Boswell bestsellers, week ending June 25, 2022

Here's what is selling at Boswell.

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Horse, by Geraldine Brooks (Register for June 30 virtual event here)
2. The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles
3. Lapvona, by Ottessa Moshfegh
4. This Time Tomorrow, by Emma Straub
5. Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
6. Flying Solo, by Linda Holmes
7. Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St John Mandel
8. Jackie and Me, by Louis Bayard (Register for June 27 in person event or virtual broadcast here)
9. Nightcrawling, by Leila Motley
10. Tracy Flick Can't Win, by Tom Perrotta

I guess you either love or hate Lapvona. While some reviews have been harsh (as many pans as raves and positives put together on Book Marks), the word from The Boswellians is two thumbs up. One rave from Jamie Hood in The Observer: "Moshfegh is one of our most thrilling chroniclers of the abject—she is a delighted documentarian of all the excrescences and defilements of the body which force us to reckon with our inevitable decay, or what the French philosopher Julia Kristeva might term our future-deadness." And from Chris Lee: "Captivating and brutal, this is a heady novel of ideas that will grab you hard and shake away any scraps of complacency you might have left."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Bomb Shelter, by Mary Laura Philott
2. Happy-Go-Lucky, by David Sedaris
3. An Immense World, by Ed Yong
4. Legends of Drag, by Harry James Hanson and Devin Antheus
5. River of the Gods, by Candice Millard
6. I'd Like to Play Alone, Please, by Tom Segura
7. Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
8. Mediterranean, by Claudia Roden
9. African Founders, by David Hackett Fischer
10. The Pope at War, by David I Kertzer

Ed Yong's An Immense World got the best Book Marks score for nonfiction (you can see I'm sort of obsessed with this thing) with 9 raves - nothing but raves, in fact. Pick a rave, any rave - here's Julie Zickefoose in The Wall Street Journal: "It’s Mr. Yong’s task to expand our thinking, to rouse our sense of wonder, to help us feel humbled and exalted at the capabilities of our fellow inhabitants on Earth. This rich and deeply affectionate travelogue of animal sensory wonders ends with a plea to us - noisy, light-polluting anthropoid apes - to stop and consider others’ needs: for silence, for darkness, for space. Despite the stunning discoveries chronicled here, what we don’t know about these animals’ experience in the world we share is still virtually . . . everything."

Paperback Fiction:
1. Book Lovers, by Emily Henry
2. Where the Crawdad Sings, by Delia Owens
3. Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch, by Rivka Galchen
4. The Personal Librarian, by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
5. In My Dreams I Hold a Knife, by Ashley Winstead
6. The Sun and Her Flowers, by Rupi Kaur
7. Beach Read, by Emily Henry
8. Up Against It, by Lauran J Mixon
9. A Court of Thorns and Roses, by Sarah J Maas
10. Malibu Rising, by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch had 17 rave or positive reviews to one mixed and no pans, though as I've noted before, some major reviewing organs don't always show up on Book Marks. From Ron Charles in The Washington Post: "In her acknowledgments, Galchen writes, 'I have never enjoyed working on a book as much as I enjoyed working on this one.' That may sound odd, given these grim details, but Galchen holds a degree in psychiatry, and her previous novel, Atmospheric Disturbances, is about a man convinced his wife has been replaced by a replica. Which is to say, Galchen is curious about how minds work - or don’t. And the witchcraft case of Katharina Kepler presents an irresistible opportunity to reflect on social paranoia, family dynamics and female agency."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. George Wallace in Wisconsin, by Ben Hubing
2. Trees of Wisconsin, by Stan Tekiela
3. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
4. Giannis, by Mirin Fader
5. Evicted, by Matthew Desmond
6. The Fiber Fueled Cookbook, by Will Bulsiewicz
7. New York Times No Recipe Recipes, by Sam Sifton
8. Birds of North America, by Kenn Kaufman
9. The Genius of Place, by Justin Martin
10. Birds of Eastern North America, by David Sibley

Nature rules! Cooking comes in a close second.

Books for Kids:
1. Cat Kid Comic Club on Purpose V3, by Dav Pilkey
2. Peekaboo Sun, by Camilla Reid
3. Elephant Island, by Leo Timmers
4. Lizzy and the Cloud, by Terry and Eric Fan
5. Firekeeper's Daughter, by Angeline Boulley
6. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse and Renée Graef
7. Mermaid Princess V9, by Shannon Hale
8. Dog Man and Cat Kid V4, by Dav Pilkey
9. Last Night at the Telegram Club, Malinda Lo
10. The Summer I turned Pretty, by Jenny Han

Jenny just let me know that we are #2 in the country for Peekaboo Sun for sales in the last 12 months for independent bookstores that report to Edelweiss (approximately 500 stores report). It's one of our featured summer titles. From the publisher: "Ingela P. Arrhenius’s unmistakable, enchanting artwork combined with an ingenious slider mechanism on every page make this a totally irresistible board book for toddlers who love the beach. Young children will be captivated by the peekaboo concept and—with something to push, pull, or turn on every spread—won’t be able to put it down!"