Boswell bestsellers for the week ending January 7, 2023

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
2. Sam, by Allegra Goodman (Watch our virtual event recording here)
3. All This Could Be Different, by Sarah Thankam Mathews
4. Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan
5. Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
6. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin
7. Before the Coffee Gets Cold, by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
8. The Rabbit Hutch, by Elinor Lipman
9. Ms. Demeanor, by Elinor Lipman (Register for January 17 in-person event - see below)
10. The House in the Pines, by Ana Reyes

We've started featuring four of the more influential book club selections in our book club case, and Reese's Book Club pick for January is The House in the Pines, by Ana Reyes. She's got nice blurbs from Riley Sager, Andrea Bartz, and Lisa Gardner, but I think it's most appropriate to reprint the Reese rec: "This is an absolute, can't-put-it-down thriller... It's truly a wild ride that had me flying through chapter after chapter - which I think is the perfect way to kick off your year of reading."

Ms. Demeanor is Elinor Lipman's second book to be published as a paperback original, but Harper also made a hardcover edition, which is selling for us as well. When they do these dual editions, sometimes the cloth version turns out to be a weird paper-over-board thing that looks like an elementary school textbook. That is not the case here - I bought the hardcover for myself! Here's a nice Q&A with Lipman on the Barnes & Noble website.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. The Light We Carry, by Michelle Obama
2. An Immense World, by Ed Yong
3. The Philosophy of Modern Song, by Bob Dylan
4. And There Was Light, by Jon Meacham
5. What's for Dessert?, by Claire Saffitz
6. Birds and Us, by Tim Birkhead (Register for January 18 virtual event here)
7. Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, by Matthew Perry
8. The Book of Days, by Patti Smith
9. I'm Glad My Mom Died, by Jennette McCurdy
10. Inciting Joy, by Ross Gay

My apologies for not doing the appropriate research, but I think this is the first week in our top 10 for Matthew Perry's Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, after nine weeks on the NYT bestseller list. 

Not in The New York Times top 10 though it should be is Ross Gay's Inciting Joy, which Publishers Weekly called a "stunning collection how joy deepens when accompanied by grief, fear, and loss." I think we've featured Gay's latest before, but it just seems like a great book for the new year. Here's the author talking to Leah Asmelash at CNN: "Ultimately, it's a book about noticing what you love, articulating what you love, and sharing what you love. And in a certain kind of way this book wonders how do we do that. How do we do that structurally; how do we do that in our practices?"

 

Paperback Fiction:
1. Ms. Demeanor, by Elinor Lipman (Register for event)
2. The Drifter, by Nick Petrie
3. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, by Shehan Karunatilaka
4. The Maid, by Nita Prose
5. The Secret History, by Donna Tartt
6. Cursed Bunny, by Bora Chung
7. The Sleeping Car Porter, by Suzette Mayr (Register for January 10 virtual event here)
8. Once Upon a December, by Amy E. Reichert
9. Clark and Division, by Naomi Hirahara
10. Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir6

Cursed Bunny has been a hot book at indie bookstores, and with Jason's rec, we are in the thick of things. The book was a finalist for the Booker International Prize. Though Chung attended Yale, the stories were written in Korean and translated by Anton Hur. Chung teaches Russian and translates Russian and Polish works into Korean! From the Booker bunch, on Cursed Bunny: "A genre-defying collection of short stories, which blur the lines between magical realism, horror, and science fiction."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Global Nomad, by Tom Haig (today! 2:30 pm at North Shore Library - Facebook registration)
2. Adolescents and Their Social Media Narratives, by Jill Walsh (Register for January 18 USM event here)
3. A Short History of Queer Women, by Kirsty Loehr
4. Rough Magic, by Jonathan Gillard Daly (Register for January 9 in-person event here)
5. A History of Milwaukee Drag, by BJ Daniels and Michail Takach
6. Architects of an American Landscape, by Hugh Howard
7. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
8. Giannis, by Mirin Fader
9. The Icepick Surgeon, by Sam Kean
10. The Way of Integrity, by Martha Beck

It's nice to see Architects of an American Landscape, the dual biography of  HH Richardson and Frederick Law Olmsted, having a paperback pop after a nice hardcover run at Boswell, helped along by a virtual event tied into a year-long Olmsted celebration. Alex Beam in The Wall Street Journal called it "the literary equivalent of a rolling, Olmstedian greensward."

Books for Kids:
1. The Roof Over Our Heads, by Nicole Kronzer
2. The Stolen Heir, by Holly Black
3. What Feelings Do When No One's Looking by Tina Oziewicz, illustrations by Aleksandra Zajac
4. Wings of Fire V6: Moon Rising graphic novel, by Tui T. Sullivan
5. Cat Kid Comic Club V4: Collaborations, by Dav Pilkey
6. Turtle in a Tree, by Neesha Hudson
7. Nick and Charlie: a Heartstopper novella, by Alice Oseman
8. Diary of a Wimpy Kid V17: Diper Overlode, by Jeff Kinney
9. The Snowy Day board book, by Ezra Jack Keats
10. The Little Book Story Reader for a Free Ukraine, by Mykola Matwuczuk

I am beginning to wonder if every early reader and middle grade series of any level of popularity will be turned into graphic novels. The latest installment of the graphic-ization of Wings of Fire: Moon Rising, not only hit our bestseller list in paperback, but came close in hardcover as well. No info yet on when the adaptation of #7, Winter Turning, will be available.