Boswell bestsellers, week ending September 26, 2020

Here's what's selling at Boswell this week.

Hardcover Fiction
1. Homeland Elegies, by Ayad Akhtar
2. The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman
3. The Boy, the Horse, the Fox, and the Mole, by Charlie Mackesy
4. The Evening and the Morning, by Ken Follett
5. Anxious People, by Fredrik Backman
6. Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
7. Troubled Blood, by Robert Galbraith
8. Monogamy, by Sue Miller
9. All the Devils Are Here, by Louise Penny
10. Squeeze Me, by Carl Hiaasen 

To us, Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club is a debut novel, but per The Guardian, in the UK, "Richard Osman (in a recent survey) emerged as the ninth most popular telly personality – the words most often used to describe him were 'likable, clever, quick-witted and charming.' Fans of Osman were, the survey suggested, most likely also to admire Dawn French, Judi Dench and appliances made by Russell Hobbs. All of which data no doubt helps to make Viking Penguin, the publisher of Osman’s first novel (The Thursday Murder Club), comfortable with its decision to invest a 'seven-figure advance' in a two-book deal, safe in the knowledge that the Pointless co-presenter is well on the way to national treasure status." 

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi
2. Solutions and Other Problems, by Allie Brosh
3. Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson
4. The Splendid and the Vile, by Erik Larson
5. The Well-Plated Cookbook, by Erin Clarke
6. All We Can Save, edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine Wilkinson
7. Rage, by Bob Woodward
8. His Truth Is Marching On, by John Meacham
9. Evil Geniuses, by Kurt Anderson
10. My Own Words, by Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Paperback Fiction:
1. Letters to a Young Brown Girl, by Barbara Jane Reyes
2. The Need, by Helen Phillips (Register for 10/5 event here)
3. Scorpionfish, by Natalie Bakopoulos
4. Miracle Creek, by Angie Kim (Register for 10/16 event here)
5. Grendel, by John Gardner
6. Normal People, by Sally Rooney
7. Chain, by Adrian McKinty
8. When No One Is Watching, by Alyssa Cole
9. The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead
10. If They Come for Us, by Fatimah Asghar 

It's been over a year that we talked up The Need on the Boswell and Books blog (The Need was my Crooked Hallelujah of 2019) and The New York Times offered its recommendation, and just a year later that the book was long-listed for the National Book Award. How time flies!

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Tightrope, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
2. So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo
3. We Want to Do More Than Survive, by Bettina Love
4. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
5. Walking Milwaukee, by Royal Brevväling and Molly Snyder
6. Million Billion, by Michael Perry
7. Associated Press Stylebook 2020
8. My Own Words, by Ruth Bader Ginsburg
9. Alone Together, by Jennifer Haupt
10. Say Nothing, by Patrick Radden Keefe

Alas, we don't have an event with Molly Snyder and Royal Brevväxling for Walking Milwaukee, but perhaps we sort of do, as Snyder is the conversation partner for Anna Lardinois's Storied and Scandalous Wisconsin, on October 8 (register here). Here's a link to Bobby Tanzilo's series of walks in OnMilwaukee, including one he did with Molly and Royal. 

Books for Kids
1. The Misadventures of Toni Macaroni in The Mad Scientist, by Cetonia Weston-Roy (Register for October 6 event here)
2. You Matter, by Christian Robinson
3. Last Stop on Market Street, by Matt De la Peña, with illustrations by Christian Robinson
4. Josephine, by Patricia Powell, with illustrations by Christian Robinson
5. Another, by Christian Robinson
6. Carmela Full of Wishes, by Matt De la Peña, with illustrations by Christian Robinson
7. The Very Last Leaf, by Stef Wade, with illustrations by Jennifer Davidson
8. Screaming Hairy Armadillo and 76 Other Animals with Weird Wild Names, by Matt Murrie
9. Stamped, by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
10. Skunk and Badger, by Amy Timberlake, with illustrations by Jon Klassen (Register for October 12 event here)

No public event at the moment for Matt Murrie and Screaming Hairy Armadillo and 76 Other Animals with Weird Wild Names, but it's possible that one of our school events will decide to go public, as our Nic Stone event with ACCESS did for Dear Justyce on September 30, 10 am (register here).

Here's more about the screaming hairy armadillo on the Smithsonian's National Zoo page. And here's more about the book at Kirkus Reviews.

From Jim Higgins in the Journal Sentinel: "Somewhere east of Frog and Toad and west of The Odd Couple live Skunk and Badger, as mismatched a pair of musteloids as you’ll ever find in North Twist... How did they become housemates? More importantly, will they stay housemates? Those questions are explored in Amy Timberlake’s Skunk and Badger, a sweetly entertaining new novel for 8 to 12-year-olds, as well as older people who might enjoy reading along with them."

Boswell events this week: Natalie Bakopoulos, Bill Buford, Ayad Akhtar, Salar Abdoh, Michael Perry, Christian Robinson

Here's what's happening at Boswell this week.

Monday, September 21, 7:30 pm CDT
Natalie Bakopolous, author of Scorpionfish
in Conversation with Valerie Laken for a Virtual Event

Bakopolous, Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Wayne State and also author of The Green Shore, chats about her captivating, transporting novel that's been named a Best Summer Read by The Daily Beast and Alma, which calls it "A novel where you can practically taste summer on its pages... a magnetic story." Bakopolous will be in conversation with Valerie Laken, Associate Professor of English at UWM. Register for this virtual event right here, and purchase your copy of Scorpionfish from Boswell Book Company for 10% off list price today!

Here's Daniel Goldin on his read of Scorpionfish: Her parents killed in an accident, Mira takes a leave from her teaching job in Chicago to return to the Athens of her birth. Hoping to take up with her long-time, long-distance lover, she learns upon arrival that he has left her for a well-known film actress. Her voice alternates with her new neighbor, a sailor now separated from the seas and also disengaging from his marriage. The story might dissolve into introspection were it not for Athens, equally lush and tranquil and dirty and chaotic, almost a character itself, and certainly the impetus to awaken these souls from their mournful slumber. If your Greek vacation was cancelled this year, reading Scorpionfish might just be the next best thing."

Jesmyn Ward, author of Sing, Unburied, Sing, says "Scorpionfish dazzles, fierce and tender in turn... Savor it, and it will leave you changed." And Claire Vaye Watkins, author of Gold Fame Citrus, says, "a riveting, elegant novel keenly observed in the manner of Elena Ferrante and Rachel Cusk. A divine, chiseled stunner." 

And finally, from the Zelos blog, Bakopoulos writes about Athens: "Though I have friends and family in Athens, I also spend a lot of time there on my own, working, writing - a solitude I really crave sometimes, and enjoy. When I’m not writing or teaching, I love spending hours walking the city. In some ways, though it’s a work of the imagination, Scorpionfish is my own love letter to Athens - a city I’m missing all the more now that it’s more difficult, or impossible, to return."  

Tuesday, September 22, 5:30 pm CDT
Bill Buford, author of Dirt: Adventures in Lyon as a Chef in Training, Father, and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking
in Conversation with Kyle Cherek for a Virtual Event 

Alliance Française de Milwaukee and Boswell Book Company present an evening with Buford, longtime writer and editor at The New Yorker and author of the widely-acclaimed Heat, where he’ll chat about his brand new book of culinary adventures, a hilariously self-deprecating, highly obsessive account of the author’s adventures in the world of French haute cuisine, perfect for anyone whose ever found joy in cooking and eating food with their family. Buford will be in conversation with Milwaukee Culinary Historian and Food Essayist Kyle Cherek. Click here to register for this Zoom event. And purchase your copy of Dirt from Boswell Book Company for 20% off list price today! 

Buford turns his inimitable attention from Italian cuisine to the food of France in his latest, a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice. Baffled by the language, but convinced that he can master the art of French cooking, or at least get to the bottom of why it is so revered, he begins what becomes a five-year odyssey by shadowing the esteemed French chef Michel Richard, in Washington, D.C. 

As Dwight Garner notes in The New York Times: "So much cooking and eating gets done that Buford’s next book, after Heat and Dirt, in order to preserve the Eat, Pray, Love cadence, should probably be titled Gout." (We'll see if that prediction comes true.)

When Buford (quickly) realizes that a stage in France is necessary, he goes, with his wife and three-year-old twin sons in tow, to Lyon, the gastronomic capital of France. Studying at L’Institut Bocuse, cooking at the storied, Michelin-starred La Mère Brazier, enduring the endless hours and exacting rigeur of the kitchen, Buford becomes a man obsessed - with proving himself on the line, proving that he is worthy of the gastronomic secrets he’s learning, proving that French cooking actually derives from (mon dieu!) the Italian. With his signature humor, sense of adventure, and masterly ability to immerse himself, and us, in his surroundings, Buford has written what is sure to be the food-lover’s book of the year. 

As Moira Hodgson wrote in The Wall Street Journal: "You can almost taste the food in Bill Buford’s “Dirt,” an engrossing, beautifully written memoir about his life as a cook in France... Mr. Buford brings a novelistic approach to his story; he is both observer and participant. He’s an entertaining, often comical, raconteur."

Tuesday, September 22, 7 pm CDT
Ayad Akhtar, author of Homeland Elegies
in Conversation with Mark Clements for a Virtual Event 

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and author Akhtar chats with Milwaukee Rep Artistic Director Mark Clements (who is currently working to adapt American Dervish for the stage) about Homeland Elegies, an unflinching novel about searching for belonging in America. Cosponsored by the Milwaukee Rep. To Register for this event, click this link for the Zoom webinar registration page, and purchase your copy of Homeland Elegies from Boswell Book Company for 20% off list price.

A deeply personal work about identity and belonging in a nation coming apart at the seams, Homeland Elegies blends fact and fiction to tell an epic story of longing and dispossession in the world that 9/11 made. Part family drama, part social essay, part picaresque novel, at its heart it is the story of an immigrant father and his son search for belonging in post-Trump America, and with each other. 

Akhtar talked to Noel King on NPR's Morning Edition. On why he decided to blend fact and fiction: "I wanted to reach a reader today who is addicted to the thrill of breaking news and absorbed in the Instagram scroll feed. That reader, of course, is me, the reader who has lost interest, in a way, in anything that is not sensational in that way. I wanted to write a philosophical novel, but I wanted it to have the thrill of a kind of reality TV serial."

From Ron Charles in The Washington Post: "The challenge of remembering one’s identity in a racist culture is also at the heart of Akhtar’s remarkable new book, Homeland Elegies. But here, Akhtar bounds far beyond the cleverly engineered drama of Disgraced. With its sprawling vision of contemporary America, Homeland Elegies is a phenomenal coalescence of memoir, fiction, history and cultural analysis. It would not surprise me if it wins him a second Pulitzer Prize. But for which category?"

Wednesday, September 23, 7 pm CDT
Salar Abdoh, author of Out of Mesopotamia
in Conversation with Meg Jones for a Virtual Event

Boswell hosts Iranian novelist Salar Abdoh, author of Tehran at Twilight and The Poet Game, for a conversation about his latest, in which Abdoh offers an unprecedented glimpse into "endless war" from a Middle Eastern perspective. He'll chat with Meg Jones, reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Register for this event on this Zoom registration page, and purchase your copy of Out of Mesopotamia from Boswell Book Company for 20% off list price.

In a novel that draws from his firsthand experience of being embedded with Shia militias on the ground in Iraq and Syria, Abdoh gives agency to the voiceless while offering a meditation on war that is moving, humane, darkly funny, and resonantly true. 

From Eliot Ackerman, author of Red Dress in Black and White, in The New York Times: "For many Americans, the conflicts in Syria and Iraq have become abstractions, separated from our lives by geographic as well as psychic boundaries. Abdoh collapses these boundaries, presenting a disjointed reality in which war and everyday life are inextricably entwined. The result, Saleh asserts late in the novel, is that 'the transience of it all made us mad men.' This discovery of collective madness seems closest to the achieved wisdom Proust alluded to, attained only after a long journey through the wilderness. The novel arrives at that wisdom by shining a brilliant, feverish light on the nature of not only modern war but all war, and even of life itself."

From Boswellian Chris Lee: "In what should well become an essential portrait of the fight against the Islamic State, Salar Abdoh’s novel reinvigorates the way we write about war. Saleh, an Iranian journalist and reluctant drama-as-propaganda television writer, travels between the urbane art world of Tehran and the battlefields near the northern border of Syria and Iraq, where he’s gotten more involved than a reporter is supposed to be. The novel digs into Saleh’s meditations and struggle to understand: why do we choose to bloody our hands? The answers are many, uneasy and contradictory, but as Abdoh riffs on the Western canon of war – the adrift disillusionment of Hemingway, the absurdity and commerce of Catch-22 – Out of Mesopotamia is nothing less than profound."

Thursday, September 24, 7 pm CDT
Michael Perry, author of Million Billion: Brief Essays on Snow Days, Spitwads, Bad Sandwiches, Dad Socks, Hairballs, Headbanging Bird Love, and Hope and Big Boy's Big Rig (available at Books and Company)
in Conversation with Daniel Goldin and Lisa Baudoin for a Virtual Event

Beloved Wisconsin author Perry joins the proprietors of Boswell Book Company and Books and Company for the September installment of our joint Readings from Oconomowaukee virtual event series. He’ll chat with Goldin and Baudoin about his latest book, a new collection of columns from Perry’s regular 'Roughneck Grace' feature in the Wisconsin State Journal. Click right here to register for this event, and purchase your copy of Million Billion for 10% off list price from Boswell or Books & Company, and Big Boy's Big Rig from Books & Company.

In this fresh collection of 'Roughneck Grace' columns, bestselling author and humorist Perry reinforces his reputation as a writer navigating between the transcendent, the quotidian, and the downright goofy. Whether putting himself on roller skates for his daughter's birthday, fixing the chicken fence, or celebrating St. Jude (patron saint of fools), Perry writes with a big heart from a small place.

Michael Perry is an author, humorist, playwright, and radio show host from New Auburn, Wisconsin. Perry’s memoirs include Population: 485, Truck: A Love Story, and Montaigne in Barn Boots: An Amateur Ambles Through Philosophy. Among his other dozen titles are The Scavengers (for young readers) and his novel The Jesus Cow. 

Friday, September 25, 5:30 pm CDT
Christian Robinson, author of You Matter
in Conversation with Glenn Carson for an After School Virtual Event

Enjoy this UWM ACCESS event for students, parents, and educators of Milwaukee Public Schools that's just been opened to the public! Christian Robinson’s encore virtual visit is for an after school special virtual event to chat about his latest picture book, You Matter. Open to the public - click here to register now. And purchase your copy of You Matter for 20% off list price today!

Caldecott and Coretta Scott King Honoree Robinson chats about his new sensitive and impactful picture book about seeing the world from different points of view. In this bright and beautiful picture book, many different perspectives around the world are deftly and empathetically explored, from a pair of bird-watchers to the pigeons they’re feeding. Young readers will be drawn into the luminous illustrations inviting them to engage with the world in a new way and see how everyone is connected, and that everyone matters.

Don't forget about NO Studio's event with Rick Perlstein for Reaganland, in conversation with John Ridley. Tickets are $10, free for NO Studios members, and are available here.

Our thanks to this week's event partners.

Photo credits - Natalie Bakopoulos (Jerehmiah Chamberlin), Bill Buford (Thomas Schauer), Ayad Akhtar (Vincent Tullo), Salar Abdoh (Mehri Rahimzadeh), Michael Perry (Cameron Wittig), Chistian Robinson (John Kwiatkowski)

Boswell bestsellers, week ending September 19, 2020

Here are the Boswell Bestsellers for the week ending September 19, 2020

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Homeland Elegies, by Ayad Akhtar (Register for September 22, 7 pm event here)
2. Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke
3. Troubled Blood, by Robert Galbraith
4. The Evening and the Morning, by Ken Follett
5. Anxious People, by Fredrik Backman
6. The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett
7. The Lying Life of Adults, by Elena Ferrante
8. All the Devils Are Here, by Louise Penny
9. What Are You Going Through, by Sigrid Nunez
10. Transcendent Kingdom, by Yaa Gyasi

New on the list is Homeland Elegies, which as noted above, is the focus of a Boswell event on September 22 with Mark Clements of the Milwaukee Rep. As you probably know, Akthar's work is the subject of a multi-year Rep project, culminating in an original play to be premiered in Milwaukee. The New Yorker has a profile from Alexandra Schwartz in the current issue that transitions from the plays to the novel: "With Homeland Elegies, Akhtar was just as intent on capturing his reader’s attention. The novel wears its erudition boldly. Discourses on Islamic finance, medical-malpractice suits, and Robert Bork’s antitrust theory punctuate the narrative. Writers of the show-don’t-tell school might worry about didacticism undermining artistry, but Akhtar has a different philosophy. 'Telling is amazing - some of my best experiences have been being told stuff,' he told me."

Following Akhtar is Piranesi, the new novel by Susannah Clarke, author of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which is in the running for the book I read the most of and still didn't finish. David Mitchell has offered praise and this is from Paraic O'Donnell in The Guardian: "The result is a remarkable feat, not just of craft but of reinvention. Far from seeming burdened by her legacy, the Susanna Clarke we encounter here might be an unusually gifted newcomer unacquainted with her namesake’s work. If there is a strand of continuity in this elegant and singular novel, it is in its central preoccupation with the nature of fantasy itself. It remains a potent force, but one that can leave us – like Goethe among the ruins – forever disappointed by what is real." If you like the Ron Charles book videos, here's his take on Piranesi.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Rage, by Bob Woodward
2. Good Company, by Arthur M. Blank
3. Vesper Flights, by Helen Macdonald
4. Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson
5. Well Plated Cookbook, by Erin Clarke
6. Untamed, by Glennon Doyle
7. Disloyal, by Michael Cohen
8. His Truth Is Marching On, by Jon Meacham
9. Tyranny of Merit, by Michael J. Sandel
10. Me and Sister Bobbie, by Willie Nelson

Our biggest non-local-connected pop this week is for Bob Woodward's Rage, which I'm sure you've already heard plenty about.

Bringing up the rear with a nice first-week sale is Me and Sister Bobbie; True Tales from the Family Band, not Nelson's first memoir, but the first cowritten by his sister. It's also helped along by veteran music writer David Ritz. Searching for reviews led me to a let of excerpts, but I'll note that our sales rep John says "They were abandoned by their parents in East Texas and raised in poverty by their grandparents," and "they still play music and tour together."

Paperback Fiction:
1. Dune, by Frank Herbert (two editions contributing)
2. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
3. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, by Olga Tokarczuk
4. Beowulf, a new translation by Maria Dahvana Headley
5. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
6. The Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler
7. Selected Works of Audre Lord, edited with an introduction by Roxane Gay
8. Scorpionfish, by Natalie Bakopoulos (Register for September 21, 7:30 event here)
9. Hamlet, by William Shakespeare
10. The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

This looks like a list packed with school adoption, but it turns out some of these titles are new releases, like the new translation of Beowulf (August 2020). Ruth Franklin in The New Yorker shows where Headley is coming from with her translation: "In 2018, Headley published The Mere Wife, an astonishing novel in which she reimagines the “Beowulf” story, setting it in modern times and placing the female characters at its center. Grendel’s mother becomes an Iraq War veteran, her child likely the result of rape, while Wealhtheow, Hrothgar’s queen, is represented by Willa, a wealthy suburban housewife who posts photographs of her home-cooked meals and suppresses her fantasies of violence. The novel is both a brilliant investigation of the man-monster dichotomy—the line between them is not as clear as we might think—and a caustic sendup of contemporary family life. In their own way, the novel suggests, all women are warriors, even if their armor takes the form of a sequinned cocktail dress."

Similarly, Roxane Gay's edited version of The Selected Works of Audre Lord was released just last week. Parul Sehgal writes in The New York Times: "Any opportunity to contemplate Lorde would be a cause for celebration. The Selected Works of Audre Lorde, edited and introduced by Roxane Gay, arrives at an especially interesting moment, however. Lorde’s writing has rarely been more influential -or more misunderstood."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo
2 Field Guide to Birds of Wisconsin, by Charles Hagner
3. The American Crisis, by Writers of The Atlantic
4. Epic Tomatoes, by Craig Lehoullier
5. Charged, by Emily Bazelon
6. Baby 411, by Ari Brown
7. Walking Milwaukee, by Royal Brevväxling and Molly Snyder
8. Birth of a White Nation, by Jacqueline Battalora
9. The Great Influenza, by John M. Barry
10. Walking with the Wind, by John Lewis

The American Crisis: What Went Wrong. How We Recover, is edited by Jeffrey Goldberg and features contributions from Danielle Allen, Anne Applebaum, Yoni Appelbaum, Molly Ball, David W. Blight, Mark Bowden, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Lizabeth Cohen, McKay Coppins, James Fallows, Drew Gilpin Faust, Caitlin Flanagan, Franklin Foer, David Frum, Megan Garber, Michael Gerson, Elizabeth Goitein, David A. Graham, Emma Green, Yuval Noah Harari, Ibram X. Kendi, Olga Khazan, Adrienne LaFrance, Annie Lowrey, James Mattis, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Angela Nagle, Vann R. Newkirk II, George Packer, Elaina Plott, Jeremy Raff, Jonathan Rauch, Adam Serwer, Clint Smith, Matthew Stewart, Alex Wagner, Tara Westover, and Ed Yong.

Books for Kids:
1. You Matter, by Christian Robinson (Register for September 25 event here)
2. Hello Neighbor, by Matthew Cordell
3. Dragon Hoops, by Gene Luen Yang
4. My Map Book, by Sara Fanelli
5. Antiracist Baby picture book, by Ibram X. Kendi, with illustrations by Ashley Lukashevsky
6. The Very Last Leaf, by Stef Wde, with illustrations by Jennifer Davidson
7. It's Trevor Noah: Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah
8. Legendborn, by Trace Deonn
9. Grime and Punishment, by Dav Pilkey
10. I Dissent, by Debbie Levy

Just a hint of what we should see this upcoming week with a showing for I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg makes her mark. We are currently out of stock.

Our top 3 look like a greatest hits of our spring authors-in-school season. And so it is. We're actually booking virtual school visits. Contact Jenny for more info.

This week's piece from Jim Higgins at the Journal Sentinel features Wisconsin Funnies: Fifty Years of Comics at the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend with a mini exhibition at the Saint Kate.

Chicago Soul on the page - a blog about Catherine Adel West, Natalie Moore, Gabriel Bump, Danny Gardner, Nancy Johnson

Curtis Mayfield, Chaka Khan, The Staple Singers, and Earth, Wind, and Fire all got their start in Chicago. Their families mostly came to the city in the Great Migration, searching for a better life. In the end, most of these music geniuses wound up leaving to get to the next stage of their careers. It is true for writers too. While Gwendolyn Brooks stayed, others like Lorraine Hansberry and Richard Wright moved on to New York, such that the Chicago Black Renaissance has often been overshadowed by Harlem’s.

Chicago’s literary scene still shines today, finding inspiration in Bronzeville and other neighborhoods with a strong history of Black culture that reflect the experience of the folks who grew up there. I think my recent entry into the world came with a nonfiction book, Natalie Y. Moore’s The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation. It’s a look at how segregation and even redlining are not historical artifacts. Moore uses a combination of reporting and memoir to look at the housing boom of the 2000s and why properties in African American neighborhoods crashed faster and harder than others.

Like many books, I read Moore’s book because we were having an event, and we were having an event because either I, the publisher, or the author realized that Chicago is only two hours away and there’s an opportunity to reach another market without the cost of a plane trip and hotel. It was an excellent talk, and I continued to keep my eye out for Chicago writers who might be interested in taking the trip.

One book that caught my eye last fall was Gabriel Bump’s Everywhere You Don’t Belong. I read it, I sent in a rec (it was an Indie Next pick for February), I set up a public event, and because I thought it would cross over well, a daytime event at a local high school. Bump was scheduled for the first week where everything got cancelled. Don’t worry, my friend Michael at Algonquin said, we can schedule for when he comes back for Printers Row in June. Meanwhile, the school, in an act that would soon be commonplace, converted their program to virtual. Bump was a hit!

Eventually we figured out how to pivot to virtual events, and we hosted him with UWM ACCESS in July. I thought the conversation with Nasif Rogers and Shana Lucas was one of the best we’ve ever had. I’m sure Bump says this to all the bookstores, but he was particularly effusive in his praise. Watch the video here. And you can read my rec on Everywhere You Don't Belong on our website's item page.

Danny Gardner spent his formative years in Chicago, but now lives in California. When it comes to his writing, Gardner looks back to Chicago for inspiration. I should note that Bump also doesn’t live in Chicago, but in Buffalo. Larry Watson once told me he can’t write about a place until he leaves it, and I guess that might ring true for Gardner as well. Gardner visited Milwaukee for his first mystery featuring Elliot Caprice, A Negro and an Ofay as part of Murder and Mayhem, the mystery conference, now on hiatus, that brought together 30 or so writers from across the country to connect with fans and each other, run by Jon and Ruth Jordan, and helped by a team of dedicated volunteers too numerous to be named here! We wound up having a preview event with Gardner and Stephen Mack Jones, author of August Snow, Lives Laid Away, and I just noticed Dead of Winter coming out next May. But that's for a Detroit blog post.   

Gardner’s first novel sets up Elliot Caprice’s story. Caprice is a disgraced Chicago Police Officer who takes a job as a process server and winds up getting involved with unwinding the death of a north side captain of industry, caught between the police and the syndicate. Gardner’s new novel, Ace Boon Coon, plays on this theme. The heart of the story is inspired by the development of the Chicago campus of University of Illinois. The city is using eminent domain to clear the land around Maxwell Street and everybody wants in – the Irish, the Italians, the Greeks, the Black Muslims, Black church leaders. A local lawyer is representing some of the families whose property is being taken. He’s outed as the song of a Jewish crime boss that Caprice does work for. The fight escalates.

Meanwhile, the family farm is still struggling, most notably with a recent drought. On top of that, labor unrest is spreading to Southville. Elliot must juggle this, while trying to do his day job, and let’s just say, based on a simple trip to Rockford, that’s not easy. Caprice has to juggle a lot of fighting factions, and it's hard not to worry for his safety. It’s a violent time that even comes with a bombing (which is interesting, as I also just read The Fate of a Flapper from Susanna Calkins, which is set almost blocks from Ace Boon Coon’s center of action, only in the 1920s, when bombings were also not uncommon – they play a part in Calkins’s latest as well). Gardner weaves big personalities into a story seeped in historic Chicago, with a little family drama, some romance, and well, violence. Hey, it’s a thriller, what did you expect? One note - Ace Boon Coon has a lot of moving parts and you might need a notepad to keep track of them.

Danny Gardner is talking to Nick Petrie about his book on Friday, September 18, 7 pm. You can register here. And while you likely won’t have gotten to the book before our event, I think you’ll find Gardner a fascinating interview. He’s got a lot to say about historic times, contemporary times, publishing for a Black writer, and his interest in building an entrepreneurial business that celebrates Black culture. 

Watch Gardner on WTMJ4's Morning Blend here.    

In a way, these other books led me back to Catherine Adel West’s Saving Ruby King, which came out in June. I received a manuscript last fall I think. I can still see the letter attached, but not the signature. In any case, I am certainly not always able to read the manuscripts as they aren’t always as smooth as advance copies or even finished books. Little did I know I would one day be begging for them, as I have a particularly hard time getting through ebooks. In fact, I haven’t gotten through one at all. I’ve had to print several, after obtaining permission.

I read about 50 pages of Saving Ruby King and liked it, but something happened, probably a deadline to get through other books, and I wound up letting it go. Then came COVID, and it didn’t make sense to chase Chicago authors quite so much with everything virtual. But while working with UWM ACCESS, the grant program that is working on initiatives to diversify school curricula, I was trying to think of a book event that would make a nice thank you to the educators that had been working on the program. The way my brain works is that I imagine what book I would hand-sell to them. And I kept coming back to Saving Ruby King, but the way that happened was through another book that isn’t coming out until 2021. 

This connection starts with another writer, Christina Clancy, who wrote The Second Home, one of our big novels of 2020. It’s not set in Chicago, but Clancy has made friends with a lot of other writers, and one of them, Nancy Johnson, has a book coming out called The Kindest Lie, and Christi (I know her well enough to call her by her first name) thought we’d be a good match for an event. After writing back and forth, I’m super excited about this book and already have a great conversation partner lined up. 

Johnson and I chatted about books. Her novel is set, no surprise based on the theme of this blog, in Chicago. I chatted about other books I’ve read (from this blog and others) and we started talking about Saving Ruby King, which Johnson really liked. Intrigued, I asked the publisher if Catherine Adel West was still doing virtual events and she was. I pitched ACCESS and they were on board. And now to tell all of you why I liked Saving Ruby King so much.

The story starts with two friends, Ruby and Layla. Ruby’s mom Alice has just been murdered. Layla knows that Ruby’s dad Lebanon is abusive to her family and she’s suspicious that maybe he’s responsible for her death, only Layla’s dad Jackson, a church minister, wants her to have nothing to do with this. What Layla doesn’t know is that Jackson has a secret that binds him close to Lebanon and has led to some blackmail. And what just about any of the younger generation don’t know is that their grandmothers (Sara, Naomi, Violet) also have a secret, but with Naomi dead and Sara dying in a hospital, will they ever find out how this connects to the family legacies?

West expertly juggles several characters here and really gives you a rich portrait of Chicago’s South Side. I particularly was intrigued by her portrait of Beverly, which I didn’t know much about, much like Gabe Bump really brought the South Shore to life. With the generational aspect of the story, West noted the promise that Chicago offered to families coming up from the Great Migration, in this case Tennessee, and how Tennessee now called them back with the promise sort of broken. I was interested in how the younger generation interacted with White Chicagoans, where they felt comfortable, and where they noticed systemic racism. I wouldn’t call the book a mystery, but I thought Adel did well with the mystery elements, offering twists and double twists that changed my perceptions of the characters.

I really liked the way the church was such an important part of the story. Much the way Brit Bennett had the church ladies functioning as a Greek chorus in The Mothers (not set in Chicago, mind you, but when I do my San Diego post, it will absolutely be featured again), West has several chapters from the church’s perspective, reminding us that the church is only as holy as the people running it and worshiping in it. Saving Ruby King isn’t exactly Christian fiction, but it also isn’t anti-church, the way some literary novels can be. It’s more nuanced than that, and the church functions as a symbol of redemption in the story.

Catherine Adel West will be virtually talking to La Tasha Fields, the President of the Wisconsin State Reading Association – how great is that? – on Tuesday, September 29, 5:30 pm. This event is open to the public and you can register here. If you are part of ACCESS, don’t forget to register through your organization – you will get a nice thank-you. And look forward to details about our event with Nancy Johnson’s The Kindest Lie soon. I have a lot more Chicago to read, like that copy of The Warmth of Other Suns that is still sitting on my bookshelf.

Boswell events - week of September 14, 2020 - Michael Zadoorian, Helen Macdonald (ticketed), Fatimah Asghar, Danny Gardner with Nick Petrie, Natalie Bakopoulos

Here's the scoop on our events over the next week.
Tuesday, September 15, 7 pm
Michael Zadoorian, author of The Narcissism of Small Differences
in Conversation with Luis Resto for a Virtual Event

Join us for a virtual conversation featuring Zadoorian, author of the novels Beautiful Music and The Leisure Seeker, for a conversation about his latest, a hilarious and poignant novel about growing up, buying in, selling out, and the death of irony. Zadoorian will chat with Luis Resto, Detroit-based musician and producer.  This event will be broadcast here via Facebook Live. Fear not, you do not need a Facebook account to view this event. Purchase your copy of The Narcissism of Small Differences for 10% off list price.

Set against the backdrop of bottomed-out 2009 Detroit, a once-great American city now in transition, part decaying and part striving to be reborn, The Narcissism of Small Differences is the story of an aging creative class, doomed to ask the questions: Is it possible to outgrow irony? Does not having children make you a child? Is there even such a thing as selling out anymore? More than a comedy of manners, this is a comedy of compromise: the financial compromises we make to feed ourselves, the moral compromises that justify our questionable actions, and the everyday compromises we all make just to survive in the world. Yet it's also about the consequences of those compromises - and the people we become because of them - in our quest for a life that is our own and no one else's.

Thursday, September 17, 7 pm
Schlitz Audubon Nature Center and Boswell presents

A Ticketed Event with Helen Macdonald, author of Vesper Flights
in Conversation with Lindsay Obermeier for a Virtual Event

Author of the New York Times bestseller H is for Hawk will chat about her latest, a transcendent collection of essays about the human relationship to the natural world. Macdonald will chat with Obermeier, the Schlitz Audubon Raptor Program and Animal Ambassador Director.  Tickets for this virtual event cost $40 each and include admission to view the event and a hardcover copy of Vesper Flights. The first 50 tickets sold will also receive an autographed bookplate. Purchase your tickets directly from Schlitz Audubon Nature Center by clicking this link today! Each ticket purchased helps support the raptor program of the Schlitz Audubon. 

Macdonald's latest is getting raves. It's been named a Best Book of the Summer by The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Time, and more, and has gotten starred reviews from Kirkus and Booklist, which says, "Gorgeously composed, complexly affecting, and stunningly revelatory."

Writing for The New York Times, Parul Sehgal says, "Macdonald experiments with tempo and style, as if testing out different altitudes and finding she can fly at just about any speed, in any direction, with any aim she likes, so supple is her style. She writes about migration patterns and storms, nests as a metaphor for the domestic and the danger of using nature as metaphor at all. I was reminded of the goshawk, so thickly plumed, so powerful that it can bring down a deer, and yet it weighs only a few pounds. These are the very paradoxes of Macdonald's prose - its lightness and force."

With Vesper Flights, Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved essays, along with new pieces on topics ranging from nostalgia for a vanishing countryside to the tribulations of farming ostriches to her own private vespers while trying to fall asleep. This book is a transcendent collection of essays about the human relationship to the natural world.

Thursday, September 17, 7:30 pm

UWM ACCESS presents
Fatimah Asghar, author of If They Come for Us
A Virtual Event

UWM ACCESS presents nationally touring poet, educator, and performer Asghar who will read poems and have a conversation about her collection, If They Come for Us, a Lambda Literary Award finalist named one of the top ten books of 2018 by the New York Public Library.  Click this link to register for this Zoom event today. And purchase your copy of If They Come for Us for 10% off list price.

Asghar, co-creator of the Emmy-nominated web series Brown Girls, chats about her imaginative, soulful debut poetry collection that captures the experiences of being a young Pakistani Muslim woman in contemporary America. Orphaned as a child, Asghar grapples with coming of age and navigating questions of sexuality and race without the guidance of a mother or father. These poems at once bear anguish, joy, vulnerability, and compassion, while also exploring the many facets of violence: how it persists within us, how it is inherited across generations, and how it manifests itself in our relationships.

Elle magazine calls Asghar's poetry "Elegant and playful... The poet invents new forms and updates classic ones." And The New Yorker adds, "Asghar interrogates divisions along lines of nationality, age, and gender, illuminating the forces by which identity is fixed or flexible. Most vivid and revelatory are pieces such as ‘Boy,’ whose perspicacious turns and irreverent idiom conjure the rich, jagged textures of a childhood shadowed by loss."

Friday, September 18, 7 pm
Danny Gardner, author of Ace Boon Coon
in Conversation with Nick Petrie for a Virtual Event

Boswell hosts Gardner for a chat about the second book in his Elliot Caprice series of historical mysteries that began with A Negro and an Ofay. Gardner will chat with Nick Petrie, author of the five Peter Ash novels.  Register right here for this Zoom event, and preorder your copy of Ace Boon Coon at 10% off the list price from Boswell Book Company now.

It's 1950s Illinois and Elliot Caprice has returned to his rural Southville homestead to help his uncle save the family farm from a drought. As racial tensions between agricultural workers rise, a murder pulls Elliot back to Chicago when his ties to both Jewish and Negro organized crime factions are discovered during a clash of competing interests around the development of the long-awaited Chicago campus of the University of Illinois. Elliot must race to connect a money trail to two more murders to thwart the destruction of Southville - before forces combine to destroy Elliot.

Danny Gardner is author of the Elliot Caprice mysteries and has been actor, screenwriter, and Def Jam Comedian. He is a frequent reader at Noir at the Bar events nationwide, and his writing has appeared in Beat to a Pulp and has been featured in Out of the Gutter and on Noir On The Air. Whitefish Bay author Nick Petrie has written five Peter Ash thrillers, including The Drifter, winner of the ITW Thriller Award and the Barry Award for Best First Novel and The Breaker, which will be published January 2021.

Monday, September 21, 7:30 pm
Natalie Bakopolous, author of Scorpionfish
in Conversation with Valerie Laken for a Virtual Event 

Bakopolous chats about her captivating, transporting novel that's been named a Best Summer Read by The Daily Beast and Alma, which calls it "A novel where you can practically taste summer on its pages... a magnetic story." Bakopolous will be in conversation with Valerie Laken, Associate Professor of English at UWM.  Register for this virtual event right here, and purchase your copy of Scorpionfish from Boswell Book Company for 10% off list price today!

Here's Daniel Goldin on his read of Scorpionfish: Her parents killed in an accident, Mira takes a leave from her teaching job in Chicago to return to the Athens of her birth. Hoping to take up with her long-time, long-distance lover, she learns upon arrival that he has left her for a well-known film actress. Her voice alternates with her new neighbor, a sailor now separated from the seas and also disengaging from his marriage. The story might dissolve into introspection were it not for Athens, equally lush and tranquil and dirty and chaotic, almost a character itself, and certainly the impetus to awaken these souls from their mournful slumber. If your Greek vacation was cancelled this year, reading Scorpionfish might just be the next best thing."

Jesmyn Ward, author of Sing, Unburied, Sing, says "Scorpionfish dazzles, fierce and tender in turn... Savor it, and it will leave you changed." And Claire Vaye Watkins, author of Gold Fame Citrus, says, "a riveting, elegant novel keenly observed in the manner of Elena Ferrante and Rachel Cusk. A divine, chiseled stunner."

More on the Boswell upcoming events page.

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending September 12, 2020

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending September 12

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Saving Ruby King, by Catherine Adel West (Register for September 29 event here)
2. Crooked Hallelujah, by Kelli Jo Ford
3. Anxious People, by Frederick Backman
4. All the Devils Are Here, by Louise Penny
5. The Lying Life of Adults, by Elena Ferrante
6. Transcendent Kingdom, by Yaa Gyasi
7. The Invention of Sound, by Chuck Palahniuk
8. What Are You Going Through, by Sigrid Nunez
9. The Pull of the Stars, by Emma Donoghue
10. The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett

Frederick Backman has his best first-week sales pop in some time with Anxious People, also the #1 Indie Next Pick for September. Boswellian Kira McGrigg notes that "Anxious People and all of the ridiculous, complex characters within hold that truly perfect blend of depth and levity that Backman has perfected in his novels."

New releases this week include Chuck Palahniuk's The Invention of Sound, his fist novel at Grand Central Publishing. We have a few signed tip-in copies.

Sigrid Nunez wins praise from Dwight Garner in The New York Times: "What Are You Going Through is a short novel, set roughly in the present. It’s as good as The Friend, if not better. The primal question it asks is this: If a terminally ill friend asked you to be with them, in another room, while they took the pills that would end their life, would you say yes or no? Either answer has its moral hazards.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson
2. Disloyal, by Michael Cohen
3. Vesper Flights, by Helen Macdonald (tickets for September 17 event here)
4. Vanguard, by Martha S Jones
5. Quiet Americans, by Scott Anderson
6. Compromised, by Peter Strzok
7. Kleptopia, by Tom Burgis
8. Dirt, by Bill Buford (register for September 22 event here)
9. Untamed, by Glennon Doyle (just announced - Glennon Doyle talks to Jay Shetty on September 25 - tickets here)
10. Breath, by James Nestor

Ron Charles on Michael Cohen in his Book Club newsletter: "Within 24 hours, Disloyal had been soundly drowned out by actual revelations in Bob Woodward’s Rage. Such is the fickle world of book publicity — a crook can barely make a buck these days.

From Basic Books comes a timely history from Professor of History at Johns Hopkins Martha S Jones, Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All. Ibram X Kendi writes: ""Martha Jones is the political historian of African American women. And this book is the commanding history of the remarkable struggle of African American women for political power." 

Paperback Fiction:
1. If They Come for Us, by Fatimah Asghar (Register for September 17 event here)
2. Dune, by Frank Herbert (two editions, Jason says the trailer looks great)
3. The Overstory, by Richard Jones
4. Late Love, by Paula Goldman
5. Scorpionfish, by Natalie Bakopoulos (Register for September 21 event here)
6. The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
7. The Decameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio
8. The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton
9. The Fate of a Flapper, by Susanna Calkins
10. American Spy, by Lauren Wilkinson

My rec for Scorpionfish: "Her parents killed in an accident, Mira takes a leave from her teaching job in Chicago to return to the Athens of her birth. Hoping to take up with her long-time, long-distance lover, she learns upon arrival that he has left her for a well-known film actress. Her voice alternates with her new neighbor, a sailor now separated from the seas and also disengaging from his marriage. The story might dissolve into introspection were it not for Athens, equally lush and tranquil and dirty and chaotic, almost a character itself, and certainly the impetus to awaken these souls from their mournful slumber. If your Greek vacation was cancelled this year, reading Scorpionfish might just be the next best thing."

Paperback Nonfiction
1. For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood, by Christopher Emdin
2. Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah
3. Our Malady, by Timothy Snyder
4. Stamped from the Beginning, by Ibram X. Kendi
5. Walking Milwaukee, by Royal Brevväxling and Molly Snyder
6. Home Cooking, by Laurie Colwin
7. Christ in Crisis, by Jim Wallis
8. White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo
9. The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson
10. Million Billion, by Michael Perry (Register for September 24 event here)

Are you doing a lot of walking during COVID? Maybe Walking Milwaukee is the book for you. Here's Bobby Tanzilo's profile in OnMilwaukee.

Books for Kids:
1. Darius the Great Deserves Better, by Adib Khorram
2. Darius the Great Is Not Okay, by Adib Khorram
3. Dear Martin, by Nic Stone
4. Skunk and Badger, by Amy Timberlake (Register for October 12 event here)
5. Grime and Punishment V9, by Dav Pilkey
6. Kamala and Maya's Big Idea, by Meena Harris, illustrated by Ana Ramírez González
7. You Matter, by Christian Robinson
8. Superheroes Are Everywhere, by Kamala Harris, illustrated by Mechal Renee Roe
9. The Assignment, by Liza Wiemer
10. Antiracist Baby Board Book, by Ibram, illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky

Two books featuring Kamala Harris are in this week's top ten, the multi-week bestseller Kamala and Maya's Big Idea, and 2019's Superheroes Are Everywhere, one of several books that are slowly being reprinted. Jason told me he's seeing a number of books pushed back because publishers can't get press time. If you haven't heard this before, we need to repeat it now - buy early for the holidays.

Jim Higgins at the Journal Sentinel reviews Homeland Elegies, the second novel from Ayad Akhtar: "Anyone who has seen both Disgraced and Junk will be prepared for the content of Ayad Akhtar's new novel, Homeland Elegies. But even those hard-punching, argumentative dramas don't completely prepare a reader for the high-bandwidth ferocity of Akhtar's book about the unease of being a brown Muslim in the United States and about the destabilizing effect of unfettered greed on this country."

Register for Akhtar's virtual event here.