1. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, by James McBride
2. Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett
3. A Death in the Dark Woods V2, by Annelise Ryan
4. The Fraud, by Zadie Smith
5. Fourth Wing V1, by Rebecca Yarros
6. North Woods, by Daniel Mason
7. Good Night, Irene, by Luis Alberto Urrea
8. Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
9. The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese
10. Let Us Descend, by Jesmyn Ward
Deacon King Kong (2020) had a huge increase (quadrupled) in sales for us in 2020 over his previous novel The Good Lord Bird (2013), but The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store is already has double that, and with lots of life left in the book. It wouldn't be surprising to see the novel on the 2024 holiday bestseller lists, much like Lessons in Chemistry and Demon Copperhead are holdovers from 2022.
1. Areté, by Brian Johnson
2. The Wager, by David Grann
3. While You Were Out, by Meg Kissinger
4. World Within a Song, by Jeff Tweedy
5. My Name Is Barbra, by Barbra Streisand
6. Wisconsin Field to Fork, by Lori Fredrich
7. The Art Thief, by Michael Finkel
8. The Best Minds, by Jonathan Rosen
9. The Creative Act, by Rick Rubin
10. How to Know a Person, by David Brooks
The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions place in the top 10 books of the year both for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. It also has eight raves and a positive on BookMarks. It's kind of the Stay True of 2023. From Alexandra Jacobs in The New York Times: "Behind most performances, in other words - most lives - lies some measure of mess and violence, and exposing this can be uncomfortable. But Rosen’s own memoir is the opposite of ruinous. It’s an inch-by-inch, pin-you-to-the-sofa reconstruction of his long friendship with Michael Laudor, who made headlines a decade after the Ginsberg reading: first in The New York Times, as a Yale Law School graduate destigmatizing schizophrenia; then pretty much everywhere, after stabbing his pregnant girlfriend, Caroline Costello, to death with a kitchen knife, confusing her with a windup doll."
1. A Death in Door County V1, by Annelise Ryan
2. Shady Hollow V1, by Juneau Black
3. Before We Were Innocent, by Ella Berman
4. A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara
5. Bookshops and Bonedust, by Travis Baldree
6. Trust, by Hernan Diaz
7. Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, by Satoshi Yagisawa
8. Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doer
9. The Enigma of Room 622, by Joël Dicker
10. Under the Whispering Door, by TJ Klune
It's the second week out and first week in our top 10 for Ella Berman's Before We Were Innocent, which was a Reese's Book Club pick in hardcover. From the publisher: "A summer in Greece for three best friends ends in the unthinkable when only two return home in this new novel from Ella Berman." No BookMarks for this one (one suspects they don't often track Berkley), but a nice Kirkus: "With evocative and astute prose, Berman's sophomore effort is a slow but searing portrayal of the intoxicating power of privilege, youth, and female friendship."
1. John Gurda's Milwaukee, by John Gurda
2. Secret Milwaukee, by Jim Nelsen (Register for December 27 Boswell event)
3. A Year in the Woods, by Torbjorn Ekelund
4. Walking Milwaukee, by Royal Brevvaxling and Molly Snyder
5. Brewtown Tales, by John Gurda
6. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
7. The Boys in the Boat, by Daniel James Brown
8. An Immense World, by Ed Yong
9. The Philosophy of Walking, by Frédéric Gros
10. Murdle V1, by GT Karber
Now that's the kind of list we expect from paperback nonfiction - four books about Milwaukee. Seasonally speaking, however, they seem like summer books - three of the four are guidebooks. That and three four more of the books would be classified as nature titles, which I should note, often dominate this list, whatever the season.
1. Death's Door, by Barbara Joosse, illustrations by Renée Graef
2. How Does Santa Go Down the Chimney?, by Mac Barnett, illustrations by Jon Klassen
3. Something Someday, by Amanda Gorman, illustrations by Christian Robinson
4. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse, illustrations by Renée Graef
5. Peekaboo Love, by Camilla Reid, illustrations by Ingela P Arrhenius
6. The Snowy Day board book, by Ezra Jack Keats
7. Chalice of the Gods V6, by Rick Riordan
8. Winter Tales, by Dawn Casey, illustrations by Zanna Goldhawk
9. Red and Green, by Lois Ehlert
10. Heartstopper V5, by Alice Oseman
I guess the winner in the holiday-themed picture book sweepstakes is Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen's How Does Santa Go Down the Chimney? From Kirkus: "For all that it leans heavily on absurdity, this book exhibits some serious heart. In the market for an understated Christmas classic? Behold! A Christmas miracle!" We also had a late Jon Klassen holiday card edition from Red Cap of Santa's reindeer going down the chimney one at a time. I don't normally bring in new Christmas cards in December, but how could I resist?
Find all books mentioned here on the Boswell Books website.
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