Boswell bestsellers for the week ending August 1, 2020

Here are the Boswell bestsellers for the week ending August 1, 2020

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Everywhere You Don't Belong, by Gabriel Bump (watch Boswell event video)
2. The Lives of Edie Pritchard, by Larry Watson (watch Boswell event video)
3. Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
4. The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett
5. Crooked Hallelujah, by Kelli Jo Ford (watch Boswell event video)
6. Axiom's End, by Lindsay Ellis
7. The Second Home, by Christina Clancy
8. American Dirt, by Jeanine Cummins
9. Three Hours in Paris, by Cara Black (register for this August 11 event here)
10. Blacktop Wasteland, by SA Cosby (register for this August 4 event here) 

Several breakout bestsellers have had coronavirus-related printing delays, but we're glad to say we've caught up with backorders for Mexican Gothic. The great reviews keep coming - here's Laura Miller in Slate: "Truth be told, even those of us who love a high-end gothic novel must admit that many of the genre’s devices have lost their flavor. How many books can you read about inexperienced but scrappy young women (or, in the case of Rebecca, gormless ingenues) arriving in gloomy English country estates where dark secrets lurk behind moth-nibbled velvet drapes? Even this premise, once so delicious, can get stale. The genre’s palette is typically limited, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be—as Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic amply, deliriously, and gloriously demonstrates."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X Kendi
2. The King of Confidence, by Miles Harvey (Boswell event video coming soon)
3. Too Much and Never Enough, by Mary Trump
4. Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
5. Untamed, by Glennon Doyle
6. Me and White Supremacy, by Lala F Saad
7. Educated, by Tara Westover
8. Begin Again, Eddie S Glaude
9. Milwaukee Brewers at 50, by Adam McCalvy
10. Price of Peace, by Zachary D Carter

We've had steady sales of The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes, by Zachary D Carter, a senior reporter at Huffington Post. Lots of raves on this, including a recommendation from Jon Meacham. From the publisher: "Keynes was not only an economist but the preeminent anti-authoritarian thinker of the twentieth century, one who devoted his life to the belief that art and ideas could conquer war and deprivation. As a moral philosopher, political theorist, and statesman, Keynes led an extraordinary life that took him from intimate turn-of-the-century parties in London’s riotous Bloomsbury art scene to the fevered negotiations in Paris that shaped the Treaty of Versailles, from stock market crashes on two continents to diplomatic breakthroughs in the mountains of New Hampshire to wartime ballet openings at London’s extravagant Covent Garden."  Here's Jennifer Szalai's New York Times review.

Paperback Fiction:
1. Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead
2. There There, by Tommy Orange
3. Salvage the Bones, by Jesmyn Ward
4. The Book of Unknown Americans, by Cristina Henriquez
5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon
6. All the Right Mistakes, by Laura Jamison (register for this August 13 event here)
7. Miracle Creek, by Angie Kim (Read the book? register for our book club discussion here - no author involved)
8. The Lager Queen of Minnesota, by J Ryan Stradal
9. Normal People, by Sally Rooney
10. Late Love, by Paula Goldman (register for this September 10 event here) 

Jung Yun in The Washington Post recommended Angie Kim's Miracle Creek, which went on to win an Edgar Award. From the review: "Kim’s real-life experience as a former litigator shines throughout the courtroom scenes. Her sharply drawn prosecutor hammers away at the evidence of Elizabeth’s guilt, while her defense attorney offers up alternative explanations for how the fire started. While the courtroom scenes and plot pyrotechnics are sure to delight readers of legal thrillers and mysteries, at its heart, Miracle Creek is a deeply moving story about parents and the lengths they will go for their children."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson (pre-order Caste here)
2. They Called Us Enemy, by George Takei
3. I Was Their American Dream, by Malaka Gharib
4. My Father's Shadow, by Myles Hopper (watch Boswell event video)
5. March V1, by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell
6. White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo
7. Intimations, by Zadie Smith
8. Make Me, by Eric Toshalis
9. Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann
10. Stamped from the Beginning, by Ibram X Kendi 

George Takei's graphic memoir They Called Us Enemy got many wonderful reviews and profile pieces, but I don't think it hit our bestseller list until we got some school adoptions. This story, of Takei's imprisonment as a child in American internment (concentration) camps in World War II. The book won the 2020 Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature. Jacqueline Woodson wrote that the book is "moving, thoughtful, important, engaging, and stunningly rendered. I am so excited to see this book's impact on the world." An expanded version of They Called Us Enemy goes on sales August 25. You can preorder here.

Books for Kids:
1. Dear Martin, by Nic Stone (If you love this author, stay turned for an announcement)
2. Far from the Tree, by Robin Benway
3. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, by Benjamin Alire Saenz
4. On the Come Up, by Angie Thomas
5. Turtles All the Way Down, by John Green
6. Long Way Down, by Jason Reynolds
7. Love Hate and Other Filters, by Samira Ahmed
8. The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo
9. Nimona, by Noelle Stevenson
10. The Realm of Possibility, by David Levithan 

I'm not sure I'll find another book with advance praise from Angie Thomas, John Green, Jason Reynolds, and Jodi Picoult - one didn't make it to the front jacket of the paperback. Dear Martin won raves when it was released in 2017 and went on to be a national bestseller and a William C Morris Award finalist. Adrienne Green wrote in The Atlantic: "Dear Martin belongs to a growing body of young-adult literature exploring racial injustice and police brutality from a teen perspective. 2015’s All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely followed a black high-school student beaten by a cop who mistakes him for a shoplifter. Jay Coles’s Tyler Johnson Was Here, about a boy whose twin brother is a victim of police brutality, will be published in the spring. Jewell Parker Rhodes’s forthcoming Ghost Boys tells the story of the ghost of a black boy who meets the spirit of Emmett Till after he is killed by law enforcement and enters the afterlife." Note - this is an old article, so these books are now published.

Over at the Journal Sentinel, here's a profile of Paula Kiely, Milwaukee's Chief Librarian since 2006. Thank you to your great contribution to the city and the literary community! We're honored to have been a library partner for many programs over the last 11 years. 

When asked what's changed over the years, Kiely noted technology and then: "The other change, of course, is in the libraries themselves, and how the libraries look, how they function. When I started off in 2006, I knew that the facilities were going to be a big part of what I did. But when I look back, it is surprising to me how much time I've spent working on these library developments and how differently the libraries really function. We don't focus on how many books we can sort of squeeze into the space. It's how many people can we accommodate in the spaces that we want to create for different groups of people. And I think, especially in the new library (Good Hope) that will be opening up shortly, children and teenagers really have a big win here. Because we realize how important it is to have children engaged early on." 

Also, congratulations to Joan Johnson, the incoming Chief Librarian.