The first big breakout book of 2020 - Such a Fun Age, by Kiley Reid

One of the things that has changed about publishing is how much more in advance books are staged if the publisher is hoping for a breakout. We already have a table up promoting Christina Clancy's The Second Home, suggesting preorders for the holidays, and the solicitation for quotes came much earlier than that. Her book, by the way, is out June 2, 2020 - we'll have the first of several Milwaukee-area events at Boswell on launch day.

Similarly, the solicitation for Kiley Reid's Such a Fun Age began last spring. The book was edited by Sally Kim, who shepherded Chloe Benjamin's The Immortalists to publication, and like that book, Such a Fun Age made the Book Expo buzz panel. By the time I read the book in fall, just before Reid did a meet-the-author dinner in Chicago, the line of booksellers championing this debut novel stretched out the door and around the block. It's the number one Indie Next rec for January 2020. We didn't get on the tour, but if your city did, lucky you. Here's more. 

It's also the new Reese Witherspoon book club pick and I'm only sad because the Reese seal sort of mars what is an absolutely fantastic jacket. Putnam knew they had a winner and made matching tote bags, something they also did with Benjamin's book. That blue! I think it's actually pretty close to the Pantone color of the year, classic blue, and it really does look great with black. I really should have worn my almost completely matching blue pants today, but instead I just have my button.

Marketing, marketing, marketing. But the thing about Such a Fun Age is that the there is there. It's really hard not to fall in love with this book, the story of a young black woman who takes a job babysitting for a wealthy, not-much-older white woman in Philadelphia.  Here's my rec:

"Emira finds that her friends are passing her by in the growing up department, but she’s enjoying babysitting (not even nannying!) for professional influencer Alix (née Alex) Chamberlain and has become particularly attached to daughter Briar. An uncomfortable grocery-store incident with racist overtones seems likely to blow up, but Emira really wants to put this behind her and convinces bystander Kelley, who recorded the incident on his phone, to not release it. When Emira and Kelley meet again, they start dating (even though she doesn’t usually date white guys), but what Emira doesn’t know is that Alix and Kelley have a past that ended poorly and they each have very different takes on it. With a story that bounces between the three viewpoints, Kiley Reed’s debut novel features a wonderfully engaging and wiser-than-she-thinks-she-is heroine, and is alternatingly inspired, infuriating, hilarious, and thought-provoking, touching on race, class, gender, friendship, dating, and motherhood, and filled with a whole mess of bad advice from everyone concerned. Lots of bad advice!"

Entertainment Weekly writes: "Kiley Reid has written the most provocative page-turner of the year." Real Simple: "This piercing social commentary on race and class manages to be, well, such a fun book to read." Vogue: "Fun is the operative word in Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid’s delectably discomfiting debut. The buzzed-about novel takes a thoroughly modern approach to the timeless upstairs-downstairs trope." And the list goes on and on.

It's a book that is of the moment that also transcends the moment. I was noticing how many books I've read this year that had nanny/babysitting elements, from Girl in the Rearview Mirror, by Kelsey Rae Dimberg (a big local hit at Boswell - nanny goes psychological suspense) to the NYT bestseller Nothing to See Here, from Kevin Wilson (nanny goes speculative, a little).  It's a new age of nanny diaries, all very different from Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus's 2012 hit. It's now a $22.99 POD book so I'm not linking to it.

Critics have praised Reid's channeling of lots of different voices, but Emira steals the show. I really liked the switching around because sometimes I read a first-person narrative where I get through a good chunk of the book, I think I need a breather. Can't someone else talk? That's not the case for Such a Fun Age. I so enjoyed this book- it's on my rec shelf, and I'm buying our first copy. Hope to sell many more!

Coming next - Jeanine Cummins's American Dirt is out on January 21.

Boswell bestsellers, week ending December 28, 2019 - The ten-best effect, author bests, movie-tie ins,Petrie backlist, plus the Journal Sentinel book page

Here's what we sold at Boswell this past week (December 22-28, 2019)

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett
2. The Water Dancer, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
3. The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern
4. The Topeka School, by Ben Lerner
5. The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood
6. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
7. Exhalation, by Ted Chiang
8. The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
9. The Lost Children Archive, by Valeria Luiselli
10. Trust Exercise, by Susan Choi

Finally the National Book Award winner Trust Exercise has started selling. It will be interesting to see whether this holds up in 2020, especially during January gift card spending. Here's what Helen McAlpin wrote on the NPR website: "Book groups, meet your next selection. Trust Exercise, Susan Choi's powerful fifth novel, will give you plenty to talk about. At 257 pages, it's not a major time commitment, but be warned that it is impossible to discuss this book meaningfully if everyone hasn't read the whole thing. It's also tricky to review, as it derives so much of its impact from audacious narrative twists that I don't want to risk spoiling."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Milwaukee Rock and Roll, 1950-2000, by David Luhrssen, Phil Naylor, Bruce Cole
2. Say Nothing, by Patrick Radden Keefe
3. Educated, by Tara Westover
4. The Yellow House, by Sarah M Broom
5. 100 Years in Titletown, by Vernon Biever, Jim Biever
6. Salt Fat Acid Heat, by Samin Nosrat
7. Climbing My Mountain, by Sheldon Lubar
8. The Map of Knowledge, by Violet Moller
9. The Education of an Idealist, by Samantha Power
10. The Joy of Coking, by Irma S Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, Ethan Becker, John Becker, Megan Scott

It seems to be a strong hardcover Christmas for the Knopf/Doubleday division of Penguin Random House, with four of our top ten bestsellers on the fiction side and another 2 in nonfiction (plus The Guardians and The Body at #12 on their respective lists).

I wasn't much paying attention to the May-published The Map of Knowledge: A Thousand-Year History of How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found before the year-end lists. Rachel Newcomb in The Washington Post notes: "Popular opinion seems to assume an unbroken connection from the ancient Greeks to the Renaissance, but after the decline of the western Roman Empire in 476 A.D., most of what is now Western Europe was in fragments. The rise of Christianity led to the destruction of libraries and nonreligious (hence 'pagan') texts, and 'by the year 500, secular book production had effectively gone underground.' Moller enhances our understanding of the period from late antiquity until the Renaissance by highlighting the many cities where knowledge continued to thrive during the Medieval era, and where important manuscripts were lovingly translated and protected while elsewhere they had been reduced to ashes."

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
2. Girl Woman Other, by Bernardine Evaristo
3. Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng
4. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson
5. Flights, by Olga Tokarczuk
6. Milwaukee Noir, edited by Tim Hennessy
7. We're All in This Together, by Amy Jones
8. Little Women (movie-tie-in and Penguin Classic), by Louisa May Alcott
9. Ohio, by Stephen Markley
10. Light It Up V3, by Nick Petrie (trade and mass market)

We had a nice holiday pop on all of Nick Petrie's novels, not just because it's gift-giving time, but because book #5, The Wild One, is just about here. Join us for the preview launch on January 13, and if you pre-order, you'll get a discount on the book and a Nick Petrie ice scraper, being that the new book is set in Iceland. Tear It Down was actually #11 this past week.

While The Bookish Life of Nina Hill lagged a bit the last week (though we're still in the top 5 reporting indies for sales), we still had a very strong paperback original top 10, with four titles taking spots. Aside from Girl Woman Other, we're #1 or #2 on Edelweiss for reporting indies. I guess that's not surprising for Milwaukee Noir (as it's set here) or We're All in This Together (being that it seems to be off the radar of most other stores) but it is a little strange for Book Woman, a novel set in Kentucky. We'll never catch the #1 store, but we're a solid #2. I've also noticed that Book Woman (also Bookish Life) hit the #50 paperback fiction bestsellers for Milwaukee on Bookscan, which was not the case on other Midwestern market-area charts, so our enthusiasm had an impact outside the store.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference, by Greta Thunberg
2. 111 Places in Milwaukee That You Must Not Miss, by Michelle Madden
3. Calypso, by David Sedaris
4. Field Guide to Birds of Wisconsin, by Chuck Hagner
5. The Library Book, by Susan Orlean
6. The Fifth Risk, by Michael Lewis
7. Classic Krakauer, by Jon Krakauer
8. Just Mercy, by Bryan Stephenson (original and tie-in edition)
9. Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari
10. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan

Finally, it's great to see some film tie-ins working. While our sales on I Heard You Paint Houses/The Irishman have been ok, several other books have not taken off, though I should note that fall wasn't great for adaptation success. Now we have Little Women in fiction and Just Mercy in nonfiction. Here's AO Scott's review in The New York Times, where he notes that "Just Mercy is saved from being an earnest, inert courtroom drama when it spends time on death row, where it is opened up and given depth by two strong, subtle performances, from Foxx and Rob Morgan."

Books for Kids:
1. Fetch-22 V8, by Dav Pilkey
2. Guts by Raina Telgemeier
3. Guide to Creating Comics in 3D: Dog Man, by Kate Howard
4. Children of Virtue and Vengeance V2, by Tomi Adeyemi
5. The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats
6. The Story Orchestra: Swan Lake, by Jessica Courtney Tickle
7. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse, with illustrations by Renee Graef
8. Children of Blood and Bone V1, by Tomi Adeyemi
9. Fountains of Silence, by Ruta Septys
10. I Am a Bunny, by Ole Risom, with illustration by Richard Scarry

We have several big fans of Ruta Sepetys on staff and I'm happy to tell them that The Fountains of Silence has passed her hit Salt to the Sea in hardcover sales at Boswell. We went on to have a huge sale in paperback for Salt so it will be nice to see how the latest does. From Sarah Harrison Smith in The New York Times: "Spain under Francisco Franco is as dystopian a setting as Margaret Atwood’s Gilead in Ruta Sepetys’s suspenseful, romantic and timely new work of historical fiction, The Fountains of Silence. It’s 1957, but Franco’s isolationist policies and a powerful Catholic Church ensure that Spanish women are treated like chattel, Spanish babies lack basic medical care and Republican sympathizers end their days laboring like slaves. Even in Madrid, ordinary Spaniards live in fear and poverty."

Over at the Journal Sentinel, Brian Truitt of USA Today reviews the new memoir from by Anthony Daniels: "I Am C-3PO: The Inside Story is the 73-year-old British actor’s new memoir chronicling his more than 40 years spent on “Star Wars” sets playing the fan-favorite droid. The eccentric Threepio is fluent in 6 million forms of communication, and Daniels feels his book is just as universal."

Jeff Rowe of Associated Press reviews Disney’s Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park that Changed the World: "The book suggests lessons that extend to today: Passion for an idea and a plan are important, but so is research. Disney’s focus and self-confidence allowed him to push on despite family and friends who told him that an amusement park was folly."

Will Lester, also of AP, covers the political thriller Oppo, new from Tom Rosenstiel: "The novel looks at the story of Wendy Upton, a centrist Republican senator offered the VP slot by leading presidential candidates from both parties. Very soon, she gets a mysterious threatening call that could derail her career... Through the adventures of Rena and Brooks, he tells how these political dramas can play out, with a good eye for Washington detail and characters."

Addendum: Here's an article in the Journal Sentinel about the state of independent bookstores, including Boswell.

Boswell Kids Bestsellers, week ending December 21, 2019

Boswell Kids Bestsellers, week ending December 21, 2019

Picture books, including board books"
1. The Snowy Day board book, Ezra Jack Keats
2. The Crayons Christmas, by Drew Daywalt, with illustrations by Oliver Jeffers
3. The Wake Up Farm Peek-a-boo, by Jonny Lambert
4. Peek-a-Who, by Elsa Mroziewicz
5. A to Z Menagerie, by Suzy Ultman
6. I Wonder, by Kari Anne Holt, with illustrations by Kenard Pak
7. Pigeon Needs a Bath (with bath toy), by Mo Willems
8. Peek-a-Who Too, by Elsa Mroziewicz
9. The Mitten board book, by Jan Brett
10. Dinosnores, by Sandra Boynton
11. The Lost Cousins, by BB Cronin
12. The Snowy Nap, by Jan Brett
13. Dasher, by Matt Tavares
14. Home in the Woods, by Eliza Wheeler
15. A Friendship Yarn, by Lisa Moser, with illustrations by Olga Demidova
16. Lulu and Rock in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse, with illustrations by Renée Graef

This list is heavily board book, which reflects Amie's comment that board books really blew up this year. Now I feel like I should have separated the two! And yes, we are paying our bills with Snowy Day stamps again this year.

More about Kari Anne Holt's  I Wonder from the publisher: "In this unusual text, young listeners and readers follow a group of diverse kids trying to make sense of the world as they see it. Questions such as What do clouds taste like?, Do my toys miss me when I'm gone?, and I wonder if cars and trucks speak the same language? remind us of a child's unique point of view. Nothing is more powerful than seeing something for the first time, and these whimsical questions will encourage all readers to take a fresh look around them."

Kids Nonfiction:
1. Troublemaker for Justice: The Story of Bayard Rustin, by Jacqueline Houtman (event Jan 8 at Boswell, 6:30 pm)
2. Guide to Creating Comics in 3D: Dog Man, by Kate Howard
3. The Wonders of Nature, by Ben Hoare
4. Planetarium, by Raman Prinja
5. Complete Baking Book for Young Chefs, by America's Test Kitchen
6. Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs, by America's Test Kitchen
7. Greek Myths and Mazes, by Jan Bajtlik
8. Migration, by Mike Unwin

We didn't have a book like National Parks this year, but the category still seems to be growing.

Chapter Books (including graphica):
1. Fetch-22 V8, by Dav Pilkey
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire illustrated V4, by JK Rowling, illustrated by Jim Kay
3. Ivy and Bean V1, by Annie Barrows and Sophie Blackall
4. The White Bird, by RJ Palacio
5. The Wrecking Ball V14, by Jeff Kinney
6. Pax, by Sara Pennypacker
7. Wild Honey from the Moon, by Kenneth Kraegel (some would place this in picture books)
8. A Wolf Called Wander, by Rosanne Parry
9. The Crossover graphic novel, by Kwame Alexander
10. Guts, by Raina Telgemeier

Young Adult/Teen:
1. Butterfly Yellow, by Thanhha Lai
2. The Secret Commonwealth V2, by Philip Pullman
3. Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All, by Laura Ruby (this is Amie's book of the year)
4. Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds
5. Children of Virtue and Vengeance CV2, by Tomi Adeyemi
6. Fountains of Silence, by Ruta Sepetys
7. The Toll V3, by Neal Shusterman
8. Dry, by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman

You can only imagine how the Shusterman books would be doing if we had signed copies. Still hoping for our fall event to be rescheduled.

After I try to separate kids books out, I know why I group them together. There are so many books that could go in multiple designations.

We're open 10 am to 5 pm today. Closed Christmas.

Boswell's paperback bestsellers for the week ending December 21, 2019

Here are some more bestseller lists!

Paperback Fiction
1. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
2. The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, by Abby Waxman
3. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson
4. Milwaukee Noir, edited by Tim Hennessy
5. Girl Woman Other, by Bernardine Evaristo
6. Unsheltered, by Barbara Kingstolver
7. Killing Commendatore, by Haruki Murakami
8. Best American Short Stories 2019, edited by Anthony Doerr
9. The Librarian of Auschwitz special edition, by Antonio Iturbe
10. We're All in This Together, by Amy Jones
11. Ohio, by Stephen Markley
12. The Driver V1, by Nick Petrie
13. The Apple Tree, by Daphne DuMaurier, with illustrations by Seth
14. Florida, by Lauren Groff
15. There There, by Tommy Orange
16. The Way of Kings V1, by Brandon Sanderson (Ogi's handselling go-to)
17. Elevation, by Stephen King
18. The Great Alone, by Kristin Hannah
19. Flights, by Olga Tokarczuk

To put the list in perspective, we sold well more than twice as many copies of The Overstory as the #2 book.

What else can we note here? For one thing, four of our top five books are paperback originals, though I should note there are only two others scattered in the top 20, the always paperback original Best American Short Stories and The Apple Tree (we're out of it) the top seller from the Seth graphic Christmas stories that is so popular. It's from Biblioasis.

The Librarian of Auschwitz came out in 2017 as a young adult novel, but when they did the paperback release, they decided to do both an adult and a kids version. The adult one is a hit, probably helped along by sounding connected to that 2018 hit that is still #1 on the bestseller lists, The Tattooist of Auschwitz. That means every major adult bestseller list is dominated by a book published more than a year ago in its current edition - Educated, Where the Crawdads Sing, and I Hear You Paint Houses, which doesn't quite count as its also a newly released movie tie-in as The Irishman.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference, by Greta Thunberg
2. Field Guide to Birds of Wisconsin, by Charles Hagner/American Birding Association
3. These Truths, by Jill Lepore
4. 111 Places in Milwaukee You Must Not Miss, by Michelle Madden
5. Magnificent Machines of Milwaukee, by Thomas H Fehring
6. Leadership, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
7. The Fifth Risk, by Michael Lewis
8. Classic Krakauer, by Jon Krakauer
9. Instant Loss, by Brittany Williams (signed copies available)
10. Calypso, by David Sedaris
11. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan
12. St Francis of Assisi, by Jon M Sweeney
13. The Impeachment Report, by the House Intelligence Committee (Jon Meacham introduction)
14. Numbers in Minutes, by Julia Collins
15. Think Little, by Wendell Berry
16. Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah
17. Upstream, by Mary Oliver
18. The Library Book, by Susan Orlean
19. Erebus, by Michael Palin
20. The Wisconsin Story, by Dennis McCann

I'd say there are only four regional books on the list this week, but I can't remember if that's high or low. First time showing is Dennis McCann's The Wisconsin Story, which launched locally at the Milwaukee County Historical Society.

Erebus: One Ship, Two Epic Voyages, and the Greatest Naval Mystery of All Time is the latest from Michael Palin - yes, that Michael Palin, a reprint of a Greystone book from 2018. This is the quote that delivers, from Bill Bryson: "Beyond terrific. I didn't want it to end." We're out of it!

Michael Lewis's The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy, is hovering a little higher, in our top ten. For that quote, we'll go to Cory Doctorow: "A hymn to the Deep State, which is revealed as nothing more than people who know what they're talking about."

And finally, we're having a very nice post-event sale for Jon M Sweeney's St Francis of Assisi - we won't have more stock until after Christmas. Sweeney told me that he plans to launch his next book in...Assisi.

Oh, and if someone told you they liked How to Bake Pi, Julia Collins's Numbers in Minutes is a good gift idea, but not from us, not this Christmas - we're out! Collins, among her other accomplishments (she's currently Outreach Officer at the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute), organized the first Math Crafts Festival - which I'm assuming was either in Scotland or Australia.

Despite us being out of a lot of titles I've highlighted, Boswell is packed with books. I'm sure we'd find titles to check off every person on your holiday gift list - if there's a copy on hand on the Boswell Books website, it might be available, but it also might be on hold or otherwise temporarily displaced. You should probably call or email us first if you're looking for a particular book. And don't forget, if it says "ships in 1-5 days," it means the book is not in stock but is orderable. Browsing is best at this point! We're open 10 am to 5 pm today and closed on Christmas.

Boswell hardcover nonfiction bestseller list for the week ending December 21, 2019, featuring Milwaukee Rock and Roll, 1950-2000

Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers for the week ending December 21, 2019

1. Milwaukee Rock and Roll, 1950-2000, by David Luhrssen, Phil Naylor, Bruce Cole et al
2. The Body, by Bill Bryson
3. Climbing My Mountain, by Sheldon Lubar
4. Talking to Strangers, by Malcolm Gladwell
5. Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds, by Ian Wright
6. The Book of Delights, by Ross Gay
7. The Yellow House, by Sarah M Broom (I'm reading this now)
8. Strange Planet, by Nathan W Pyle (I watched the YouTube interview to understand this phenomenon more)
9. Salt Fat Acid Heat, by Samin Nosrat
10. The People's Team, by Mark Beech
11. The Movie Musical!, by Jeanine Basinger
12. Atlas Obscura 2E, by Dylan Thuras, Joshua Foer, Emma Morton
13. The Boy the Horse the Fox and the Mole, by Charlie Mackesy
14. Blue Zones Kitchen, by Dan Buettner
15. The Education of an Idealist, by Samantha Power
16. The Joy of Cooking 2019 edition, ediuted by Irma S Bombauer et al
17. The Map of Knowledge, by Violet Moller
18. The Years That Matter Most, by Paul Tough
19. 100 Years in Titletown, by Vernon and Jim Biever
20. Lakota America, by Pekka Hamalainen

It turns out that two of our top 3 bestsellers in this category were for books we didn't know about until after late November, which is why neither was featured in our holiday newsletter mailing. We have signed copies of Milwaukee Rock and Roll, 1950-2000, and copies of Sheldon Lubar's Climbing My Mountain.

Chris's nonfiction pick of the season is The Book of Delights, which has has had very strong sales in the weeks leading to Christmas.

Much like the fiction list, the nonfiction list is dominated by 2018 titles, with Educated at #1 and Becoming at #3. For the most part, we are not having a huge second holiday with either, but Salt Fat Acid Heat, a 2018 title, is our #1 cookbook. I think this is partly due to Nosrat appearing at UWM in October.

In general, higher-priced gift titles are not dominating our list - only four titles in our top nonfiction titles are priced over $35, including both cookbooks mentioned (which, by the way, are both from Simon imprints), Edison (list price $38) and the second edition of Atlas Obscura, which also benefited from a fall visit. A third cookbook is on the list, Blue Zones Kitchen, but is priced lower, at $30. Demand was very high for this, following a second book that didn't sell as well for us.

Our top selling title this week is from Marquette University Press, but then you have to jump to #20 to find our second university press title, Lakota America from Yale, which is actually just before Leo Damrosch's The Club, also from Yale.

And finally, Bill Bryson's The Body is by far his bestselling hardcover at Boswell, not just outselling the previous high (At Home, 2010) by more than 50%, but also beating any books on record from the last five years of the Downer Avenue Schwartz Bookshop. Malcolm Gladwell's Talking to Strangers has not matched either David and Goliath (which had a sold out event) or Outliers, which came out at the end of the Schwartz era, but sold well into the age of Boswell. Maybe if it gets another year.

Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers for the week ending December 21, 2019

Here are the Boswell hardcover fiction bestsellers for the busiest week of the year, December 15-21, 2019. I'm going to post each category separately, just so I can make sure some get out.

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett
2. The Water Dancer, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
3. The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood
4. The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
5. Olive Again, by Elizabeth Strout
6. The Topeka School, by Ben Lerner
7. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens (The NYT article on the biggest bestseller of 2019)
8. Exhalation, by Ted Chiang
9. The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern
10. Girl in the Rearview Mirror, by Kelsey Rae Dimberg (the big local author fiction hardcover)
11. Complete and Original Norwegian Folktales, edited by Peter Christen Asbjornsen
12. The Disappearing Earth, by Julia Phillips
13. Red at the Bone, by Jaqueline Woodson
14. The Grammarians, by Cathleen Schine
15. The Guardians, by John Grisham
16. The Giver of Stars, by John Grisham
17. The World That We Knew, by Alice Hoffman
18. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, by Olga Tokarczuk
19. The Lost Children Archive, by Valeria Luiselli
20. Trust Exercise, by Susan Choi (National Book Award winner)

One change from 2018 - we had a lot of hardcover fiction events where the books took off and a full 7 of the top 20 were post-event successes in this category. This year it was just 4. Several big genre fiction events did not translate into large holiday sales with signed copies, and some of our literary sleepers remained a bit sleepy.

Cathleen Schine's The Grammarians has now sold 50% more than her last, They May Not Mean to but They Do. And that book blew away Fin and Lady in paperback sales. We're just about to pass Fin in hardcover sales, and that was with an event. We'll see what the paperback holds.

Another breakout is Ben Lerner's The Topeka School. We're move than doubled sales of 10:04, his 2014 novel. It helps that this was Chris's book of the year. It is also one of the New York Times ten-best books. Knopf/Doubleday dominated this list, which is not unusual for them, and that has led to a number of sales pops. Four of the five novels cited are in our top 20, including Knopf/Doubleday's The Lost Children Archive and The Disappearing Earth. For some reason, Night Boat to Tangier is the laggard.

At least at Boswell, it was better for Louise Penny to be released in late November than late August. We still have several days to go before the end of the year, but A Better Man is 37 copies short of what we sold of Kingdom of the Blind. My guess is that the August release date gives the publisher better placement at mass merchants.

Seven of the top 15 New York Times bestsellers are in our top 15.  If you'd like to order or hold a copy of one of the books in this blog post, visit our website.

Event alert: Jeanine Basinger in conversation with Patrick McGilligan on movie musicals, Bruce Cole, David Luhrssen, and Phil Naylor on Milwaukee Rock and Roll history

Just two events this week, but they are great!

Monday, December 16, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Jeanine Basinger, author of The Movie Musical!, in conversation with Patrick McGilligan

Leading film historian Jeanine Basinger reveals, with her trademark wit and zest, the whole story of the Hollywood musical - in the most telling, most incisive, most detailed, most gorgeously illustrated book of her long and remarkable career, as she speaks to film biographer Patrick McGilligan. This event is cohosted by Milwaukee Film.

Advance registration has ended for this event, but don't worry, there is plenty of room for walk-ups.

From Jason Heller on the NPR website: “Every page is infused not only with Basinger's knowledge, but her overwhelming adoration for the tuneful, silver-screen tales that changed her own life. The book is a passion project, organically rendered, and shot through with longing for an age where sophistication was as subtle as it was scintillating. The Movie Musical! is more than a love letter to a great American artform; it's a symphony

This is just one paragraph from the jam-packed review of The Movie Musical! from Joseph Epstein in The Wall Street Journal: "After defining the movie musical—a film “built around the idea that songs and dances can be used to tell a story, or to tell part of a story,” and in which actions are conveyed through musical performance -Ms. Basinger distinguishes movie musicals made from adaptations of stage musicals and operettas, and from biopics and original ice-skating and swimming-pool stories. She provides mini-biographies of the important figures, of directors, choreographers, above all of the performers, in the history of the movie musical. Crucial among directors and choreographers to the formation of the movie musical were the innovators Ernst Lubitsch, Busby Berkeley, Rouben Mamoulian and Fred Astaire. She also devotes several pages to what was known at MGM as 'The Freed Unit,' the movie musicals made under the guiding hand of the producer Arthur Freed, among them Meet Me in St. Louis, On the Town, Annie Get Your Gun, Show Boat, An American in Paris, Singin’ in the Rain, Gigi and more. Freed was also the man who brilliantly cast The Wizard of Oz. MGM and Twentieth Century Fox (called by Alice Faye, upon leaving the studio, Penitentiary Fox) were the two top studios for making movie musicals, though RKO made most of the Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies."

Thursday, December 19, 8 pm, at Boswell: David Luhrssen, Bruce Cole, and Phillip Naylor, editors of Milwaukee Rock and Roll, 1950-2000: A Reflective History, with a special performance by Lil Rev and Friends

Editors Luhrssen, Managing Editor of the Shepherd Express, Cole, musician and curator of Jean Cujé Milwaukee Music Collection, and Naylor, Marquette University Professor of History, appear at Boswell to present their brand new book on fifty years of Milwaukee rock. The evening will feature a musical introduction by Milwaukee musician Lil Rev and friends.

Spanning the beginning of Milwaukee’s rock and roll scene in the 1950s to the turn of the century, this fascinating anthology of written, vocal, and visual reflections evokes memories for those who experienced the music and the era as well as introducing area musicians to a new generation. The editors present this enthralling, generously illustrated, multifaceted cultural history of Milwaukee and rock music, highlighted by a multiplicity of voices - musicians, promoters, DJs, photographers, artists, and audience members - collectively committed to the sounds of a great city.

From Jim Higgins at the Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Rock and Roll 1950-2000: A Reflective History takes a mosaic approach to chronicling several generations of the music scene here. Fortunately for readers, the three editors of this new anthology about local music know a lot about how the pieces fit together." Read more here.

We're starting late on this event so that shoppers have an extra hour to browse the store before we set up for our authors. Because of the 8 pm start time, Boswell will also be open until 10 pm on December 19.

Photo credits
Jeanine Basinger by Jay Fishback

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending December 14, 2019 - plus Journal Sentinel favorites from Jim Higgins and Carole E Barrowman

How can we not go a little deeper into this week's bestseller lists? Here are the top fifteens for the week ending December 14, 2019, with a little more for kids, grabbed from paperback nonfiction.

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett
2. The Water Dancer, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
3. The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern
4. The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood
5. Exhalation, by Ted Chiang
6. Circe, by Madeline Miller
7. Olive Again, by Elizabeth Strout
8. Girl in the Rearview Mirror, by Kelsey Rae Dimberg
9. A Very Scandinavian Christmas, edited by New Vessel Press
10. Complete and Original Norwegian Folktales, by Peter Christen Asbjornsen
11. A Better Man, Louise Penny
12. The Topeka School, by Ben Lerner
13. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
14. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong
15. The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead

The Dutch House is still leading #2 by a good margin. Olive Again get extra energy from being an Oprah Book Club pick. Are these new Apple selections going to be spaced closer together than the picks for the Oprah Winfrey Network, which seemed to number only one or two per year? We've got two Scandinavian anthologies in the top 10 - one specifically Norwegian and the other pan-Scandinavian. From the publisher of A Very Scandinavian Christmas: "A smorgasbord* of literary gifts in a vibrant, elegant hardcover volume that makes a perfect gift and an attention-getting holiday display in your store." Our newsletter is also having a bit of an impact - great to see local Kelsey Rae Dimberg hit the top 10 for Girl in the Rearview Mirror.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. The Body, by Bill Bryson
2. Long Way Round, by John Hildebrand
3. Climbing My Mountain, by Sheldon Lubar
4. Say Nothing, by Patrick Radden Keefe
5. Atlas Obscura 2E, by Dylan Thuras, Joshua Foer, and Ella Morton
6. Talking to Strangers, by Malcolm Gladwell
7. The Yellow House, by Sarah M Broom
8. Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds, by Ian Wright
9. How To, by Randall Munroe
10. Save Me the Plums, by Ruth Reichl
11. Edison, by Edmund Morris
12. Salt Fat Acid Heat, by Samin Nosrat
13. Midnight in Chernobyl, by Adam Higginbotham
14. Educated, by Tara Westover
15. Infused, by Henrietta Lovell

I was going to say that our two bestselling gift books this year are from Workman - Atlas Obscura and Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds - but what's a gift book anyway? It's certainly not price point. Even the more expensive Atlas has a lower list price than the Edison bio from Edmund Morris (by 50 cents). Like Atlas, our bestselling hardcover cookbook is from an author that visited Milwaukee this fall - Samin Nosrat and Salt Fat Acid Heat. One book that doesn't seem to be working as well as we hoped is the 2019 edition of The Joy of Cooking. Is it the last hurrah of the old school culinary guides?

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
2. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson
3. The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, by Abbi Waxman
4. Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo
5. Milwaukee Noir, edited by Tim Hennessy
6. We're All in This Together, by Amy Jones
7. Ohio, by Stephen Markley
8. The Great Alone, by Kristin Hannah
9. Unsheltered, by Barbara Kingsolver
10. Flights, by Olga Tokarczuk
11. Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton
12. Bearskin, by James A McLaughlin
13. Apple Tree, by Daphne DuMaurier, with illustrations by Seth
14. Ducks, Newburyport, by Lucy Ellmann
15. The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal

We just put up our sales rep recommendation list from our HarperCollins rep and one of her recommendations was Bearskin, which won the Edgar for first novel. From CJ Box: "Bearskin is visceral, raw, and compelling - filled with sights, smells, and sounds truly observed. It's a powerful debut and an absolute showcase of exceptional prose. There are very few first novels when I feel compelled to circle brilliant passages, but James McLaughlin's writing had me doing just that."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Instant Loss, by Brittany Williams
2. Where War Ends, by Tom Voss and Rebecca Anne Nguyen
3. Blindspot, by Mahzarin R Banaji
4. Classic Krakauer, by Jon Krakauer
5. Putting Government in Its Place, by David R Riemer
6. No One Is to Small to Make a Difference, by Greta Thunberg
7. 111 Places in Milwaukee that You Must Not Miss, by Michelle Madden
8. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan
9. Field Guide to Birds of Wisconsin, by American Birding Association
10. Untethered Soul, by Michael Singer

I'm guessing one of our big books for spring just got released in November. It's a new Field Guide to Birds of Wisconsin, cowritten by Shorewoodian Charles Hangan. That makes four out of this week's top 10 titles local interest, either in subject or author. On the national front, Greta Thunberg is #1 but we can't keep Classic Krakauer in stock.

Books for Kids:
1. Fetch-22: Dog Man V8, by Dav Pilkey
2. Peek a Who, by Elsa Mroziewicz
3. Migration, by Mike Unwin
4. Look Both Ways, by Jason Reynolds
5. Allies, by Allan Gratz
6. A Home in the Woods, by Eliza Wheeler
7. A Friendship Year, by Lisa Moser, with illustrations by Olga Demidova
8. Just Because, by Mac Barnett, with illustrations by Isabelle Arsenault
9. The Good Thieves, by Katherine Rundell
10. Strange Birds, by Celia Perez
11. Guts, by Raina Telgemeier
12. This Is My World, from Lonely Planet Kids
13. Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All, by Laura Ruby
14. Guide to Creating Comics in 3D, by Dav Pilkey
15. Swan Lake: The Story Orchestra, by Jessica Courtney Tickley
16. White Bird, by RJ Palacio
17. A to Z Menagerie, by Suzy Ultman
18. Crayon's Christmas, by Drew Daywalt, with illustrations by Oliver Jeffers
19. Anthology of Intriguing Animals, from DK
20. Prairie Boy, by Barb Rosenstock, with illustrations by Christopher Silas Neal

This year I'm not breaking out the kids into picture books and chapter books. For one thing, it takes too much time, and for another, what do you do with those oversized nonfiction books for the eight-and-up crowd. Migration: Incredible Animal Journeys is in that genre, though it is aged for five and up. It follows the migration of Arctic tern, barn swallow, bar-headed goose, ruby-throated hummingbird, osprey, wandering albatross, whooping crane, emperor penguin, African elephant, blue wildebeest, caribou, straw-colored fruit bat, humpback whale, green turtle, Southern pilchard, salmon, great white shark, monarch butterfly, globe skimmer dragonfly, and the Christmas Island red crab.

From the Journal Sentinel comes Jim Higgins's best books of 2019: Jim Higgins
--An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago, by Alex Kotlowitz
--Everything Inside: Stories, by Edwidge Danticat
--Flash Count Diary: Menopause and the Vindication of Natural Life, by Darcey Steinke
--One Day: The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America, by Gene Weingarten
--Pay Attention, Carter Jones, by Gary D. Schmidt
--Sontag: Her Life and Work, by Benjamin Moser
--Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea, by Sarah Pinsker
--10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World, by Elif Shafak
--When Life Gives You Pears: The Healing Power of Family, Faith, and Funny People, by Jeannie Gaffigan
--The World That We Knew, by Alice Hoffman

As a bonus, here are Carole E Barrowman's ten best:
--Heaven, My Home, by Attica Locke
--Tinfoil Butterfly, by Rachel Eve Moulton
--The New Iberia Blues, by James Lee Burke
--Women Talking, by Miriam Toews
--Ain’t Nobody, by Heather Harper Ellett
--The Need, by Helen Phillips
--Lady in the Lake, by Laura Lippman
--Conviction, by Denise Mina
--Growing Things, by Paul Tremblay
--The Au Pai,r by Emma Rous

*It's been over 50 years since I last had a true smorgasbord (I believe it was Swedish, not Norwegian), at my oldest sister's Sweet Sixteen party. Why was I there? I was too young to know.

Events this week: Goldie Boldbloom, Brittany Williams, John Hildebrand, Tom Voss and Rebecca Anne Nguyen, Jeanine Basinger

Monday, December 9, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Goldie Goldbloom, author of On Division

Goldie Goldbloom, author and Chasidic mother of eight, in conversation with Marquette Professor CJ Hribal about her latest work, a deeply affecting novel of one woman's life at a moment of change, set in the world of Brooklyn's Chasidim. Cosponsored by the Harry and Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center and UWM Sam and Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies. For this event, Goldbloom will be in conversation with C.J. Hribal, Professor of English at Marquette University.

In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Surie Eckstein is soon to be a great-grandmother. Her in-laws live on the first floor of their house, her daughter lives on the second. Into this life of counted blessings comes a surprise. Surie is pregnant at 57. It is an aberration, a shift in the proper order of things, and a public display of private life. Exposed, ashamed, she is unable to share the news, even with her husband. But deeper within is another secret, about her son, who died by suicide several years before. And these secrets slowly separate her from her community.

From Lily Meyer in The Chicago Reader: "In Jewish American literature, struggling not to believe is unusual. From Chaim Potok to Philip Roth to Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Jewish novelists in this country have tended to depict secular or nonpracticing Jews, some of whom reject their religion completely. Chicago writer Goldie Goldbloom, who's Hasidic and queer, takes a different approach in her quietly exceptional second novel, On Division... Her protagonist, Surie Eckstein, is a Hasidic Jew for whom there is no lapsing from faith. Surie loves God. What she struggles on are God's rules."

Tuesday, December 10, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Brittany Williams, author of Instant Loss: Eat Real, Lose Weight: How I Lost 125 Pounds

Boswell hosts an evening with Brittany Williams, author of the bestselling Instant Loss Cookbook, who chronicles her struggle with obesity and changing her relationship with food in Instant Loss: Eat Real, Lose Weight . Registration is free at brittanywilliamsmke.bpt.me, or upgrade to a purchase-with-registration option for signing line priority and a special price. Registration closes at 2 pm on December 10, but don't worry, we've got plenty of space for walk-ups at this event.

After spending a lifetime struggling with obesity, autoimmune diseases, and chronic fatigue, Williams changed her relationship with food. She cut processed and takeout foods from her diet and eliminated gluten, most grains, and sugar, all without sacrificing the flavors of the foods she loved, and quickly grew legions of fans as she shared her meal plans on InstantLoss.com.

Armed with a collection of 125 all-new delicious recipes for the Instant Pot, air fryer, and more, Williams, champion for the whole foods JERF (Just Eat Real Foods) movement, shows how to make a sustainable lifestyle with kid- and family-friendly meals.

Wednesday, December 11, 7 pm, at Boswell:
John Hildebrand, author of Long Way Round: Through the Heartland by River

Inspired by tales of a mythic Round River, a circular stream where “what goes around comes around,” Wisconsin writer John Hildebrand Professor Emeritus of English at UW-Eau Claire and author of The Heart of Things: A Midwestern Almanac, sets off to rediscover his home state.

Wisconsin is in the midst of an identity crisis, torn by new political divisions and the old gulf between city and countryside. Cobbling rivers together, from the burly Mississippi to the slender wilds of Tyler Forks, Hildebrand navigates the beautiful but complicated territory of home. In once prosperous small towns, he discovers unsung heroes - lockmasters, river rats, hotelkeepers, mechanics, environmentalists, tribal leaders, and perennial mayors - struggling to keep their communities afloat.

Booklist writes: “In a narrative that is rhythmic and thoughtful, Hildebrand captures the natural beauty and idiosyncrasies of Wisconsin small towns with ease. Much like a canoe trip with an old friend, Long Way Round is an enjoyable and worthwhile read.” Here's Bill Lueders in The Isthmus with his take on the book, noting that the journey is set amidst turmoil in state and national politics.

Thursday, December 12, 2019, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Tom Voss and Rebecca Anne Nguyen, author of Where War Ends: A Combat Veteran’s 2,700-Mile Journey to Heal - Recovering from PTSD and Moral Injury through Meditation

Infantry scout-sniper Tom Voss and his sister and coauthor Rebecca Anne Nguyen share Voss’s riveting story of his on-foot journey across America, from Milwaukee to the Pacific Ocean through his burdens of moral injury, and into personal healing and advocacy.

After serving in a scout-sniper platoon in Mosul, Tom Voss came home carrying invisible wounds of war. This was not a physical injury that could heal with medication and time but a “moral injury,” a wound that eventually urged him toward suicide. Desperate for relief from the pain and guilt that haunted him, Voss embarked on a 2,700-mile journey across America.

Walk with these men as they meet other veterans, Native American healers, and spiritual teachers who appear in the most unexpected forms. At the end of their trek, Voss realizes he is just beginning his healing. He pursues meditation training and discovers sacred breathing techniques that shatter his understanding of war and himself, and move him from despair to hope. Voss’s story inspires veterans, their friends and family, and survivors of all kinds.

Monday, December 16, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Jeanine Basinger, author of The Movie Musical!

Leading film historian and founder of the Film Studies department at Wesleyan University Jeanine Basinger reveals, with her trademark wit and zest, the whole story of the Hollywood musical—in the most telling, most incisive, most detailed, most gorgeously illustrated book of her long and remarkable career. This event is cohosted by Milwaukee Film

Registration is requested but not required for this free event at basingermke.bpt.me. Attendees can upgrade to a book-with-ticket option and get The Movie Musical for 20% off the regular price. For this event, Basinger will be in conversation with Milwaukee based film biographer Patrick McGilligan, whose latest book is Funny Man: Mel Brooks.

From Noah Isenberg in The New York Times Book Review: "For Basinger, one of the most acclaimed film historians of her generation, the movie musical is no mere object of study. Rather, it embodies a personal journey of sorts, beginning with childhood. In the opening pages of her sprawling chronicle, she describes how she was essentially raised on musicals from the moment she first encountered a tuxedo-clad Fred Astaire and his dance partner, Ginger Rogers, dressed in a full-length white sequin gown, gliding across the black Bakelite floor of an empty nightclub in Swing Time(1936)."

More events on the Boswell upcoming event page.

Photo credits
Jeanine Basinger: Jay Fishback