Boswell bestsellers, week ending May 27, 2023

Boswell bestsellers, week ending May 27, 2023

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Late Americans, by Brandon Taylor
2. Yellowface, by RF Kuang
3. Happy Place, by Emily Henry
4. Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
5. The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese
6. The Guest, by Emma Cline
7. I Have Some Questions for You, by Rebecca Makkai
8. Pieces of Blue, by Holly Goldberg Sloan (Watch event recording here)
9. Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club, by J Ryan Stradal (Watch event recording here)
10. Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt (and watch this event video here)

The Late Americans is the top debut this week, with five raves, three positives, and mixed, and three pans from BookMarks, with an additional rave from Boswellian Chris Lee. My old friend Bill Goldstein at Weekend Today in New York also weighed in: "I love this book. It's such a brilliant evocation of life. And Brandon Taylor is a great novelist."

Hardcover Nonfiction
1. Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond (signed copies available)
2. Torn Apart, by Dorothy Roberts
3. Entertaining Race, by Michael Eric Dyson
4. You Could Make This Place Beautiful, by Maggie Smith
5. A Fever in the Heartland, by Timothy Egan
6. Dare to Lead, by Brené Brown
7 Social Justice for the Sensitive Soul, by Dorcas Cheng-Tozun (Register for June 6 virtual event here)
8. Bread Head, by Greg Wade (Register for June 13 Boswell event here)
9. The Wager, by David Grann
10. The Book of Nature, by Barbara Mahany (Register for June 20 Boswell event here)

Both Michael Eric Dyson and Dorothy Roberts appeared at the Fresh Start conference in Milwaukee last week. Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families - And How Abolition Can Build a Safer World was published in hardcover in April 2022, but the paperback doesn't come out until October 2023. I think the long-tail paperback seems to be more common with Hachette; other publishers seem to either publish in a year (or less) or skip the paperback altogether. Blurbs from Bryan Stevenson, Michelle Alexander, and Angela Y Davis.

Paperback Fiction:
1. Shrines of Gaiety, by Kate Atkinson
2. The Cartographers, by Peng Shepherd
3. The Late Mrs. Willoughby, by Claudia Gray (Register for June 8 virtual event here)
4. Trust, by Hernan Diaz
5. When Women Were Dragons, by Kelly Barnhill
6. Boy Parts, by Eliza Clark
7. Meet Me at the Lake, by Carley Fortune
8. Fox Creek, by William Kent Krueger (Tickets for September 22 Wilson Center event here)
9. Bunny, by Mona Awad
10. Red, White, and Royal Blue, by Casey McQuiston

Second week out in paperback for Kelly Barnhill's When Women Were Dragons, which had four raves and five positives from BookMarks in hardcover. From Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry: "Completely fierce, unmistakably feminist, and subversively funny, When Women Were Dragons brings the heat to misogyny with glorious imagination and talon-sharp prose. Check the skies tonight - you might just see your mother." 

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Evicted, by Matthew Desmond
2. Tears We Cannot Stop, by Michael Eric Dyson
3. Shattered Bonds, by Dorothy Roberts
4. Killing the Black Body, by Dorothy Roberts
5. Frank Lloyd Wright's Wisconsin, by Kristine Hansen (Register for June 9 Boswell event here)
6. Quietly Hostile, by Samantha Irby
7. Dopamine Nation, by Anna Lembke
8. Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
9. The Six-Minute Memoir, by Mary Helen Stefaniak
10. We Don't Know Ourselves, by Fintan O'Toole

Steady sales for Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence earns Anna Lembke a slot on this week's top ten, when unusually, the sales for the top books in paperback nonfiction are outpacing fiction. Two raves and one positives from BookMarks, two trades (Publishers Weekly calls it an "eye-opening survey on pleasure-seeking and addiction") and one from the New York Journal of Books, but there are also blurbs from Lori Gottlieb and Daniel Levitin, plus a note from the New York Times "Inside the Bestseller List" column, which is another indication that the book is working well.

Books for Kids:
1. Moving to Mars, by Stef Wade, illustrations by Erin Taylor
2. Every Day's a Holiday, by Stef Wade, illustrations by Husna Aghniya
3. Our World of Dumplings, by Francie Dekker, illustrations by Sarah Jung
4. One and Only Ruby, by Katherine Applegate
5. Gertie the Darling Duck of World War II, by Shari Swanson, illustrations by Renée Graef
6. Unequal, by Michael Eric Dyson
7. The Eyes and the Impossible, by Dave Eggers
8. The Labors of Hercules Beal, by Gary D Schmidt
9. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse, illustrations by Renee Graef
10. Peekaboo Moon, by Camilla Reid, illustrations by Ingela Arrhenius

Gary D Schmidt has done schools with us twice in person, but this time his visit was virtual (recording here). He joined us for The Labors of Hercules Beal from Stratford, Ontario, where he was with students attending the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. From the starred Booklist: "Fans of Schmidt's books will enjoy finding that a young character in The Wednesday Wars has a significant role in Herc's story, set several decades later. This memorable novel offers emotional honesty, wit, and a hard-won, heartening perspective."

I should rename this blog "Daniel is really obsessed with BookMarks."

Boswell bestsellers, week ending May 202, 2023

Boswell bestsellers, week ending May 202, 2023

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Hope You Are Satisfied, by Tania Malik
2. The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese
3. Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
4. Mastering the Art of French Murder, by Colleen Cambridge
5. Yellowface, by RF Kuang
6. Happy Place, by Emily Henry
7. The Making of a Major Motion Picture Masterpiece, by Tom Hanks
8. Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
9. In the Lives of Puppets, by TJ Klune
10. When in Rome, by Liam Callanan

Top debut of the week goes to RF Kuang's Yellowface, her follow-up to Babel. BookMarks has logged five raves, a positive, mixed, and a pan. It's also the #1 Indie Next Pick for June. The advances were all among the raves - this is from Kirkus: " An incredibly meta novel, with commentary on everything from trade reviews to Twitter, the ultimate message is clear from the start, which can lead to a lack of nuance. Kuang, however, does manage to leave some questions unanswered: fodder, perhaps, for a new tweetstorm. A quick, biting critique of the publishing industry."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond (Tuesday event is at capacity)
2. A Fever in the Heartland, by Timothy Egan
3. King: A Life, by Jonathan Eig
4. Milwaukee Rock and Roll, by David Luhrssen, Philip Naylor, Bruce Cole
5. The Creative Act, by Rick Rubin
6. Pathogenesis, by Jonathan Kennedy
7. The Wager, by David Grann
8. The Devil's Element, by Dan Egan
9. Bread Head, by Greg Wade (Rescheduled event! Register for June 13 here)
10. Smitten Kitchen Keepers, by Deb Perelman

While I would have expected King: A Life to come out in either January for MLK Day and Black History Month or fall for holiday and year-end max exposure, Jonathan Eig's biography makes an impact whatever the release date. Eight raves and a positive on BookMarks. From Dwight Garner in The New York Times: "Eig’s is the first comprehensive biography of King in three decades. It draws on a landslide of recently released White House telephone transcripts, F.B.I. documents, letters, oral histories and other material, and it supplants David J. Garrow’s 1986 biography Bearing the Cross as the definitive life of King, as Garrow himself deposed recently in The Spectator."

Paperback Fiction:
1. Trust, Hernan Diaz
2. The Boyfriend Candidate, by Ashley Winstead (Register for May 30 virtual here)
3. Ten Keys West, by Howard Seaborne
4. Last Summmer on State Street, by Toya Wolfe
5. The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig
6. Divisible Man, by Howard Seaborne
7. One Italian Summer, by Rebecca Serle
8. The Employees, by Olga Ravn
9. The Paris Apartment, by Lucy Foley
10. Fowl Eulogies, by Lucie Rico

The days of big books exploding even bigger in paperback are in the past, but that said, Matt Haig's The Midnight Library earned a spot on The New York Times bestseller list as well as the Boswell top ten in its second week on sale. Back in 2020, we hosted Matt Haig virtually for one of our early Readings from Oconmowaukee sessions. you can watch it here. And don't forget to tune in for our latest, with Holly Goldberg Sloan, discussing Pieces of Blue on Wednesday afternoon - Register here.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Quietly Hostile, by Samantha Irby
2. The Climate Action Handbook, by Heidi Roop
3. Evicted, by Matthew Desmond 

4. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan

5. Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
6. Brewtown Tales, by John Gurda
7. Entangled Life, by Merlin Sheldrake
8. Let This Radicalize You, by Kelly Hayes
9. Birds of Wisconsin Field Guide, by Stan Tekiela
10. Frank Lloyd Wright's Wisconsin, by Kristine Hansen (Register for June 9 event here)

Today would have been our event with Samantha Irby with Lindy West, only a number of the programs had to be cancelled for personal reasons. Quietly Hostile has earned two raves and three positives from BookMark for her humorous essay collection. Per Booklist: "Don't be fooled, though - there's tons of emotional depth hidden under the layers of comedy, especially in the essays about the author's family and her mother's death from MS. Some readers might get bogged down in the chapter about rewriting episodes of Sex and the City or the one about Irby's favorite Dave Matthews songs, but Irby's many fans, and anyone whose anxiety and hermit-like qualities ramped up during the pandemic, will celebrate and identify with her latest."

Books for Kids:
1. The One and Only Ruby, by Katherine Applegate
2. Gertie the Darling Duck of World War II, by Shari Swanson, illustrated by Renee Graef
3. LOL 101, by David Roth and Rinee Shah
4. She Persisted: Kaplana Chawla, by Raakhee Mirchandani
5. The One and Only Bob, by Katherine Applegate
6. When Clouds Touch Us, by Thanhha Lai
7. Inside Out and Back Again, by Thanhha Lai
8. The School for Good and Evil, by Soman Chainani
9. The Eyes and the Impossible, by Dave Eggers
10. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse, illustrated by Renee Graef

The tail of sales from our virtual event with Katherine Applegate for The One and Only Ruby continues. There's at least one more book in the series - can you guess which animal will be featured? From Publishers Weekly: "Lovable baby elephant Ruby is the delightful narrator of this follow-up to The One and Only Bob, which further chronicles the animal's difficult journey to the wildlife park and sanctuary where she now lives...Applegate details dire circumstances facing elephants in the wild, including climate change and poaching, while elucidating their fierce loyalty and highlighting, via the three protagonists' unforgettable bond, myriad interspecies relationships."

Alas, my alt key is working so it has becomes difficult for me to include accents. Hope this is fixed soon!

Boswell Book Company bestsellers, week ending May 13, 2023

Boswell Book Company bestsellers, week ending May 13, 2023

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese
2. Happy Place, by Emily Henry
3. Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
4. Hang the Moon, by Jeanette Walls
5. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin
6. Pineapple Street, by Jenny Jackson
7. Hello Beautiful, by Ann Napolitano
8. Romantic Comedy, by Curtis Sittenfeld
9. Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
10. Atalanta, by Jennifer Saint

No major pops, but several debuts skirted the bottom of our bestseller list, with Jennifer Saint's Atalanta breaking into the top ten by a hair. The number one bestselling author of Elektra and Ariadne gets this rave from Publishers Weekly: "Saint continues to breathe new life into Greek myths in this exciting and intelligent reimagining of the story of warrior Atalanta...For readers who can't get enough of feminist retellings, this will more than do the trick."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Built to Move, by Kelly Starrett and Juliet Starrett
2. Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond (MPL May 23 event registration here - this is close to capacity)
3. The Wager, by David Grann
4. The Creative Act, by Rick Rubin
5. A Fever in the Heartland, by Timothy Egan
6. You Could Make This Place Beautiful, by Maggie Smith
7. The Magnolia Table V3, by Joanna Gaines
8. Knowing What We Know, by Simon Winchester
9. The Light We Carry, by Michelle Obama
10. Outlive, by Peter Attia and Bill Gifford

Kelly and Juliet Starrett have built a fitness platform from The Ready State and a previous book, Becoming a Supple Leopard. Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully  came out in April - a quantity order helps push this to #1. Publishers Weekly writes: "The authors detail 10 ways to make the body more resilient, focusing on how readers can achieve greater ease of movement and improve overall health. Eschewing intensive workouts, the Starretts focus on boosting mobility through simple exercises." It reminds me of the kind of book touring I used to organize at Warner (Grand Central) when I was young.

Paperback Fiction:
1. Daughters of Nantucket, by Julie Gerstenblatt
2. Fifth Avenue Glamour Girl, by Renée Rosen
3. Trust, by Hernan Diaz
4. The Cat Who Saved Books, by Sosuke Natsukawa
5. The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman
6. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
7. Lucky Girl, by Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu
8. Search, by Michelle Huneven
9. The Candy House, by Jenifer Egan
10. Practice Makes Perfect, by Sarah Adams

Lucky Girl is a paperback original from Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu, who was raised in Nairboi, schooled in the United States, and now lives in Cape Town. Kirkus writes: “A young Kenyan woman in New York City faces an identity crisis while coming to recognize how issues of race, culture, and religion are different for Black Americans than for Black Africans...A thought-provoking exploration of the complicated experience of an African woman in America.” It also has a nice blurb from Charmaine Wilkerson, author of Black Cake.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Burn Rate, by Andy Dunn
2 Somos Latinas, Andrea-Teresa Arenas and Eloisa Gómez
3. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
4. How the Other Half Eats, by Priya Fielding-Singh
5. America the Beautiful, by Blythe Roberson
6. How to Tell a Story, from the Moth
7. Last Call, by Elon Green (Edgar winner)
8. Trailed, by Kathryn Miles
9. Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann
10. All About Love, by bell hooks

Now in paperback, How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America is a must-read for fans of Evicted. Priya Fielding-Singh's fieldwork takes her inside the homes of families "from varied educational, economic, and ethnoracial backgrounds" (publisher) to look at their food habits. From Beth Dooley in the San Francisco Chronicle: "Fielding-Singh dispels the myth that access to good food is the primary driver of the nation’s food and health disparities. Access isn’t the only, or even the main, obstacle to eating well, she argues. Rather, it’s the societal norms and unrealistic expectations shouldered by mothers across cultures and classes."

Books for Kids
1. When Clouds Touch Us, by Thanhhà Lai
2. Inside Out and Back Again, by Thanhhà Lai
3. The One and Only Ruby, by Katherie Applegate
4. LOL 101, by David Roth and Rinee Shah
5. The One and Only Bob, by Katherine Applegate
6. The Fall of the School for Good and Evil, by Soman Chainani
7. The School for Good and Evil, by Soman Chainani
8. Global, by Eoin Colfe, Andrew Donkin, illustrations by Giovanni Rigano
9. The Eyes and the Impossible, by Dave Eggers
10. When you Can Swim, by Jack Wong

Thanhhà Lai is doing several school visits in Milwaukee for the sequel to Inside Out and Back Again, winner of the National Book Award for Young People. Booklist offers this on When Clouds Touch Us: "While rooted in the 1970s, this memoiresque novel captures experiences that refugees in many times and places face: the sense of longing, the confusion, and the family dynamics that shift and change." And from the Horn Book: "The 1976 setting - America's bicentennial - reinforces the idea that Ha and her family's experiences are just as American as anyone's. Strongly recommended for fans of the first book and readers interested in realistic, hardscrabble immigrant stories."

Boswell bestsellers, week ending May 6, 2023

Boswell Bestsellers, week ending May 6, 2023

 

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese
2. Happy Place, by Emily Henry
3. Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club, by J Ryan Stradal
4. Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
5. Hello Beautiful, by Ann Napolitano
6. Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt
7. Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
8. In the Lives of Puppets, by TJ Klune
9. Romantic Comedy, by Curtis Sittenfeld
10. Mastering the Art of French Murder, by Colleen Cambridge (Register for May 18 event here)

It's been a long time since Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone! It's hard to say whether The Covenant of Water will hold the lead with the chains and online the way he likely did at independents. Maybe, as the Oprah Book Club factor is powerful in other channels. The new book, a multi-generational story set in Kerala, has 11 raves, two positives, and a mixed on LitHub. From Kirkus: "By God, he's done it again... What a joy to say it is, to experience the exquisite, uniquely literary delight of all the pieces falling into place in a way one really did not see coming." 

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond (May 23 event is almost at capacity - check here)
2. The Wager, by David Grann
3. Bread Head, by Greg Wade (Event rescheduled for June 13, 6:30 pm)
4. You Are a Badass Every Day, by Jen Sincero
5. Knowing What We Know, by Simon Winchester
6. The Devil's Element, by Dan Egan
7. A Fever in the Heartland, by Timothy Egan
8. The Language of Trees, by Katie Holten
9. Sit in the Sun, by Jon M Sweeney
10. Magnolia Table V3: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering, by Joanna Gaines

Simon Winchester's latest, Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic, is reviewed in The Washington Post, The Times (UK), and all the trades, but for some reason, it's not being aggregated in LitHub. Booklist's starred review called it "a testament to his abiding interest in history, human innovation, and his distinctive ability to share his insatiable curiosity with enthusiastic readers. He has written engagingly about etymology, engineering, explorers, and inventors, as well as maps, oceans, rivers, land, earthquakes, and volcanoes." The book was also reviewed by Peter Sagal (of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me) in The New York Times.

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, by VE Schwab
2. The Candy House, by Jennfer Egan (Check out the Boswell-run book clubs here)
3. The Seven Moons of Maali Almedia, by Shehan Karunatilaka
4. Ithaca, by Penelope North
5. Fifth Avenue Glamor Girl, by Renée Rosen (Register for May 11 event here - daytime!)
6. The Cabinet, by Un-Su Kim, translated by Sean Lin Halbert
7. 1984, by George Orwell
8. Meet Me at the Lake, by Carley Fortune
9. The Murder of Mr Wickham, by Claudia Gray (Register for June 8 virtual event here)
10. Women Talking, by Miriam Toews

The Cabinet received the Munhakdongne Novel Award, South Korea's most prestigious literary prize. Per the publisher, "Cabinet 13 looks exactly like any normal filing cabinet, except this cabinet is filled with files on the 'symptomers', humans whose strange abilities and bizarre experiences might just mark the emergence of a new species."  From Sam Tyler in SFBook: "Science Fiction can take itself too seriously, so it is great to read an offbeat genre novel and they don't come much more leftfield than The Cabinet. It stands on similar ground as A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, filtered through the macabre gaze of Chuck Palahniuk." The Books and Beer Book Club is reading The Cabinet on May 15 at Café Hollander.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. You Are a Badass, by Jen Sincero
2. Badass Habits, by Jen Sincero
3. You Are A Badass at Making Money, by Jen Sincero
4. The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel van der Kolk
5. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
6. How to Be Perfect, by Michael Schur
7. America the Beautiful, by Blythe Roberson
8. How to Tell a Story, from The Moth
9. Mushrooms of the Upper Midwest, by Teresa Marrone
10. A Gardener's Guide to Prairie Plants, by Neil Diboll (Register for June 17 event here)

Three weeks out in paperback and second placement in the top 10 for How to Be Perfect, after a long run in hardcover. Michael Schur's guide to living an ethical life. From Julian Baggini's rave in The Wall Street Journal: "There is no more to quibble over here than there is in any academic text. That makes How to Be Perfect one of the most accessible entry points to philosophical ethics available - in short, a very good place to start." You'll notice, by the way, that we have just expanded our philosophy section in the store.

Books for Kids:
1. When You Can Swim, by Jack Wong
2. The One and Only Ruby, by Katherine Applegate (Register for May 9 virtual school visit event here)
3. Fall of the School for Good and Evil V2, by Soman Chainani (Register for May 10 event here)
4. The Sun and the Star, by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro
5. The Eyes and the Impossible, by Dave Eggers
6. Rise of the School for Good and Evil V1, by Soman Chainani
7. Gertie the Darling Duck of WWII, by Shari Swanson, illustrated by Renée Graef (Register for May 20 event here)
8. Weather Together, by Jessie Sima
9. A World Without Princes V2, by Soman Chainani
10. LOL 101: A Kids Guide to Writing Jokes, by David Roth and Rinee Shah (Register for May 8 Shorewood Library event here)

Following Perfectly Pegasus, Jessie Sima's Weather Together is about friendship and mental health. From Kirkus: "Harking back to Not Quite Narwhal in both cast and tone, Sima offers a friendship tale in which Kelp's close and aptly named pal Nimbus acquires a dark little cloud that rains when she feels down... If some young readers subject to or familiar with similar storms (or a bit foggy on what a metaphor is) need explanation or discussion about depression to clear the air, the comforting message nonetheless shines brightly."

I also have to give a shout out to When You Can Swim. We hosted school visits with Jack Wong on Friday. It was a really great day. It's also one of Jenny's favorite picture books of 2023!