidwell Friends, where she literally runs into Malia Obama one day — Dorey-Stein answers an ad on Craigslist for a stenographer. In the blink of an eye she finds that she is now one of President Barack Obama’s stenographers." He later calls it "CSpan meets Sex and the City."

Paperback Fiction:
1. Less, by Andrew Sean Greer
2. Pachinko, by Min Jin Lee
3. Sing, Unburied, Sing, by Jesmyn Ward
4. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, by Gail Honeyman
5. Eileen, by Ottessa Moshfegh
6. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, by Arundhati Roy
7. The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead
8. My Absolute Darling, by Gabriel Tallent
9. The Rules of Magic, by Alice Hoffman
10. The Half-Drowned King, by Linnea Hartsuyker

New in paperback and adorned with a staff rec from Jen, The Half Drowned King from Linna Hartsuyker. Also a fan is Paula McLain, who wrote "Linnea Hartsuyker is an exciting, original voice in historical fiction, and The Half-Drowned King is nothing short of mesmerizing." Because has an implied "volume one," attached to it, I can only imagine that the audience is going to include historical fiction readers, as well as cross-over from fantasy and even YA. Here Jason Rhode in Paste Magazine calls it a Viking Game of Thrones.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Evicted, by Matthew Desmond
2. Rock 'n' Roll Radio Milwaukee, by Bob Barry
3. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan
4. The Color of Law, by Richard Rothstein
5. Kitchen Confidential, by Anthony Bourdin
6. Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann (In-Store Lit Group on Mon 8/6, 7 pm, at Boswell)
7. Flaneuse, by Lauren Elkin
8. Dead Girls, by Alice Bolin
9. Somos Latinas, edited by Andrea-Teresa Arenas and Eloisa Gómez
10. Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari

The publisher's notes on Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession: "From essays on Joan Didion and James Baldwin to Twin Peaks, Britney Spears, and Serial, Bolin illuminates our widespread obsession with women who are abused, killed, and disenfranchised, and whose bodies (dead and alive) are used as props to bolster a man’s story." Despite just one book under her belt, we already pay attention to a blurb from Carmen Maria Marchado. Here's her take on Alice Bolin's new book of essays: "Bracing and blazingly smart, Alice Bolin's Dead Girls could hardly be more needed or more timely.”

Books for Kids:
1. Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe, by Jo Watson Hackl
2. Adventure Zone V1, by Clint McElroy
3. The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas
4. A Place for Pluto, by Stef Wade (event at Boswell Wed Aug 1, 6:30 pm)
5. Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi
6. 91-Story Treehouse V7, by Andy Griffiths
7. I Am a Bunny, by Ole Rison with illustrations by Richard Scarry
8. Moon, by Alison Oliver
9. Calling the Water Drum, by Latisha Redding, with illustrations by Aaron Boyd
10. Bob, by Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead

Amie and Jen finally convinced me to read Bob, the middle-grade novel written by Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead. It's about 10-year-old Olivia, who travels with her mother and young sibling to visit her Grandma in Australia. She opens the closet door and there they are*, dressed in a makeshift chicken suit. "What took you so long? I've been waiting for five years." Livy does not remember this at all. Are they a zombie, as guessed, a monster, an alien, or just differently creatured? All Livy knows is, she has to help Bob. All this, plus a shout out to Edward Eager's Half Magic, which you should all know is my favorite children's book**.

*Despite being named Bob, I don't think there's clear indication of the creature's gender. **Actually, Magic by the Lake and Knight's Castle give Half Magic a run for is money, but I think it's important to start at the beginning of this quartet of novels (the fourth is The Thyme Garden), so there you are.

This week's reviews in the Journal Sentinel book page, originally from USA Today
--Clock Dance, by Anne Tyler, reviewed by Charles Finch
--Hope Never Dies, by Andrew Shaffer, a mystery featuring Barack Obama and Joe Biden
--Astroball, by Ben Reiter, on the success of the Houston Astros
We'll be back tomorrow with a roundup of this week's events.

In a closing note, what do Ottessa Moshfegh and Tayari Jones have in common? Per what we heard at this week's author conversations, both are both fans of Anne Tyler. If I were a review assigner, I'd definitely try to get either one of them to review Clock Dance. I'm sure that they would both produce fascinating essays.

Monday, July 16, 2018

Boswell Bugle-Milwaukeean Update: Tara Bogart, Ottessa Moshfegh, Richard Ratay, Thomas Frank, Tayari Jones, Anna-Lisa Cox, Dan Kaufman

Boswell Bugle-Milwaukeean Update: Tara Bogart, Ottessa Moshfegh, Richard Ratay, Thomas Frank, Tayari Jones, Anna-Lisa Cox, Dan Kaufman

Tuesday, July 17, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Tara Bogart, author of A Modern Hair Study

Photographer and Milwaukee native Tara Bogart, whose work was featured in May 2017 at Lawrence University’s Hoffmaster Gallery, visits Boswell with her book of portraits featuring young women photographed from behind that allow the viewer to contemplate details that make each woman an individual.

In 2011, during a visit to Paris' Bibliothèque nationale, Tara Bogart saw the photograph Marie Laurent (1865) by Nadar and was immediately intrigued. The photograph, taken from behind, was of a young woman whose hair was held up by an ornate clip. Bogart couldn’t stop thinking about what that image would look like today. Five months later, she began the series that became A Modern Hair Study.

"While certain ideals are often relevant to different generations,” Bogart says, “the ways in which women adorn and modify themselves often indicate the struggles of a young adult with their own ideology and individuality. After photographing these young women, I can imagine these struggles are timeless."

Tara Bogart has exhibited work at the The Portrait Society Gallery and The Charles Allis Art Museum in Milwaukee, and Hous Projects and Aperture in New York. Her work is in the J. Crew Art Collection and the collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.

Wedenesday, July 18, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Ottessa Moshfegh, author of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, in conversation with Wisconsin Public Radio's Doug Gordon

Boswell and Wisconsin Public Radio present PEN/Hemingway Award winning author Ottessa Moshfegh in conversation with WPR’s Doug Gordon. Moshfegh’s new novel, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, is the shocking, tender story of a woman’s efforts to sustain a state of deep hibernation over the course of a year on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Here's Chris Lee from Boswell with his recommendation of My Year of Rest and Relaxation: "A woman can give the whole world the finger just as well as any Angry Young Man™. Summer, 2000, NYC, a brand new century full of glossy optimism. On the Upper East Side, though, one woman wants nothing to do with it. Beautiful, blonde, educated, and rich with inheritance money, she's loathe to go outside and wants only to watch her Whoopie Goldberg tapes, self-medicate, and sleep. It's a book about detachment, alienation, grief, anger, heritage, and surviving by any means what should be a life of privilege and means. Oh, yeah, and it's amazing. Moshfegh's writing feels, to me, maybe a little reminiscent of the cool, detached ache of early Bret Easton Ellis, but that's just a touchstone - her voice is all her own, raw, flip, tender, cruel, and just barely a little, tiny bit hopeful all at once."

Walton Mayumba offers his take in the Los Angeles Times: "With our faces and fingers buried in screens, the narrator’s project would be harder to pull off in 2018. I suspect, however, that if I tuned out, logged off and spent more hours deeply asleep, I might gain renewed clarity, insights similar to the narrator’s unfussy, lucid realizations upon awakening from her final detoxifying rest. Moshfegh’s strange and captivating novel suggests that sleep may be the only thing we humans have for recharging our souls and reawakening our sensibilities in the discovery and creation of beauty."

Ottessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer from New England. Eileen, her first novel, was shortlisted for the NBCC Award and the Man Booker Prize, and won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. She is also the author of Homesick for Another World and McGlue, a novella. Her stories have been published in The Paris Review, The New Yorker, Granta, and have earned her a Pushcart Prize, an O. Henry Award, the Plimpton Discovery Prize, and an NEA grant.

Thursday, July 19, 6:30 pm, at Shorewood Public Library, 3920 N Murray Ave:
Thomas Frank, author of Rendezvous with Oblivion: Reports from a Sinking Society

Thomas Frank, the acclaimed political analyist, historian, journalist, and author of Listen, Liberal! and What’s the Matter with Kansas? offers this scathing collection of commentary on our cruel times. Cohosted by Shorewood Public Library and Boswell Book Company, who will be on hand to sell copies of Frank’s books.

What does a middle-class democracy look like when it comes apart? After forty years of economic triumph, are America’s winners convinced they owe nothing to the rest of the country? With his sharp eye for detail, Frank takes us on a wide-ranging tour through America, showing us a society in the late stages of disintegration and describing the worlds of both the winners and the losers, sprawling mansion districts juxtaposed against fast-food lives.

From the starred Publishers Weekly review: "He attacks many juicy targets, including the callous interpersonal psychology of rich people; the faux-folksiness of fast-food restaurants that pay starvation wages; journalism’s plunge, led by conservative media mogul Andrew Breitbart, into fake news and mindless caricature; the defunding of the humanities at universities and academics’ defense of those fields as incubators of business acumen; reactions to Steven Spielberg’s film Lincoln that lionized its depiction of political corruption as bipartisan 'compromise' to which real-life politicians should aspire; and the George W. Bush Presidential Library’s efforts to gloss over war, Hurricane Katrina, and economic collapse...'"

Thomas Frank is a former columnist for The Wall Street Journal and Harper's, the founding editor of The Baffler, and the author of Pity the Billionaire and The Wrecking Crew. He writes regularly for The Guardian.

Thursday, July 19, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Richard Ratay, author of Don't Make Me Pull Over!: An Informal History of the Family Road Trip

Richard Ratay road trips to Boswell from his home in Menomonee Falls to reminisce about the golden age of family road trips, a halcyon era that culminated in the latter part of the twentieth century, before portable DVD players, iPods, and Google Maps.

Part pop history and part whimsical memoir in the spirit of National Lampoon's Vacation, Don’t Make Me Pull Over! is a rousing ride-along through the days when families didn’t so much take vacations as survive them. Between home and destination lay thousands of miles and dozens of annoyances, and Ratay experienced them all, from noogie-happy older brothers and disappointing souvenir situations to dealing with a dad who didn’t believe in bathroom breaks.

Here's a recommendation of Don't Make Me Pull Over from Boswell's Kay Wosewick: "Unlike author Richard Ratay’s father, my dad was the quiet type. When my brother and I fought in the car, my dad would slam on the brakes and bring the car very quickly to a full stop no matter what kind of road we were on (often it was Route 66; since we never were rear-ended, I assume he checked the rear-view mirror first). Other than that, Ratay’s memories of his childhood vacations in large, lumbering automobiles align very closely with mine. If you traveled in cars for days, even weeks at a time with your family when you were young, this book is bound to bring back fond, funny, frustrating, and maybe even fearful-in-hindsight memories - it certainly did for me."

Richard Ratay was the last of four kids raised by two mostly attentive parents in Elm Grove, Wisconsin. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in journalism and has worked as an award-winning advertising copywriter for twenty-five years. Ratay lives in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, with his wife, sons, and two excitable rescue dogs.

Friday, July 20, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage, in conversation with Jim Higgins, Book Editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Please register for this event here - we're near capacity.

Join us for an evening with bestselling author Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage and Silver Sparrow. Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined.

From Tori Latham at The Atlantic: "It is this sort of intimacy that Tayari Jones so searchingly explores in her new novel, An American Marriage, which follows the wrongful imprisonment of a young black man named Roy, and its impact on him and on his new wife Celestial. Jones shifts from the first-person narration provided by these two protagonists to letters they send each other while Roy is in prison. She then returns to their firsthand accounts, adding in a third narrator - Andre, a childhood friend of Celestial’s and a college friend of Roy’s. The variation in these perspectives serves an important purpose: It offers up myriad means of understanding the novel’s complicated central relationship, and lets every character speak for themselves, giving each an opportunity to capture the reader’s allegiance."

This event is free and is likely to be at capacity. Please register at tayarimke.bpt.me. Attendees who register will get early entry if we reach or come close to capacity, priority on the signing line, and a 20% discount on An American Marriage on the night of the event.

Monday, July 23, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Anna-Lisa Cox, author of The Bone and Sinew of the Land: America's Forgotten Black Pioneers and the Struggle for Equality

Anna-Lisa Cox appears at Boswell with her breakout history of the long-hidden stories of America's black pioneers, the frontier they settled, and their fight for the heart of the nation. This groundbreaking work reveals America's Northwest Territory - the wild region that would become present-day Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

When black settlers Keziah and Charles Grier started clearing their frontier land in 1818, they were just looking to build a better life, but soon the Griers became early Underground Railroad conductors, joining fellow pioneers to confront the growing tyranny of bondage and injustice. Cox tells the stories of the Griers and others like them: the lost history of the nation's first Great Migration.

Black pioneers made a stand for equality and freedom, and their success made them the targets of racist backlash. Political and armed battles ensued, tearing apart families and communities long before the Civil War. These settlers were inspired by the belief that all men are created equal and a brighter future was possible.

Anna-Lisa Cox is an award-winning historian and author of A Stronger Kinship: One Town's Extraordinary Story of Hope and Faith. Currently a fellow at Harvard University's Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, she helped create two exhibits based on original research at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, including one on black pioneers.

Tuesday, July 24, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Dan Kaufman, author of The Fall of Wisconsin: The Conservative Conquest of a Progressive Bastion and the Future of American Politics

Wisconsin native Dan Kaufman chronicles one of the most dramatic political upheavals in the country. The Fall of Wisconsin is a searing account of how the state’s progressive tradition was undone and turned into a model for national conservatives.

For more than a century, Wisconsin has been known for its progressive ideas and government. It famously served as a "laboratory of democracy," a cradle of the labor and environmental movements, and birthplace of the Wisconsin Idea, championing expertise in service of the common good. But following a Republican sweep of the state’s government in 2010, the state went red for the first time in three decades in the 2016 presidential election.

Laws protecting voting rights, labor unions, the environment, and public education have been rapidly dismantled. The Fall of Wisconsin is a deeply reported, neither sentimental nor despairing, account of the remarkable efforts of citizens fighting to reclaim Wisconsin’s progressive legacy against tremendous odds.

Originally from Wisconsin, Dan Kaufman has written for The New York Times and The New Yorker. Can't make our event? Dan Kaufman will be at Books and Company in Oconomowoc on Wednesday, July 25, 2 pm. More here.

Our most-updated events schedule is at boswellbooks.com/upcoming-events.