Boswell bestsellers for the week ending February 23, 2019

Here are the Boswell bestsellers for the week ending February 23, 2019

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Black Leopard, Red Wolf, by Marlon James
2. Good Riddance, by Elinor Lipman (register for March 11 event here)
3. Devotions, by Mary Oliver
4. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
5. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
6. There There, by Tommy Orange
7. Finding Dorothy, by Elizabeth Letts
8. Bowlaway, by Elizabeth McCracken
9. Lost Children Archive, by Valeria Luiselli
10. A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles (register for April 3 event here)

Jessie Martin from Nicola's Books offers a recommendation of Elizabeth McCracken's Bowlaway: "At the turn of the 20th century, Bertha Truitt is found lying unconscious in a frosty New England cemetery with no explanation of how she arrived there and a past she is unwilling to talk about. In a bag by her side are a corset, a bowling ball, one candlepin, and 15 pounds of gold. Thus begins a story of love, bowling, and how Bertha Truitt would influence the town of Salford and its residents for generations to come." Dwight Garner reviews McCracken's first novel in 18 years in The New York Times.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. The Threat, by Andrew G McCabe
2. The Cooking Gene, by Michael W Twitty
3. Becoming, by Michelle Obama
4. Spearhead, by Adam Makos
5. Women Rowing North, by Mary Pipher
6. Educated, by Tara Westover
7. How to Hide an Empire, by Daniel Immerwahr
8. The First Conspiracy, by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch
9. Dreyer's English, by Benjamin Dreyer
10. Salt Fat Acid Heat, by Samin Nosrat

Last weekend every news channel was featuring Andrew McCabe's The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump. CNN thinks that Trump's tweets against it helped sales. Ron Elving on NPR weighs in as well.


Paperback Fiction:
1. The Immortalists, by Chloe Benjamin (event Tue 2/26, 7 pm, at Boswell)
2. Paris by the Book, by Liam Callanan
3. Affliction, by C Dale Young
4. The Milkman, by Anna Burns
5. An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones
6. The Curiosities, by Susan Gloss
7. Sing Unburied Sing, by Jesmyn Ward
8. Cloudbursts, by Thomas McGuane
9. The Perfect Nanny, by Leila Slimani
10. I Was Anastasia, by Ariel Lawhon (register for March 7 event at Lynden Sculpture Garden here)

Cloudbursts: Collected and New Stories from Thomas McGuane was named one of the best books of the year from The Wall Street Journal. In its second week of sale in paperback, it hit our bestseller list. Gabe Habash notes in the Los Angeles Times: "Two of his last four books have been story collections, Gallatin Canyon and Crow Fair,bincluded in their entirety in Cloudbursts, along with stories from his first collection, To Skin a Cat, as well as eight new stories, nearly all set in Montana. These 45 career-spanning stories contain more artistry, humor, eyebrow-raising plot turns, and surprising diction than seems possible in one book."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. The Cooking Gene, by Michael W Twitty
2. Permission to Thrive, by Susan Angel Miller
3. Mother of Black Hollywood, by Jenifer Lewis
4. In the Shadow of Powers, by Patrick Bellegarde Smith
5. Dear White Christians, by Jennifer Harvey
6. Raising White Kids, by Jennifer Harvey
7. Go Ahead in the Rain, by Hanif Abdurraqib
8. Just Kids, by Patti Smith
9. Martin and Malcolm and America, by James Cone
10. Breaking the Vicious Cycle, by Elaine Gottschall

I don't often see a recommendation for a book from actress and singer Brandy Norwood so I thought I'd call your attention to her shout out for Jenifer Harvey, who plays a grandmother on Black-ish: "The Mother of Black Hollywood is inspiring, funny, and boldly transparent. It takes a beyond brave person to write such a memoir. Jenifer Lewis is a true vessel and channel for pure expression...the most honest person I have ever met." Lewis almost came to Milwaukee for the DMEF lunch. The new speaker is Jesse Holland. Buy your ticket here for the March 30 celebration.

Books for Kids:
1. The Survivors Club (paperback), by Michael Bornstein with Debbie Bornstein Holinstat
2. The Art of Losing, by Lizzy Mason
3. The Happy Book, by Andy Rash
4. The Survivors Club (hardcover), by Michael Bornstein with Debbie Bornstein Holinstat
5. Beautiful Oops, by Barney Saltzberg
6. Crazy Hair Day, by Barney Saltzberg
7. Arno Needs Glasses, by Barney Saltzberg
8. Peaceful Fights for Equal Rights, by Rob Sanders
9. Would You Rather Be a Princess or a Dragon?, by Barney Saltzberg
10. Hello Lighthouse, by Sophie Blackall

The weather held up enough for us to have a great kids event with Lizzy Mason for The Art of Losing, in conversation with former Boswellian Phoebe Dyer. Mason also visited Nicolet High School. Hey, you might be saying, I teach at a high school and I would love to have an author visit. You can email jenny@boswellbooks.com. Bustle notes calls Mason's debut "a riveting story about loss, addiction, and love, The Art of Losing is a poignant novel readers young and old will be able to relate to."

Over at the Journal Sentinel, Jim Higgins highlights some of the great authors coming to Milwaukee, including Nicholas Butler, Anna Quindlen, and Amor Towles. Note that Jon Meacham (which we're helping with) is sold out. It turns out Michelle Obama is not, there are only a few single seats left and they are in the $650-$825. If this seat is calling your name, you can get one here.

Patty Rhule from USA Today reviews Yangsze Choo's The Night Tiger, which is "so vividly told, you can practically smell the oleander blossoms outside Acton’s house."

Ann Levin (Associated Press) weighs in on Nobody's Looking at You, a new collection of essays from Janet Malcolm: "It would be frightening to be interviewed by Janet Malcolm. But the same qualities that make her such a fearsome interlocutor also lend her essays an uncommon clarity."