Events at Boswell - David Milofsky with Dick Blau, Carol Anshaw with Jane Hamilton, Veronica Roth with Gregory B Sadler, Sarah Dahmen, Dan Kois with Liam Callanan and the Kois kids, and Craig Johnson (ticketed) -

Monday, September 30, 7 pm, at Boswell:
David Milofsky, author of A Milwaukee Inheritance, in conversation with Dick Blau

Milwaukee-raised Milofsky chats about his sixth novel with Dick Blau, Professor Emeritus of Film, Video, Animation, and New Genres at UWM.

Milofsky’s novel is the story of a man who moves back to Milwaukee with his mercurial wife only to inherit a run-down duplex from his mother who, on her deathbed, extracts a promise from him not to evict the money pit’s delinquent occupants. The novel is a slow-burning, finely textured portrait of family dynamics, the secrets between generations, and the ways the shadows of the past can keep us from moving into the future.

Richard Ford says, “A Milwaukee Inheritance is, as advertised, a loving, knowing paean to the Cream City, but also to our great American middle – about which not enough can be written – and as such has its own honest inheritances in Howells, Anderson, Bellow, Gass, Oates, Dybek – all heroes, and among whom David Milofsky’s measured, poignant, plain-spoke Midwestern sentences and intelligence stand out vividly. It’s a novel that welcomes us.”

Tuesday, October 1, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Carol Anshaw, author of Right After the Weather, in conversation with Jane Hamilton

Author of New York Times bestseller Carry the One discusses her long-awaited novel exploring what happens when untested people are put to a hard test, and in its aftermath, find themselves in a newly uncertain world. She’ll chat with Jane Hamilton, Wisconsin author of The Excellent Lombards and The Book of Ruth.

Fall of 2016. Cate’s conspiracy theorist ex-husband is camped out in her spare bedroom as she attempts to settle into a serious relationship and get financially solvent working in Chicago’s theater community. Her yoga instructor best friend is Cate’s model for what adulthood looks like. Then Cate finds strangers assaulting her friend and is forced to take fast, spontaneous action. Cate learns the violence she is capable of, and overnight, her world has changed.

Anshaw’s flawed, sympathetic, and uncannily familiar characters grapple with altered relationships and identities against the backdrop of the new presidency and a country waking to a different understanding of itself. Eloquent, moving, and beautifully observed, Right After the Weather is the work of a master of exquisite prose and a wry and compassionate student of the human condition writing at the height of her considerable powers.

Wednesday, October 2, 7 pm, at Boswell
Veronica Roth, author of The End and Other Beginnings: Stories from the Future, in conversation with Gregory B Sadler

#1 New York Times bestselling Divergent author Veronica Roth visits Boswell with her masterful collection of six futuristic short stories, with two never-before-seen tales from her popular Carve the Mark universe. She’ll chat with Milwaukeean Gregory B Sadler, known as That Philosophy Guy.

Registration is free at veronicarothmke.bpt.me. To get in the signing line, attendees must upgrade to the book-with-registration option for $20.05, which includes admission, a copy of The End and Other Beginnings, and all taxes and fees. Roth will sign and personalize The End and Other Beginnings and will sign one book brought from home. No posed photos or inscriptions (messages). Please note, signing line upgrade is limited to 150 people. No cancellations for signing line tickets after October 1.

In Roth’s latest collection, each setting is more strange and wonderful than the last, brimming with new technologies and beings. And yet, for all the advances in these futuristic lands, the people still must confront deeply human problems. In these six short stories, Roth reaches into the unknown and draws forth something startlingly familiar and profoundly beautiful. With tales of friendship and revenge, this collection has something for new and old fans alike. Each story begins with a hope for a better end, but always ends with a better understanding of the beginning. Featuring stunning black-and-white illustrations, Roth’s latest is a book collector’s dream.

Thursday, October 3, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Sara Dahmen, author of Tinsmith 1865

Port Washington coppersmith and author visits with Tinsmith 1865, part of her Flats Junction series, the story of Marie, a Polish immigrant who heads west to the unwelcoming Dakota Territories with her tinsmith father and brothers. Dahmen will chat about her book and present some of the metalworking skills her characters need to survive. Folks who buy a copy of Tinsmith 1865 at the event will get a complimentary copper straw, while supplies last.

When her tinsmith father and brothers head West, Polish immigrant Marie Kotlarczyk has no choice but to go along. Family, after all, is family. The Dakota Territories are anything but welcoming to the Kotlarczyks, and as the months trip by, Marie must pick up the hammers she’s secretly desired but also feared. When she faces the skeptical people of Flats Town, the demands of the local Army commander, and her public failures, her inner voice grows destructive, forcing Marie to decide exactly who she is and what it means to be a woman metalsmith.

Port Washington based Sara Dahmen is one of the only female coppersmiths in the country, working as a metalsmith of vintage and modern cookware. She is Cofounder of the American Pure Metals Guild. Her novel, Widow 1881, won the Laramie Award for Western Historical Fiction and was named Fiction Book of the Year by Author's Circle.

Friday, October 4, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Joe Hill, author of Full Throttle

Presenting a special evening with Boswell favorite Joe Hill, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman, Strange Weather, and NOS4A2, now a hit television show on AMC. His latest is a dark and ingenious collection of thirteen compelling short stories that showcase his ability to push genre conventions to new extremes.

This event is free (really!), but registration is required. For this event, your line letter will be assigned when you register at joehillmke.bpt.me. The first 50 people who register with book upgrade will get an A, the next group will get a B. Free registration starts gets you a C line letter. Books will also be for sale at the event.

In Full Throttle, a masterful collection of short fiction, Joe Hill dissects timeless human struggles in thirteen relentless tales of supernatural suspense, including "In the Tall Grass," one of two stories co-written with Stephen King, basis for the terrifying feature film from Netflix. Featuring two previously unpublished stories, and a brace of shocking chillers, Full Throttle is a darkly imagined odyssey through the complexities of the human psyche. Hypnotic and disquieting, it mines our tormented secrets, hidden vulnerabilities, and basest fears, and demonstrates this exceptional talent at his very best.

Saturday, October 5, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Dan Kois, author of How to Be a Family: The Year I Dragged My Kids Around the World to Find a New Way to Be Together, in conversation with Liam Callanan and the Kois kids

Globetrotting dad Dan Kois, Host of the podcast Mom and Dad Are Fighting, travels to Boswell to share his memoir of the year he set out with his family around the world to change their lives together. Kois will be in conversation with Milwaukee’s Liam Callanan, author of Paris by the Book, and they will be joined by Dan’s children, who will add questions to the conversation.

In this eye-opening, heartwarming, and very funny family memoir, the fractious, loving Kois family goes in search of other places on the map that might offer them the chance to live away from home but closer together, from New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Costa Rica to small-town Kansas. The goal? To get out of their rut of busyness and distractedness and to see how other families live. Filled with heart, empathy, and lots of whining, How to Be a Family will make readers dream about the amazing adventures their own families might take.

How to Be a Family brings readers along as the Kois girls-witty, solitary, extremely online Lyra and goofy, sensitive, social butterfly Harper-like through the Kiwi bush, ride bikes to a Dutch school in the pouring rain, battle iguanas in their Costa Rican kitchen, and learn to love a town where everyone knows your name. Meanwhile, Dan interviews neighbors, public officials, and scholars to learn why each of these places work the way they do. Will this trip change the Kois family's lives? Or do families take their problems and conflicts with them wherever we go?

Monday, Ocotber 7, 7 pm, at Boswell:
A ticketed event with Craig Johnson, author of Land of Wolves

Boswell Book Company hosts Craig Johnson, author of the beloved book-series-turned-hit-TV-show, Longmire, for his brand new novel, in which the titular Sheriff returns to Wyoming to try once again to maintain justice in a place with grudges that go back generations.

Tickets cost $29 and include admission, a copy of Land of Wolves, sales tax and ticket fee, available at craigjohnsonmke.bpt.me.

In Land of Wolves, the latest in Johnson's New York Times bestselling series, Wyoming Sheriff Walt Longmire is neck deep in the investigation of what could or could not be the suicidal hanging of a shepherd. With unsettling connections to a Basque family with a reputation for removing the legs of Absaroka County sheriffs, matters are further complicated with the appearance of an oversize wolf in the Big Horn Mountains.

As Walt searches for information about the shepherd, he comes across strange messages from his spiritual guide, Virgil White Buffalo. Virgil usually reaches out if a child is in danger. So when a young boy with ties to the Extapare clan arrives in town, the stakes become even higher. To complicate matters, a renegade wolf has been haunting the Bighorn Mountains, and the townspeople are out for blood. But Walt knows the mysterious animal is not the predator that needs tracking. With both a wolf and a killer on the loose, Longmire follows a twisting trail of evidence, leading to dark and shocking conclusions.

More on the Boswell upcoming events page.

Photo and artist credits:
Dan Kois by Lyra Kois
Craig Johnson credit Judith Johnson

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending September 28, 2019

Here's what we're selling - week ending September 28, 2019

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Red at the Bone, by Jacqueline Woodson
2. The World We Knew, by Alice Hoffman
3. The Water Dancer, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
4. The Dutch House (event at Sharon Lynne Wilson Center on October 22 - Tickets here)
5. The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood
6. The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
7. A Better Man, by Louise Penny
8. A Milwaukee Inheritance, by David Milofsky (event at Boswell, Monday, September 30, 7 pm)
9. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
10. The Most Fun We Ever Had, by Claire Lombardo

I have sometimes said that publishers don't always publishe enough strong fall fiction, but it feels like this year we are drowning in riches. Setting aside all our focus on Jacqueline Woodson and Alice Hoffman (both amazing events this past week with signed copies available of Red at the Bone and The World We Knew) and Ann Patchett's The Dutch House, there's also the release this week of Ta-Neheisi Coates's much anticipated first novel.

The Water Dancer is the current Oprah Book Club pick and is winning raves everywhere - Rob Merrill in the Associated Press (through the courtesy of the Worcester Telegram and Gazette) writes, "National Book Award winner Ta-Nehisi Coates writes about a topic - slavery - that most people would say they know something about. But we don’t, not really. How could we? How could I, a white middle-aged man in 2019, truly know the horror of human bondage and the fierce dignity it took for some to survive it? Coates’ first novel dazzles with a story firmly grounded in the harsh realities of slavery, yet elevated by a modicum of mysticism."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. The Year of the Monkey, by Patti Smith
2. Educated, by Tara Westover
3. Talking to Strangers, by Malcolm Gladwell
4. Permanent Record, by Edward Snowden
5. For the Good of the Game, by Bud Selig
6. The Years That Matter Most, by Paul Tough (Event at USM on Tuesday October 15 - register here)
7. Save Me the Plums, by Ruth Reichl
8. Ron Wolf and the Green Bay Packers, by Michael Bauman
9. Bill Cunningham On the Street, from The New York Times
10. Salt Fat Acid Heat, by Samin Nosrat (Nosrat at UWM on October 22 - tickets available to the public tomorrow)

Out top nonfiction seller, being that we had no events in that category, is Patti Smith's The Year of the Monkey. This is her third memoir, following Just Kids and M Train, but as David L Ulin notes in the Los Angeles Times review, Year of the Monkey may come billed as a memoir, but really it is less in the vein of Smith’s National Book Award-winning Just Kids than of her poetry, or impressionistic works such as M Train and Woolgathering. There, the author traces a line between the routines of existence and what she has called 'the unforeseen quantity, the muse that assails at the hidden hour.' That muse emerges via the 'silk of souls' she has assembled of the friends and family she has lost." Ken Tucker seems to argue in The New York Times that one might call it a dream journal, and I don't think he much likes dream journals.

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson
2. Liminal Space, by Carrie Voigt Schonhoff
3. The Overstory, by Richard Powers (In-Store Lit Group discussion, Monday, October 14, 7 pm)
4. The Winter Soldier, by Daniel Mason
5. Milwaukee Noir, edited by Tim Hennesssy
6. It, by Stephen King
7. The Great Alone, by Kristin Hannah
8. Before We Were Yours, by Lisa Wingate
9. A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
10. A Spark of Light, by Jodi Picoult

It seems to me that if a hardcover fiction bestseller becomes a phenomenon (meaning it goes longer than a year before paperback release), it is more likely that the paperback will come out in a window between late January and early April. Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale, for example, released April 2017. But her follow-up, The Great Alone, goes against the grain and released September 24. Is your book club reading The Great Alone? Don't forget about Hannah's book club guide.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Death Wins All Wars, by Daniel Holland
2. Life of the Beloved, by Henri Nouwen
3. Chokehold, by Paul Butler
4. The Color Diet, by Dick Chudnow
5. These Truths, by Jill Lepore

A slow week here, so paperback nonfiction offered to give five slots to the kids section.

Local ComedySportz cofounder offers a goofy parody of diet books in The Color Diet, all for a good cause - Chudnayshun Fund - which supports drug abuse and prevention efforts. Dick and Jennifer Rupp (you might know her from Boswell as romance writer Jennifer Trethewey) lost their son Nick to a fentanyl overdose in 2017. They have several upcoming fundraisers. More in this Journal Sentinel article from Jim Higgins.

Books for Kids:
1. Strike Zone, by Mike Lupica
2. Lalani of the Distant Sea, by Erin Entrada Kelly
3. Cape, by Kate Hannigan
4. Hello Universe, by Erin Entrada Kelly
5. The Star Shepherd, by Dan Haring and MarcyKate Connolly
6. You Go First, by Erin Entrada Kelly
7. Heat, by Mike Lupica
8. Miracle on 49th Street, by Mike Lupica
10. The Day You Begin, by Jacqueline Woodson, with illustrations by Rafael Lopez
11. Shadow Weaver, by MarcyKate Connolly
12. The Land of Permanent Goodbyes, by Atia Abawi
13. Wayward Son V2, by Rainbow Rowell
14. Dasher, by Matt Tavares
15. Harbor Me, by Jacqueline Woodson

Sometimes our school visits peak in October for the fall season, but this year it seems like every publisher wanted to bring authors and illustrators to Milwaukee in the second half of September. Among the stars who didn't do public events are Kate Hannigan, whose new book is Cape, and Dan Haring and MarcyKate Connolly, who collaborated on The Star Shepherd. I think there are signed copies of both at Boswell.

Over at the Journal Sentinel:

--Alan Borsuk's On Education column offers a profile of Paul Tough, who will be at University School of Milwaukee on October 15 for The Years That Matter Most. Register here. Borsuk writes: "In the new book, six years in the making, Tough focuses on college – who gets in, how they get in, and the experiences of promising minority and low-income students. The profiles of the students provide compelling reading, and his depiction of the broader picture, especially how admissions systems work, raises a lot of issues. I can summarize: The rich stay rich and the poor stay poor."

--The book page features Donna Liquori from The Associated Press, weighing in on She Said from Jodi Kanter and Megan Twohey: "The book’s most compelling aspect, old-fashioned reporting – knocking on doors, obtaining records, clandestine meetings, tapping sources – is the structure that holds up this book and is what earned The New York Times’s Twohey and Kantor the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service." Co-author Twhohey reported for the Journal Sentinel from 2003 to 2007.

--Also From AP is Rasha Madkour's take on How to Raise a Reader: "Whether your child is yet-to-be born, a teenager or somewhere in between, How to Raise a Reader has some tips and a whole lot of book recommendations for you." Authors Pamela Paul and Maria Russo are parents themselves, as well as editors of The New York Times Book Review, and they draw on their experience in both realms in writing this book.

--Attica Locke's second East Texas mystery is reviewed by AP's Oline H. Cogdill: "Race, family and history converge in Heaven, My Home, Attica Locke’s second intense novel about African American Texas Ranger Darren Mathews. In this new series, as she has done in her previous novels, Locke skillfully packs Heaven, My Home with realistic and, at times, uncomfortable situations as she depicts complicated characters."

Weekly events tomorrow.

Every home has a story - a blog post that's sort of about The Dutch House (event on October 22, 7 pm, at the Sharon Lynn Wilson Center)

I finished Ann Patchett's latest novel, The Dutch House several months ago, having been giving an advance copy, but I still can't stop thinking about it. Perhaps it's because it's so good; perhaps it's because we are cohosting an event with her on October 22 (more here). At the center of the story is a relationship between an older sister and a younger brother, a respite from reading one feuding-sisters story after another. A younger brother - now that is something I can relate to, especially one named Danny*.

One of the crazy things about reading The Dutch House is that several Boswellian readers had a story to tell about the place they grew up. Jane and Anne and I swapped tales of how the family got there, why they left, and what happened to the place afterwards. Here is mine.

***

My father grew up in an apartment in the Bronx, my mother in a series of apartments in Queens and sometimes Brooklyn. In those days, there was actually more supply than demand for housing in New York (can you believe it?) so they’d get a free month of rent with a year’s lease, and they’d move every few years. My mother’s father worked a series of factory jobs, several of which, to my knowledge, involved mattresses.

My parents married after my father returned from World War II and shared an apartment with another couple. They wound up finding this house in Queens that they loved and put a deposit down. The only problem was that the developer lost all his money gambling and sold off the land, including the land where my parents’ house was going to go. The builder’s father wound up finishing up the houses that were being built and in order not to lose their deposit, they wound up building a house where the buyer fell through. So no fireplace, no larger bathroom, but at least a house. $8000, I was told.

My father would tell me these stories as we took walk after walk. We both loved to walk. He’d point to the house that looked like the one that got away. He showed me the lot around the corner where we were supposed to live.

I know when he built the garage. I know the story about him remortgaging the property because the family garment business was failing. I also know that somehow this led to a fracture the family. My dad stopped talking to most of his relatives just after I was born. I only knew one of his cousins, who was also our dentist. Maybe that’s why they kept in touch. He was a good dentist!

My father loved his house so much. He didn’t always make the best decisions – what do you think of artificial turf covering your porch? – but he obsessively cared for the place, keeping up the yard and flower garden, which as he grew older, got slowly replaced with vegetable plots. So. Many. Cucumbers.

I don’t know how my mom felt about the house, but I knew how she felt about moving. And she had moved so much growing up that I think she held on fast to the property. After my dad passed away, my mom lived there for four more years. She paid folks to keep the place up. But my sister in Massachusetts was the closest relative and eventually even she knew that the best thing for everyone was to be closer to one of her kids. And she probably needed to stop driving.

The house was sold. There was an estate sale. My sister drove away with my mom while I stayed behind with the crew, cleaning the place out. On the last night, I slept on the floor. I’d never before seen it empty. In the morning as I left, I discarded my pillow and blanket and headed for the bus, which would take me to another bus, which would take me to the airport.

The house was in a single-family home in a still-popular neighborhood with a good school district that was zoned for four families. There were tear downs all around the neighborhood. Even before my dad died, it was happening, and both my parents liked to show me the changes every time I visited. Our house, post-sale, would not escape the wrecking ball. In a few months, it was gone.

When my mom died, I decided I wanted to see it in person. I asked my sisters whether they wanted to go, and they said no, couldn’t handle it. I rented a car and parked across the street. The new place had a lot of brick, shiny metallic trim, a bulky blocky thing with a lot of driveway and no backyard for vegetables. It certainly did not have ceramic toilets in shades of seafoam green, peach, and burgundy**. It wasn't the nicest replacement home in the neighborhood, but it wasn't the worst either, sort of just like our house.

The house on one side of our old home had just been torn down and was being replaced. The house on the other side of them looked much like it did in 1965, when I was a young child. I couldn’t tell if there still was a pear tree in their lot. I made my peace with change and the passing of time, and then I drove away.

Another memory. It’s after my grandmother’s funeral, and my mother and her three brothers are in the living room arguing like they were all 12 years old. Arguing about details, who was slighted, who came out ahead. The brothers, who were younger, lived longer in one neighborhood and had happier memories of their home. Mom, the oldest, was already working by the time they stopped moving, dreaming of that house she’d one day live in. Same family, very different stories. Rinse and repeat.

I was chatting with a sister about some of these stories, and she said, no, I think you’ve got some of these details wrong. Maybe a lot of them. For a start, they definitely didn’t pay $8000 for that house. In my head, I was convinced I was right. To be fair, I am wrong enough about many things when it comes to memory. Sometimes it turns out I am right. But often I am not, and as I get older, I am wrong more often.

***

Ann Patchett is at the Sharon Lynn Wilson Center for the Arts on Tuesday, October 22, 7 pm, cosponsored by Boswell and Books & Company. Tickets are $33 and include admission, all taxes and fees, and a copy of The Dutch House. I can tell you right now that this is going to be one amazing evening for a book that is already one of the best-reviewed novels of 2019. Here are just a few links.

Ellen Gray talks to Ann Patchett for the Philadelphia Inquirer. A local convinced Patchett to move the house from the Philadelphia burb of Jenkintown to Elkins Park.

Martha Southgates reviews The Dutch House on the front page of The New York Times Book Review, noting how Hansel and Gretel are baked into the story. As she notes, "It takes guts to write a fairy tale these days."

Belinda Luscombe profiles Patchett in Time: "I wrote this book, got all the way to the end, read it, hated it, threw it away and started over. And I mean completely. What I realized in having it bomb so completely is that you cannot write a sympathetic character who leaves her children for ethical reasons. There is definitely a different standard for men and women, and I wanted to take that on."

*I was renamed Danny by my first grade teacher and kept the name until I took my first job after college, where my boss renamed me again. But that's another story.

**Really! I was quite fond of the burgundy one.

Boswell Bestsellers for the week ending September 21, 2019

Boswell Bestsellers, week ending September 21, 2019

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Red at the Bone, by Jacqueline Woodson (ticket link for September 23 event here)
2. Land of Wolves V15, by Craig Johnson (ticket link for October 7 event here)
3. The Sisters of Summit Avenue, by Lynn Cullen
4. Add This to the List of Things That You Are, by Chris Fink
5. The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood
6. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
7. The Institute, by Stephen King
8. A Better Man V15, by Louise Penny
9. The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
10. The Lost Children Archive, by Valeria Luiselli

Another good week for Stephen King's The Institute. Laura Miller in The New York Times, on the human-sized villains in the story: "We can see something of ourselves in these characters, and recognize in them our own capacity for evil. King’s latest novel, The Institute, belongs to this second category (editor's note - of non-supernatural bad ugys), and is as consummately honed and enthralling as the very best of his work."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Ron Wolf and the Green Bay Packers, by Michael Bauman
2. A Terrible Thing to Waste, by Harriet A Washington
3. We've Been Here All Along, by R Richard Wagner
4. Policing the Open Road, by Sarah A Seo
5. Talking to Strangers, by Malcolm Gladwell
6. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, by Samin Nosrat (General tickets to Nosrat at UWM on October 22 on sale in about a week)
7. Becoming, by Michelle Obama
8. The Education of an Idealist, by Samantha Power
9. The Years That Matter Most, by Paul Tough (Register for October 15 event at USM here)
10. How to Be a Family, by Dan Kois (Event at Boswell Saturday, October 5, 7 pm)

Dan Kois talks to Brittany Galla at Parade Magazine about what led to How to Be a Family: The Year I Dragged My Kids Around the World to Find a New Way to Be Together: "We wanted to change our lives! My wife and I felt our time with our kids slipping by in a blur of overwork and arguments about screens and we wanted to have an adventure with them instead. So we went for it: four countries in one year, with a goal of learning how they do it outside our east-coast suburban bubble." One lesson - make sure that the bilingual school you're planning to send your kids to is actually bilingual.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Milwaukee Noir, edited by Tim Hennessy
2. The Overstory, by Richard Powers (In-Store Lit Group selection, Mon Nov 14, 7 pm)
3. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson
4. My Struggle V6, Karl Ove Knausgaard
5. The Witch Elm, by Tana French
6. Ducks, Newburyport, by Lucy Ellmann
7. The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt
8. Ordinary Grace, by William Kent Krueger
9. Conversations with Friends, by Sally Rooney
10. The Winter Soldier, by Daniel Mason

Out this week in paperback is one of our big hardcover picks of 2018, The Winter Soldier*. I'm honestly so unused to major paperback releases in the fall that I'm kind of not prepared, but we might do a revamp of our book club table, being that I am doing a number of talks this fall. Barbara Lane in Datebook ponders what is really on people's night tables, when she confesses there are a lot of books she hasn't read. But The Winter Solider is one of them she did, and liked. Referring to Mason along with The Overstory, Exit West and a few others, she writes, "I'm grateful to come across a book that gives me some new perspective on the human condition, thereby, if ever so subtly, making me a better person."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Medical Apartheid, by Harriet A Washington
2. Lives Lived and Lost, by Kaja Finkler
3. Beating Guns, by Shane Claiborne
4. Deadly Monopolies, by Harriet A Washington
5. Infectious Madness, by Harriet A Washington
6. Good Neighbor, by Maxwell King
7. Calypso, by David Sedaris
8. Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann
9. 100 Things to Do in Milwaukee Before You Die, by Jenna Kashou
10. To Obama, by Jeanne Marie Laskas

Pretty recently released in paperback is To Obama: With Love, Joy, Anger, and Hope, the story of how President Obama, for eight years, picked ten letters sent to him that he would personally reply to every night. From The Guardian: " A moving and inevitably nostalgic or even elegiac read, redolent of the human grace and statesmanship of the Obama presidency." From Pete Souza: "I cried several times." Jeanne Marie Laskas is the founding director of the Center for Creativity at the University of Pittsburgh.

Books for Kids:
1. Impostors V1, by Scott Westerfeld
2. Lawrence in the Fall, by Matthew Farina, with illustrations by Doug Salati
3. Shatter City V2, by Scott Westerfeld
4. Guts, by Raina Telgemeier
5. Dog Man: For Whom the Ball Rolls V7, by Dav Pilkey
6. Impostors V1 (hardcover), by Scott Westerfeld
7. American Royals, by Katharine McGee
8. Planting Stories, by Danise Anika Aldamuy
9. Gittel's Journey, by Leslea Abrams
10. Hello Universe, by Erin Entrada Kelly (Register for September 25 at Greenfield Library here)

What do you know? A new YA novel makes our list. Out early September was American Royals, by Katherine McGee. Really good Kirkus review here: "Grab a cup of mead and gather round for a story of kings, queens, princes, princesses, lords, and ladies: the modern ruling families of America. With the ease of a curtsy, McGee has established a monarchy made up of the direct descendants of George Washington...An entertaining royal family modeled after the residents of Buckingham Palace."

Over at the Journal Sentinel...

Ann Levin of Associated Press reviews Red at the Bone: "Jacqueline Woodson begins her dazzling new novel, Red at the Bone, with an afterthought, in the middle of things, and breaking all the rules of grammar by starting with a “but”: “But that afternoon there was an orchestra playing.” With that sentence, readers are thrust into the midst of a coming- of-age ceremony for a 16 year-old girl named Melody in her grandparents’ beautiful old brownstone in Brooklyn, New York." Ticket link here.

Barbara VandenBurgh of The Arizona Republic tells readers not to worry - The Testaments is a worthy sequel to The Handmaid's Tale: "Feel free to throw caution to the wind: The Testaments is worthy of the literary classic it continues. That’s thanks in part to Atwood’s capacity to surprise, even writing in a universe we think we know so well. And she starts by making us root for dastardly Aunt Lydia."

Matt McCarthy of USA Today on the latest book from investigative reporter Ben Westhoff: "The story begins with a road trip. Two teenage addicts, Bailey Henke and Kain Schwandt, are driving west across the snow-covered plains of North Dakota on a desperate quest to get sober. They’re hooked on the deadliest drug in America, fentanyl, and as we discover in Ben Westhoff’s timely and agonizing new book, Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic, sobriety would prove elusive. Henke’s relapse and subsequent overdose would trigger one of the largest drug busts in history."

*Sorry, Back Bay. The hardcover jacket of The Winter Solider was better. Oh well.

A ten-point Jacqueline Woodson post for Red at the Bone

1. It’s 1995 and I am working at Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop, buying the new books from Tom, my Penguin rep. You might remember Tom from when he and I formed Team C.O.T. (City of Thieves). We were so looking forward to David Benioff’s novel, but he took up his time with this Game of Thrones thing. Tom pulls out his Dutton catalog and talks up this novel from Jacqueline Woodson called Autobiography of a Family Photo. He loves it! I feature it on our Schwartz 100.

2. Jacqueline Woodson’s kids books go on to become huge successes. Brown Girl Dreaming seemingly wins every award, including the National Book Award for Young People. Woodson visits Milwaukee for the Wisconsin Reading Association conference and teacher after teacher comes to tell us what a wonderful speaker Woodson is. We hoped that maybe a public event could be added on to this, but the schedule is too tight.

3. While we don’t host Woodson for a kids book, we are thrilled to be part of her tour for Another Brooklyn not long after. We cohost a public event at the Milwaukee Public Library. The book is beautiful and has a reference to Abraham & Strauss. Yes, this is my second reference to A&S in as many blog posts. It was a very nice store and holds a lot of memories. And apparently, not just for me.

We had hoped to bring Woodson to an area school, promising the kids would read Another Brooklyn. After a lot of negotiation, it was set up, only we then realized the school was not in session! Instead, we hosted kids at Boswell as part of the author’s Young People’s Ambassador work for the National Poetry Foundation. Most of the kids get a copy of After Tupac and D. Foster. What a day!

4. In 2018 I went to Book Expo and waited in line for a signed print of Jacqueline Woodson’s forthcoming picture book, The Day You Begin. I also got a signed copy of Harbor Me, her YA novel, for one of our booksellers. It went on to be one of his top five books for the year. I got to chat with the author, and she remembered her visit to Milwaukee fondly. That’s good, I thought. Maybe she’ll come back someday. Unfortunately, the carton with the print and a bunch of reading copies for Boswell got lost on the way back from the show. Sigh.

5. Chris and I visited New York to pitch events to publishers last February. I pitched my heart out for Woodson for her upcoming novel (also for adults), Red at the Bone. I so wanted to do that high school event with Friend-of-Boswell Kelly. I had some great ideas for our public event too. And then, you wait.

6. I get to read Red at the Bone. It’s more than I could hope. My thoughts: “Jacqueline Woodson’s latest dreamily moves between characters and across time as she chronicles the lives of two families brought together by a teen pregnancy and fractured when the still-teenage mother leaves them behind for a far-away college. Issues of race, class and sexual identity play out in the family, from memories of the Tulsa Race Massacre to the two family’s economic differences, to the mother’s secretive relationship with a fellow student in college. Music swirls through the narrative, from the jazz clubs of Oakland to a 1990s Wu Tang Clan concert to the sounds of Prince at a coming-of-age party. And words swirl through the story too; Red at the Bone might be called a novel, but it’s surely as much a poem, a shimmering ode to survival.”

7. We get the chance to host Woodson. The school comes together. 300 Milwaukee Public School students will read Red at the Bone and then meet with Woodson and Dasha Kelly Hamilton for a facilitated discussion. Amazing! We’re so grateful for this. Thanks, Kelly.

8. The public event comes together. It’s our annual Rose Petranech Lecture, in memory of one of our wonderful customers -  not only a voracious reader, but a Diversity Officer at Marquette University. The event is ticketed with a book (link here). In the spirit of Rose's life work, we aimed to partner with several organizations – Public Allies, Diverse + Resilient, Alice’s Garden - to bring folks in who might not normally attend a ticketed event at Boswell.

9. Red at the Bone is released. Reviews are great! Here’s Joshunda Sanders in Time: “A treasure awaits readers who encounter Red at the Bone, who descend the staircase with a loose step as 16-year-old Melody does in her coming-of-age party at the start of the novel. Jacqueline Woodson’s latest book for adults looks at a middle-class black family in Brooklyn and the struggles and triumphs that brought them to this moment, celebrating the daughter who was the unexpected product of a teenage romance. The novel is both a uniquely black story about multigenerational love and upward mobility - and a universal American tale of striving, failing, then trying again.”

10. The missing carton from Book Expo is recovered, over a year after it went missing. It’s addressed to me and the box has been opened. Inside is the signed print of The Day You Begin. What an unexpected gift! We framed at East Side Gallery, and it now welcomes folks who enter Boswell. Tickets are $28 and still available at woodsonmke.bpt.me.

A post about Alice Hoffman's The World That We Knew and her upcoming visit to Milwaukee

Here’s the setup for Alice Hoffman’s latest novel, The World That We Knew, which goes on sale September 24*. The story starts in Berlin, where a widow senses the grim future they will have under Nazi control, particularly after her husband's murder. Hanni can't leave, as this would mean abandoning her elderly mother, but maybe there’s hope for her daughter Lea. They know that their Rabbi has been experimenting with golems. Hanni is Orthodox, she can only talk to the rabbi’s wife, who refuses to help. On leaving, she is confronted by the Rabbi’s daughter Ettie, who has been spying on her father and might know how to make a golem. As part of her payment, Ettie wants a train ticket out of Germany too, for her and her sister Marta. The golem is created, with the task of taking care of Lea. Ettie warns Hanni that the golem, named Ava, must be destroyed when Lea is safe, or it will become too powerful and destructive. And the escape begins.

What a great book! But this is not the first book I’ve read by Alice Hoffman, nor my second. The history goes back a bit further than that, more than thirty years. And I know exactly when I came to read Hoffman and when my enthusiasm jumped to another level because in my twenties, I started writing down every book I read. I felt so bad about having started so late, but now I kind of laugh about that. Soon after starting as a bookseller, I began to create a monthly list, not just ranking but reviewing the books I read, and then I’d mail the list out to friends. It was Booklist, but not the one from the American Library Association. In 1987, I still worked on the floor of the Iron Block Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop. It was my Booklist, and I'm sure Stephen McCauley was thrilled to hear that The Object of My Affection was the #1 book for its month.

#1 for August was the first novel I read by Alice Hoffman. Illumination Night takes place on Martha’s Vineyard and follows a number of characters – a middle-aged woman who won’t leave her home, a nearly blind grandmother struggling with her delinquent granddaughter. And, as I note, “a giant who grows vegetables, with a penchant for the romantic.” At one point I wrote “Hoffman gets compared a lot to Anne Tyler and Louise Erdrich and will someday be a bestselling author – perhaps in twenty years?’

It took less time than that. She followed up with At Risk, a novel about a young gymnast who contacts AIDS from a blood transfusion. It was an earnest effort, but I thought that maybe we were going to end the relationship after two dates. I was wrong. Seventh Heaven was my #1 book for July 1990 (a really good year for reading!) and I noted that it more than fulfilled the promise of Illumination Night for me. Set in a Long Island subdivision, it features a shrinking boy, a young woman hiding out in the Lord & Taylor (Abraham & Strauss is also featured in the book – two department stores in one novel!), and at least one love triangle.

I loved Seventh Heaven, and what was even more fun, so did many of my bookseller colleagues at the Book Nook in Whitefish Bay. This was handselling at its most enjoyable. “Take this book and fall in love.” It’s one of my favorite things to do as a bookseller still, which I’m sure you’ve guessed. I’m pretty sure that Seventh Heaven was also Hoffman’s first New York Times bestseller. It also has one of my favorite hardcover treatments, from Fred Marcellino, whose most famous work is likely the iconic hardcover illustration for The Handmaid's Tale.** Here's the original Publishers Weekly review.

While Hoffman has often dropped ultra-realistic novels, it was really the ones with a little supernatural that I took to. I’m not a fantasy person, and that’s not what they read like. They are more like domestic magical realism, coined after the South American writers of the sixties and seventies that specialized in this sort of thing. Many of her books would feature what appeared to be werewolves, ghosts, and witches, the last of which is from Practical Magic, which is one of her better selling backlist titles, due to the movie adaptation.

I went back and read her first four novels, and discovered another of my favorites, Fortune’s Daughter, about a fortune teller who actually has the gift. I noticed that her work had softened a bit with age, which is not that unusual. Anne Tyler’s first novel is also kind of raw. And I continued to read each novel as it came out for many years. But eventually it came to a point where I was now often reading three books a month where I once read nine. So while I’d love to say I’ve read all 35 of Hoffman’s novels, I can’t say that. But 20 is good, right? I can’t think of too many other authors where I’ve read so much.

At about the time Boswell opened, Hoffman had a bit of a change of course. She started writing in a more traditionally historical genre. There was The Dovekeepers, a Biblical tale, The Museum of Extraordinary Things, set on the Lower East Side, and The Marriage of Opposites, which to my knowledge, is her only adult novel that focuses on a real historic figure, the mother of artist Camille Pissarro. This was one of Jane’s favorites, and we went on to sell more than 100 copies of this book. Like most independent bookstores, we have a lot of customers who like narratives set in the art world, and if you find a good one, you can run with it.

I’m so thrilled we’re hosting Alice Hoffman for the first time through Boswell. This is bucket list territory! We’ve teamed up with the Harry and Rose Samson Jewish Community Center, the Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Research Center, and ABCD (After Breast Cancer Diagnosis) as cosponsors. We had actually looked at hosting Hoffman in the bookstore for a previous novel, but it didn’t come together. I had been talking to Laurie at the JCC, who told me that they would love, love, love to host Hoffman. And when The World That We Knew was announced, I saw that it would be of great interest to JCC patrons, as well as HERC, another of our regular partners. I had been chatting with ABCD about doing something, as Hoffman has been a strong advocate of breast cancer awareness and documented her story in a nonfiction book called Survival Lessons. Sadly, this book went out of stock just as we were putting together marketing for this event. 

One of the things that I love about The World That We Knew is that I can see all the themes that you can see a clear through line from Hoffman’s earlier novels to her present work. - the tension between mothers and daughters, the risks and rewards of first love, and that there is magic in the world, and you must know the rules, but sometimes you have to break them to get what you want. Whether you’ve liked Hoffman’s earlier works or her more recent historical fiction, The World That We Knew blends both together. The truth is that I could write for several more hours about Alice Hoffman – such an important part of my life. I might say a few more words and some point. But for now, The World That We Knew goes on sale September 24. More information about the September 26 ticketed event on the JCC website, which some would say is 32 years in the making!

*I feel like maybe I should have listed the event ticket link up front, which is jccmilwaukee.org/arts-ideas/alicehoffman/.

**I think at one point, I actually chose what to read based on whether it had a Fred Marcellino jacket.

What's selling at Boswell this week? - September 8-14, 2019

What's been selling at Boswell?

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood
2. This Tender Land, by William Kent Krueger
3. A Better Man, by Louise Penny
4. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
5. The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
6. The Institute, by Stephen King
7. Quichotte, by Salman Rushdie
8. City of Girls, by Elizabeth Gilbert
9. Fly Already, by Etgar Keret
10. The Secrets We Kept, by Lara Prescott

You might have heard that The Testaments, Margaret Atwood's sequel to The Handmaid's Tale came out last week. You might even know someone who got it early. We sold ours on time. It might be the best first week for a non-event hardcover fiction release this year - I should verify that. Meanwhile, Julie Myserson writes in The Guardian: "Given all of this history – and the fact that for 35 years fans have apparently been begging for answers to a host of Gilead-related questions – it’s not surprising that The Testaments feels as eagerly awaited as a handmaid’s bouncing baby. If ever a novelist could justify the spawning of a sequel, Atwood can."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Something Deeply Hidden, by Sean Carroll
2. For the Good of the Game, by Bud Selig
3. Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?, by Caitlin Doughty
4. Our History Is the Future, by Nick Estes
5. Talking to Strangers, by Malcolm Gladwell
6. Educated, by Tara Westover
7. She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey
8. The Education of an Idealist, by Samantha Power
9. Lifespan, by David A Sinclair
10. Epic Bike Rides of the Americas, by Lonely Planet

Caitlin Doughty ran a very successful preorder campaign for indie bookstores on Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs - folks also got a Doughty pin! If we run out, we'll have more on October 20 when Doughty interviews Landis Blair for The Envious Siblings. Register at landisblairmke.bpt.me. Margaret Wappler writes in the Los Angeles Times: "After graduating from mortuary school, she opened her own funeral home, wrote two memoirs, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and From Here to Eternity, and developed a web series, Ask a Mortician, where she educates the morbidly curious (ahem, all of us) on such taboo topics as necrophilia and sewing a mouth shut. Her approach is wickedly funny, all while packing in concrete information. In her new book, Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Doughty answers the frank queries of teenagers and other kids..."

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
2. Milwaukee Noir, edited by Tim Hennessy
3. The Great Gatsby, by F Scott Fitzgerald
4. Madame Bovary, by Gustav Flaubert
5. There There, by Tommy Orange
6. The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt
7. Ordinary Grace, by William Kent Krueger
8. The Maze at Windermere, by Gregory Blake Smith
9. Paris by the Book, by Liam Callanan
10. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson

The Goldfinch made a huge leap to #1 on the national paperback bestsellers lists, following a similar jump from The Art of Racing in the Rain (which I don't think ever hit our top 10). It doesn't look like either film is working. Business Insider reported on the Garth Stein adaptation being a flop for Disney (though it's officially a Fox Studios holdover). Hannah Shaw-Williams in Screen Rant actually wrote a piece on why she thinks the reviews on The Goldfinch are so particularly bad.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. The Outward Mindset, by Arbinger Institute
2. Beating Guns, by Shane Claiborne
3. Incredibull Stella, by Marika Meeks with Elizabeth Ridley
4. The Future Is History, by Masha Gessen
5. The Man Without a Face, by Masha Gessen
6. Brothers, by Masha Gessen
7. One Pot Vegetarian , by Sabrian Fauda-Role
8. These Truths, by Jill Lepore
9. 111 Places in Milwaukee That You Must Not Miss, by Michelle Madden
10. Calypso, by David Sedaris

Jill Leppore's These Truths doesn't seem like the kind of book to me that would work in paperback, but here it is in our top 10. Ivan DeLuce in Business Insider (look at me quoting from them twice in one week!) did note that Bill Gates just recommended it, along with "every word David Foster Wallace has ever written."


Books for Kids:
1. Strike Zone, by Mike Lupica
2. All the Impossible Things, by Lindsay Lackey
3. Heat, by Mike Lupica
4. Elvis Is King, by Jonah Winter, with illustrations by Red Nose Studio
5. The Cape, by Kate Hannigan
6. Miracle on 49th Street, by Mike Lupica
7. The Secret Subway, by Shana Corey, with illustrations by Red Nose Studio
8. Adventures of Mark Johnson, by Harlan D Hayman
9. No Slam Dunk, by Mike Lupica
10. Five Dark Fates, by Kendare Blake

It's school visit season! Several folks in this week's top 10 had visits, and that's not just Mike Lupica. Lindsey Lackey's debut, All the Impossible Things was a big hit earlier in the month, while Kate Hannigan comes to town for The Cape this Wednesday. In both cases, there are no public events. We should have signed copies - though I should note we sold through all our signed copies of Mike Lupica's Strike Zone.

From the Journal Sentinel Book Page:

--Mark Athitakis (USA Today) reviews Nell Zink's Doxology: "The opening pages of Nell Zink’s irreverent, ersatz social novel Doxology suggest a quirky tale about parenthood and punk rock in 1980s New York. But it soon expands into something bigger, more charming and ambitious, encompassing the most serious themes of the 21st century while remaining comic and earthbound."

--Elliot Schrefer (also USA Today) takes on Rob Hart's The Warehouse: "In this near-future novel, a massive tech company, Amaz- whoops, I mean Cloud, has become the corporate answer to government itself, bringing workers together in climate-controlled, carefully surveilled villages separated by hundreds of miles of sun-broiled wasteland. After the Black Friday Massacres brought an end to physical shopping, Cloud is one of the few employers left in the country, and scoring a job there also means submitting to its rules and relocating to a MotherCloud facility."

--Russell Contreras (Associated Press) writes about Jeffrey Ostler's Surviving Genocide: Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution and Bleeding Kansas: "A new book by a noted historian attempts to show how expanding American democracy hurt Native Americans in the early days of the nation and how tribes viewed the young United States as an entity seeking to erase them from existence."

Here are the Boswell bestsellers for the week ending September 7, 2019

Here are the Boswell bestsellers for the week ending September 7, 2019

Hardcover Fiction:
1. This Tender Land, by William Kent Krueger (event today, Sunday, September 8, 3 pm)
2. A Better Man V15, by Louise Penny
3. Fly Already, by Etgar Keret
4. The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
5. The Secrets We Kept, by Lara Prescott
6. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
7. The Most Fun We Ever Had, by Claire Lombardo
8. City of Girls, by Elizabeth Gilbert
9. Big Sky V5, by Kate Atkinson
10. The Girl Who Lived Twice V6, by David Lagercrantz

From the profile of Lara Prescott by Karen Valby in The New York Times: "The Secrets We Kept, a gorgeous and romantic feast of a novel anchored by a cast of indelible secretaries — some groomed to be secret agents, and all clacking away at covert C.I.A. documents on mint-green typewriters - promptly sold to Knopf at auction for $2 million." Prescott notes that she was turned down for MFA programs her first time out, and was discouraged by at least one prominent writer to write more like Hemingway - that's the code for writing more like a man, isn't it? The book is also the new Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. For the Good of the Game, by Bud Selig
2. How To, by Randall Munroe
3. The Pioneers, by David McCullough
4. The Economists' Hour, by Binyamin Appelbaum
5. The Second Mountain, by David Brooks
6. Educated, by Tara Westover
7. Furious Hours, by Casey Cep
8. On Spice, by Caitlin PenzeyMoog
9. The Drink That Made Wisconsin Famous, by Doug Hoverson
10. Salt Fat Acid Heat, by Samin Nosrat

Noel King talks to Binyamin Appelbaum about his new book, The Economists' Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society, which documents the rise of economists (most notably Milton Friedman) to help control American economic policy on NPR's Morning Edition: "I think it's a classic example of a revolution that went too far. The gains are real. The benefits are real. Economists brought a lot of discipline to policymaking. In a lot of ways, they improved the quality of public policy. But by sort of embracing that idea to the exclusion of any other priorities, by saying, we're just going to focus on efficiency. By advocating for economists to take the wheel and excluding other points of view, we ended up in a really problematic place."

Paperback Fiction:
1. A Thread So Fine, by Susan Welch
2. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
3. Ohio, by Stephen Markley
4. The Friend, by Sigrid Nunez
5. There There, by Tommy Orange
6. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson
7. A Fortune for Your Disaster, by Hanif Abdurraqib
8. The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
9. We're All in This Together, by Amy Jones
10. Vintage 1954, by Antoine Laurain

Hanif Absurraquib's second collection of poetry, A Fortune for Your Disaster, is going to get massive attention, but I'm still working off of the trade reviews. Here is Publishers's Weekly: " An old adage in creative writing workshops holds that a writer ought to show how an action or idea unfolds instead of simply telling readers that it happened. So when an author's unmitigated brilliance shows up on every page, it's tempting to skip a description and just say, Read this! Such is the case with this breathlessly powerful, deceptively breezy book of poetry, the author's second collection. With the swagger of a boxer and the restraint of a scholar, Abdurraqib invokes pop culture and Black history with equal ease, alternating stream-of-consciousness prose poems with deeply introspective lamentations.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Spirit of a Dream, by David Rearick
2. Get a Financial Life, by Beth Kobliner
3. Whose Story Is This?, by Rebecca Solnit
4. Savage Gods, by Paul Kingsnorth
5. Calypso, by David Sedaris
6. Old in Art School, by Nell Painter
7. Fiske Guide to Colleges 2020, by Edward B Fiske
8. One Pot Vegetarian, by Sabrina Fauda-Role
9. To Obama, by Jeanne Marie Laskas
10. The Spy and the Traitor, by Ben Macintyre

At The Spectator, Nina Lyon reviews Paul Kingsnorth's Savage Gods, published here by Two Dollar Radio after much attention in Great Britain. She writes: "The venerable Oxford philologist Max Müller held that ‘mythology, which was the bane of the ancient world, is in truth a disease of language’. Gods filled a void, reanimating meaning as words became more fixed and less metaphorical. A more fundamental disease of language - the words themselves - is the subject of Paul Kingsnorth’s memoir." Or to be specific, Kingsnorth contemplates an end to writing, focusing on working the land and helping raise his family.

Books for Kids
1. The Great Shelby Holmes V1, by Elizabeth Eulberg
2. Dog Man For Whom the Ball Rolls V7, by Dav Pilkey
3. Rite of Passage, by Richard Wright
4. Lawrence in the Fall, by Matthew Farina and Doug Salati (event at Boswell Sat Sep 20, 11 am)
5. Restart, by Gordon Korman
6. Explorers, by Nellie Huang
7. Pumpkinheads, by Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks
8. Voyage to the Bunny Planet, by Rosemary Wells
9. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Babara Joosse and Renée Graef
10. The Great Shelby Holmes and the Haunted Hound V4, by Elizabeth Eulberg

Rainbow Rowell's latest, Pumpkinheads, is a graphic novel illustrated by Faith Erin Hicks about two friends who bond while working at a pumpkin patch in Nebraska. Voice of Youth Advocates writes that "Even readers who do not love Halloween, pumpkins, and Midwestern cultural icons as much as Deja and Josiah do will be pulled into this romantic, nostalgic, and wonderfully illustrated story." And Publishers Weekly writes: "The pacing is assured, driving along in short bursts that leave room for key scenes to stretch, but it's the primary characters' authentic friendship--built over several seasons working alongside one another - and the variously inclusive cast that really bring this funny last-day story home."

From the Journal Sentinel:

From Mark Athitakis (USA Today): "The opening pages of Nell Zink’s irreverent, ersatz social novel Doxology suggest a quirky tale about parenthood and punk rock in 1980s New York. But it soon expands into something bigger, more charming and ambitious, encompassing the most serious themes of the 21st century while remaining comic and earthbound."

From Russell Contreras (Associated Press): "A new book by a noted historian attempts to show how expanding American democracy hurt Native Americans in the early days of the nation and how tribes viewed the young United States as an entity seeking to erase them from existence. University of Oregon history professor Jeffrey Ostler’s just-released Surviving Genocide: Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution and Bleeding Kansas argues that the emergence of American democracy depended on the taking of Native lands.

Eliot Schrefer reviews The Warehouse (USA Today): "In this near-future novel, a massive tech company, Amaz- whoops, I mean Cloud, has become the corporate answer to government itself, bringing workers together in climate-controlled, carefully surveilled villages separated by hundreds of miles of sun-broiled wasteland. After the Black Friday Massacres brought an end to physical shopping, Cloud is one of the few employers left in the country, and scoring a job there also means submitting to its rules and relocating to a MotherCloud facility." Think Michael Crichton.