Boswell bestsellers, week ending April 29, 2023

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending April 29, 2023

Hardcover Fiction:
1. I Have Some Questions for you, by Rebecca Makkai (signed copies!)
2. Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club, by J Ryan Stradal (likewise!)
3. Happy Place, by Emily Henry
4. In the Lives of Puppets, by TJ Klune
5. Small Mercies, by Dennis Lehane
6. Romantic Comedy, by Curtis Sittenfeld
7. Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
8. Hang the Moon, by Jannette Walls
9. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin
10. When in Rome, by Liam Callanan

11. Hello Beautiful, by Ann Napolitano

12. Mastering the Art of French Murder, by Colleen Cambridge (Register for May 18 event here)  

Sometimes it is a question when an author who has been publishing in paperback original jumps to hardcover, but that's not the case with Happy Place from Emily Henry - we couldn't keep the book in stock. It's the #1 Indie Next pick for May, has a rave from Rachel (her romance book club is discussing it), and also one from Annie Berke in The Washington Post: "With her latest, Happy Place, Henry covers new territory. It is, in many ways, the least 'happy' of her works, less swooning and more longing, with a sense of melancholy permeating throughout," but also notes it is infused with "wit, charm and heart, satisfying to the last page."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond (Register for May 23 MPL event here)
2. Sit in the Sun, by Jon M Sweeney
3. The Wager, by David Grann
4. A Fever in the Heartland, by Timothy Egan
5. Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, by Lucinda Williams
6. Dinners with Ruth, by Nina Totenberg
7. Be the Bus, by Mo Willems
8. The New Art of Coffee, by Ryan Castelaz
9. The Creative Act, by Rick Rubin
10. An Intimate City, by Michael Kimmelman

While Lucinda Williams is not on tour to Milwaukee (and I think there was only one event that was specifically book related), you might have seen her at the Pabst Theater back on September 25, 2022. Her memoir, Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I've Told You, had five raves and a positive on Booklist, including this in The Wall Street Journal from Elizabeth Nelson: "Now 70 years old, she (Lucinda Williams) has garnered a slow-burn success, owing largely to a hardwired impulse to trust her own judgment when all those around her were calling it into question. The often hilarious, occasionally harrowing Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You is a bracingly candid chronicle of a sui generis character plotting a ramshackle but ultimately triumphant trajectory. 'I don’t want it to be one of those sugarcoated books like you find at Walgreens,' she says in a brief intro. 'I want them to see the truth.'"

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Great Believers, by Rebecca Makkai
2. Fifth Avenue Glamour Girl, by Renée Rosen (Register for May 11 event here)
3. Yours Truly, by Abby Jimenez
4. The Swimmers, by Julie Otsuka
5. The Cartographers, by Peng Shepherd
6. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
7. The Sentence, by Louise Erdrich
8. The Candy House, by Jennifer Egan
9. The Lager Queen of Minnesota, by J Ryan Stradal
10. The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles

Staying in genre, but highlighting the April #1 Indie Next Pick, Abby Jimenez's Yours Truly, is, also like Emily Henry, out of stock after the Independent Bookstore Day rush. Grand Central/Forever kept Jimenez's latest as paperback original, but also made a nice hardcover edition for libraries, something that we see a lot with HarperCollins, but rarely with Penguin Random House. Not sure why. She's also got four trade reviews plus another on BookPage, but unlike Henry, she doesn't get a listing on LitHub. Someone explain this to me. Publishers Weekly writes: "The laugh-out-loud scenes - including Briana's tale of glitter-bomb revenge and the introduction of a foul-mouthed parrot - are the real highlight. Add in sparkling prose, skillful plotting, and a sensitive approach to Jacob's clinical anxiety, and the result is contemporary romance gold."

I don't know if it's connected, but I asked Rebecca Makkai what book she was recommending, and she mentioned Julie Otsuka's The Swimmers. 

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. America the Beautiful, by Blythe Roberson
2. Paper Valley, by David Allen and Susan Campbell (signed copies)
3. Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
4. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
5. The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel van der Kolk
6. All About Love, by bell hooks
7. Birds of Wisconsin Field Guide, by Stan Tekiela
8. The Gardeners Guide to Prairie Plants, by Neil Diboll (Register for June 17 event here)
9. We Don't Know Ourselves, by Fintan O'Toole
10. Every Good Boy Does Fine, by Jeremy Denk

This was a particularly great week for events, including our visit with Blythe Roberson, author of America the Beautiful, who did her conversation with Emmy Yates, who accompanied her on part of her National Park journey. There was a giveaway for a thematically linked paint-by-numbers set. Signed copies are available, including a couple of those nice HarperCollins dual edition hardcovers we talked about earlier. Hoping it catches on - three of us read and really liked the book. Not surprisingly, Roberson is doing a road trip to promote the book. Also not surprisingly, Roberson contributed a column on road tripping for The New Yorker. On road consumption: "Your stepdad is obsessed with something called 'hyper-miling,' whereby he supposedly optimizes fuel efficiency by putting the car into neutral every time he drives down a hill. We don’t really want to get into it, but doing this could result in death or serious injury." But maybe not, right? It could be fine. Must defend Milwaukeean stepdad!

Books for Kids:
1. The Dreadful Fairy Book by Jon Etter
2. Once Upon Another Time, by James Riley
3. Becoming a Queen, by Dan Clay
4. Tall Tales V2, by James Riley
5. The Eyes and the Impossible, by Dave Eggers
6. Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea, by Dav Pilkey
7. The Story Thieves, by James Riley
8. Gertie the Darling Duck of WWII, by Shari Swanson, illustrations by Renée Graef (Register for May 20 event here)
9. Bigger than the Sun, by Daniel Aleman
10. Are You There God? It's Me Margaret, by Judy Bluem

I have read only delightful things about the new film adaptation of Are You There God? It's Me Margaret. The classic novel that's been off-and-on banned forever has been named a Time Magazine best YA book of all time. The film features Abby Ryder Fortson as the titular Margaret. It's a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes! From Lisa Kennedy in The New York Times: "The director-writer Kelly Fremon Craig’s rendering of the book about puberty, family and nascent spirituality offers lessons in how a cherished object, when treated with tender and thoughtful regard, needn’t turn precious."

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending April 22, 2023

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending April 22, 2023

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club, by J Ryan Stradal (Register for 4/26, 6:30 pm Boswell event here)
2. Earth's the Right Place for Love, by Elizabeth Berg (a few signed copies left)
3. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse, by Charlie Mackesy
4. Hello Beautiful, by Ann Napolitano
5. Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
6. When in Rome, by Liam Callanan
7. Goldenrod, by Maggie Smith
8. A Day of Fallen Night, by Samantha Shannon
9. Homecoming, by Kate Morton
10. Pineapple Street, by Jenny Jackson

So glad to see a nice preorder and first-week sale for J Ryan Stradal's Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club! For this book, we have put together the most complicated Readings from Oconomowaukee yet. Like we did for Search last year, Stradal will do a 2 pm at Books & Co (Register here) and 6:30 pm event at Boswell. In addition to Lisa and myself, Stradal will be joined by Amy E Reichert at the daytime event and Christi Clancy in the evening. No Book Marks on this one - hard to figure this out. But Kirkus notes: "The Midwest setting is written with love and respect, and while the story is often heartbreakingly sad, there’s also real warmth and comfort in Stradal’s writing." 

My very favorite write up is a profile in The Hastings Star Gazette, the Minnesota newspaper for the town where Stradal grew up. From the article: “'I still wake up every day pinching myself,' he said. 'I've been doing this for almost 10 years and I still think someone's going to come along and say it was all a dream. What keeps me going is that it's not only my dream, it was my mom's dream, one she never had the chance to attempt, and no matter how hard the work can be, or how dry the dry years get, I keep going for her.'"

  

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. You Could Make This Place Beautiful, by Maggie Smith (signed copies available)
2. Sit in the Sun, by Jon M Sweeney 
3. Poverty by America, by Matthew Desmond (Register for May 23 MPL event here)
4. They Called Us Enemy, expanded edition, by George Takei, with Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, and Harmony Becker
5. Wager, by David Grann
6. A Fever in the Heartland, by Timothy Egan 
7. Keep Moving, by Maggie Smith
8. The Creative Act, by Rik Rubin
9. The New Art of Coffee, by Ryan Castelaz
10. Bread Head, by Greg Wade (Register for May 2 Boswell event here)

Top debut honors go to David Grann, whose Wager: A Tale of a Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder is the follow up to his bestselling Killers of the Flower Moon, soon to be a major motion picture. Nine raves and two positives on Book Marks, including Julia Flynn Siler in The Wall Street Journal, who wrote: "The Wager, David Grann’s account of the punishing travails of the 250 men aboard an 18th-century British man-of-war, shipwrecked on an island off the coast of Patagonia, is the most gripping true-life sea yarn I’ve read in years." I'm reminded of the success of Endurance many years ago. 

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Last Thing He Told Me, by Laura Dave
2. Daisy Jones and the Six, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
3. The Candy House, by Jennifer Egan (info on upcoming book club discussions here)
4. The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, by VE Schwab
5. City of Brass, by SA Chakraborty
6. The Paris Apartment, by Lucy Foley
7. Legends and Lattes, by Ray Bradbury
8. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
9. Groundskeeping, by Lee Cole
10. A Lady's Guide to Fortune Hunting, by Sophie Irwin

Lots of selections from the national book clubs pop, but it's a rare title that sells well enough for prized two-years-in-hardcover status. Often it's a film or streaming release that finally demands paperback, and that's the case with The Last Thing He Told Me, which debuted on Apple TV+ on April 14. Reviews of the series will likely please the book's fans, as it seems like one of the complaints that's come up is that it's too faithful. The Book Marks status on the original book was three raves, four positives.

I am fascinated that both The Last Thing He Told Me and The Wager went with such a similar color palate for very different books. What does it mean when water is green instead of blue? A sign of treacherous waters?

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Miseducated, by Brandon Fleming
2. They Called Us Enemy, by George Takei, with Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, and Harmony Becker
3. Fighting Times, by Jon Melrod
4. America the Beautiful, by Blythe Roberson (Register for April 25 event here)
5. Make Someone Happy, by Elizabeth Berg
6. The Gardener's Guide to Prairie Plants, by Neil Diboll (Register for June 17 event here)
7. Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
8. All About Love, by bell hooks
9. The Dawn of Everything, by David Graeber and David Wengrow
10. How to Be Perfect, by Michael Schur

Brandon Fleming's Miseducated was the featured title of the annual DMEF luncheon, and what an inspiring speaker he was - among our best day-of event sales for this program. The publisher positions the story as "an inspiring memoir of one man's transformation through literature and debate from a delinquent, drug-dealing dropout to an award-winning Harvard educator by age 27." Fleming has been championed by fellow Atlantans Nic Stone and Kiese Laymon. And yes, he's working on another book.

Books for Kids:
1. Thirst, by Varsha Bajaj
2. Global (both editions, by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin, illustrations by Giovanni Rigano
3. Tiny T Rex and the Grand Ta Da, by Jonathan Stutzman, illustrations by Jay Fleck
4. Tiny T Rex and the Impossible Hug, by Jonathan Stutzman, illustrations by Jay Fleck
5. Best Wishes V2: Sister Switch, by Sarah Mlynowski and Debbie Rigaud
6. The Eyes and the Impossible, by Dave Eggers (McSweeneys edition)
7. Every Day's a Holiday, by Stef Wade, illustrations by Husna Aghniya
8. Dog Man V11: Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea, by Dav Pilkey
9. Best Wishes V1, by Sarah Mylnowski
10 What Feelings Do When No One's Looking, by Tina Oziewicz, illustrations by Aleksandra Zajac

School events and one private signing dominate the list this week, accounting for eight of the top 10 selections. Last time out, Eoin Colfer, Andrew Donkin, and Giovanni Rigano capped their day of schools with a public evet for Illegal, but this time, time would not allow for such a program, and instead we had three wonderful school visits. That said, we have signed copies of Global - with signatures from both authors and the illustrator.

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending April 15, 2023

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending April 15, 2023

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Society of Shame, by Jane Roper
2. I Have Some Questions for You, by Rebecca Makkai (Tickets for April 27 MPL lunch here)
3. The Guilty One, by Bill Schweigart
4. Pineapple Street, by Jenny Jackson
5. Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton
6. Hello Beautiful, by Ann Napolitano
7. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin
8. Above Ground, by Clint Smith
9. When in Rome, by Liam Callanan
10. Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver

Clint Smith, who received the National Book Critics Circle for How the Word Is Passed, hits our bestseller list for his second collection of poetry, Above Ground. He is also a staff writer for The Atlantic.I'm not sure why this isn't tracked by Book Marks. Elisabeth Egan at The New York Times discusses the rare feat of Smith - having books in the nonfiction and fiction lists in short order.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. A Fever in the Heartland, by Timothy Egan
2. Building Boys, by Jennifer LW Fink
3. Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond (Register for May 23 MPL event here)
4. You Could Make This Place Beautiful, by Maggie Smith (Tickets for April 21 event here)
5. The New Art of Coffee, by Ryan Castelaz
6. The Devil's Element, by Dan Egan
7. It Goes So Fast, by Mary Louise Kelly
8. The Language of Trees, by Katie Holten
9. Dinners with Ruth, by Nina Toltenberg
10. Sit in the Sun, by Jon M. Sweeney

The Language of Trees: A Rewilding of Literature and Landscape is a new anthology edited by Katie Holten. Tin House sent out attractive customized posters to bookstores for display. The book has two raves and a positive from Book Marks. Kristin Millares Young notes in The Washington Post that "Holten has designed an entire typeface wherein each letter of the alphabet is assigned a tree whose popular name shares that first letter: P is a pine, E is an elm and so forth. The book’s poems, quotes and short essays are all translated into Holten’s tree language; the resulting groves illustrate the text."

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Short End of the Sonnenalee, by Thomas Brussig, illustrated by Jonathan Franzen and Jenny Watson
2. The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen
3. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
4. The Sentence, by Louise Erdrich
5. To Swoon and to Spar, by Martha Waters
6. Groundskeeping, by Lee Cole (Boswell book club selections and meeting dates here)
7. The Drifter, by Nick Petrie
8. Heroes Like Us, by Thomas Brussig
9. Olga Dies Dreaming, by Xochitl Gonzalez
10. Portrait of a Thief, by Grace D. Li

Former wedding planner, tarot card reader, and Iowa Writers Workshop grad got much attention for Olga Dies Dreaming, and her debut novel is on our bestseller list this week. It had four raves and four positive reviews from Book Marks. From Ron Charles in The Washington Post: "Aside from a collection of winning characters and an ingenious plot, what’s most impressive about Olga Dies Dreaming is the way Gonzalez stretches the seams of the rom-com genre to accommodate her complex analysis of racial politics."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Born Extraordinary, by Meg Zucker
2. Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
3. Fighting Times, by Jon Melrod (Register for April 19 event here)
4. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
5. The Book of Delights, by Ross Gay
6. The Gardeners Guide to Prairie Plants, by Neil Diboll (Register for June 17 event here)
7. 111 Places in Milwaukee That You Must Not Miss, by Michelle Madden
8. They Called Us Enemy, by George Takei (Tickets for April 18 event here)
9. Every Good Boy Does Fine, by Jeremy Denk
10. The Icepick Surgeon, by Sam Kean

Another paperback reprint with strong Book Marks creds (5 raves, 4 positives) is Jeremy Denk's Every Good Boy Does Fine: A Love Story, in Music Lessons, by MacArthur Fellowship recipient Jeremy Denk. From Simon Callow in The New York Review of Books: "The book is laid out in musical form: three substantial sections on harmony, melody, and rhythm...Denk writes feelingly on the artist’s self-dramatization, the formation of a self, sometimes manifesting as arrogance, the conviction that you have something special to contribute to the appreciation of what you are performing, grasping whatever gives you the audacity to present yourself before the public."

Books for Kids:
1. Global (2 editions), by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin, illustrated by Gioavanni Rigano
2. She Persisted: Sally Ride, by Atia Abawi
3. The Eyes and the Impossible, by Dave Eggers
4. Dog Man: Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea, by Dav Pilkey
5. School Trip, by Jerry Craft
6. Inheritance Games, by Jenifer Barnes
7. Big Tree, by Brian Selznick
8. The World and Everything in It, by Kevin Henkes
9. Better Than the Movies, by Lynn Painter
10. Peekaboo Sun, by Camilla Reid, illustrations by Ingela P. Arrhenius

School Trip is the third in the graphic series that follows New Kid and Class Act. Jordan goes to Paris, but the bully is coming along. Fortunately, as School Library Journal notes: "The characters that readers love grow and mature while they travel across the globe...This heartfelt, must-read title belongs on all library shelves." Publishers Weekly (also a starred review) called it "a zestful graphic novel adventure that mixes lighthearted fare with thought-provoking observations on lasting friendship in the face of future-based anxieties."

Boswell bestsellers, week ending April 8, 2023

Boswell bestsellers, week ending April 8, 2023

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Romantic Comedy, by Curtis Sittenfeld
2. Hello Beautiful, by Ann Napolitano
3. Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
4. Pineapple Street, by Jenny Jackson
5. Intrigue in Istanbul, by Erica Ruth Neubauer
6. Homecoming, by Kate Morton
7. Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt
8. Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton
9. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin
10. When in Rome, by Liam Callanan

From the publisher on Homecoming: "The highly anticipated (first in five years) novel from The New York Times bestselling author of The Clockmaker’s Daughter, a sweeping saga with a thrilling mystery at its heart tracing a shocking crime whose effects echo across continents and generations." The Publishers Weekly reviewer called it her best yet.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. The New Art of Coffee, by Ryan Castelaz
2. A Fever in the Heartland, by Timothy Egan (Register for April 12 event here)
3. Bad Vibes Only, by Nora McInerny
4. The Devil's Element, by Dan Egan
5. Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond (Register for May 23 MPL event here)
6. All the Presidents' Gardens, by Marta McDowell
7. Smitten Kitchen Keepers, by Deb Perelman
8. Outlive, by Peter Attia with Bill Gifford
9. Building Boys, by Jennifer LW Fink (Register for April 11 event here)
10. The Nation That Never Was, by Kermit Roosevelt III

It's always a bit of a nail biter when you host a launch event for a book that has a street smart date; that is, a book where you're required not to sell the book early, as opposed to the old fashioned pub date, where the book goes on sale when it shows up. And so it's a good thing that the publisher put through our event order for Ryan Castelaz's The New Art of Coffee, as our original stock order for the book didn't show up until Wednesday, the day after our April 4 event. I met up with Ryan at Discourse Coffee Workshop after the event and got our stock signed. Castelaz told us the book is ranked #2 on the coffee and tea list of a major bestseller list.

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Killer Speech, by Kevin Kluesner
2. The Candy House, by Jennifer Egan
3. Groundskeeping, by Lee Cole
4. The Killer Sermon, by Kevin Kluesner
5. Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller
6. Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, by Jesse Q Sutanto
7. The Cartographers, by Peng Shepherd
8. A Court of Thorn and Roses, by Sarah J Maas
9. The Maid, by Nita Prose
10. The Last to Vanish, by Megan Miranda

Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers made the April 2023 Indie Next list and has a staff rec from Boswellian Jen Steele: "I enjoyed every moment and found myself rooting for Vera at every turn." And Tristan Draper for School Library Journal calls her latest, "A mystery with warmth, humor, and many descriptions of delicious teas and foods. Recommended for fans of Sutanto and of character-driven cozy mysteries."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. They Called Us Enemy, by George Takei (Tickets for April 18 UWM event here)
2. Fighting Times, by Jon Melrod (Register for April 19 Boswell event here)
3. Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
4. All About Love, by bell hooks
5. Brewtown Tales, by John Gurda
6. Body Horror, by Elizabeth Anne Moore
7. It's Okay to Laugh, by Nora McInerny
8. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan
9. Last Call at the Hotel Imperial, by Deborah Cohen
10. Invisible Child, by Andrea Elliott

Deborah Cohen visited Boswell to discuss Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took on a World at War in hardcover. She's coming back to Milwaukee for the College Endowment Association lecture series, but not until the 2023-2024 season. From Krithika Varagur in The New Yorker: "Last Call is as effervescent, for more than four hundred pages, as its winsome and hyperactive characters, and it blends scholarly attention to ideas like psychoanalysis and Wilsonian liberal internationalism with novelistic renderings of these writers’ dizzying trajectories abroad. Group biographies sometimes fail to congeal, but the members of this cohort did in fact have deeply enmeshed lives."

Books for Kids:
1. Dog Man: Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea V11, by Dav Pilkey
2. Peekaboo Chick, by Camilla Reid, illustrations by Ingela P Arrhenius
3. I Am a Bunny, by Ole Risom, illustrations by Richard Scarry
4. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse, illustrations by Renée Graef
5. The Very Hungry Caterpillar's Garden Friends, by Eric Carle
6. Dog Man V1, by Dav Pilkey
7. The Moth Keeper, by K O'Neill
8. What Feelings Do When No One's Looking, by Tina Ozeiwicz, illustrations by Aleksandra Zajac
9. How to Write a Poem, by Kwame Alexander
10. Pete the Cat and the Easter Basket Bandit, by Kimberly and James Dean

Today is Easter and that means the kid bestseller list is filled with chicks and bunnies and Easter baskets. While neither Peekaboo Chick or I Am a Bunny are holiday specific, I'm guessing that the pop is not accidental. More holiday specific is Pete the Cat and the Easter Basket Bandit, and bubbling below the top 10 is Happy Easter, Little Pookie Pookie is a pig, but in this book, he is wearing a rabbit ear hat, much like Louise Belcher.

Boswell bestsellers, week ending April 1, 2023

Boswell bestsellers, week ending April 1, 2023

Hardcover Fiction:

:

1. Intrigue in Istanbul, by Erica Ruth Neubauer
2. Hello Beautiful, by Ann Napolitano
3. Pineapple Street, by Jenny Jackson
4. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin
5. Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
6. When in Rome, by Liam Callanan
7. All This Could Be Different, by Sarah Thankam Matthews
8. Earth's the Right Place for Love, by Elizabeth Berg (New event date - Register for Monday, April 17 event here)
9. The White Lady, by Jacqueline Winspear
10. Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt

Not that we haven't talked a lot about Pineapple Street and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow already, but it is interesting to see an author's book and one of the titles she edited next to each other on the bestseller lists.

The only new title this week is The White Lady, a new series from Jacqueline Winspear. From the publisher: "This heart-stopping adventure follows the coming of age and maturity of former wartime operative Elinor White - veteran of two wars, trained killer, protective of her anonymity—when she is drawn back into the world of violence she has been desperate to leave behind."

From Carol Memmott in The Washington Post: "After 17 Maisie novels, fans have a new character to love: Elinor White, an enigmatic war hero at the center of The White Lady, Winspear’s second stand-alone (or is it a series launch? Daniel) novel. White is very much her own woman, but she’s just as inspirational as Maisie."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond
2. The Devil's Element, by Dan Egan
3. Sit in the Sun, by Jon M Sweeney (Tickets for April 13 Sip and Purr event here)
4. It's a Good Day to Change the World, by Lauren Schiller and Hadley Dynak, with illustrations by Rosy Petri
5. Outlive, by Peter Attia with Bill Gifford
6. Humanly Possible, by Sarah Bakewell
7. One True Sentence, edited by Mark Cirino and Michael Von Cannon
8. The Big Myth, by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway
9. Black Holes, by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw
10. Black Ball, by Theresa Runstedtler

Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity has struck a nerve - Ingram's out of stock at most of their warehouses. The publisher calls the book, from doctor/podcaster Peter Attia with Bill Gifford, "a groundbreaking manifesto on living better that challenges the conventional medical thinking on aging and reveals an unorthodox approach to treating chronic diseases and extending long-term health, from a visionary thinker and leading longevity physician." Blurbs from Steve Levitt and Siddhartha Mukherjee.

From Matthew Rees in The Wall Street Journal: "His intent is not to scold, though, but to improve our habits and health - to help us achieve a longer life."

Paperback Fiction:
1. Love and Saffron, by Kim Fay
2. Daisy Jones & the Six, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
3. Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St John Mandel
4. What the Chickadee Knows, by Margaret Noodin
5. Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr
6. The Cat Who Saved Books, by Sosuke Natsukawa
7. Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro
8. Cold Clay, by Juneau Black
9. The Priory of the Orange Tree, by Samantha Shannon
10. The Cartographers, by Peng Shepherd
11. Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir
12. The Librarian of Burned Books, by Brianna Labuskes
13. A Court of Wings and Ruin, by Sarah J. Maas
14. The Paris Apartment, by Lucy Foley
15. The Candy House, by Jennifer Egan

One the Boswell big hardcover debuts of 2022 was The Cartographers, now out for a second week in paperback. One thing I have noticed is that we're definitely seeing fewer paperback cover changes than we used to. Sometimes we see a contrasting band running down the right side of the cover, but in person, that is often a step-back. The Candy House has one. But using our book club recommendations page as a guide, only 4 of the 25 listed titles have this step-back, which of course appears as a stripe when you're looking at books online.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Brewtown Tales, by John Gurda
2. Every Good Boy Does Fine, by Jeremy Denk
3. The Icepick Surgeon, by Sam Kean
4. Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
5. All About Love, by bell hooks

Without some strong regional books, this nonfiction bestseller list find it hard to compete with fiction. The top debut is Michelle Zauner's Crying in H Mart. Jason told me Japanese Breakfast is returning to town, so that should help with reading interest, even with two years in hardcover. The big news of late is that Will Sharpe, who starred it the second season of The White Lotus, will direct the screen adaptation. More in Variety.

And by the way, Crying in H Mart has got the step-back (thanks to Jason G. for noting that these are often step-backs. I wrote this at home and wasn't looking at the actual book).  Either way, I will note that it's an easy way to differentiate the images online. 

I think my subconscious was saying that I would prefer it was just a band to an actual step-back, which sometimes gets in my way of reading the paperback and tends to make the cover warp up on the new release table. 

Books for Kids: 

1. Dog Man V11: Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea, by Dav Pilkey
2. When the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin
3. Cat Kid Comic Club V4: Collaborations, by Dav Pilkey
4. The Moth Keeper, by K. O'Neill
5. Dog Man V9: Grime and Punishment, by Dav Pilkey
6. Peekaboo Love, by Camilla Reid, illustrations by Ingela P. Arrhenius
7. Peekaboo Sun, by Camilla Reid, illustrations by Ingela P. Arrhenius
8. Gertie the Darling Duck of WWII, by Shari Swanson, illustrations by Renée Graef
9. When Things Aren't Going Right, Go Left, by Marc Colagiovanni, illustrations by Peter H. Reynolds
10. What Feelings Do When No One's Looking, by Tina Oziewicz, illustrations by Alesandra Zajac

It's been many years since we've been able to source the classic picture book Gertie the Duck, so a new interpretation of this classic tale, Gertie the Darling Duck of World War II, is warmly welcome by Milwaukeeans. From School Library Journal: " A delightful historical tale that will encourage young people to find similar 'good news' stories in their world today. Recommended."

Register for May 20 Renée Graef event here