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."