Here's what sold at Boswell for the week ending January 11, 2020 - movie tie-ins, hold overs, book club picks, and yes, even some new releases

Here's what sold at Boswell for the week ending January 11, 2020.

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Such a Fun Age, by Kiley Reid (second week at #1)
2. The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett
3. Olive Again, by Elizabeth Strout
4. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
5. The Topeka School, by Ben Lerner
6. The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
7. The Envious Siblings, by Landis Blair
8. The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood
9. Trust Exercise, by Susan Choi
10. Nothing to See Here, by Kevin Wilson

It doesn't feel like there's a 2019 fall sleeper that is going to breakout in 2020, but it's hard to get a word in edgewise when Where the Crawdads Sing is still dominating bestseller lists. There were a couple of high-profile indie-friendly releases on January 7 (Long Bright River by Liz Moore and Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano), but alas, we didn't get rec on either. Moore had a nice write-up in the Sunday New York Times while Napolitano is the current Barnes and Noble book club pick.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Milwaukee Rock and Roll, by David Luhrssen, Phil Naylor, Bruce Cole (third week at #1)
2. Talking to Strangers, by Malcolm Gladwell
3. Say Nothing, by Patrick Radden Keefe
4. Climbing My Mountain, by Sheldon Lubar
5. Ultimate Veg, by Jamie Oliver
6. Successful Aging, by Daniel J Levitin
7. Educated, by Tara Westover
8. Why We Can't Sleep, by Ada Calhoun
9. Whole Food Cooking Every Day, by Amy Chaplin
10. The Overground Railroad, by Candacy Taylor (event Mon Jan 20 at ABHM - register here)

New release! From the author of This Is Your Brain on Music, a multi-week Boswell bestseller, comes Successful Aging: A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives. From Kirkus: ". Levitin seems to underestimate his skill as an educator, and he has written a lucid explanation of brain and body function. His longevity advice has plenty of competition, especially David Sinclair's Lifespan, but this book's breadth is impressive. Excellent popular science in the service of fending off aging."

Paperback Fiction:
1. Girl Woman Other, by Bernardine Evaristo (In-Store Lit Group Mon Mar 2, 7 pm)
2. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott (two Penguin Classics editions)
3. The Drifter V1, by Nick Petrie (two editions, event Mon Jan 13, 7 pm)
4. The Wives, by Tarryn Fisher
5. Family Trust, by Kathy Wang (In-Store Lit Group Mon Feb 3, 7 pm)
6. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
7. Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, by Stuart Turton
8. Vintage 1954, by Antoine Laurain
9. Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse
10. Sealed Off V18, by Barbara Ross

We had a nice pickup on sales for Vintage 1954 that continued into January. Although we're not #1 for reporting Indie sales for this one, we're a solid #2 and just broke the 100 book mark. Speaking of sales, we're closing in on 700 copies of The Drifter since its publication. Our event with Petrie for book #5 is tomorrow - we'll remind you about that in the next blog post.

Our buyer Jason thinks publishers have cooled on psychological suspense after flooding the market with titles, but books continue to break out. The Wives, a paperback original from Tarryn Fisher, popped off our new mystery case with her novel about a woman in a polygamous marriage who hasn't met her sister wives. As Mary Cadden notes in USA Today: "Fans of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl will revel in The Wives. In her latest novel, author Tarryn Fisher constructs not just an original story but an equally original plot twist." Up until now, Fisher's books look like they were being done by herself on publishing platforms. I had to look carefully because a few of the romance publishers are digital only and you use digital DIY if you want print copies, but I think even the digital ones were not from traditional publishers. Publishing is always looking for a breakout story like this.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo
2. Flight from the Reich, by Deborah Dwork
3. No One is Too Small to Make a Difference, by Greta Thunberg
4. Emergent Strategy, by Adrienne Maree Brown
5. Just Mercy (two editions), by Bryan Stevenson
6. The Library Book, by Susan Orlean
7. The Order of Time, by Carlo Rovelli
8. Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari
9. American Birding Association Field Guide to Birds of Wisconsin, by Chuck Hagner
10. Brick Through the Window, by Steven Nodine, Eric Beaumont, Clancy Carroll, David Luhrssen

The Order of Time had a December release, and while he equaled these sales totals over seven-day periods in that month, it's only now, when competition dries up, that he hit our top 10. This book, a May 2018 hardcover, heralds the arrival of a new Stephen Hawking, or so I'm told. He's gotten raves from New Scientist, Science, and Nature journals. And what does Philip Pullman have to say?: "We live in an age of wonderful science writing, and Carlo Rovelli’s new book, The Order of Time, is an example of the very best. Time is something we think we know about instinctively; here he shows how profoundly strange it really is."

Books for Kids:
1. Troublemaker for Justice, by Jacqueline Houtman
2. When We Were Alone, by David A Patterson
3. Fetch-22 V8, by Dav Pilkey
4. Little Woman Anna Bond cover, by Louisa May Alcott
5. Children of Blood and Bone V1, by Tomi Adeyemi
6. Lalani of the Distant Sea, by Erin Entrada Kelly
7. Princess in Black and the Bathtime Battle, by Shannon Hale
8. A Is for Activist, by Innosanto Nagara
9. Curious George I Love You board book, by HA Rey
10. Arnie the Donut, by Laurie Keller

Little Women hits our bestseller list for both adult and kids. The kids cover is from Anna Bond of Rifle paper, a very popular stationery-and-more brand that is, oddly enough,  really not targeted to children. We carry their cards and prints, but not their shoes. She's best known for her florals, which is probably why the series she illustrates is called Puffin in Bloom. Per Slate, Parasite won best film from the National Society of Film Critics, but Greta Gerwig received the Best Director nod for her film adaptation.

Over at the Journal Sentinel, Jim Higgins reviews the latest from Nick Petrie: "The Wild One is the darkest thriller yet in Whitefish Bay novelist Nick Petrie’s series starring Peter Ash, a Marine veteran of combat in Fallujah. But it also has a stunning fight scene that reminded me of Jackie Chan, the comic master of improvisational combat. Like so many Chan characters, Ash can and will use anything to fight a bad guy. And by anything, I mean anything anything. I don't want to spoil the scene, but when Petrie writes that Ash has 'the power of literature at his fingertips,' it's not a metaphor." Our event is Monday, January 13, 7 pm. You're definitely going to want to get your Nick Petrie ice scraper!

Douglass K Daniel reviews Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge, by Sheila Weller. He calls it "a compassionate portrait of a complex personality whose up-and-down life rivals the Hollywood travails of Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland in its mixture of charisma."

I mentioned above that Liz Moore's Long Bright River was one of this week's high-profile debuts. Oline H Cogdill notes, in her Associated Press review, that the book is solid. Her take: "The complicated relationship of two estranged sisters who choose different life paths persuasively works as a metaphor for their old neighborhood that is in transition. Deftly plotted with strong, vivid characters, Liz Moore’s outstanding Long Bright River works as solid crime fiction and an intense family thriller."

From USA Today comes Morgan Hines talks to Chuck Palaniuk, whose new book is Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different. The scoop: "He has packaged the most important lessons he learned over the years and has communicated them in a way that others can digest easily. At the start of each new lesson, Palahniuk addresses readers with the words, 'If you were my student...' He shares wisdom on the writing process, and advice on how to add texture, hold authority, build tension – the list goes on."

Here's what's selling at Boswell for the week ending January 4, 2020 - one last week of Saturdays* before post-holiday sets in.

Here's what's selling at Boswell for the week ending January 4, 2020

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Such a Fun Age, by Kiley Reid
2. The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern
3. The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett
4. Circe, by Madeline Miller
5. Complete and Original Norwegian Folktales of Asbjornsen and Moe, by Peter Christen Asbjornsen and Jorgen Moe, translated by Tiina Nunnally
6. Trust Exercise, by Susan Choi
7. The Topeka School, by Ben Lerner
8. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
9. The Water Dancer, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
10. Full Throttle, by Joe Hill

It took until Saturday, but Such a Fun Age edged out The Starless Sea for the number one spot. I know that social media has been all over the book, and I think that it also helped that it was a very light release week, but we still had a lot of traffic between Christmas and New Year's Day. Reid's novel was actually scheduled for January 7 and was moved pretty late in the game. Was it for the Reese Witherspoon book club or perhaps it was shrewd date positioning. I heard that week is tough for publishers because the invoices sort of land between two years.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. The Martini Cocktail, by Robert Simonson
2. Milwaukee Rock and Roll, 1950-2000, by David Luhrssen, Phil Naylor, Bruce Cole
3. Climbing My Mountain, by Sheldon B Lubar
4. Blue Zones Kitchen, by Dan Buettner
5. Salt Fat Acid Heat, by Samin Nosrat
6. The Years That Matter Most, by Paul Tough
7. Quit Like a Woman, by Holly Whitaker
8. The Beautiful Ones, by Prince
9. The Education of an Idealist, by Samantha Power
10. Say Nothing, by Patrick Radden Keefe

Political books in 2019 tended to pop and then quiet down quickly, but one book with legs is Samantha Powers's The Education of an Idealist, which has been on and off our top ten since its September release. I love that on the Book Marks program, which tabulates traditional reviewers from Rave to positive to mixed to pan, it listed several pans among the raves, but one of them was for the New Republic and the pull-out quote was "vivid and engaging prose." Imagine when that reviewer likes something! In any case, I mention the book not because it's in our top ten this week but because Power is mentioned in another top ten regular, The Yellow House. It was she who advised Sarah M Broom to go to Burundi to work.

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
2. A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
3. The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, by Abbi Waxman
4. The Drifter V1 (two editions), by Nick Petrie (event at Boswell Mon Jan 13, 7 pm)
5. Killing Commendatore, by Haruki Murakami
6. Ohio, by Stephen Markley (probably too late to start for In-Store Lit Group on Jan 6!)
7. The Tattooist of Auschwitz, by Heather Morris
8. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson
9. The Librarian of Auschwitz Special Edition, by Antonio Iturbe
10. Red, White and Royal Blue, by Casey McQuiston

We've been selling Red, White and Royal Blue (I am bowing to the publisher and leaving out the Oxford comma, but ampersands play havoc with writing in HTML so I'm spelling out "and") steadily, out of both new releases, fiction, and Margaret's rec shelf, so I thought I'd see how we stack up against other stores. Sales at indies are nothing short of astounding, with many stores in the triple digits and one that went full quadruple. It's a romantic comedy that imagines the son of the President of the United States (a woman from Texas) falling in love with Prince Harry. Library Journal has this review from Milwaukee Public Library's Jessica Moore: "With a diverse cast of characters, quick-witted dialog, and a complicated relationship between two young people with the eyes of the world watching their every move, McQuiston's debut is an irresistible, hopeful, and sexy romantic comedy that considers real questions about personal and public responsibility."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference, by Greta Thunberg
2. Better World Shopping Guide, sixth edition, edited by Ellis Jones
3. Paris 1919, by Margaret MacMillan
4. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
5. The Fifth Risk, by Michael Lewis
6. American Birding Association Field Guide to Birds of Wisconsin, by Charles Hagner
7. Leadership, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
8. Just Mercy (two editions), by Bryan Stevenson
9. The Library Book, by Susan Orlean
10. Health Justice Now, by Timothy Faust

Large book clubs are driving sales of several titles this week. The award-winning Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World, is being used by UWM's Osher continuing education program this winter. The Chicago Tribune wrote: "For anyone interested in knowing how historic mistakes can morph into later historic problems, this brilliant book is a must-read.”

One of our larger private book clubs is tackling Doris Kearns Goodwin's Leadership: In Turbulent Times. One thing to note is that books, particularly fiction, are known to transition from a text jacket in hardcover to one with an illustration in paperback. Washington Black is a particularly successful example of this. But going from an illustration in hardcover to text in paperback is so rare, but that's what Leadership did. The paperback jacket doesn't exactly look finished either, like they lost the rights to the painting at the last minute (or otherwise decided it was inappropriate) and never found a substitution.

Books for Kids:
1. Guts, by Raina Telgemeier
2. A to Z Menagerie, by Suzy Ultman
3. Fetch-22: Dog Man V8, by Dav Pilkey
4. The Toll V3, by Neal Shusterman
5. Greta's Story, by Valentina Camerini
6. The Crossover graphic novel, by Kwame Alexander/Dawud Anyabwile
7. Thunderhead V2, by Neal Shusterman
8. 365 Days of Wonder: Mr Browne's Precepts, by RJ Palacio
9. The Snowy Day board book, by Ezra Jack Keats
10. Bad Guys V1, by Aaron Blabey

It's not a secret that it's become very popular to turn traditional novels, particularly books for young readers, into graphic novels. Like adapting for film, the resulting books usually need to trim their text and sometimes plotlines, or the book would be 500+ pages. The Crossover is a fall 2019 release that has hit our top 10 several times. Illustrations are by Dawud Anyabwile, who previously completed a similar project for Walter Dean Myers's Monster. Here's a link to his original, Brotherman, which he put together with his brother Guy Sims.

Over at the Journal Sentinel, Lynn Elbers of the Associated Press tackles Mo Rocca's Mobituaries. From the interview: " I think a lot of people confuse ‘past’ with ‘backward’ and, I’ll be transparent here, I’ve chosen to be generous with the past. I do think we need to cut the past some slack because the tendency is to disqualify people for their imperfections. I think that people are messy, and I really sought in this to embrace not only the messiness of people, but eras."

Jeff Rowe, also writing for Associated Press, reviews Heidi Blake's From Russia with Blood: The Kremlin’s Ruthless Assassination Program and Vladimir Putin’s Secret War on the West. From the review: "Heidi Blake lays out a sturdy case that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a cold, treacherous thug who runs his country like a criminal cartel. But European and Asian leaders were so eager to welcome Russia into the family of free nations – and to buy Russian gas and oil – that they looked the other way as Putin consolidated his power and his opponents started turning up dead."

Barbara VanDenburgh writes for USA Today (through Gannett's Arizona Republic), and this week she has a round-up of new releases and what Kirkus says. The books are Lost Hills, by Lee Goldberg (he's visiting Boswell on Feb 5), Such a Fun Age, by Kiley Reid, The Wives, by Tarryn Fisher, Tiny Habits, by BJ Fogg, and Love Lettering, by Kate Clayborn. More here.

*I like to say that during the holiday break, post-Christmas is hardly like pre-Christmas in volume; it's more like a Saturday every day.

The first big breakout book of 2020 - Such a Fun Age, by Kiley Reid

One of the things that has changed about publishing is how much more in advance books are staged if the publisher is hoping for a breakout. We already have a table up promoting Christina Clancy's The Second Home, suggesting preorders for the holidays, and the solicitation for quotes came much earlier than that. Her book, by the way, is out June 2, 2020 - we'll have the first of several Milwaukee-area events at Boswell on launch day.

Similarly, the solicitation for Kiley Reid's Such a Fun Age began last spring. The book was edited by Sally Kim, who shepherded Chloe Benjamin's The Immortalists to publication, and like that book, Such a Fun Age made the Book Expo buzz panel. By the time I read the book in fall, just before Reid did a meet-the-author dinner in Chicago, the line of booksellers championing this debut novel stretched out the door and around the block. It's the number one Indie Next rec for January 2020. We didn't get on the tour, but if your city did, lucky you. Here's more. 

It's also the new Reese Witherspoon book club pick and I'm only sad because the Reese seal sort of mars what is an absolutely fantastic jacket. Putnam knew they had a winner and made matching tote bags, something they also did with Benjamin's book. That blue! I think it's actually pretty close to the Pantone color of the year, classic blue, and it really does look great with black. I really should have worn my almost completely matching blue pants today, but instead I just have my button.

Marketing, marketing, marketing. But the thing about Such a Fun Age is that the there is there. It's really hard not to fall in love with this book, the story of a young black woman who takes a job babysitting for a wealthy, not-much-older white woman in Philadelphia.  Here's my rec:

"Emira finds that her friends are passing her by in the growing up department, but she’s enjoying babysitting (not even nannying!) for professional influencer Alix (née Alex) Chamberlain and has become particularly attached to daughter Briar. An uncomfortable grocery-store incident with racist overtones seems likely to blow up, but Emira really wants to put this behind her and convinces bystander Kelley, who recorded the incident on his phone, to not release it. When Emira and Kelley meet again, they start dating (even though she doesn’t usually date white guys), but what Emira doesn’t know is that Alix and Kelley have a past that ended poorly and they each have very different takes on it. With a story that bounces between the three viewpoints, Kiley Reed’s debut novel features a wonderfully engaging and wiser-than-she-thinks-she-is heroine, and is alternatingly inspired, infuriating, hilarious, and thought-provoking, touching on race, class, gender, friendship, dating, and motherhood, and filled with a whole mess of bad advice from everyone concerned. Lots of bad advice!"

Entertainment Weekly writes: "Kiley Reid has written the most provocative page-turner of the year." Real Simple: "This piercing social commentary on race and class manages to be, well, such a fun book to read." Vogue: "Fun is the operative word in Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid’s delectably discomfiting debut. The buzzed-about novel takes a thoroughly modern approach to the timeless upstairs-downstairs trope." And the list goes on and on.

It's a book that is of the moment that also transcends the moment. I was noticing how many books I've read this year that had nanny/babysitting elements, from Girl in the Rearview Mirror, by Kelsey Rae Dimberg (a big local hit at Boswell - nanny goes psychological suspense) to the NYT bestseller Nothing to See Here, from Kevin Wilson (nanny goes speculative, a little).  It's a new age of nanny diaries, all very different from Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus's 2012 hit. It's now a $22.99 POD book so I'm not linking to it.

Critics have praised Reid's channeling of lots of different voices, but Emira steals the show. I really liked the switching around because sometimes I read a first-person narrative where I get through a good chunk of the book, I think I need a breather. Can't someone else talk? That's not the case for Such a Fun Age. I so enjoyed this book- it's on my rec shelf, and I'm buying our first copy. Hope to sell many more!

Coming next - Jeanine Cummins's American Dirt is out on January 21.

Boswell bestsellers, week ending December 28, 2019 - The ten-best effect, author bests, movie-tie ins,Petrie backlist, plus the Journal Sentinel book page

Here's what we sold at Boswell this past week (December 22-28, 2019)

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett
2. The Water Dancer, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
3. The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern
4. The Topeka School, by Ben Lerner
5. The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood
6. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
7. Exhalation, by Ted Chiang
8. The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
9. The Lost Children Archive, by Valeria Luiselli
10. Trust Exercise, by Susan Choi

Finally the National Book Award winner Trust Exercise has started selling. It will be interesting to see whether this holds up in 2020, especially during January gift card spending. Here's what Helen McAlpin wrote on the NPR website: "Book groups, meet your next selection. Trust Exercise, Susan Choi's powerful fifth novel, will give you plenty to talk about. At 257 pages, it's not a major time commitment, but be warned that it is impossible to discuss this book meaningfully if everyone hasn't read the whole thing. It's also tricky to review, as it derives so much of its impact from audacious narrative twists that I don't want to risk spoiling."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Milwaukee Rock and Roll, 1950-2000, by David Luhrssen, Phil Naylor, Bruce Cole
2. Say Nothing, by Patrick Radden Keefe
3. Educated, by Tara Westover
4. The Yellow House, by Sarah M Broom
5. 100 Years in Titletown, by Vernon Biever, Jim Biever
6. Salt Fat Acid Heat, by Samin Nosrat
7. Climbing My Mountain, by Sheldon Lubar
8. The Map of Knowledge, by Violet Moller
9. The Education of an Idealist, by Samantha Power
10. The Joy of Coking, by Irma S Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, Ethan Becker, John Becker, Megan Scott

It seems to be a strong hardcover Christmas for the Knopf/Doubleday division of Penguin Random House, with four of our top ten bestsellers on the fiction side and another 2 in nonfiction (plus The Guardians and The Body at #12 on their respective lists).

I wasn't much paying attention to the May-published The Map of Knowledge: A Thousand-Year History of How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found before the year-end lists. Rachel Newcomb in The Washington Post notes: "Popular opinion seems to assume an unbroken connection from the ancient Greeks to the Renaissance, but after the decline of the western Roman Empire in 476 A.D., most of what is now Western Europe was in fragments. The rise of Christianity led to the destruction of libraries and nonreligious (hence 'pagan') texts, and 'by the year 500, secular book production had effectively gone underground.' Moller enhances our understanding of the period from late antiquity until the Renaissance by highlighting the many cities where knowledge continued to thrive during the Medieval era, and where important manuscripts were lovingly translated and protected while elsewhere they had been reduced to ashes."

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
2. Girl Woman Other, by Bernardine Evaristo
3. Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng
4. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson
5. Flights, by Olga Tokarczuk
6. Milwaukee Noir, edited by Tim Hennessy
7. We're All in This Together, by Amy Jones
8. Little Women (movie-tie-in and Penguin Classic), by Louisa May Alcott
9. Ohio, by Stephen Markley
10. Light It Up V3, by Nick Petrie (trade and mass market)

We had a nice holiday pop on all of Nick Petrie's novels, not just because it's gift-giving time, but because book #5, The Wild One, is just about here. Join us for the preview launch on January 13, and if you pre-order, you'll get a discount on the book and a Nick Petrie ice scraper, being that the new book is set in Iceland. Tear It Down was actually #11 this past week.

While The Bookish Life of Nina Hill lagged a bit the last week (though we're still in the top 5 reporting indies for sales), we still had a very strong paperback original top 10, with four titles taking spots. Aside from Girl Woman Other, we're #1 or #2 on Edelweiss for reporting indies. I guess that's not surprising for Milwaukee Noir (as it's set here) or We're All in This Together (being that it seems to be off the radar of most other stores) but it is a little strange for Book Woman, a novel set in Kentucky. We'll never catch the #1 store, but we're a solid #2. I've also noticed that Book Woman (also Bookish Life) hit the #50 paperback fiction bestsellers for Milwaukee on Bookscan, which was not the case on other Midwestern market-area charts, so our enthusiasm had an impact outside the store.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference, by Greta Thunberg
2. 111 Places in Milwaukee That You Must Not Miss, by Michelle Madden
3. Calypso, by David Sedaris
4. Field Guide to Birds of Wisconsin, by Chuck Hagner
5. The Library Book, by Susan Orlean
6. The Fifth Risk, by Michael Lewis
7. Classic Krakauer, by Jon Krakauer
8. Just Mercy, by Bryan Stephenson (original and tie-in edition)
9. Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari
10. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan

Finally, it's great to see some film tie-ins working. While our sales on I Heard You Paint Houses/The Irishman have been ok, several other books have not taken off, though I should note that fall wasn't great for adaptation success. Now we have Little Women in fiction and Just Mercy in nonfiction. Here's AO Scott's review in The New York Times, where he notes that "Just Mercy is saved from being an earnest, inert courtroom drama when it spends time on death row, where it is opened up and given depth by two strong, subtle performances, from Foxx and Rob Morgan."

Books for Kids:
1. Fetch-22 V8, by Dav Pilkey
2. Guts by Raina Telgemeier
3. Guide to Creating Comics in 3D: Dog Man, by Kate Howard
4. Children of Virtue and Vengeance V2, by Tomi Adeyemi
5. The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats
6. The Story Orchestra: Swan Lake, by Jessica Courtney Tickle
7. Lulu and Rocky in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse, with illustrations by Renee Graef
8. Children of Blood and Bone V1, by Tomi Adeyemi
9. Fountains of Silence, by Ruta Septys
10. I Am a Bunny, by Ole Risom, with illustration by Richard Scarry

We have several big fans of Ruta Sepetys on staff and I'm happy to tell them that The Fountains of Silence has passed her hit Salt to the Sea in hardcover sales at Boswell. We went on to have a huge sale in paperback for Salt so it will be nice to see how the latest does. From Sarah Harrison Smith in The New York Times: "Spain under Francisco Franco is as dystopian a setting as Margaret Atwood’s Gilead in Ruta Sepetys’s suspenseful, romantic and timely new work of historical fiction, The Fountains of Silence. It’s 1957, but Franco’s isolationist policies and a powerful Catholic Church ensure that Spanish women are treated like chattel, Spanish babies lack basic medical care and Republican sympathizers end their days laboring like slaves. Even in Madrid, ordinary Spaniards live in fear and poverty."

Over at the Journal Sentinel, Brian Truitt of USA Today reviews the new memoir from by Anthony Daniels: "I Am C-3PO: The Inside Story is the 73-year-old British actor’s new memoir chronicling his more than 40 years spent on “Star Wars” sets playing the fan-favorite droid. The eccentric Threepio is fluent in 6 million forms of communication, and Daniels feels his book is just as universal."

Jeff Rowe of Associated Press reviews Disney’s Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park that Changed the World: "The book suggests lessons that extend to today: Passion for an idea and a plan are important, but so is research. Disney’s focus and self-confidence allowed him to push on despite family and friends who told him that an amusement park was folly."

Will Lester, also of AP, covers the political thriller Oppo, new from Tom Rosenstiel: "The novel looks at the story of Wendy Upton, a centrist Republican senator offered the VP slot by leading presidential candidates from both parties. Very soon, she gets a mysterious threatening call that could derail her career... Through the adventures of Rena and Brooks, he tells how these political dramas can play out, with a good eye for Washington detail and characters."

Addendum: Here's an article in the Journal Sentinel about the state of independent bookstores, including Boswell.

Boswell Kids Bestsellers, week ending December 21, 2019

Boswell Kids Bestsellers, week ending December 21, 2019

Picture books, including board books"
1. The Snowy Day board book, Ezra Jack Keats
2. The Crayons Christmas, by Drew Daywalt, with illustrations by Oliver Jeffers
3. The Wake Up Farm Peek-a-boo, by Jonny Lambert
4. Peek-a-Who, by Elsa Mroziewicz
5. A to Z Menagerie, by Suzy Ultman
6. I Wonder, by Kari Anne Holt, with illustrations by Kenard Pak
7. Pigeon Needs a Bath (with bath toy), by Mo Willems
8. Peek-a-Who Too, by Elsa Mroziewicz
9. The Mitten board book, by Jan Brett
10. Dinosnores, by Sandra Boynton
11. The Lost Cousins, by BB Cronin
12. The Snowy Nap, by Jan Brett
13. Dasher, by Matt Tavares
14. Home in the Woods, by Eliza Wheeler
15. A Friendship Yarn, by Lisa Moser, with illustrations by Olga Demidova
16. Lulu and Rock in Milwaukee, by Barbara Joosse, with illustrations by Renée Graef

This list is heavily board book, which reflects Amie's comment that board books really blew up this year. Now I feel like I should have separated the two! And yes, we are paying our bills with Snowy Day stamps again this year.

More about Kari Anne Holt's  I Wonder from the publisher: "In this unusual text, young listeners and readers follow a group of diverse kids trying to make sense of the world as they see it. Questions such as What do clouds taste like?, Do my toys miss me when I'm gone?, and I wonder if cars and trucks speak the same language? remind us of a child's unique point of view. Nothing is more powerful than seeing something for the first time, and these whimsical questions will encourage all readers to take a fresh look around them."

Kids Nonfiction:
1. Troublemaker for Justice: The Story of Bayard Rustin, by Jacqueline Houtman (event Jan 8 at Boswell, 6:30 pm)
2. Guide to Creating Comics in 3D: Dog Man, by Kate Howard
3. The Wonders of Nature, by Ben Hoare
4. Planetarium, by Raman Prinja
5. Complete Baking Book for Young Chefs, by America's Test Kitchen
6. Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs, by America's Test Kitchen
7. Greek Myths and Mazes, by Jan Bajtlik
8. Migration, by Mike Unwin

We didn't have a book like National Parks this year, but the category still seems to be growing.

Chapter Books (including graphica):
1. Fetch-22 V8, by Dav Pilkey
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire illustrated V4, by JK Rowling, illustrated by Jim Kay
3. Ivy and Bean V1, by Annie Barrows and Sophie Blackall
4. The White Bird, by RJ Palacio
5. The Wrecking Ball V14, by Jeff Kinney
6. Pax, by Sara Pennypacker
7. Wild Honey from the Moon, by Kenneth Kraegel (some would place this in picture books)
8. A Wolf Called Wander, by Rosanne Parry
9. The Crossover graphic novel, by Kwame Alexander
10. Guts, by Raina Telgemeier

Young Adult/Teen:
1. Butterfly Yellow, by Thanhha Lai
2. The Secret Commonwealth V2, by Philip Pullman
3. Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All, by Laura Ruby (this is Amie's book of the year)
4. Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds
5. Children of Virtue and Vengeance CV2, by Tomi Adeyemi
6. Fountains of Silence, by Ruta Sepetys
7. The Toll V3, by Neal Shusterman
8. Dry, by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman

You can only imagine how the Shusterman books would be doing if we had signed copies. Still hoping for our fall event to be rescheduled.

After I try to separate kids books out, I know why I group them together. There are so many books that could go in multiple designations.

We're open 10 am to 5 pm today. Closed Christmas.

Boswell's paperback bestsellers for the week ending December 21, 2019

Here are some more bestseller lists!

Paperback Fiction
1. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
2. The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, by Abby Waxman
3. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson
4. Milwaukee Noir, edited by Tim Hennessy
5. Girl Woman Other, by Bernardine Evaristo
6. Unsheltered, by Barbara Kingstolver
7. Killing Commendatore, by Haruki Murakami
8. Best American Short Stories 2019, edited by Anthony Doerr
9. The Librarian of Auschwitz special edition, by Antonio Iturbe
10. We're All in This Together, by Amy Jones
11. Ohio, by Stephen Markley
12. The Driver V1, by Nick Petrie
13. The Apple Tree, by Daphne DuMaurier, with illustrations by Seth
14. Florida, by Lauren Groff
15. There There, by Tommy Orange
16. The Way of Kings V1, by Brandon Sanderson (Ogi's handselling go-to)
17. Elevation, by Stephen King
18. The Great Alone, by Kristin Hannah
19. Flights, by Olga Tokarczuk

To put the list in perspective, we sold well more than twice as many copies of The Overstory as the #2 book.

What else can we note here? For one thing, four of our top five books are paperback originals, though I should note there are only two others scattered in the top 20, the always paperback original Best American Short Stories and The Apple Tree (we're out of it) the top seller from the Seth graphic Christmas stories that is so popular. It's from Biblioasis.

The Librarian of Auschwitz came out in 2017 as a young adult novel, but when they did the paperback release, they decided to do both an adult and a kids version. The adult one is a hit, probably helped along by sounding connected to that 2018 hit that is still #1 on the bestseller lists, The Tattooist of Auschwitz. That means every major adult bestseller list is dominated by a book published more than a year ago in its current edition - Educated, Where the Crawdads Sing, and I Hear You Paint Houses, which doesn't quite count as its also a newly released movie tie-in as The Irishman.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference, by Greta Thunberg
2. Field Guide to Birds of Wisconsin, by Charles Hagner/American Birding Association
3. These Truths, by Jill Lepore
4. 111 Places in Milwaukee You Must Not Miss, by Michelle Madden
5. Magnificent Machines of Milwaukee, by Thomas H Fehring
6. Leadership, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
7. The Fifth Risk, by Michael Lewis
8. Classic Krakauer, by Jon Krakauer
9. Instant Loss, by Brittany Williams (signed copies available)
10. Calypso, by David Sedaris
11. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan
12. St Francis of Assisi, by Jon M Sweeney
13. The Impeachment Report, by the House Intelligence Committee (Jon Meacham introduction)
14. Numbers in Minutes, by Julia Collins
15. Think Little, by Wendell Berry
16. Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah
17. Upstream, by Mary Oliver
18. The Library Book, by Susan Orlean
19. Erebus, by Michael Palin
20. The Wisconsin Story, by Dennis McCann

I'd say there are only four regional books on the list this week, but I can't remember if that's high or low. First time showing is Dennis McCann's The Wisconsin Story, which launched locally at the Milwaukee County Historical Society.

Erebus: One Ship, Two Epic Voyages, and the Greatest Naval Mystery of All Time is the latest from Michael Palin - yes, that Michael Palin, a reprint of a Greystone book from 2018. This is the quote that delivers, from Bill Bryson: "Beyond terrific. I didn't want it to end." We're out of it!

Michael Lewis's The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy, is hovering a little higher, in our top ten. For that quote, we'll go to Cory Doctorow: "A hymn to the Deep State, which is revealed as nothing more than people who know what they're talking about."

And finally, we're having a very nice post-event sale for Jon M Sweeney's St Francis of Assisi - we won't have more stock until after Christmas. Sweeney told me that he plans to launch his next book in...Assisi.

Oh, and if someone told you they liked How to Bake Pi, Julia Collins's Numbers in Minutes is a good gift idea, but not from us, not this Christmas - we're out! Collins, among her other accomplishments (she's currently Outreach Officer at the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute), organized the first Math Crafts Festival - which I'm assuming was either in Scotland or Australia.

Despite us being out of a lot of titles I've highlighted, Boswell is packed with books. I'm sure we'd find titles to check off every person on your holiday gift list - if there's a copy on hand on the Boswell Books website, it might be available, but it also might be on hold or otherwise temporarily displaced. You should probably call or email us first if you're looking for a particular book. And don't forget, if it says "ships in 1-5 days," it means the book is not in stock but is orderable. Browsing is best at this point! We're open 10 am to 5 pm today and closed on Christmas.

Boswell hardcover nonfiction bestseller list for the week ending December 21, 2019, featuring Milwaukee Rock and Roll, 1950-2000

Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers for the week ending December 21, 2019

1. Milwaukee Rock and Roll, 1950-2000, by David Luhrssen, Phil Naylor, Bruce Cole et al
2. The Body, by Bill Bryson
3. Climbing My Mountain, by Sheldon Lubar
4. Talking to Strangers, by Malcolm Gladwell
5. Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds, by Ian Wright
6. The Book of Delights, by Ross Gay
7. The Yellow House, by Sarah M Broom (I'm reading this now)
8. Strange Planet, by Nathan W Pyle (I watched the YouTube interview to understand this phenomenon more)
9. Salt Fat Acid Heat, by Samin Nosrat
10. The People's Team, by Mark Beech
11. The Movie Musical!, by Jeanine Basinger
12. Atlas Obscura 2E, by Dylan Thuras, Joshua Foer, Emma Morton
13. The Boy the Horse the Fox and the Mole, by Charlie Mackesy
14. Blue Zones Kitchen, by Dan Buettner
15. The Education of an Idealist, by Samantha Power
16. The Joy of Cooking 2019 edition, ediuted by Irma S Bombauer et al
17. The Map of Knowledge, by Violet Moller
18. The Years That Matter Most, by Paul Tough
19. 100 Years in Titletown, by Vernon and Jim Biever
20. Lakota America, by Pekka Hamalainen

It turns out that two of our top 3 bestsellers in this category were for books we didn't know about until after late November, which is why neither was featured in our holiday newsletter mailing. We have signed copies of Milwaukee Rock and Roll, 1950-2000, and copies of Sheldon Lubar's Climbing My Mountain.

Chris's nonfiction pick of the season is The Book of Delights, which has has had very strong sales in the weeks leading to Christmas.

Much like the fiction list, the nonfiction list is dominated by 2018 titles, with Educated at #1 and Becoming at #3. For the most part, we are not having a huge second holiday with either, but Salt Fat Acid Heat, a 2018 title, is our #1 cookbook. I think this is partly due to Nosrat appearing at UWM in October.

In general, higher-priced gift titles are not dominating our list - only four titles in our top nonfiction titles are priced over $35, including both cookbooks mentioned (which, by the way, are both from Simon imprints), Edison (list price $38) and the second edition of Atlas Obscura, which also benefited from a fall visit. A third cookbook is on the list, Blue Zones Kitchen, but is priced lower, at $30. Demand was very high for this, following a second book that didn't sell as well for us.

Our top selling title this week is from Marquette University Press, but then you have to jump to #20 to find our second university press title, Lakota America from Yale, which is actually just before Leo Damrosch's The Club, also from Yale.

And finally, Bill Bryson's The Body is by far his bestselling hardcover at Boswell, not just outselling the previous high (At Home, 2010) by more than 50%, but also beating any books on record from the last five years of the Downer Avenue Schwartz Bookshop. Malcolm Gladwell's Talking to Strangers has not matched either David and Goliath (which had a sold out event) or Outliers, which came out at the end of the Schwartz era, but sold well into the age of Boswell. Maybe if it gets another year.

Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers for the week ending December 21, 2019

Here are the Boswell hardcover fiction bestsellers for the busiest week of the year, December 15-21, 2019. I'm going to post each category separately, just so I can make sure some get out.

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett
2. The Water Dancer, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
3. The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood
4. The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
5. Olive Again, by Elizabeth Strout
6. The Topeka School, by Ben Lerner
7. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens (The NYT article on the biggest bestseller of 2019)
8. Exhalation, by Ted Chiang
9. The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern
10. Girl in the Rearview Mirror, by Kelsey Rae Dimberg (the big local author fiction hardcover)
11. Complete and Original Norwegian Folktales, edited by Peter Christen Asbjornsen
12. The Disappearing Earth, by Julia Phillips
13. Red at the Bone, by Jaqueline Woodson
14. The Grammarians, by Cathleen Schine
15. The Guardians, by John Grisham
16. The Giver of Stars, by John Grisham
17. The World That We Knew, by Alice Hoffman
18. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, by Olga Tokarczuk
19. The Lost Children Archive, by Valeria Luiselli
20. Trust Exercise, by Susan Choi (National Book Award winner)

One change from 2018 - we had a lot of hardcover fiction events where the books took off and a full 7 of the top 20 were post-event successes in this category. This year it was just 4. Several big genre fiction events did not translate into large holiday sales with signed copies, and some of our literary sleepers remained a bit sleepy.

Cathleen Schine's The Grammarians has now sold 50% more than her last, They May Not Mean to but They Do. And that book blew away Fin and Lady in paperback sales. We're just about to pass Fin in hardcover sales, and that was with an event. We'll see what the paperback holds.

Another breakout is Ben Lerner's The Topeka School. We're move than doubled sales of 10:04, his 2014 novel. It helps that this was Chris's book of the year. It is also one of the New York Times ten-best books. Knopf/Doubleday dominated this list, which is not unusual for them, and that has led to a number of sales pops. Four of the five novels cited are in our top 20, including Knopf/Doubleday's The Lost Children Archive and The Disappearing Earth. For some reason, Night Boat to Tangier is the laggard.

At least at Boswell, it was better for Louise Penny to be released in late November than late August. We still have several days to go before the end of the year, but A Better Man is 37 copies short of what we sold of Kingdom of the Blind. My guess is that the August release date gives the publisher better placement at mass merchants.

Seven of the top 15 New York Times bestsellers are in our top 15.  If you'd like to order or hold a copy of one of the books in this blog post, visit our website.