Sunday, June 2, 2024

Boswell bestsellers, week ending June 1, 2024

Boswell bestsellers, week ending June 1, 2024

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Sicilian Inheritance, by Jo Piazza (signed copies)
2. The Women, by Kristin Hannah
3. Table for Two, by Amor Towles
4. Real Americans, by Rachel Khong
5. One Perfect Couple, by Ruth Ware
6. All Fours, by Miranda July
7. Funny Story, by Emily Henry
8. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, by James McBride
9. Blackouts, by Justin Torres 
10. Fourth Wing V1, by Rebecca Yarros
 
In addition to a nice event with Jo Piazza in the bookstore, we sold copies of The Sicilian Inheritance at Festa Italiana. The talk was followed by a book signing and cannoli eating contest. Jill Biden was there on Friday evening. I didn't know she was Sicilian. Jordi Lippe-McGraw notes in Forbes that a trip to Sicily is likely in your future after reading this book.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. The Backyard Bird Chronicles, by Amy Tan (MPL June 13 event)
2. The Demon of Unrest, by Erik Larson
3. The Power Foods Diet, by Neal D Barnard (Boswell June 13 event)
4. The Situation Room, by George Stephanopoulos
5. Look Away, by Jacob Kushner
6. In the Time of Dying, by Sebastian Junger
7. My Life in Seventeen Books, by Jon M Sweeney
8. The Wide Wide Sea, by Hampton Sides
9. Charlie Hustle, by Keith O'Brien
01. Dane County Farmers Market Cookbook, by Terese Allen (Boswell June 6 event)

I am not a sports person, but I like reading books about sports when they are looking at its impact on society, and I think Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball fits the bill. Just as long as they don't describe too many games in detail. Five raves and a positive, but the raves include the big three - The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. That's a rare hat trick nowadays.

Paperback Fiction
1. Shady Hollow, by Juneau Black (July 9 Boswell event)
2. Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton
3. The Silent Patient, by lex Michaelides
4. A Death in Door County, by Annelise Ryan
5. Empire of Storms V5, by Sarah J Maas
6. Dune, by Frank Herbert
7. The Postcard, by Anne Berest
8. A Deadly Education, by Naomi Novik
9. Flags on the Bayou, by James Lee Burke
10. Bunny, by Mona Awad

Jason and I have been discussing that several major awards have seemed like they are body-of-work honors, even if, unlike the Nobel Prize, they aren't supposed to be. Wasn't that the old adage about the Oscars? You don't win for the role you deserved it for, but for a movie three to four roles later.I didn't read Flags on the Bayou, so I can't say if that's the case here, but it did win Best Novel at the Edgars. At least it's a pivot from the last few years, when I wondered if the winner was even a mystery. Booklist's starred review called it "a remarkable, beautiful, edgy, and haunting novel."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Dear Readers and Riders, by Lettie Teague (Boswell June 5 event)
2. Everything I Know About Love, by Dolly Alderton
3. Paved Paradise, by Henry Grabar
4. The Myth of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus
5. American Prometheus, by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin
6. Wisconsin for Kennedy, by BJ Hollars
7. Milwaukee in Stone and Clay, by Raymond Wiggers
8. Endurance, by Alfred Lansing
9. The History of the World in Six Glasses, by Tom Standage
10. Invisible Women, by Caraoline Criado-Perez

I don't know why we sell so many copies of The Myth of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus - 14 last year, which to me, is a lot. Is it a course book that we don't know about? I wound up reading The Stranger as an adult, as I just thought I should. So maybe this is next. The publisher calls it "one of the most influential works of the twentieth century, showing a way out of despair and reaffirming the value of existence."

Books for Kids:
1. The One and Only Family, by Katherine Applegate
2. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse, illustrations by Renée Graef
3. Peekaboo Lion, by Camillo Reed, illustrations by Ingela P Arrhenius
4. Color Monster, by Anna Llenas
5. Bluey: The Creek, by Who Knows?
6. Twelfth Knight, by Alexene Farol Follmuth
7. Buffalo Fluffalo, by Bess Kalb, illustrations by Erin Kraan
8. The Invisible String, by Patrice Karst, illustrations by Joanne Lew-Vriethoff
9. Mama in the Moon, by Doreen Cronin, illustrations by Brian Cronin
10. Perla the Mighty Dog, by Isabel Allende, illustrations by Sandy Rodríguez

Reese is jump-starting her YA book club and the new selection Twelfth Knight appears to have gotten a bump from that. From Kirkus: "This engaging modern retelling of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night has a genderbending plot that's a perfect fit for contemporary readers. While some of the allusions will be a bit too on the nose for anyone familiar with the source material (and may make suspending disbelief difficult for some), the slow-burn enemies-to-lovers storyline (and the absence of Twelfth Night's sinister subplot) more than carry this successful adaptation."

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