Boswell's Sunday Annotated Bestsellers for the Week Ending October 20.

Hardcover fiction:
1. Round House, by Louise Erdrich
2. Darth Vader and Son, by Jeffrey Brown
3. Panther, by Nelson DeMille
4. Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn
5. Twelve, by Justin Cronin
6. Live by Night, by Dennis Lehane
7. The Secret Keeper, by Kate Morton
8. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce
9. A Thousand Mornings, by Mary Oliver
10. Sutton, by J.R Moehringer

The Panther by Nelson DeMille pops this week, this time playing off the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. DeMille spoke to CBS News about doing factual research for his novels, and the importance of protecting sources for a book, even in fiction. And as he is Long Island’s own, there’s also a profile in the Manhasset Press. It’s a good week for the island, as J.R. Moehringer also has ties to the area, as folks who read his memoir know.

And a note on Louise Erdrich. Her novels have a consistent baseline sale with us, but some break out more than others. The Downer Schwartz sold 19 Painted Drum in 2005 and 30 Plague of Doves in 2008. We then sold 18 Shadow Tag in 2010, but in 2012, we're already up to 18 copies of Round House in 3 weeks. There's no question we will beat sales of her last three books at this location in short order with this one, which is shortlisted for the National Book Award. 

Hardcover nonfiction:
1. State of the Union, by James Biggers
2. Steven Spielberg: A Retrospective, by Richard Schickel
3. The President’s Club, by Michael Duffy
4. Pabst, by Paul Bialas
5. Roots, by Diane Morgan
6. The Science of Good Cooking, by Cooks Illustrated
7. Who I Am, by Peter Townshend
8. Hello Gorgeous, by William J. Mann
9. America Again, by Stephen Colbert
10. Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand

I’m not sure what got the new Cook’s Illustratated book, The Science of Good Cooking, on our bestseller list this week, but I suspect it had something to do with that New York Times profile of Chris Kimball. I feel like I’ve read about Kimball’s operation before, but this article positioned him more like Roy Reiman's Taste of Home with a fancy gloss than say, Bon Appetit. 

Paperback fiction:
1. The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides
2. State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett
3. Fifty Shades Darker, by E.L. James
4. The Lock Artist, by Steve Hamilton
5. The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes

Further down our list is a recently released title, Swimming Home, by Deborah Levy, the Booker shortlisted title (sorry, the winner was Hilary Mantel…again) about a poet whose vacation in the South of France is interrupted by a young hanger on. Kate Kellaway in the Observer called Levy’s work “a shining splinter, hard to dislodge.” Read more here.

Paperback nonfiction:
1. Wisconsin Farm Lore, by Martin Hintz
2. Haunted Wisconsin, by Michael Norman
3. Arguably, by Christopher Hitchens
4. In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson
5. Beyond Outrage, by Robert Reich

Political books on both sides are being heavily promoted as each side uses whatever tools it has to influence votes. One book consistently selling for us is Robert Reich’s Beyond Outrage.

Hardcover books for kids:
1. The Boxcar Children Beginning, by Patricia MacLachlan
2. Boot and Shoe, by Marla Frazee
3. All the World, by Liz Garton Scanlon and Marla Frazee
4. Stars, by Mary Lyn Ray and Marla Frazee
5. The Boss Baby, by Marla Frazee

Paperback books for kids:
1. Sarah Plain and Tall, by Patricia MacLachlan
2. Roller Coaster, by Marla Frazee
3. Through Grandpa’s Eyes, by Patricia MacLachlan
4. Skylark, by Patricia MacLachlan
5. Clementine, by Sara Pennypacker with illustrations by Marla Frazee of course

There’s usually a bit of delay on processing school event sales while we sort out the numbers. Hence, several weeks of sales pop on Frazee and MacLachlan.

What's featured in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this week? Carole E. Barrowman discusses Books to Die for, an anthology of the world's greatest mysteries, edited by John Connolly and Declan Burke. Barrowman calls it "engaging, erudite, and substantial."

Barrowman didn't love The Twelve, by Justin Cronin, as much as she liked the first entry in the series, The Passage, due to "too many time jumps and too many characters."

And Jim Higgins reviews The Lighthouse Road, by Peter Geye, who will appear at Boswell tomorrow, October 22, and then at Books and Company in Oconomowoc on October 24. He notes that "the pleasures of The Lighthouse Road go far beyond grade-A regionalism. It's a fine example of you-were-there historical fiction. It's also something of a seminar in masculinity, with the reader seeing how a man's youthful choices and accidents formed him. And Geye also has breathed life into two marvelous, closely observed female characters, depicted with compassion in both the small pleasures and larger tragedies of their lives." Read the rest of the review here.

Saturday Sort of Gift Post—My Semi-Regular Visit to Powell’s in Portland, Oregon.

I’ve been visiting Powell’s since the mid 1990s, and I continue to be overwhelmed by the size of the Burnside “City of Books” location, which is over 68,000 square feet. Their store in Beaverton is 37,000 square feet, and event their tiny location on Hawthorne is 10,000 square feet.

To put that in perspective, Boswell, which is not considered a small store in size, is 7500 square feet. But the Hawthorne number is deceiving, as two doors town is Powell’s Home and Garden store, which is another 4000 square feet.

The locations are still packed with books, but over the years, they have brought in more and more gift items, which are most notable at Home and Garden. Wandering through the stores, I began to realize that our selection is rather thin, and there are a number of lines that could use some reordering.

It also made me well aware that I have to figure out how to get some sort of slatwall in the store, or at least a better hook system. I’ve been trying to find a source for these plastic hooks that come attached to some of my products, but to date, have had no success.

As is the case wherever I go, I look at what other folks are carrying, and maybe one out of fifty interesting items I spot in a store I actually follow up and purchase. Sometimes it will be right away, but often it will be later, when I come across a catalog, a sales email, or a booth or table at a gift show.

There are trends in this area too. It seems that many of my friends at bookstores are venturing further into clothing. It shouldn’t surprise you to see that many a smart store has a display of hats or socks.

One place where Powell’s excels is in branded merchandise. Last time through I bought a tee shirt. On this trip, I bought one of their 41st anniversary mugs. I thought about buying a tote bag too, but sometimes I have to pace myself.

A Post About a Day in Portland, Oregon, Which Has Nothing to do with Books, but is a Lot About Retail, and After All, We area bookSTORE, so it's Vaguely Relevant.

I am away from Boswell for a few days. "Relax, relax," everyone said, and how could you not when you're going to Portland, Oregon? It's for a bookseller meeting. I can say positively that I finished two books on the trip over, which already makes this visit a success. But my hours in the hotel room with no interruption still haven’t made a dent in my email. I find myself tired, whiny, and a bit incoherent, and we're all hoping this break will do me a bit of good.  Our October schedule is actually relatively light, but November is crazy and I need to gear up.

My relationship with Portland is a bit fractured. I'm a bit jealous. Forty years ago it was a sleepy town not too dissimilar from Milwaukee--manufacturing base, a strong middle class with some underlying social problems, living in the shadow of a larger city two hours away. And then there paths diverged dramatically. But I'm not hear to address Milwaukee's social problems or to contemplate the allure of the artist class to Portland's charms. I'm just walking around, looking at stores.

The first thing I notice are the food trucks. There are more than I've ever seen before, and I'm including recent trips to Seattle, New York, and Boston. One of my fellow booksellers said Los Angeles has more, but Portland concentrates them in pods. I suppose John T. Edge was in heaven on his visit for The Truck Food Cookbook. Wow!

I don’t write about it too much, as this is a blog about books and bookstores, specifically Boswell, but I am a retail obsessive. This is actually not unheard of among booksellers. Last night I was eating with a group and learned from a fellow store junkie that Rejuvenation Hardware was bought out by Williams Sonoma (and somewhere along the way, took the "hardware" out of the name, as it sounded too much like the other store mentioned above. During my first trip to Portland, there was a little Powells kiosk in Rejuvenation. I guess they’ve morphed into a fancier brand, and have stores in several cities now.   It happened late last year. He also told me about another retail purchase that hadn't happened yet--it's either false or it hasn't become public yet.

So there goes one Portland icon for me (because whatever they say, the headquarters will likely move to San Francisco someday. So I decided to head to another icon. Our hotel (the Benson, which used to be affiliated with Westin but now is a part of the Coast operation, a brand that seems to be based in Vancouver) is pretty close to the flagship Columbia sportswear store. I walked over, as I’m no longer able to get my favorite low-rise hiking shoe in any Milwaukee retailers. I asked the Boston Store salesperson what happened to the Columbia footwear and she told me that they stopped selling it years ago. The same for Laacke and Joys, and several other places. But it turns out that my shoe, despite pretty good ratings, was retired, and there’s nothing low-rise that is particularly similar. Now I feel how a customer feels when told that my book is out of print and all the second-hand copies are $200 net.

Despite several trips to Portland, I still hadn’t been to Voodoo Donuts, despite having a bit of a donut fetish. I visited Top Pot daily on a trip to Seattle last year, and I start having headaches if I don’t get at least one Donut Plant donut on a New York trip. Part of the problem was that Voodoo used to not open until 10 pm, making it hard to match my schedule. Now it’s a 24-hour operation, and I was said to arrive at a slow time of 4 pm. It was still a 15 minute wait.

If you haven’t been there, they are known for their crazy concoctions they put on one of several bases—plain cake, devil’s food cake, and raised. Anything from cereal to Tang to crushed cookies to neon icings is fair game. I sort of prefer a little subtlety, and want a flavored cake to play off a flavored icing and tell a story, perhaps with a delicate topping. I am also very much into flavor infusion, which you also see with a lot of good cupcakes. That said, I enjoyed my donuts--one at the store, and one the next morning. Voodo is a hugely successful business and don’t need my help, but I’m offering it anyway with an idea that would not compromise their brand one bit—since everyone is waiting outside for a long time, why not put a large menu in the window? I think it would help with the lines.

I’ve been able to travel around to several neighborhoods. There are a lot of chain stores in locations that they wouldn’t consider in Milwaukee, but there are also a lot of indies too, and not just bars and restaurants, which seem to be so dominant in Milwaukee’s urban grid. I worried about Milwaukee’s glut of pizzerias, and found that they were certainly prevalent in Portland too. But all I could really think about before the trip was to eat at a kaiten (conveyer belt) sushi restaurant, and it turns out that there is a Marinepolis Sushi Land near Powells, just blocks from our hotel. I’m not suggesting anyone open one of these in Milwaukee—I scoped some out in Atlanta, and each attempt had failed. I just like the opportunity when I’m traveling.

As I was walking by a storefront,which actually turned out to be a museum window, I passed this display called "Face Each Day." It's an artist installation by Jason Sturgill. I liked it, and I suspect you are not surprised by that.

On Saturday I am going on a field trip to several Powell’s City of Books stores, so my journey to retailmania hasn’t ended. And Halley asked me to bring back some chocolates from Moonstruck. We’ll see what I can do.

Photo Recap--Our Event with Andy Rash at the Shorewood Public Library

I'm out of town for a few days, but that didn't stop me from scheduling an event the night before leaving. It was Andy Rash at the Shorewood Public Library, to promote the new Bob Balaban middle-grade novel, The Creature from the Seventh Grade: Boy or Beast. First we got to watch Balaban's trailer, interviewing himself. Only of him was dressed as a dino. I have to get a speaker attachment for my laptop.

Rash talked about what it was like to get this gig working with the well-known actor. Not exactly "with", I guess, as most folks know that in the children's book world, writers and artists don't often collaborate on projects. They stay sort of separate, unless it's one of those cases like Colin Meloy/Carson Ellis or Kevin Henkes/Laura Dronzek, where the artist and illustrator are married. Hard to keep them apart in that situation.

So Rash thought about what Balaban would have looked like in the seventh grade, as the author noted that he called on his own childhood to write the book. Then Rash had to figure out what Balaban would have looked like in the seventh garde if he were a big scaly dinosaur.

Then Andy drew several kids as monsters. They were all quite spooky. And then he signed our copies of Ten Little Zombies, with some great zombie illustrations.

Before, I left, I had a peak at the Goodnight Moon Room, which once was displayed in the Schwartz Book Nook in Whitefish Bay and then the Schwartz Bookshop in Shorewood.

Our next event at the Shorewood Public Library is John Flanagan on Thursday, November 8, 6:30 pm. Flanagan is known for The Ranger's Apprentice and The Brotherband Chronicles. Should be an exciting evening.

My Jewish Book Month Post, Part 1: Jami Attenberg and "The Middlesteins" (at the JCC on November 7).

I love to read about all sorts of different kinds of people. Some of my favorite books have taken me to China, Mexico, South Korea, Italy, France, Nigeria, Lebanon, and well, this doesn’t need to be a post where I name a lot of countries, does it?

But some of the best reading revolves around shared memories and cultural identity. That’s why a lot of our Irish customers were so excited to be turned onto Sebastian Barry and our folks interested in their German heritage came out for Oliver Pötzsch.

So you can imagine that I do seem to be drawn to novels about Jewish families. I love Allegra Goodman, of course, and earlier this year, recommended Joshua Henkin’s The World Without You. And then there is Crossing California, by Adam Langer, which I’d so love to see in print again. Did I really mention Adam Langer in two consecutive posts?

There are the Roths, Philip and Henry, and Mordecai Richler, and Elinor Lipman and Cathleen Schine have both touched upon Jewish themes in their popular novels, and I still have fond memories of reading Charlotte Mendelson’s London comedy, When She was Bad. It’s out of stock from her American publisher, but I see that a Spanish edition is coming out soon, Cuando Eramos Malos. If I could read Spanish like I did in high school, I might try it again! But Zoe Heller’s The Believers is still around—that was the kind of book where the paperback jacket did me in. I just couldn’t explain to customers how the book they saw connected to the description I gave them. These things happen.

I’ve read all the above, but there’s still so much to go. I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t read a Howard Jacobson novel, even with him winning the prize, though I did read his memoir/travel lit title, Roots Schmoots, and that was before any of you knew who he was.

But today’s journey leads to Jami Attenberg’s The Middlesteins, recently out from Grand Central Publishing, and the focus of our upcoming co-sponsored event with the Harold and Rose Samson Family JCC (6255 N. Port Washington Road*) on Wednesday, November 7, at 7 pm. Hey, just in time for Jewish Book Month.

The Middlesteins are Edie and Richard, an estranged couple in the Chicago suburbs, as well their two children. Their laid-back and eager-to-please son Benny is married to perfectionist Rachelle. Their kids Josh and Emily are in training for their b’nai mitzvah, where they are going to wow the attendees with not just a perfect haftorah reading, but some whiz-bang hip hop dancing. Josh takes after his dad, Emily after her mom, though a bit meaner.Richard and Edie’s daughter Robin is a city dweller, single, but with a kind-hearted drinking buddy And there’s a lot of drinking. Richard owns a slowly failing pharmacy, and has delusions that he might find a hot new girlfriend.

But it’s Edie whose story dominates the narrative. Told from the perspective from quickly increasing weight (she peaks above 300 pounds), Attenberg offers a shortcut for figuring out where you are in the time-shifting narrative by how much Edie weighs. She’s been brought up, like so many of us, to equate food and love, and despite a fairly successful career as a lawyer at a small firm, has not been able to negate the equation.

Some high profile fellow authors weighed in early on The Middlesteins. Grand Central was most excited about the quote from Jonathan Franzen (“It wasn’t until the final pages that I fully appreciated the range of Attenberg’s sympathy and the artistry of her storytelling”) but acclaimed writers Jenna Blum (“hilarious), Kate Christiansen (“stunningly wonderful”) and J. Courtney Sullivan (“a rich family portrait…gripping”) liked it too.

Kirkus called it “A sharp-tongued, sweet-natured masterpiece of Jewish family life” while Publishers Weekly’s starred review praised the “wonderfully messy and layered family portrait." And while there are not a lot of trade reviews out yet (Hachette, Grand Central’s parent, still uses the old pub date program for releasing books instead of the on-sale date model that the larger publishers now employ, which is perceived as leading to straggling reviews), there’s a nice piece in O Magazine, and something in Grantland, which paired the book with yesterday’s featured title, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.

There are lots of Franzen comparisons and hey, I used the kinder, gentler Franzen on the Joshua Henkin novel from several months ago. I wonder though, if the Cathleen Schine/Allegra Goodman comparison is a little fairer. Franzen is so tough on his characters, and it’s hard to find someone in The Middlesteins who doesn’t capture at least a little bucket of redemption. And who doesn’t know someone whose joy in life wasn’t food? There’s a little bit of that in all of us, no?

So originally this event was scheduled at Next Chapter in Mequon. There was talk of two, but I thought that for this book, a second event would chop up the sales. So then we picked it up, but by that time, we’d already booked something at the bookshop. I contacted our friends at the JCC, who did such a nice event with Steve Sem-Sandberg last fall, and we agreed to co-sponsor this event and host it on 6255 N. Santa Monica Blvd.

So there we are. We also have Attenberg's previous novels and story collections available, including Instant Love, The Kept Man, and The Melting Season. And while you are there, you can have a little nosh at Cafe B Data. It's a pun, get it?

*The JCC put together another great author event for Thursday, November 1. It’s for Mordechai Bar-On, author of Moshe Dayan: Israel’s Controversial Hero. I think it’s at 7 pm, but you can find out for yourself, by calling (414) 967-8200.My apologies, but I had a drop of brain freeze and I wrote the wrong address at one point. It's all corrected now, but who knows the reprecussions of a typo? But you know where the JCC is, right? It's just northeast of Bayshore Town Center.

Always Open, Always Open Ended--Investigating Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore.

Clay Jannon gets laid off from his job doing graphics for a bagel chain. It’s NewBagel, where the bagels are optimized for deliciousness, but apparently that entails changing the shape. Oh, and then it becomes Old Jerusalem Bagels, where they forget about optimizing anything and just try to play on heritage, not that bagels are from Jerusalem or anything. Neither method works.

Wandering around San Francisco, he finds a help wanted ad at Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore, which by the way, is also the name of the new novel by Robin Sloan, about which I am currently writing. Jannon's got the 10 pm to 6 am shift and he’s the only employee. In the front of the store is a basic, though hardly extensive, selective of titles. They get maybe one customer per shift. But in the back, or the wayback, as Clay says, is a huge lending library of titles, seemingly in no order at all. Regulars come in, return a volume, and ask for another. The rules? Clay is not to look at the books. But rules are made to be broken, right?

And it turns out this bookstore is part of a vast secret operation spanning hundreds of years that might hold the key to nothing short of eternal life. Into this mystery, he brings his childhood friend Neel, now CEO of a breast imaging company, and a new crush, Kat, a designer/programmer at Google who wears the same shirt every day so she can focus on bigger thoughts than clothing.

Neel and Clay bonded as children over a fantasy trilogy called The Dragon Song Chronicles, by Clark Moffatt. And like all fantasy epics, a wizard, a warrior, and a rogue to team up on an epic quest. And what could be more epic than figuring out what is going on at Mr. Penumbra’s?

It got me thinking about how Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore plays with both genre and literary convention. I was also fascinated by the way this entertaining book could be categorized into so many different sub-classes of books. I don’t think this is by accident.

a. What genre is this book anyway? It’s a mystery, to be sure, but is it a thriller? It’s more of the adventure genre than thriller, a distinction that is actually clearer in kids’ books. In an adventure novel, nobody is in any particular danger. And another clue, that this is almost an adventure comedy? It ends with a party. In a sense, it reminds me a bit of Adam Langer’s The Thieves of Manhattan, only with more tech and less literary allusion. More on Langer's book below.

b. Is this an old-fashioned love-letter-to-books novel, or the first of many love-letter-to-ebooks novel? Though there’s certainly a respect for the printed book in some level that travels throughout the story, there’s a glorification of digitalization that travels throughout the story, and there’s no end to Kindle name dropping. No e-reader here. And Nook, Sony, and Kobo almost become the punchline of a joke.

c. Yes, you made Amazon happy, but I don’t know how Barnes & Noble is going to feel. B&N stores take second place in the “place to buy a book” passage, after the fictional indie and before Walmart. But making B&N second in the physical bookstore and ebookstore (after Amazon) isn’t going to get you a Discovery Great New Writers nomination. Note: I still have to make sure this is in the final copy.

d. Speaking of name dropping, is Google the hero/ine of this book or what? This is the kind of book where using all actual names detracted from the story. There’s even an inserted ad for Google’s upcoming ebook reader (and that sort of makes us booksellers whiny). While Google doesn’t necessary make the breakthroughs it wants in the story, it’s clearly on the forefront of everything, and while another writer might have given the company a bit of a Big Brother cast, it’s all seemingly benevolent here. Unless I read it wrong. Strange.

e. Speaking of endings, I really don’t think this will detract from the story by telling you this, but this one of those books where the protagonist turns out to have been writing the very novel you’re reading. Sheila Kohler used this device in The Bay of Foxes, and I realized I have read a lot of novels over the years that used this device, but what is it actually called in writerly circles and why can’t I find a list of these books? For one thing, you’re supposedly giving something away by revealing this, but when I thought it through, while it gives you an emotional jolt, it never really gives that much away.

--Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, by Robin Sloan (2012)
--The Bay of Foxes, by Sheila Kohler (2012)
--The Thieves of Manhattan, by Adam Langer (2010)

Do you remember any others? I would love to add to this list. Email me or comment on the blog and I will add select titles.

f. Speaking of books I can’t remember, there’s also that subgenre of books set in bookstores:

--Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, by Robin Sloan (2012)
--A Novel Bookstore, by Laurence Cosse (2010)
--Haunting Jasmine, by Anjali Banerjee (2011)
--The Haunted Bookshop mysteries, by Alice Kimberly (2004-2011)
--The Cookbook Collector , by Allegra Goodman (2010)

If you email me or comment, I will add them to the list.

g. Let’s talk about books about puzzles. From The DaVinci Code to Patrick Somerville’s recent This Bright River, there’s something about puzzles encrypted into novels that makes gives them a little zing. And now I can’t think of any others in this category. I have no list for this.

That's a lot of lists! But don't worry, as apparently there's some Google algorithm to spit out the answers in seconds.

Folks are writing in with books set in bookstores. I meant novels, and Jane offered one of those, plus lots and lots of memoirs:
Shelf Life by Suzanne Strempek Shea
The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald (the novel)
84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
The Yellow Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee
The Little Bookshop of Big Stone Gap by Wendy Welch
Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores by Jen Campbell
Keep those suggestions coming.

What's Going on at Boswell (Including Some Boswell Away Games)This Week? Martin Hintz and Jeff Biggers and Paul Bialas and Andy Rash and Diane Morgan.

Monday, October 15, 6:30 pm, at the Milwaukee Public Library's Rare Books Room,
814 W. Wisconsin Ave., 53233:
Martin Hintz author of Wisconsin Farm Lore.

While we've yet to have a chicken lecture us, Boswell is becoming known for the place where chickens have a say in the programming. Martin Hintz is coming to the Rare Books Room (I'm on the fence as to whether that should be capitalized) for his new book, Wisconsin Farm Lore: Kicking Cows, Giant Pumpkins & Other Tales from the Back Forty, and he's bringing a fowl-weather friend along for the ride.

The talk is everything you wanted to know about what comes from Wisconsin soil--cranberries, Victory Gardens, piles of straw, and of course beer, or rather, beer ingredients. We'll have copies on hand of several of Hintz's other titles, including Wisconsin Off the Beaten Path and A Spirited History of Milwaukee Brews and Booze.

also on Monday, October 15, also at 6:30, at Boswell:
Jeff Biggers, author of State of the Union: Arizona and the Final Showdown over the American Dream,
co-sponsored by Rethinking Schools and the Educators Network for Social Justice.

I thought I was adding events more in advance to our website so that Friends of Boswell could mark their calendars with more authority, noting that they could not go bowling on November 13 because they would certainly be attending events from Sherman Alexie (at Milwaukee Public Library's Centennial Hall), Jennifer Chiaverini (at Patched Works in Elm Grove) or Shauna Singh Baldwin (at the Elm Grove Library). But I have found that the most common use that gets back to me is from publishers and authors checking our schedule for an open date.

And that's how Jeff Biggers wound up at Boswell tonight at the relative last minute, after a conversation with Kris at Rethinking Schools. His new book, State of the Union is said to open a new window into the complexx history of American immigration conflicts. The Phoenix New Times (Biggers appeared at Changing Hands, our bookstore pal in Tempe, on October 1) notes that author and performance artist Biggers is no stranger to controversy and gives your a window into tonight's performance here.

And here's another piece that aired on The Takeaway, which when I last checked airs in the middle of Wisconsin Public Radio's broadcast of the CBC radio show, As it Happens, weeknights at 8 PM.

Tuesday, October 16, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Paul Bialas, author of Pabst: An Excavation of Art.

Bialas was just a regular pharmaceutical rep who took pictures as a hobby. OK, once you'll see this incredible book, you'll agree he's no amateur. Focusing on the Pabst brewery, the Pabst mansion, and Pabst Farms, Bialas culled his collection of 10,000 photographs to create a coffee table book that is a historical artifact defining one of Milwaukee's most defining (if no longer enduring) institutions.



I know it's funny to do an audio clip on Youtube, but that's what I've got.

Wednesday, October 17, 6:30 pm, at Shorewood Public Library, 3920 North Murray Ave., Shorewood WI 53211:
Andy Rash, illustrator of Bob Balaban's The Creature from the Sevent Grade: Boy or Beast.

Charlie Drinkwater is nerdy and unathletic, and to top it all off,he suddenly morphed into a sgiant mutant sea creature sometime between first-period science class and third-period English.

Folks who follow our schedule know that Rash appeared at Boswell for is Ten Little Zombies (who could forget Zombie Saturday?) and we'll have that book, along with some of his kids' books that he both wrote and illustrated, including Are You a Horse, and Sea Monsters' First Day.

Thursday, October 18, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Diane Morgan, author of Roots: The Definitive Compendium with more than 225 Recipes.

Portland, Oregon's award-winning teacher cookbook author, and freelance food writer has compiled the ultimate go-to-guide to the hearty, healthyful, nutrition-packed, and budget-friendly veggies found underground. It's a beautiful cookbook from Chronicle, and you know what that means--we'll be chasing copies this December. But here's your chance to hear about everything from burdock to yams to yuca.

And just because we wouldn't want you to miss out on a tasty tuber, Nick will be preparing tasting portions of carrot pesto and porcupine balls for the event, while our own radish farmer Hannah s preparing radish top soup.

Boswell Bestsellers, Week Ending October 14th.

It's been another long week of not posting in the blog. I'm not sure where the time is going, but I'm hoping to be back on my feet this week. Who knows? I may even back blog if I have too much to say. It hasn't helped that my hard drive crashed and the backup was a little wonky. And it certainly hasn't been great that I can't seem to upload any new photos or covers to the blog--only files already in my library are working (like the Fforde below). Hoping I can fix this!

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Woman Who Died a Lot, by Jasper Fforde
2. The Casual Vacancy, by J.K. Rowling
3. Telegraph Avenue, by Michael Chabon
4. This is How You Lose Her, by Michael Chabon
5. Live by Night, by Dennis Lehane
6. Round House, by Louise Erdrich
7. The Yellow Birds, by Kevin Powers
8. A Hologram for the King, by Dave Eggers
9. The Lighthouse Road, by Peter Geye
10. The Jewels of Paradise, by Donna Leon

I was thinking about how when you write a series, it becomes more difficult to get traditional reviews for a number of reasons, but one of them is that a critic might feel obligated to read everything to have a sense of the work, and that is a pretty onerous task for the amount of pay offered to book reviewers. Bloggers have filled in the gaps, and you see that with a book like Jasper Fforde's The Woman Who Died a Lot, who hit #1 based on his delightful visit to Boswell on October 10th. The most interesting piece I read was on the Tor website (yes, a publisher in competition with Viking), who wrote an ode to Fforde, including info about the annual Fforde Fiesta in Southwest England.

Signed copies of several titles on this list are still available at Boswell. In addition to Fforde and Powers, who just appeared there, you can hold a Geye for his appearance on October 22. In addition, we were able to get more signed copies of Erdrich and Chabon from Harper. Alas, Dennis Lehane was at Mystery One on Friday, but I don't think he signed stock here this time. I'd guess there was still signed stock on Prospect.

Hardcover nonfiction:

1. A Real Emotional Girl, by Tanya Chrenov

2. Healing the Heart of Democracy, by Parker Palmer

3. Joseph Anton, by Salman Rushdie

4. Roots, by Diane Morgan

5. Who I Am, by Pete Townshend

Get it? It's a play on The Who, just in case you didn't know who he was. Feeling that singing Who songs favors vocalist Roger Daltrey, I have taken to singing Townshend's biggest solo hit, "Let my love open the door", every time the book comes up. It reached #9 in 1980, as you well know. For reviews, Rob Sheffield in Rolling Stone calls Who I Am "intensely intimate, candid to the point of self-lacerating."

Paperback fiction:

1. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde

2. Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell

3. The Big Over Easy, by Jasper Fforde

4. The Language of Flowers, by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
5. The Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles

The bestselling backlist titles at Fforde were the first entries in his two series, no surprise. Mitchell's Cloud Atlas adaptation continues to spur lots of advance sale. Interesting piece in The New York Times this week about how the collaborators (will the movie be "The Matrix" meets "Run, Lola, Run" with a special guest appearance from "Speed Racer?" I expect that this is the worst description you could probably apply to the movie) looked for a real challenge in putting the project together.

Paperback nonfiction:

1. Historic Milwaukee Public Schoolhouses, by Robert Tanzilo

2. F for Effort, by Richard Benson

3. Arguably, by Christopher Hitchens

4. Write-a-thon, by Rochelle Melander
5. The Swerve, by Stephen Greenblatt

Melander hosted our most successful pre-NaNoWriMo talk to date. It seems like talks tend to do better with us than workshops, even when the workshop is free. We've had a lot of discussion about this. It's my thought that there are some markets where folks are starved for writing programs, but the Milwaukee area has plenty of outlets.

Hardcover books for kids:

1. Toothiana, by William Joyce

2. The Sandman, by William Joyce

3. The Diviners, by Libba Bray

4. A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever, Marla Frazee

5. The Last Dragonslayer, by Jasper Fforde

Paperback Books for Kids
1. Rollercoaster, by Marla Frazee
2. Clementine, by Sara Pennypacker
3. The Talented Clementine, by Sara Pennypacker
4. Clementine's Letter, by Sara Pennypacker
5. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky

The extent of our Marla Frazee influence on this week's list is underrated. In addition to the two books listed, I should note that Boot & Shoe came in at #6 and Frazee illustrated the three Clementine titles that made an appearance.