Events - Dave Rearick on sailing, Susan Welch's Twin Cities sister story, William Kent Krueger's #1 Indie Next Pick

Here's what's going on this week at Boswell.

Wednesday, September 4, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Dave Rearick, author of Spirit of a Dream: A Sailor's Ultimate Journey Around the World Alone

Dave Rearick has been sailing since his first ride on a Sunfish off the southern shores of Lake Michigan at age 12. He has raced throughout the Great Lakes, with over 28 Mackinac Races, 7 Solo Mac Races, 2 Solo Super Mac Races, and has won the Mike Silverthorne and Ralph Elberg Awards, given by the Great Lakes Singlehanded Society.

On October 2, 2013, Dave Rearick began an epic solo voyage around the world. Onboard his racing sloop, appropriately named Bodacious Dream, Dave sailed from Newport, Rhode Island to Cape Town, South Africa. From Cape Town, Dave sailed to Wellington, New Zealand where 'Bo' was originally built, and then onto the fabled Galapagos Islands, one of earth's great nature preserves. On the final leg, Dave returned to Newport, Rhode Island by way of the Panama Canal.

Rearick’s full circumnavigation took 256 days to complete, leaving an indelible memory of the challenges and rewards of being at one with nature, the solitude of the open sea, and the ever-changing landscape of life.

Thursday, September 5, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Susan Welch, author of A Thread So Fine

Susan Welch grew up in Minnesota and Wisconsin. She earned a Masters in International Management and built an international career in the brewing industry. Now this Midwest native discusses her debut novel about two sisters, drawn in part from her mother’s stories of being quarantined as a TB patient in 1940s Minnesota.

Welch’s debut is a deeply personal novel, layered with reality and insights about her family and life for women coming of age in the post-war boom in the heartland. One sister falls ill with tuberculosis and the other falls prey to a violent assault. Separated by increasing distance, both physical and emotional, the two women go on to live their own lives, yet one of them vows to hold fast to the invisible thread that connects them and protect her sister’s secret.

Kirkus Reviews calls A Thread So Fine “an engaging and poignant historical novel.” As a girl, Welch heard her mother’s stories about months in quarantine as a 19-year-old TB patient. As an adult, Welch discovered her own adoption story. The characters in her novel were created as a way to imagine how women such as her birth mother and adoptive mother might have overcome challenges as young Catholic women in the post-World War II culture of the Midwest.


Sunday, September 8, 3 pm, at Boswell:
William Kent Krueger, author of This Tender Land

On sale today! Edgar-winner William Kent Krueger returns to Boswell with his long-awaited stand-alone novel, This Tender Land. Krueger’s latest follows an orphaned boy's life-changing adventure traveling down America's great rivers during the 1930s, seeking a place to call home and a sense of purpose in a world sinking into despair. Cosponsored by Crimespree magazine.

Register for this free event at kruegermke.bpt.me. This Tender Land has been named the #1 Indie Next Pick for September. While our preorder campaign is over, you can make sure we have a copy of the book held for you at the event by upgrading to book-with-ticket through Friday.

Over the course of one unforgettable summer, four orphans journey into the unknown and cross paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. With the feel of a modern classic, This Tender Land is an enthralling, big-hearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole.

Christine Brunkhorst in the Star Tribune calls This Tender Land "a picaresque tale of adventure during the Great Depression. Part Grapes of Wrath, part Huckleberry Finn, Krueger’s novel is a journey over inner and outer terrain toward wisdom and freedom."

More on the Boswell upcoming events page.

Photo credit for William Kent Krueger - Diane Krueger