Boswell bestsellers for the week ending July 30, 2022

Here are the Boswell bestsellers for the week ending July 30, 2022.

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Switchboard Soldiers, by Jennifer Chiaverini
2. Death Casts a Shadow, by Patricia Skalka
3. Horse, by Geraldine Brooks
4. Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
5. This Time Tomorrow, by Emma Straub
6. Portrait of an Unknown Woman, by Daniel Silva
7. Siren Queen, by Nghi Vo (signed copies available)
8. The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles
9. The It Girl, by Ruth Ware
10. The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, by Silvia Moreno Garcia

Tomorrow Larry Meiller talks to Jennifer Chiaverini about her new novel Switchboard Soldiers, also known as the "Hello Girls." You can listen to WHAD at 11 am Central. More information here. Someone at the our Greendale Public Library/Hose Tower event asked me about a nonfiction book on the subject that came out recently. I didn't know it, but found information about Elizabeth Cobbs's The Hello Girls: America's First Women Soldiers (2017 hardcover, 2019 paperback).

Lake Effect spoke to Jeffrey Boldt about his novel Blue Lake. Listen here. Buy the book here.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Happy-Go-Lucky, by David Sedaris
2. The Big Lie, by Jonathan Lemire
3. Thank You for Your Servitude, by Mark Leibovich
4. Atomic Habits, by James Clear
5. The Dawn of Everything, by David Graeber and David Wengrow
6. Empire of Pain, by Patrick Radden Keefe
7. Slaying the Dragon, by Ben Riggs
8. Breaking the Age Code, by Becca Levy
9. Orwell's Roses, by Rebecca Solnit
10. Foxconned, by Lawrence Tabak

Above I noted an upcoming show for an event that just happened. Now here's a feature about an upcoming event from a show that recently aired. Ruth Conniff, author of Milked: How an American Crisis Brought Together Midwestern Dairy Farmers and Mexican Workers talked to Joy Powers. Listen here. That's just a preview of our in-person program on August 3. Register here.

Joy Powers also talked to Ben Riggs, author of Slaying the Dragon. You can listen to that segment here.

Paperback Fiction:
1. Send for Me, by Lauren Fox
2. The Sturgeon's Heart, by Amy E Casey
3. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
4. The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller
5. Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro
6. State of Terror, by Louise Penny and Hilary Clinton
7. Beautiful World, Where Are You, Sally Rooney
8. Great Circle, by Maggie Shipstead
9. The Lost Apothecary, by Sarah Penner
10. New Animal, by Ella Baxter

July is one of the quietest months for new releases, or at least it seems that way until I look at The New York Times list for hardcover fiction and see multiple new titles appearing every week. But on this list at least, most of the titles are at least a few months old, and this week, no Colleen Hoover, Taylor Jenkins Reid, or Emily Henry - how can this be possible? Sally Rooney's Beautiful World, Where Are You is really just a month old in its reprint edition. If you're wondering why Rooney changed publishers after a very successful American breakout, she followed her British editor when she moved to FSG, or so I surmised.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Practical Wisdom, by Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe
2. Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande
3. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kemmerer
4. Giannis, by Mirin Fader
5. The Icepick Surgeon, by Sam Kean
6. New York Times Cooking No-Recipe Recipes, by Sam Sifton
7. This Is Your Mind on Plants, by Michael Pollan
8. Shape, by Jordan Ellenberg
9. Please Don't Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes, by Phoebe Robinson
10. Stuck Improving, by Decoteau J Irby (Register for today's 4 pm event here - walk up is available)

Please Don't Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes by Phoebe Robinson has only been out a few weeks in paperback and makes its first appearance in our top 10. Phoebe Robinson is one of those celebs who, instead of going into food or drink, household goods, designer clothes, or a record label, has started a book imprint, Tiny Reparations Books. I looked up demand on Ingram and it turns out the novel she is helping publish from Latoya Watkins, Perish, is hot! It's out August 23. 

Books for Kids:
1. All Are Welcome, by Alexandra Penfold, illustrations by Suzane Kaufman
2. The Outsiders, by SE Hinton
3. Front Desk, by Kelly Yang
4. A Long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park
5. London Eye Mystery, by Siobhan Dowd
6. Flying Lessons and Other Stories, by Ellen Oh
7. Fever 1793, by Laurie Halse Anderson
8. The Rock and the River, by Kekla Magoon
9. I Kissed Shara Wheeler, by Casey McQuiston
10. The Summer I Turned Pretty, by Jenny Han

You know it's the end of summer when our kids list is filled with educators getting ready for another school year. At the bottom are two titles that are from folks shopping the store - I Kissed Shara Wheeler and The Summer I turned Pretty.

More Larry Meiller recaps - Merri Lindgren from the Cooperative Children's Book Center discussed summer reading for kids on July 12. Listen to the program here.

And from the Wisconsin Public Radio's Morning Show, Carrie Obry from the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association is joined by booksellers Kristen Sandstrom and Ashley Valentine to talk about the flourishing independent bookstore community in Wisconsin. Here's that program.

Over at the Journal Sentinel, Amy Schwabe writes about Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with My Kids, by Scott Hershovitz. From the report: "Hershovitz's argument is that kids are natural philosophers who naturally ask hard questions. More importantly, parents shouldn't be afraid to engage those questions, even if we don't feel like we have the answers."

Five wonderful events! Jennifer Chiaverini (at Greendale Public Library), Patricia Skalka (at Boswell), Batja Mesquita (virtual), Adriana Trigiani (Sharon Lynne Wilson Center), Decoteau J Irby (at Boswell)

Monday, July 25, 6:30 pm
Jennifer Chiaverini, author of Switchboard Soldiers
in-person at Greendale Public Library, 5647 Broad Street - click here to visit the Greendale Public Library website for registration information.

Boswell will be on hand at the event selling copies of this and Chiaverini’s other books, too. Please Note: Masks are required to be worn at all times during this event, at the author's request. 

Wisconsin’s own New York Times bestselling author of historical fiction, Jennifer Chiaverini returns to the Milwaukee area for an evening with her latest, Switchboard Soldiers, a novel set during WWI about the very first women ever recruited into the US military.

In 1917, US Army Signal Corps needed telephone operators. At a time when women could not serve, nearly all well-trained operators were women. This is the story of four very different women who were among the very first to be sworn in - a group that could do their jobs six times as fast as the men they replaced. While mocked at by men at the time as the “hello girls,” the women of the U.S. Army Signal Corps broke down gender barriers in the military, smashed the workplace glass ceiling, and battled a pandemic as they helped lead the Allies to victory.

The risk of death was real - the women worked as bombs fell around them - as was the threat of the deadly Spanish Flu. Not all of the telephone operators would survive. Their story has never been the focus of a novel… until now.

Jennifer Chiaverini is author of acclaimed historical novels such as The Women’s March and Resistance Women as well as the beloved Elm Creek Quilts series. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and the University of Chicago, she lives in Madison.

Tuesday, July 26, 6:30 pm

Patricia Skalka, author of Death Casts a Shadow
In-Person at Boswell Book Company - click here to register! 

Wisconsin mystery author Patricia Skalka returns to Boswell for an evening featuring the latest installment of her popular Dave Cubiak mysteries, which follow Sheriff Cubiak on his murder investigations throughout Door County.

Registration is required to attend this event – click here to visit skalkamke.eventbrite.com to sign up. You can preorder your copy of Death Casts a Shadow now, too.

With Door County caught in the grip of a fierce winter storm, Sheriff Cubiak agrees to do a simple favor for a friend of his wife: he stops by to check in on an affluent widow with a questionable new suitor. His initial disquiet is easily dismissed - until she is found dead the next morning in her home. Lying at the bottom of a flight of stairs, clutching a valuable bronze sculpture, she points her outstretched hand in the direction of a nearby, nondescript ring.

It looks like an accidental fall, but later in the week, an explosion in an ice fishing shack on the frozen bay leads to the discovery of another body, burned beyond recognition. Was this the widow’s missing handyman? Could the two deaths be related? With what has become a hallmark for books in the series, past and present collide as Cubiak’s search for answers uncovers the sad legacy of loneliness and the disquieting links between wealth and poverty on the peninsula.

Patricia Skalka is author of the Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery series, which includes titles such as Death Stalks Door County, Death Rides the Ferry, and Death Washes Ashore. She divides her time between Milwaukee and Door County.

Thursday, July 28, 6 pm

Batja Mesquita, author of Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions
in conversation with Sally Haldorson for a virtual event - click here to register. 

Boswell hosts a virtual event featuring social psychologist and pioneer of cultural psychology Batja Mesquita for a conversation about Between Us, her new book in which she argues that emotions are not innate, but made as we live our lives together. In conversation with Sally Haldorson, Managing Director of Porchlight Book Company, our cohost for this virtual event.

"How are you feeling today?" We may think of emotions as universal responses, felt inside, but Mesquita asks us to reconsider them through the lens of what they do in our relationships, both one-on-one and within larger social networks. From an outside-in perspective, readers will understand why pride in a Dutch context does not translate well to the same emotion in North Carolina, or why one’s anger at a boss does not mean the same as your anger at a partner in a close relationship. By looking outward at relationships at work, school, and home, we can better judge how our emotions will be understood, how they might change a situation, and how they change us.

Synthesizing original psychological studies and stories from peoples across time and geography, Mesquita skillfully argues that acknowledging differences in emotions allows us to find common ground, humanizing and humbling us all for the better. Carol Dweck, author of Mindset, says: "Batja Mesquita’s work on culture and emotion is highly original and highly important and has been influential in shaping the science of emotion. It’s no surprise that Between Us is a groundbreaking book."

Batja Mesquita is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Leuven, Belgium, where she studies the role of culture in emotions, and of emotions in culture and society. She is also Director of the Center for Social and Cultural Psychology in Leuven. Mesquita spent her postdoctoral years at the University of Michigan, where she was part of the "culture and cognition group" that played a key role in the start of cultural psychology.

Saturday, July 30, 2 pm 

New Date! Adriana Trigiani, author of The Good Left Undone
a ticketed, in-person Event at Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts, 3270 Mitchell Park Dr

Click here to visit the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center website to purchase tickets now.

Our event featuring Adriana Trigiani at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center has a new date, and we are very happy to present her in support of her latest, The Good Left Undone, a lush, immersive novel about a hardworking family of Tuscan artisans with long-held secrets. Cosponsored by Books & Company of Oconomowoc, the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts, and Boswell.

If you already purchased tickets for this event’s previous date, your tickets will be honored for the new date. Tickets are still available, cost $35 plus fees each, and include admission to the event and a copy of The Good Left Undone. Ticketholder books can be picked up at the event, or, if you prefer, pick up your book now at Boswell or Books & Company.

Matelda, the Cabrelli family’s matriarch, has always been brusque and opinionated. Now, as she faces the end of her life, she is determined to share a long-held secret with her family about her own mother’s great love story: with her childhood friend, Silvio, and with dashing Scottish sea captain John Lawrie McVicars, the father Matelda never knew.

Early readers are loving Trigiani’s latest. Jess Walter, author of The Cold Millions and Beautiful Ruins says, "The Good Left Undone is at once epic and intimate, a delightful novel about the mysterious lore of an unforgettable Italian family whose characters walk right off the page." And Kristin Hannah, author of The Nightingale, says, "Adriana Trigiani is a gifted, natural storyteller and The Good Left Undone is her at the top of her game. This beautiful, sweeping historical epic about three generations of women paints an exquisite portrait of love, loss, the ravages of time and the price a family pays for its secrets. Brava!"

Adriana Trigiani is author of twenty books, including The Shoemaker’s Wife. She is an award-winning playwright, television writer/producer, and filmmaker. Trigiani wrote and directed the major motion picture adaptation of her novel, Big Stone Gap. Trigiani is Cofounder of the Origin Project and serves on the New York State Council on the Arts.

Sunday, July 31, 4 pm
Decoteau J Irby, author of Stuck Improving: Racial Equity and School Leadership and Magical Black Tears: A Protest Story
In-Person at Boswell - click here to register!

Creator, activist, and Associate Professor of Educational Policy Studies at University of Illinois at Chicago Decoteau J Irby joins us at Boswell with his two latest books, Stuck Improving and Magical Black Tears.

With Stuck Improving, Irby analyzes the complex process of racial equity reform within K-12 schools. Those who accept the challenge of reform find themselves "stuck improving," caught in a perpetual dilemma of both making progress and finding ever more progress to be made. Rather than dismissing stuckness as failure, Irby embraces it as an inextricable part of the improvement process. This timely work contributes both to the practical efforts of equity-minded school leaders and to a deeper understanding of what the work of racial equity improvement truly entails.

With Magical Black Tears, Irby celebrates the resilience of Black communities and families. It acknowledges the role Black children’s creative imaginations play in fortifying us all against the harms of racism and injustice. Caregivers and educators who help children read about and discuss current events play a special role in nurturing their imaginations.

Decoteau J Irby’s work focuses on creating and sustaining organizations that contribute to Black people’s self-determined well-being, development, and positive life outcomes. He is Associate Professor at University of Illinois at Chicago in the Department of Educational Policy Studies.

Photo credits
Batja Mesquita by Eve Eysermans

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending July 23, 2022

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending July 23, 2022

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Poet's House, by Jean Thompson
2. Horse, by Geraldine Brooks
3. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin
4. Upgrade, by Blake CroUch (Register for August 12 in-store event here)
5. Portrait of an Unknown Woman, by Daniel Silva
6. Switchboard Soldiers, by Jennifer Chiaverini (Register for July 25 Greendale Public Library event here - almost at capacity!
7. Lapvona, by Ottessa Mosghfegh
8. The It Girl, by Ruth Ware
9. This Time Tomorrow, by Emma Straub
10. Bewilderment, by Richard Powers

Boy, doesn't Riverhead wish that Paula Hawkins could write as quickly as Ruth Ware, similarly strong critical reviews with book releases on a regular timeline. She's been compared to golden age greats with past works and The It Girl is no exception. From Tom Nolan in The Wall Street Journal: "Ms. Ware’s stories are often compared to Agatha Christie’s, but in mood she’s closer to Daphne du Maurier or Francis Iles. In previous works, such as The Death of Mrs. Westaway, the author placed psychologically vulnerable characters in heightened physical and mental jeopardy to great suspenseful effect. Here, through careful descriptive scrutiny of Hannah’s emotional barometer, Ms. Ware makes even her heroine’s most misguided decisions seem plausible. The It Girl  may well be her best book yet."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Slaying the Dragon, by Ben Riggs
2. The Book of Delights, by Ross Gay
3. Help Thanks Wow, by Ane Lamott
4. Happy-Go-Lucky, by David Sedaris
5. The Book of Common Prayer, from Church Publishing
6. Crying in the Bathroom, by Erika L Sánchez (register for September 16 event here)
7. Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
8. An Immense World, by Ed Yong
9. All That Moves Us, by Jay Wellons
10. Dirtbag, Massachusetts, by Isaac Fitzgerald

All That Moves Us: A Pediatric Neurosurgeon, His Young Patients, and Their Stories of Grace and Resilience may not have major reviews posted on Book Marks, but it was featured on NPR's Fresh Air, and that alone will pop sales. From the interview with Dave Davies: "Wellons, who's from south Mississippi, says he didn't set out to become a pediatric surgeon. When he first went to medical school, he envisioned himself as a small-town family medicine doctor, who might "occasionally get paid in tomatoes and chickens." But a gross anatomy lab where he learned about the spinal cord and the nerves of the brachial plexus changed his path: "I remember just spending hours dissecting that out and just being absolutely entranced by it."

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
2. Book Lovers, by Emily Henry
3. The Love Songs of WEB Dubois, by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
4. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
5. The Lost Apothecary, by Sarah Penner
6. The Final Girl Support Group, by Grady Hendrix
7. Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro
8. The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle, by Matt Cain
9. The Priory of the Orange Tree, by Samantha Shannon
10. Animal, by Lisa Taddeo

Nowadays when we look up a publisher on our wholesaler's database it leads to dead ends, so I had to go to Edelweiss to learn that John Sconamaglio Books is an imprint of Kensington when I was trying to learn more about The Secrt Life of Albert Entwistle from Matt Cain. Hey, I'm not the buyer. The book was an Indie Next and Library Reads Selection. And our buyer Jason liked it. Oh, and someone compared it to Leonard and Hungry Paul! Sir Ian McKellan offered this praise: “This rollicking romance entrapped me! True in its detail and its scope, it is amusing yet heart-breaking.”

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Letters to a Young Artist, by Ana Deveare Smith
2. Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold
3. Do the Work, by W. Kamau Bell and Kate Schatz
4. Beyond Katrina, by Natasha Trethewey
5. A History of Milwaukee Drag, by BJ Daniels and Mikhail Takach
6. Art in the After Culture, by Ben Davis
7. The Invention of Nature, by Andrea Wulf
8. The Viking Heart, by Athur Herman
9. London's Number One Dog Walking Agency, by Kate MacDougall
10. Stuck Improving, by Decoteau Irby (Register for July 31 event here)

Something happened to our initial order of Do the Work!: An Antiracist Activity Book, by W. Kamau Bell so of course we're having a run on it and trying to figure out what happened. This is a Workman-style guide with "creative, practical, actionable ideas, advice, and guidance via humorous, thought-provoking activities on antiracism." From Kirkus: "Overall, the narrative is practical and accessible, balancing historical context with self-reflection and direct action. The dialogues between the authors are informative, frank, and vulnerable, creating a safe space for both learning and taking risks."

Books for Kids:
1. The Very Hungry Caterpillar's ABC, by Eric Carle
2. Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Septys
3. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse and Renée Graef
4. Heartstopper V4, by Alice Oseman
5. The Summer I Turned Pretty, by Jenny Han
6. The Inheritance Games, by Jennifer Barnes
7. The Merciless Ones V2, by Namina Fona
8. The Dawn of Yangchen V3, by FC Yee
9. Our Crooked Hearts, by Melissa Albert
10. What Feelings Do When No One's Looking, by Tina Oziewicz

From the BookTok Display comes The Inheritance Games, the New York Times-bestselling series that has sold over 750,000 copies fom Jennifer Lynn Barnes that is now up to three installments and finally gets a mention here. Katherine McGee (American Royals) writes: "A thrilling blend of family secrets, illicit romance and high-stakes treasure hunt, set in the mysterious world of Texas billionaires. The nonstop twists kept me guessing until the very last page!" From Kirkus: "Part The Westing Game, part We Were Liars, completely entertaining."

From the Journal Sentinel, Jim Higgins talks to Maya Payne Smart about Reading for Our Lives, her new book arriving August 2. From Payne's interview: "'I think what sets this book apart from most raising-a-reader books is that it's not a collection of book recommendations,' Smart said. 'I mentioned very few children's books by name in the book, because I don't want people to feel like there's some specific set of books that they need to get and read. … I want to give parents an understanding of how reading unfolds.'" From Kirkus: "Smart is a knowledgeable, capable guide who has distilled a vast amount of research into an approachable package. A solid resource for diligent parents who want to create readers for life."

Register for the Milwaukee Public Library event on August 2 with Maya Payne Smart in Conversation with pediatrician-librarian Dipesh Navsaraia.

Three upcoming events to look forward to! Ben Riggs for Slaying the Dragon, Jean Thompson for The Poet's House (both at Boswell), Jennifer Chiaverini for Switchboard Soldiers (at Greendale Public Library)

Tuesday, July 19, 6:30 pm

Ben Riggs, author of Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons
In-Person at Boswell Book Company - click here to register. 

Milwaukee author, educator, and podcaster Ben Riggs joins us for a special launch celebration of his debut book, Slaying the Dragon, which exposes the secret, untold story of how TSR, the company that created Dungeons & Dragons, was driven into ruin by disastrous management decisions, then purchased and saved by their bitterest rival.

For years, a story has been told about TSR, the company that made Dungeons & Dragons – TSR created the role-playing genre in 1974, then in the 90s a company named Wizard overtook the scene with a card came called Magic: The Gathering. The competition killed TSR, and in a twist worthy of a Greek tragedy, Wizards ended up buying TSR. That story is entirely wrong.

Through hundreds of hours of interviews, endless research, and the help of sources providing secret documents, the true story of what happened to TSR and Dungeons & Dragons can finally be told. The true history is that of disastrous mistakes and decisions founded on arrogance rather than good sense. Debts were racked up, geniuses driven from the company, and countless of thousands of products were shipped and sold at a loss. The story of TSR provides a negative blueprint, an example of what a company should not do in the geek business space.

Two great staff reads on this one! From Jason: "A good portion of my youth was spent playing D&D and reading Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms novels. Riggs does an amazing job of highlighting both the success and failure of one of the great iconic gaming companies." And from Daniel: "I’ve never played a game of Dungeons & Dragons in my life. And yet I found Slaying the Dragon thoroughly enjoyable, partly because of the near-local setting, and partly because Riggs is a good storyteller who also highlights the corporate missteps in a way that I think will appeal to folks who read business narratives."

Ben Riggs is creator of the Plot Points RPG podcast, and his work has appeared on NPR and Geek & Sundry. He teaches English and history in Milwaukee.

Wednesday, July 20, 6:30 pm

Jean Thompson, author of The Poet’s House
in Conversation with Christina Clancy, In-Person at Boswell - click here to register. 

National Book Award finalist and author of the New York Times bestseller The Year We Left Home joins us at Boswell for an in-person conversation about her new novel, The Poet’s House, an unforgettable, lighthearted story about a young woman who discovers the insular world of writers. In conversation with Wisconsin’s Christina Clancy, author of Shoulder Season and The Second Home.

A wry meditation on art as both transformative and on the ways in which it can be leveraged as commerce, as well as a perceptive examination of the female artist, Thompson’s latest novel is at once delightfully funny and wise, and will resonate with readers who loved Lily King's Writers & Lovers, Meg Wolitzer's The Female Persuasion, and Susan Choi’s Trust Exercise. When landscaper Carla is hired to work at Viridian's house, she is perplexed by this community of writers, yet she becomes enamored with Viridian, her circle, and especially with the power of words, a hunger that Carla feels sharply at this stagnating moment in her young life.

Dan Chaon, author of Sleepwalk and Ill Will, says: "Jean Thompson is a national treasure. She's the kind of writer who can make you laugh and cry at the same time, a consummate prose stylist whose work is full of insight and wisdom and a deadly keen eye for the foibles and self-deceptions of her characters. The Poet's House is yet another indelible masterpiece in her oeuvre."

Jean Thompson is author of fourteen books of fiction, including Who Do You Love, The Year We Left Home, and New York Times Notable Book Wide Blue Yonder. Her work has been published in the New Yorker and anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and the Pushcart Prize. She has been the recipient of Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, among other accolades, and has taught creative writing at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Reed College, Northwestern University. Christina Clancy received a PhD from UWM and has taught at Beloit College.

Monday, July 25, 6:30 pm

Jennifer Chiaverini, author of Switchboard Soldiers
In-Person at Greendale Public Library Hose Tower Community Room, 5647 Broad Street - click here to register. 

Wisconsin’s own New York Times bestselling author of historical fiction, Jennifer Chiaverini returns to the Milwaukee area for an evening with her latest, Switchboard Soldiers, a novel set during WWI about the very first women ever recruited into the US military. Boswell will be on hand at the event selling copies of this and Chiaverini’s other books, too. Switchboard Soldiers goes on sale tomorrow, July 19.

In 1917, US Army Signal Corps needed telephone operators. At a time when women could not serve, nearly all well-trained operators were women. This is the story of four very different women who were among the very first to be sworn in - a group that could do their jobs six times as fast as the men they replaced. While mocked at by men at the time as the “hello girls,” the women of the U.S. Army Signal Corps broke down gender barriers in the military, smashed the workplace glass ceiling, and battled a pandemic as they helped lead the Allies to victory.

The risk of death was real - the women worked as bombs fell around them - as was the threat of the deadly Spanish Flu. Not all of the telephone operators would survive. Their story has never been the focus of a novel… until now.

Jennifer Chiaverini is author of acclaimed historical novels such as The Women’s March and Resistance Women as well as the beloved Elm Creek Quilts series. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and the University of Chicago, she lives in Madison.

Photo credits:

Jean Thompson by Marion Ettlinger
Christina Clancy by Kate Berg 

Thanks to Rachel for putting this update together.

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending July 16, 2022

Presenting the Boswell bestsellers for the week ending July 16, 2022

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles
2. Hotel Nantucket, by Elin Hilderbrand
3. Horse, by Geraldine Brooks
4. This Time Tomorrow, by Emma Straub
5. Look Closer, by David Ellis
6. The Poet's House, by Jean Thompson (Register for July 20 in-store event here.)
7. Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St John Mandel
8. Death Casts a Shadow, by Patricia Skalka (Register for July 26 in-store event here)
9. Devil House, by John Darnielle
10. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin

I am fascinated by Elin Hilderbrand's sales trajectory in the past few years. She'd been hitting the national bestseller lists for a long time, but we couldn't seem to move more than two copies of her books, and often not even that, until 2019, when Summer of '69 had a stronger pop. And then in 2020, perhaps COVID related, 28 Summers more than doubled that, with the last two books, Golden Girl and Hotel Nantucket, holding steady in double digit sales. It's not the hundreds that may chain stores likely sell, but it takes her from also-ran status to featured player in the store. I'm wondering if a similar story is happening at other indies. You just don't tend to see this on book #26 or so. From the Kirkus rave: "The beloved beach novelist's 28th book is another tour de force, deploying all her usual tricks and tropes and clever points of view, again among them a character from the afterlife and the collective 'we' of gossipy island residents."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Crying in the Bathroom, by Erika L Sánchez (Register for September 16 in-store event here)
2. Ten Steps to Nanette, by Hannah Gadsby
3. Happy-Go-Lucky, by David Sedaris
4. Atlas of the Heart, by Brené Brown
5. Thank You for Your Servitude, by Mark Leibovich
6. An Immense World, by Ed Yong
7. The Book of Hope, by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams
8. Atomic Habits, by James Clear
9. France, by Graham Robb
10. Rogues, by Patrick Radden Keefe

I enjoyed reading Mark Leibovich's This Town, so I was interested to see if Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission was not a repeat of the scores of others that have already been released. So far, The New York Times review from Geoffrey Kabaservice has kept me interested, noting that the focus of the new book is The Trump International Hotel and that while Thank Your For Your Servitude is 'extremely funny in spots,' it has a 'whistling past the graveyard quality' about it.'

Paperback Fiction:
1. Book Lovers, by Emily Henry
2. Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro
3. Lightning Strike, by William Kent Krueger (Register for September 17 in-store event here)
4. Human Collateral, by Harry Pinkus
5. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
6. Verity, by Colleen Hoover
7. Beach Read, by Emily Henry
8. Lore Olympus V2, by Rachel Smythe
9. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
10. It Ends with Us, by Colleen Hoover

With two Colleen Hover novels, two from Emily Henry, and one from Taylor Jenkins-Reid, our paperback list is looking a lot like the national bestseller report. Klara and the Sun is making a desperate attempt to keep one Nobel-winner in contention. Meanwhile, in the box office report from Deadline: "Sony/3000 Pictures/Hello Sunshine’s feature take of the Delia Owens novel, Where the Crawdads Sing, is coming in ahead of its $9M-$10M projections with $17M in 3rd. A good win here for a $24 million production before P and A and within the range of other female skewing novels on screen." It goes on to compare it to other female skewerers (skewers?), book-related and not.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. London's Number One Dog-Walking Agency, by Kate MacDougall
2. Finding the Mother Tree, by Suzanne Simard
3. City of Florence by RWB Lewis
4. Cuba, by Ada Ferrer
5. Giannis, by Mirin Fader
6. The Icepick Surgeon, by Sam Kean
7. Entangled Life, by Merlin Sheldrake
8. The New Handbook for a Post-Roe America, by Robin Marty
9. Wonderlands, by Charles Baxter
10. The Second Creation, by Jonathan Gienapp

I didn't pay much attention to it in hardcover, but The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science caught my eye in paperback, much the way it has our customers - it's the second week in our top ten. Here's a case where keeping the hardcover jacket was a particularly smart move - it looks even better in paperback. I like to have our In-Store Lit Group read at least one nonfiction book per year and so this is our November selection. Five raves and four positives in Book Marks - this from Lucina Robb in The Washington Post: "Kean takes his readers on an engrossing - and sometimes horrifying - historical tour of the many ways the search for knowledge can go wrong... Written with the flair of a beach thriller and the thoughtfulness of philosophy, the pages explode with a wealth of information and juicy details, all held together with virtuoso storytelling"

Books for Kids:
1. First Part Last, by Angela Johnson
2. First Crossing, by Donald Gallo
3. Heartstopper V3, by Alice Oseman
4. Heartstopper V4, by Alice Oseman
5. Heartstopper V2, by Alice Oseman
6. Heartstopper V1, by Alice Oseman
7. Peekaboo Sun board book, by Camilla Reid and Angela Arrhenius
8. The Summer I Turned Pretty, by Jenny Han
9. I Kissed Shara Wheeler, by Casey McQuiston
10. The First Cat in Space Ate Pizza, by Mac Barnett and Shawn Harris

Not every streaming series turns into a bestseller for us, but a good half the books on this week's list are stream-driven, noting that four of them are from the Netflix series Heartstopper. As for The Summer I Turned Pretty, this Amazon Prime (what can I do? that's where it's playing, her previous adaptation was Netflix) series is from Jenny Han's novel. From Publishers Weekly: "Han's novel offers plenty of summertime drama to keep readers looking forward to the next installment." The series has a 91% tomatometer score from Rotten Tomatoes and an 83% audience score. 

Two remarkable events this week! Shelby Van Pelt for Readings from Oconomowaukee (virtual) and David Ellis for Look Closer (in person at Boswell)

Monday, July 11, 7 pm
Shelby Van Pelt, author of Remarkably Bright Creatures
in conversation with Daniel Goldin and Lisa Baudoin for a virtual event - click here to register! 

Readings from Oconomowaukee presents a virtual evening with Shelby Van Pelt, author of Remarkably Bright Creatures, a charming, witty, and compulsively readable exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope that traces a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus. In conversation with Daniel Goldin of Boswell Book Company and Lisa Baudoin of Books & Company, our cohost for the event. Click here to order from Boswell, or click here to order from Books & Company.

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors - until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova. Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.

Daniel loves this book: "If you can say one thing about widowed aquarium cleaner Tova Sullivan, the once-again-jobless Cameron Passmore, and star-aquarium-attraction Marcellus the Octopus, it’s that they’ve all had their share of misfortune. Yes, this is a story of grief, of losses both recent and in the past. But it’s also a story of found family, of hope, and of purpose. Van Pelt infuses all her characters with grace, not just the protagonists but the members of Tova’s Knit-Wit social group, Cameron’s Aunt Jeanne (who raised him after his mom disappeared), and even the elusive developer who Cameron suspects is his father. But the star of the show is probably Marcellus, whose dexterity and wisdom never fails to inspire. Why haven’t I read Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus? And while I’m asking, why haven’t you read Remarkably Bright Creatures?"

Shelby Van Pelt's writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has been featured in f(r)iction and Funny Pearls. Remarkably Bright Creatures, her debut novel, was inspired by her favorite aquarium as a child.

Why are we hosting this event twice? At our original program, we planned to broadcast Shelby Van Pelt's interview, but we had a problem with the audio. Being that Lisa Baudoin at Books & Company is also a fan of Remarkably Bright Creatures, we thought the best way to solve this problem was to schedule a virtual event. It turned out to be the right decision - we've got a lot of folks registered for the program!

Tuesday, July 12, 6:30 pm

David Ellis, author of Look Closer
in conversation with Ruth Jordan, in-person at Boswell - click here to register for this event. 

Illinois Appellate Court Justice and Edgar-winning author David Ellis visits with his brand new thriller, Look Closer, a wickedly clever and fast-paced novel of greed, revenge, obsession, and quite possibly the perfect murder. Great for fans of The Guest List and The Silent Patient. In conversation with Ruth Jordan, cofounder of Crimespree Magazine.

Part Gone Girl, part Strangers on a Train, Look Closer is a wild rollercoaster of a read that will have you questioning everything you think you know. Simon and Vicky couldn’t seem more normal: a wealthy Chicago couple, he a respected law professor, she an advocate for domestic violence victims. But when the body of a beautiful socialite is found hanging in a mansion in a nearby suburb, Simon and Vicky’s secrets begin to unravel. A secret whirlwind affair. A twenty-million-dollar trust fund about to come due. A decades-long grudge and obsession with revenge. These are just a few of the lies that make up the complex web...and they will have devastating consequences.

Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent, says: "A daring, brilliant thriller, full of characters you both love and hate and more unexpected turns than a mountain road at night without your headlights. Tremendous fun!" And from James Patterson: "You won’t forget this novel, and these characters - good and bad - for a long time."

David Ellis is author of ten novels, and coauthor of eight books with James Patterson. Ellis was sworn in as the youngest-serving Justice of the Illinois Appellate Court for the First District in 2014.

Photo credits
Shelby Van Pelt by Karen Forsythe 

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending July 9, 2022

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

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Lapvona, by Ottessa Moshfegh
2. Horse, by Geralding Brooks
3. Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt (Register for July 11 virtual event here)
4. Look Closer, by David Ellis (Register for July 12 in person event here)
5. Jackie and Me, by Louis Bayard
6. Death Casts a Shadow, by Patricia Skalka (Register for July 26 event here)
7. The Candy House, by Jennifer Egan
8. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin
9. The House Across the Lake, by Riley Sager
10. The Poet's House, by Jean Thompson (Register for July 20 in person event here)

One of ABA website fixes that had an unforeseen downside is an option to not show books available for purchase until pub date. What this is great for is when we get books on sale early for offsites, or say, receive books on Friday that are coming out the following Tuesday because, for example, it's July 4 weekend and nobody is here to receive on Tuesday. But for traditional distributors who follow the pub date rule instead of the hard on-sale rule, it causes some confusion when, for example, we have Death Casts a Shadow and The Poet's House on our bestseller list, but if you check our website, we don't have stock. When Algonquin moves to Hachette distribution next year, they will move to an on-sale model and that will not be an issue.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Happy-Go-Lucky, by David Sedaris
2. France, by Graham Robb
3. Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
4. All That Moves Us, by Jay Wellons
5. The Geography of Wisconsin, by John A Cross and Kazimier Zaniewski
6. Bad Mexicans, by Kelly Lytle Hernandez
7. An Immense World, by Ed Yong
8. I Dream of Dinner So You Don't Have To, by Ali Slagle
9. Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World, by Barry Lopez
10. The Pope at War, by David I Kertzer

It's five raves and a positive for Kelly Lytle Hernández's Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands, which came out in May, but had it's best week to date and no, this wasn't one person buying multiple copies - I checked. And the reason? The author was featured on NPR's Fresh Air, in conversation with guest interviewer Tonya Mosley. More info here. Note on the Book Marks - this book hasn't been fully reviewed in the big three - The New York Times (it got a capsule after The First Cat in Space Ate Pizza), The Washington Post, or The Wall Street Journal. And why isn't the Los Angeles Times review counted in Book Marks?

Paperback Fiction:
1. Human Collateral, by Harry Pinkus
2. The Priory of the Orange Tree, by Samantha Shannon
3. Admiring Silence, by Abdulrazak Gurnah
4. Dead Romantics, by Ashley Poston
5. Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro
6. Lore Olympus V2, by Rachel Smythe
7. Kingmaker's Redemption, by Harry Pinkus
8. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
9. The People We Meet on Vacation, by Emily Henry
10. The Paper Palace, by Miranda Cowley Heller

We had the first in-person Boswell-run book club on Tuesday with a hybrid discussion of Damon Galgut's The Promise. Some folks loved it - others not so much. It was a good discussion. Do you have to love a book to have a good discussion? No. Does it help if some of the attendees love a book? Yes. We did this one hybrid, but I'm contemplating two sessions, one in person and the other hybrid. I'll keep you posted. Our next discussion is Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah's Admiring Silence on August 1. He has written a good number of novels, and this did not get the big award shortlists, but I read that it was funny, and that's enough of a sales pitch for me. Laura Winters wrote in her 1996 New York Times review: "Mr. Gurnah skillfully depicts the agony of a man caught between two cultures, each of which would disown him for his links to the other. The portrait that emerges is corrosively funny and relentless: we may not like the narrator, but his torment is all too real."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Dream Play Build, by James Rojas
2. The Deep Limitless Air, by Mary Allen
3. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
4. The History of Milwaukee Drag, by BJ Daniels and Mikhail Takach
5. The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel van der Kolk
6. Giannis, by Mirin Fader
7. The Invention of Nature, by Andrea Wulf
8. The Bomber Mafia, by Malcolm Gladwell
9. All That She Carried, by Tia Miles
10. Entangled Life, by Merlin Sheldrake

It's the second week in the top ten for the paperback of Malcolm Gladwell's The Bomber Mafia after a successful run in hardcover. Gladwell's Puskin Industries just signed a first-look deal with A24. Per Todd Spangler in a June piece in Variety, "A24 has the right of first refusal to develop film and TV projects based on Pushkin’s intellectual property. The companies are already in development on a few projects including a documentary series based on Gladwell’s The Bomber Mafia, to be produced by filmmaker Morgan Neville (who won an Oscar for 2013 documentary 20 Feet From Stardom). Our buyer said there's another book on the subject coming out this fall, but I don't know what it is.

Books for Kids:
1. Heartstopper V1, by Alice Oseman
2. Peekaboo Sun, by Cmailla Reed and Angela Arrhenius
3. Heartstopper V3, by Alice Oseman (I think there was a backlog on reprints for this series)
4. Firekeeper's Daughter, by Angeline Boulley
5. Big Guy Took My Ball V19, by Mo Willems
6. Magic Tree House: Mummies in the Morning graphic novel, by Mary Pope Osborne/Jeny Laird/Kelly and Nichole Matthews
7. American Royals III: Rivals, by Katharine McGee
8. Dragons Love Tacos, by Adam Rubin and Danile Salmieri
9. Little Houses, by Kevin Henkes
10. Lizzy and the Cloud, by Terry Fan and Eric Fan (The Fan Brothers)

An MBA from Stanford can prepare you for some exciting careers, but bestselling YA writer is probably not the first one you expect. I was going to mention that Katherine McGee, author of American Royals III: Rivals, also had an undergrad degree from Princeton that might not have had training for this career, but I just read that Erika L Sánchez actually taught YA fiction at Princeton (in her new memoir in essays, Crying in the Bathroom, on sale Tuesday, so they did offer this kind of preparation. The book is set in an alternate universe where the United States also has a royal family. In the latest volume, Queen Beatrice hosts a royal convention.

Over at the Journal Sentinel, Jim Higgins profiled Ben Riggs, the author of Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons, which comes out on July 19 with a celebratory launch at Boswell. I don't think it's going to make it into the print edition until July 17, but it's better for us to get the word out nine days ahead of time, instead of two. Register here for this in-person event.

Our event round-up posts tomorrow.