Kathleen Rooney with Caitlin Horrocks discuss Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey, Maggie O'Farrell and Jane Hamilton talk Hamnet, plus don't forget about tonight's event for Kirkland Hamill's Filthy Beasts (with Christina Clancy)

Tuesday, August 18, 6:00 pm (note updated time)
Kathleen Rooney, author of Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey
in conversation with Caitlin Horrocks for a virtual event

We’re pleased to host a virtual event with the author of the beloved Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk. Rooney will chat about her new novel, based on the incredible true story of a WWI messenger pigeon and the soldiers whose lives she forever altered. She'll chat with Caitlin Horrocks, author of The Vexations. Broadcast via Zoom, registration is required to view this event. Click right here and register today! Purchase a copy of Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey from Boswell Book Company for 20% off list price – paperback link above. Hardcover edition also available here.

Daniel's rec: "In her latest compelling novel, the author of Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk reimagines the Lost Batallion incident of World War I through two iconic historical figures, Major Charles ‘Whit’ Whittlesey and Cher Ami, the homing pigeon who got through enemy lines when others failed. As was the case in another recent pick of mine, The Story of a Goat, Cher Ami tells her own story and brings to vivid life what we ask of animals in the service of humans, in addition to the sadly familiar notes on the toll of war. Whit and Cher Ami’s stories offer pointed parallels: both are destroyed by battle, one physically and the other emotionally. And while Whit lives the life of a closeted gay man, Cher Ami also has a queer identity - mistaken by most for a male pigeon, she is actually a female, and the love of her life is another female pigeon, Baby Mine - keep in mind that this is historical fiction with a capital F. Rooney hones in on the connections between the two stories with repeated opening sentences in consecutive chapters, a touch similar to one I really enjoyed in The Maze at Windermere. Those who loved Lillian Boxfish will enjoy an old New York brought to life, as well as the celebration of a life - no, two lives - that are consigned to the margins of history. And while I should warn readers that it takes some time to acclimate to the pacing of the story, by the end, I couldn’t stop reading."

How we booked this event: Have I mentioned our success with Lillian enough for one blog post? And with the help of avid readers in the Milwaukee community (here's a shout out, Nancy Quinn), we wound up selling hundreds of copies and brought Rooney in paperback to two area libraries for a book club talk. But what about the new book? Under Life with Covid: The Series, a lot of publishers have cut back on print advance copies and I'm just having a dickens of a time reading ebooks. So here's a second shout out to our rep Stefan Moorehead, who got permission print a copy of the book for me. We made contact with Rooney's publicist and a date was set.

Wednesday, August 19, 2:00 pm
Maggie O'Farrell, author of Hamnet - just came back into stock!
in conversation with Jane Hamilton for a virtual event

Boswell Book Company and Inklink Books of East Troy, WI kick off their joint Ink/Well virtual event series with Costa Award winning author Maggie O’Farrell for a chat about her latest, Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague. She’ll be in conversation with Wisconsin’s own Jane Hamilton, author of The Excellent Lombards and The Book of Ruth. Broadcast via Zoom, registration is required to view this event. Click right here to register right now! Purchase a copy of Hamnet for 20% off list price right here from Boswell Book Company, or call InkLink Books to place an order at (262) 642-9607.

O'Farrell, author of This Must Be the Place and the memoir I Am I Am I Am, now brings us a deeply moving novel about the death of Shakespeare's 11 year old son Hamnet - a name interchangeable with Hamlet in 15th century Britain - and the years leading up to the production of his great play. The novel returns us to another, far earlier time of widespread disease: England in 1580.

Writing for The New York Times, Geraldine Brooks (People of the Book) says, "Hamnet is an exploration of marriage and grief written into the silent opacities of a life that is at once extremely famous and profoundly obscure... This novel is at once about the transfiguration of life into art - it is O'Farrell's extended speculation on how Hamnet's death might have fueled the creation of one of his father's greatest plays - and at the same time, it is a master class in how she, herself, does it."

The booking bits: Here's another case where we started with a conversation partner. After Jane Hamilton's wonderful interview with Gail Tsukiyama (you can watch the interview here), we were chatting about who she'd most like to interview. One of the nice things about life in the time of virtual events is that we're not bound by geography. Maggie O'Farrell will be talking to Jane six hours in the future. The Ink/Well collaboration seemed natural - Kayleen Rohrer's store in East Troy is Jane's local hangout and were O'Farrell to visit Milwaukee, Inklink would have likely made a dinner to celebrate the occasion.

Sunday, August 23, 1:00 pm
Emma Jane Unsworth, author of Grown Ups
in conversation with Chris Lee for a virtual event

Boswell hosts a virtual event with British author Emma Jane Unsworth for a chat about her latest, one of Bustle’s Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2020 and a favorite of several Boswell booksellers. It’s Fleabag meets Conversations with Friends in this brutally honest book about living online. She’ll chat with Boswell Book Company’s Chris Lee. Broadcast via Zoom, registration is required to view this event. Click right here and register today! Purchase a copy of Grown Ups from Boswell Book Company for 20% off list price.

Boswellians absolutely love this edgy debut. Chris says, “this book is so good it’s giving me anxiety attacks.” Madi says, “I cannot stress enough how well this book handles the stigmas and struggles that women face, including female relationships that are much more than catty bickering. Grown Ups makes you want to hug your best friends and call your mother.” Kira calls it, “a quirky, she's-already-come-of-age novel with a cast of characters that you can't stand and can't believe you so clearly identify with.” And Parker adds, “Unsworth tosses the falling tree and the forest aside and asks the question, 'if I don't post about it did it really matter? And what happens if no one cares?'”

Jenny McLaine’s life is falling apart. Her friendships are flagging. Her body has failed her. She’s just lost her column at The Foof because she isn’t the fierce voice new feminism needs. Her ex has gotten together with another woman. And worst of all: Jenny’s mother is about to move in. Having left home at eighteen to remake herself as a self-sufficient millennial, Jenny is now in her thirties and nothing is as she thought it would be. Least of all adulthood.

The backstory: Here's a case where I watched Chris hand-selling Unsworth's novel to one bookseller after another and thought, we should bottle that, and short of that, we should ask Gallery if Unsworth would do an event with us. Much like O'Farrell, Unsworth will be signing onto the conversation from across the Pond.

And don't forget tonight!
Monday, August 17, 6:00 pm (note updated time)
Kirkland Hamill, author of Filthy Beasts
in conversation with Christina Clancy for a virtual event

Hamill discusses his debut memoir, the riches-to-rags tale of a wealthy family who lost it all and the unforgettable journey of a man coming to terms with his family’s deep flaws and his own long-buried truths. He’ll chat with Wisconsin’s Christina Clancy, author of The Second Home. Broadcast via Zoom, you can register with this link for this virtual event. And purchase your copy of Filthy Beasts for 20% off list price from Boswell Book Company.

Chris Lee's rec: "Filthy Beasts is a chronicle of family wounds accrued during a childhood lived between extremes – the crustiest of upper crust New York and exile from elite society to his alcoholic mother’s native Bermuda. Hamill is that rare beast, a most generous kind of memoirist who opens up his entire world to you, without hedging or over-explanation, and trusts you to understand it. Particularly sensitive is his writing about brotherhood and the childhood traumas which resulted from necessary self-preservation yet delayed his own self-discovery. An honest, elegantly bold book."

In The New York Times Book Review, Jason Sheeler writes, "Hamill’s tragicomic memoir [is] about survival - and recovery: of his identity, memories and compassion for his mother... Wendy deserves placement in the gay canon, somewhere between Endora on Bewitched and Jessica Lange in anything directed by Ryan Murphy."

How we booked this event! I was talking to Christi Clancy about how with the success of The Second Home, it would be great to put something together with her as conversation partner. We decided that this would be a great pairing, and Chris (see above) had already read and loved Filthy Beasts. He convinced me to read it as well and the rest is history. Note the time change, so that we'd be more out of the way of the virtual DNC.

More on the Boswell Upcoming Events Page.

Photo credits: Maggie O'Farrell by Murdo Macleod, Emma Jane Unsworth by Alex Lake, Kirkland Hamill by Sieglinde Friedman

Boswell bestsellers, week ending August 15, 2020

Here are the Boswell bestseller for the week ending August 15, 2020.

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett
2. If I Had Two Wings, by Randall Kenan (watch our Boswell virtual event here)
3. Hamnet, by Maggie O'Farrell (register for our 8/19, 2 pm event here)
4. Migrations, by Charlotte McConaghy
5. Three Hours in Paris, by Cara Black (watch our Boswell virtual event here)
6. American Dirt, by Jeanine Cummins (#2 in hardcover Bookscan sales for 2020 so far)
7. Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens (#1 in hardcover fiction Bookscan sales for 2020 so far)
8. The Guest List, by Lucy Foley
9. Writers and Lovers, by Lily King
10. We Ride Upon Sticks, by Quan Barry (and yes, here's that Boswell virtual event video)

If you've been aching for the next great work of climate fiction, many critics are reccommending Migrations, from Charlotte McConaghy, which looks at a world with many extinctions. From Ellen Morton at The Washington Post: "The beauty and the heartbreak of this novel is that it’s not preposterous. It feels true and affecting, elegiac and imminent ... Franny has an irresistible gravitational pull. The mystery of her bleak grief draws you in. Her affinity for the natural world, especially birds, is nearly mythical. She seems heroically strong, but within her first-person narrative, we see she feels just as human and as helpless as the rest of us ... The fractured timeline fills each chapter with suspense and surprises, parceled out so tantalizingly that it took disciplined willpower to keep from skipping down each page to see what happens."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Caste, by Isabel Willkerson
2. It Was All a Lie, by Stuart Stevens
3. Filthy Beasts, by Kirkland Hamill (register for our 8/17, 6 pm event here)
4. The Splendid and the Vile, by Erik Larson
5. Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
6. Evil Geniuses, by Kurt Anderson
7. Untamed, by Glennon Doyle
8. How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi
9. A Very Punchable Face, by Colin Jost
10. The Lazy Genius Way, by Kendra Adachi 

Hopping on our chart the first week out is Kurt Anderson's Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America, A Recent History. The author of Heyday and and Turn of the Century looks at the successful if disturbing remaking of America. Per the publisher: "Beginning in the early 1970s, by means of a long war conceived of and executed by a confederacy of big business CEOs, the superrich, and right-wing zealots, the rules and norms that made the American middle class possible were undermined and dismantled." Here's The NYT review from Anand Giridharadas.

Paperback Fiction: 
1. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. All the Right Mistakes, by Laura Jamison (watch our Boswell virtual event here)
3. Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey, by Kathleen Rooney (register for our 8/18, 6 pm event here)
4. A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams
5. The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
6. Hamlet (Ignatius edition), by William Shakespeare
7. The Need, by Helen Phillips (register for our 10/5, 5:30 pm event here)
8. Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
9. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
10. The Crucible, by Arthur Miller 

It's not easy to follow a book for us as big as Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk. Just look at the books this year that hardly made a splash, after their previous books sold 100 of copies at Boswell. 

--Katherine Bivald's Welcome to the Pine Away Motel - previous book is The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend

--Hannah Rothschild's The House of Trelawney, which came after The Impossibility of Love

--Audur Ava Olafsdottir's Miss Iceland, the next book after Hotel Silence

You can't call it the sophomore slump, as the books we touted were not debuts. You can blame COVID to an extent, because hand-selling is taking a beating, at least the in-store kind. Let's hope that Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey escapes this fate. 

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Don't Know Much About History, by Kenneth C. Davis
2. Wildflowers of Wisconsin, by Stan Tekiela
3. Birds of Wisconsin, by Stan Tekiela
4. Trees of Wisconsin, by Stan Tekiela
5. Say Nothing, by Patrick Radden Keefe (Read the book? Register for our In-Store Lit Group discussion on 8/29 here)
6. Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
7. Intimations, by Zadie Smith
8. What's Your Enneatype?, by Liz Carver
9. The Truths We Hold, by Kamala Harris
10. Evicted, by Matthew Desmond 

It was a savvy move to package The Truths We Hold just in advance of the vice president selection, though I suppose it would have been a less savvy one had Kamala Harris not been picked. By replacing the adult Kamala with her childhood image, I think the book looks more like a memoir than a campaign platform and recalls Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father. Note below that the Kamala Harris picture book, Kamala and Maya's Big Idea, written by her niece Meena was at one point going to be an event at Boswell today, in advance of the rescheduled DNC, before it went 99% virtual.

Books for Kids:
1. Kamala and Maya's Big Idea, by Meena Haris, with illustrations by Ana Rami Gonzalez
2. Midnight Sun, by Stephenie Harris
3. You Matter, by Christian Robinson
4. The Very Last Leaf, by Stef Wade (watch highlights from our virtual event here)
5. This Book Is Anti Racist, by Tiffany Jewell
6. Stamped, by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
7. Antiracist Baby Board Book, by Ibram X. Kendi with illustrations by Ashley Lukashevsky
8. Rite of Passage, by Richard Wright
9. When We Were Very Young, by A.A. Milne
10. Queen of the Nile V3 Cleopatra in Space, by Mike Maihack 

I wasn't really aware of the Cleopatra in Space series so it's interesting to me that we had a pop on Queen of the Nile, book six in paperback - and yes, this is a real pop, not a school sale. It's a kids graphic novel series with an endorsement from one of the stars of the genre, Raina Telgemeier, who calls Cleo "A fun, fearless heroine - I'd love to explore the galaxy with her!" If you or young reader hasn't picked up the series, you might want to start with #1, Target Practice.

Over at the Journal Sentinel, Margot Armbruster reviews Money, Marriage, and Madness, a biography of Anna Ott from Kim Neilsen and published by University of Illinois Press. Armbruster notes: "When Kim E. Nielsen first encountered Anna Ott, a 19-century woman who served for nearly two decades as Madison’s only female doctor, she thought Ott would occupy no more than a few paragraphs of her work. But then Nielsen learned Ott had been accused of assault, gender nonconformity and even bank robbery before being committed to an insane asylum." Please note that while this book is orderable from Boswell, it's possible that the price might be higher than the suggested list price is the same as the net price for us at our wholesaler. If you are patient, we'll likely be able to get you a copy at the price quoted. 

What Did the Book Club Think? A Retrospective of three discussions - Lost Children Archive, Trust Exercise, Miracle Creek

What Did the Book Club Think? A Retrospective

Three of our book clubs are chugging along virtually through Boswell and a fourth one, the Mystery Group, has spun off on their own for now. We’ve got booksellers hoping to start two more, but everything moves slowly in the age of COVID. And even before the age of COVID.

Here is a round-up of the last three books that we’ve read.

June’s selection was Lost Children Archive, by Valeria Luiselli. This is a twist on a classic road novel. A mother and father take their two kids to a project in Arizona. Dad is an audio ethnographer and is interested in documented Apache Indian history while Mom has been charged with finding out what happened to the children of an undocumented refugee who insists that her kids are still out there after a failed border crossing, despite Mom fearing the worst. The story is told mostly from the mother’s perspective and is structured as a series of boxes or archives.

Valeria Luiselli wrote the book inspired by her experiences working as, per Jeffrey Brown of the PBS News Hour “an interpreter for children seeking to remain in the US,” and actually wrote Tell Me How It Ends, her book of essays, while the in the midst of writing her novel. Many of the attendees felt the story really kicked into gear when the perspective changed from mother to son. This book was named one of the ten-best books of 2019 by The New York Times and was praised by its sensitive portrayal of migrants without co-opting their stories. In a way, it’s a counterpoint to American Dirt. I am reading so many books with nameless protagonists that I simply have to adapt to this, but sometimes I just buck a trend and hope I’ll like the next thing better.

I bought my copy at RoscoeBooks in Roscoe Village, on my last trip out of town before the COVID shutdown. I recall not touching anybody. The store is wonderful, by the way. I can see why I’ve heard so much good about it. Lost Children Archive is a book that makes no bones about what it is – an intellectual book for a sophisticated reader. The story is filled with maps and photographs, as well as various inventories. You will never mistake it for genre or escapist entertainment, and it’s hard to imagine it would be adapted to a film or streaming series by anyone but the auteuriest auteur. I admired the book for the achievement it was, and that’s probably the way I would sell it. We’re in a multiple tie for 15th place on Edelweiss’s inventory-sharing database of independent bookstores. That seems about right. The book club was mixed.

On the other hand, it is not surprising to imagine reading Susan Choi’s Trust Exercise and think you’re reading a plot-driven book. For much of the book, you think you’re reading a high school novel about a theater program at an arts high school, focused on a boy and girl with a relationship that might remind you a bit of Sally Rooney’s Normal People. It makes you squirm a bit, especially when you read about the acting exercises which first of all, didn’t seem to have much to do with acting, and second of all, didn’t seem appropriate for a high school. I suppose this could devolve into a discussion about whether acting experimental acting techniques create amazing actors or are more psychological obstacle courses. In a way it reminded me of the different ways to write fiction.

But the true thing about this book is that writing about it is a spoiler minefield. Several folks have compared it to Asymmetry in that there are three parts and the book is very much about writing and perspective. They are triptychs of a sort, but uneven ones, with much of the story weighted towards the first third, which is both sets up the thesis and offers hints about how said thesis will be destroyed later on. Several of us loved this, but there were definitely discussion participants who did not love the rug being pulled out from under them.

Our paperback sales have really been hurt by the lack of browsing, and one idea I’ve had is to do spoiler author events – book club discussions on a larger scale where you only join if you’ve read the book, knowing that we’re not going to keep any climaxes or twists from attendees. I’d really love one for this, especially after I watched videos with Susan Choi. Unlike Luiselli’s book, where some people liked it, others disliked it, but nobody was visceral, this book was more polarizing. People either loved it or hated it. I think it’s because Lost Children Archive never promises to be anything other than it is, but Trust Exercise throws a curve ball. Much like Asymmetry, the secrets in the final third (hardly a third of the novel) were hard for me to unlock without help, which is why this makes a good book club book.

I will note that we’re number 4 on Edelweiss's bookseller sales sharing site (all stores anonymous, though we know who we are), which is much higher than I would hope to be. Remember, Trust Exercise won the National Book Award and was on many best-of lists for 2019. I think this book’s paperback release was when a lot of bookstores had their doors closed and many booksellers couldn’t even inhabit their stores. Instead, they sold off of Ingram’s direct-to-home and the Bookshop website. We don't participate in Bookshop at this time, but I know many indies do. Did you love Trust Exercise? My favorite New York book critic Bill Goldstein on Today in New York suggests you read Yiyun Lee's Must I Go, another novel that uses structure to tell a larger truth about storytelling.

Finally we have a novel that appealed to the plotties in our group – Miracle Creek, by Angie Kim. When Jason put this book in legal thrillers, I looked at the cover and thought, really? But he was completely on the mark – the entire novel is told as a courtroom trial. Set in suburban Virginia, it’s set in the aftermath of a fire at Miracle Submarine that killed two of patients getting oxygen therapy. The business is run by a family of Korean immigrants, but after the devastating event, the father Pak is in a wheelchair and his daughter Mary has been in a coma. But Elizabeth is on trial, a mom who skipped treatment and was caught with cigarettes that might have set the fire.

The hyperbaric oxygen chamber is used to treat a number of conditions. Matt is hoping it will recharge his fertility. But many others are thinking that this treatment will affect children’s autism. At the same time these treatments are going on, a group of protesters are championing the cause that kids on the spectrum are normal and there’s no reason to change them. Elizabeth has done just about every treatment you can do, and that has led to some resentment by Teresa, Elizabeth’s seemingly only friend, when it becomes clear that Rosa isn’t responding to treatment

As the defense and prosecution call witnesses, we learn the backstory. Who is keeping secrets? Well, the answer to that one is everybody. And Kim (photo credit Tim Coburn) does a great job of weaving in what its like to be a parent of a special needs child – the great love that parents give to their children, but the frustration that sometimes accompanies this, as well as the rivalries that can sometimes arise between families whose kids have different levels of symptoms and sometimes respond differently. Kim also captures the immigrant experience – this family has sacrificed so much for America and what has it gotten them?

The story is told from various perspectives, but I think the group agreed (not consensus, mind you, but majority) that at the heart of the story is Young Yun, Pak’s wife and Mary’s mom, who we learn quickly (no spoilers) was left at the controls when Pak left to handle another problem. And the story becomes not just that of a trial with several mysteries at its center, and not just an immigrant story, and not just a special needs story, but a story that will resonate with all families.

Angie Kim has written a book that's a hybrid between Scott Turow (who praised the book) and Celeste Ng. There was almost total positivity regarding Miracle Creek, including some of the naysayers that had trouble enjoying the previous two selections.But we had one naysayer – she said, after the dense and complicated narratives we’d been tackling, this was almost too easy!

Our next In-Store Lit Group virtual meeting is on August 31, 7 pm where we’ll be discussing Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing. Here’s the link to register. Meetings are about an hour and if this is your first time, email me at daniel@boswell books.com and I’ll give you the lay of the land.

On October 5 (our September meeting is almost always the last week in August because of Labor Day), we’ll be trying something different. Once or twice a year, we’ve brought in an author to answer questions from the group, followed by a public event in the rear of the store. Sometimes the book club read the same book as the main event, sometimes the previous book. But now that we’re virtual for the moment, it made more sense to me to have the author talk about the book before our discussion. So we’re having an event with Helen Phillips, author of The Need, a novel that like Miracle Creek, is also about motherhood and also plays with genre, though in this case it’s psychological horror.

At 5:30, we’ll have a conversation with Helen Phillips that is open to all. It’s like any of our other author events, I’ll talk about The Need with Phillips, she’ll discuss writing it, what she set out to do, and so forth, only with one twist – nothing is off limits. It’s the spoiler zone. You can ask about twists and ask about the ending, which we generally haven’t allowed folks to do in author events. With that in mind, we highly recommend you read the book first. The only thing we ask is that like all author events, you respect the author and if you don’t like the book, you share that with your book club (organized or spontaneous) afterwards.

Then at 7 pm, we’ll have our regular In-Store Lit Group discussion, sans author.

I’m excited to experiment with these spoiler events. I’m just finding that without regular browsing, paperback fiction is suffering, and I’m trying to figure out something that will turn that around. And yes, I know that we could just open for regular browsing, but the truth is that stores that are open generally have much lower traffic, so either way, the browsing is greatly diminished. What I’m finding is that paperback reprints get so little promotion and publicity that our customers aren’t paying attention. We already knew that downloads were cutting into paperback sales. But it’s not so much the format as the second publication that’s suffering. Everything being paperback is one option, but many books being hardcover only is another.

It’s not helped that as prices rise, the paperback becomes closer in percentage to the hardcover price. Think about it. If a hardcover is $25 and the paperback is $15, the paperback is 40% cheaper. But if the hardcover is $30 and the paperback is $20, that’s only a 33% discount. I’ve noticed (we do this too) that hardcovers are more aggressively discounted. The print is generally smaller and the paper quality is rarely better, often worse. At the beginning of COVID, we experimented with discounting more paperbacks 20%, but we still didn’t see the pop in sales that we saw for hardcovers. So that’s where we are.

There’s a chance we might have a spoiler-friendly paperback discussion with Angie Kim for Miracle Creek too. I’ll keep you posted.

Events this week - Cara Black with Erin Lewenauer of Alliance Française, Randall Kenan with Kim Suhr of Red Oak Writing, Laura Jamison with Donna Drosner, Kirkland Hamill with Christina Clancy

Tuesday, August 11, 7:00 pm:
Cara Black, author of Three Hours in Paris
in conversation with Erin Lewenauer for a virtual event

Boswell virtually welcomes Cara Black back to Milwaukee. Author of the New York Times bestselling Aimée Leduc investigations chats about her first standalone thriller, a reimagining of history in which she brings to life Nazi-occupied Paris of 1941. Black will be in conversation with Erin Lewenauer of the Alliance Française de Milwaukee.  This event will be broadcast via Zoom, and registration is required. Click right here to register today! And purchase your copy of Three Hours in Paris from Boswell Book Company for 20% off list price.

In June of 1940, when Paris fell to the Nazis, Hitler spent a total of three hours in the City of Light - abruptly leaving, never to return. To this day, no one knows why. Cara Black, doyenne of the Parisian crime novel, imagines a young American markswoman who is recruited by British intelligence to drop into Paris with a dangerous assignment: assassinate the Führer. Black brings Occupation-era France to vivid life in this gripping story about one young woman with the temerity and drive to take on Hitler himself.

Maureen Corrigan writes in The Washington Post: "Three Hours in Paris isn’t just any old formulaic “Get out!” tale. It’s mystery master Cara Black’s first stand-alone novel, a spy story set during World War II in Occupied Paris. The premise is that an American female sharpshooter is parachuted into France to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Of course, she fails. Using wits alone, she must evade the Gestapo and make it back across the English Channel. Chances of success? Slim to none. Chances that you’ll be able to put Black’s thriller down once you’ve picked it up? Also slim to none."

Cara Black is author of nineteen books in the Aimée Leduc series and has received multiple nominations for the Anthony and Macavity Awards. Erin Lewenauer is the Event, Marketing, and Membership Coordinator of Alliance Française de Milwaukee and a book critic whose writing has appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Seattle Times, and Rain Taxi.

Wednesday, August 12, 7:00 pm:
Randall Kenan, author of If I Had Two Wings
in conversation with Kim Suhr for a virtual event

Randall Kenan, former chancellor of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, joins us virtually for his second volume of stories, a riveting collection centered in Down East North Carolina. He’ll chat with Kim Suhr, Director of Red Oak Writing, our event cosponsor.  Register for this Zoom event by clicking this link right here, and purchase your copy of If I Had Two Wings from Boswell Book Company for 20% off list price.

Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage, says “Randall Kenan is an American master and If I Had Two Wings is his latest gift to us.” Mingling the earthy with the otherworldly, shot through with humor, and seasoned by inventiveness and maturity, Kenan riffs on appetites of all kinds, on the eerie persistence of history, and on unstoppable lovers and unexpected salvations. If I Had Two Wings is a rich chorus of voices and visions, dreams and prophecies from fictional Tims Creek, NC.

Boswellians who’ve read Kenan’s collection also have good things to say. From Daniel Goldin, “Kenan’s stories are both classic and modern, folk-infused and of-the-moment, exploring race, gender, and identity. It’s been almost thirty years since Let the Dead Bury the Dead, which I still own in hardcover; Kenan’s been busy teaching and focusing on his nonfiction writing, including several books on James Baldwin. The wait was worth it!” And Chris Lee adds, "This book is something special. Kenan so well captures the atmosphere of Down East North Carolina that you’ll feel the thick inland air close on your skin as you read. Each story is a masterclass in subtle surprise, and each life is rendered so fully that once you close the pages you’ll feel you’ve also spent a lifetime in Tims Creek. You won’t want to leave."

Randall Kenan is author of A Visitation of Spirits and Let the Dead Bury Their Dead. Kenan is a biographer of James Baldwin and has written extensively about Baldwin’s work and life. He is Professor of English and comparative literature at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Kim Suhr is Director of Red Oak Writing and author of the story collection Nothing to Lose.

Thursday, August 13, 6:00 pm:
Laura Jamison, author of All the Right Mistakes
in conversation with Donna Drosner for a Virtual Event

Whitefish Bay author Jamison chats about her debut novel, a story of five college friends, all Dartmouth grads, who’ve arrived at forty in very different circumstances. It's perfect for fans of Where’d You Go, Bernadette and Big Little Lies. She’ll chat with Donna Drosner, Director and Senior Investment Consultant of Baird’s Drosner Phillips Ristau Group.  Broadcast via Zoom, this event requires registration to view – click right here to register today! And purchase your copy of All the Right Mistakes from Boswell for 10% off list price.

When successful Heather writes a wildly popular advice book detailing the key life mistakes of her four college friends, they feel the sting of her cruel words. Despite their status, these women face everyday obstacles, including work problems, parenting challenges, secondary infertility, racism, sexism, financial stress, and marital woes - and as they weather their fortieth year, each one can’t help but wonder if their life might have been different if they had followed Heather’s advice.
Kirkus calls Jamison’s debut, “Engrossing… a compelling and enjoyable ride with five women who supposedly have it all.”

Laura Jamison is an attorney based in Whitefish Bay, and a graduate of Dartmouth College and the University of Michigan Law School.

Monday, August 17, 6:00 pm (note updated time):
Kirkland Hamill, author of Filthy Beasts
in conversation with Christina Clancy for a virtual event

Hamill discusses his debut memoir, the riches-to-rags tale of a wealthy family who lost it all and the unforgettable journey of a man coming to terms with his family’s deep flaws and his own long-buried truths. He’ll chat with Wisconsin’s Christina Clancy, author of The Second Home.  Broadcast via Zoom, you can register with this link for this virtual event. And purchase your copy of Filthy Beasts for 20% off list price from Boswell Book Company.

Following a rancorous split from New York’s upper-class society, Hamill’s newly divorced mother moves the family from their East Coast elite circle to her native Bermuda, leaving the three young boys to fend for themselves as she chases after the highs of her old life: alcohol, a wealthy new suitor, and other indulgences. A fascinating window into the life of extreme privilege and a powerful story of self-acceptance, Filthy Beasts recounts Hamill’s journey through luxury hotels and charity stores, private enclaves and public shame as he confronts his family’s many imperfections, accepts his unconventional childhood, and finally comes to terms with his own secrets.

In The New York Times Book Review, Jason Sheeler writes, "Hamill’s tragicomic memoir [is] about survival - and recovery: of his identity, memories and compassion for his mother... Wendy deserves placement in the gay canon, somewhere between Endora on ‘Bewitched’ and Jessica Lange in anything directed by Ryan Murphy." And Boswell Book Company's Chris Lee adds, "Hamill is that rare beast, a most generous kind of memoirist who opens up his entire world to you, without hedging or over-explanation, and trusts you to understand it. Particularly sensitive is Hamill’s writing about brotherhood and the childhood traumas which resulted from necessary self-preservation yet delayed his own self-discovery."

Kirkland Hamill has written for Salon and The Advocate, and was formerly the chief development and marketing officer at the National Center for Family Philanthropy. Christina Clancy is author of the novel The Second Home and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune. She earned a PhD in Creative Writing at UWM.

More info on the Boswell upcoming events page.

Boswell Bestsellers for the week ending August 8, 2020

Here are the Boswell Bestsellers, for the week ending August 8, 2020

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Luster, by Raven Leilani
2. The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett
3. Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Garcia Moreno
4. American Dirt, by Jeanine Cummins
5. Migrations, by Charlotte McConaghy
6. Blacktop Wasteland, by S.A. Cosby (Watch the S.A. Cosby interview here)
7. Such a Fun Age, by Kiley Reid
8. The Color of Air, by Gail Tsukiyam (copies come with signed bookplates)
9. Harrow the Ninth V2, by Tasmyn Muir
10. A Burning, by Megha Majumdar

FSG worked very hard pre-promoting Raven Leilani's Luster, organizing pre-publication virtual events for this novel, which Zadie Smith called "Exacting, hilarious, and deadly" and also got advance quotes from Brit Bennett and Ling Ma. This story of a 20-something Black woman who falls into an older White man's open marriage and winds up living with his family, including his wife and adopted Black daughter got a great write-up from Lovia Gyarkye: "There are no perfect Black women in Raven Leilani’s debut novel, Luster, and that is by design. In a recent interview, Leilani said that she wanted to write the story of a Black woman who was not a 'pristine, neatly moral character.' And in Luster, she succeeds. Through Edie, her 23-year-old protagonist, Leilani tries to liberate the Black woman figure’s range of behaviors, thoughts, and feelings from an inherent virtuousness or exceptionalism. This choice challenges readers to recognize Edie’s agency and see her as a young Black woman in progress."

Hardcover Nonfiction:

1. Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson
2. How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi
3. Untamed, by Glennon Doyle
4. Too Much and Never Enough, by Mary Trump
5. True Crimes and Misdemeanors, by Jeffrey Toobin
6. Live Free or Die, by Sean Hannity
7. It Was All a Lie, by Stuart Stevens
8. Me and White Supremacy, by Layla F. Saad
9. What It's Like to Be a Bird, by David Sibley
10. Breath, by James Nestor

It became clear when sales started increasing exponentially for The Warmth of Other Suns that Random House had a huge hit on their hands with Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents. I'm sure that Oprah's Book Club would like to take the credit for the strong success, one of our best debut weeks of the year, but our first week has already well topped sales of her last selection, Deacon King Kong, and that's life of the book. Bilal Qureshi writes in The Washington Post: "In 1946, the Indian social reformer Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, born into Hinduism’s untouchable caste, sent a letter across oceans to the African American scholar W.E.B Du Bois. In writing about American racism, Du Bois had asked, 'Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house?' Ambedkar wrote to express his kinship with a man he saw as a fellow prisoner of a caste system, but one rarely referred to in such Indian terms. In the new book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Isabel Wilkerson traces the echoes of that correspondence to contemporary America. She reframes America’s racial divisions as the very system Ambedkar named in his letter — a rooted, historic and perpetuated caste system."

Paperback Fiction:
1. All the Right Mistakes, by Laura Jamison (register for August 13 event here)
2. The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead
3. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
4. Circe, by Madeline Miller
5. Love Poems from God, by Daniel Ladinsky
6. Citizen, by Claudia Rankine (yes, a book that is both poetry and nonfiction floats about)
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
8. City of Girls, by Elizabeth Gilbert
9. Conversations with Friends, by Sally Rooney
10. Beijing Payback, by Daniel Nieh

I have been quoting Daniel Nieh's review about S.A. Cosby's Blacktop Wasteland recently so it's nice to see his Beijing Payback novel on our bestseller list. It's about "a college basketball player who discovers shocking truths about his family in the wake of his father's murder" and heads to Beijing for revenge. Nieh spoke to Ari Shapiro at All Things Considered: If there's a moral core of the book, it's the idea that there are shades of gray that if you don't know the whole context of somebody's actions, you can't say for sure that this person who grew up in this really chaotic environment had a choice to do anything other than the crimes (what we consider crimes now, and of course were crimes in China at the time). ... I don't know if they're justified, but there's a good explanation for them." 

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. We Want to Do More than Survive, by Bettina Love
2. Walking with the Wind, by John Lewis
3. White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo
4. Intimations, by Zadie Smith
5. American Birding Association Field Guide to Birds, by Charles Hagner
6. The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel WIlkerson
7. March Volume 1, by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell
8. March Volume 2, by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell
9. March Volume 3, by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell
10. Foragers Harvest, by Samuel Thayer

The late John Lewis dominates this list with 40% of the entries. His 1998-published Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement has shown strong demand, but like many titles nowadays, is having stock issues. Here's Congressman Lewis on C-Span talking about the book and his participation in the 1963 Civil Rights March on the 40th anniversary, back in 2003. He notes that King's best oration was actually his April 4, 1967 speech against the Vietnam War.

Books for Kids:
1. Thank You, Omu, by Oge Mora
2. Midnight Sun, by Stephenie Meyer
3. You Matter, by Christian Robinson
4. Stamped by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
5. Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney
6. Zen Shorts, by Jon Muth
7. Little Dreamers, by Vashti Harrison
8. Kamala and Maya's Big Idea, by Meena Harris, with illustrations by Ana Ramirez Gonzalez
9. The One and Only Bob, by Katherine Applegate
10. Hair Love, by Matthew A. Cherry, with illustrations by Vashti Harrison

Our preorders on Midnight Sun were very good, but post-publication sales were even better. This is the long-awaited telling of Twilight through the eyes of Edward, first hinted at about ten years ago when some unauthorized excerpts were leaked. There's really no need to link to a review here - you either devour the books or you don't - and the best review I heard, on CBC's Q, has streaming issues in the United States. So why not link to the story on CNN - whether Forks, Washington will see a resurgence of tourism with the new book's release: "In 2005, before the books hit mainstream success, about 5,500 people visited the Forks Visitor Center. By 2010, the town hit its all-time peak of more than 72,000 annual visitors, according to visitor center data." 

Boswell events - S.A. Cosby of Blacktop Wasteland in conversation with Carole E Barrowman, plus next Monday's launch of The Very Last Leaf from Stef Wade

Tuesday, August 4, 7:00 pm
S.A. Cosby, author of Blacktop Wasteland
in conversation with Carole E Barrowman for a virtual event

Sometimes we pitch for great events, sometimes we chase them without an official pitch opportunity, and sometimes they fall in our lap. When the publisher put out a query for event proposals for S.A. (Shawn!) Cosby, we made one, and like most of the time, especially before the age of coronavirus, we did one without a read. Sure the buzz on Blacktop Wasteland was good - Lee Child called the book "Sensationally good—new, fresh, real, authentic, twisty, with characters and dilemmas that will break your heart. More than recommended" while Dennis Lehane offers this praise: "Blacktop Wasteland is an urgent, timely, pitch-perfect jolt of American noir. S. A. Cosby is a welcome, refreshing new voice in crime literature.” But wait, what about Walter Mosley? He offers: "Diamonds and fast cars, trailer park dreams and late night illegal street racing, S. A. Cosby reinvents the American crime novel. Black and white with bills unpaid and no exit in sight, his characters feel the pull of family and swagger with the melancholy ache of wanting to be someone. Blacktop Wasteland thrums and races—it’s an intoxicating thrill of a ride.”

We love it too. Here's Chris Lee's rec: "Here’s one where you can believe the hype - Cosby’s penned a heist novel that just might have stolen my heart. Our hero’s a Carolina wheelman who’s put his criminal past just far enough behind him to maybe nod and wave hello to polite society when he passes it across the street. Indeed, Blacktop Wasteland is an ode to country people living around the edges of legal who desperately want to be anything other than poor nobodies. The way Cosby uses language in this book, oh my lord. He’s not just got perfect pitch for dialogue; this novel is stuffed full of more knee slappers and Southernisms than my Granddad could carry in a poke (look it up). There’s just enough a hard man’s gotta do… swagger to please the toughest thriller though guys, and when it comes to American muscle screeching down highways and scrambling through back roads, you know Cosby’s got some high-flying surprises for you. What I like best is when a plan goes south and our hero’s got nothing left but his wits to get a step ahead of disaster, and between cartoon-dumb redneck accomplices and slicker-than-snakes backroom kingpins, every plan in this book gets a tool chest of wrenches thrown in it. Okay, here’s your car metaphor: the rest of this year’s thrillers look like sad little Pintos puttering along in the dust of Cosby’s ‘69 Camero." 

Gabino Iglesias offered this take on the NPR website: "Racial tension is at the core of Blacktop Wasteland. Cosby, a Black man from southeastern Virginia, knows racism well. He understands what it means to be Black in places where things like the use of the Confederate flag (which comes up in the novel) are still being debated today. This knowledge, and the heartfelt way in which Cosby writes about being the other now as well as historically, make Blacktop Wasteland the kind of book that should be part of every conversation about why we need diverse books."

And here's another fan, Carole E. Barrowman, the Journal Sentinel, Star Tribune, and Morning Blend. Barrowman, who is also a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Alverno College, is a big fan and will be in conversation with Cosby at Boswell on August 4, 7 pm. She teaches a seminar on the art of mystery - wouldn't you love to audit that class? Broadcast via Zoom, you can register for this event right here! And don't forget, Blacktop Wasteland is on sale for 20% off the list price through at least August 10.

Coming next Monday, August 10, 4:30 pm

Stef Wade, author of The Very Last Leaf
A virtual launch party

Milwaukee children’s book author Stef Wade virtually visits for a launch celebration of her latest picture book that asks, how do leaves know when it’s time to fall?Broadcast via Zoom, registration will be required. Here's the link, so click it to register! And purchase your copy of The Very Last Leaf from us for 20% off list price, through at least August 17.

Lance Cottonwood is the best and brightest of the leaves, but even the top students on the tree have worries. Can Lance conquer his fear of falling and just let go when the time comes for his final exam, or will he let his worries take over? This funny and encouraging picture book tells an engaging story and deftly addresses social and emotional struggles many kids encounter each day. These delightful characters and rich autumnal colors make a perfect book for any period of transition in life. Kirkus calls the illustrations charming and says The Very Last Leaf is “a reassuring story that should leave readers feeling a bit more self-confident.”

Stef Wade is co-creator and writer for the former cooking and home blog Haute Apple Pie. She is author of A Place for Pluto. A graduate of Marquette and DePaul Universities, she is also a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

More on the Boswell Upcoming Events page. And don't forget that you can watch previous events on our virtual author conversation page.

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending August 1, 2020

Here are the Boswell bestsellers for the week ending August 1, 2020

Hardcover Fiction:
1. Everywhere You Don't Belong, by Gabriel Bump (watch Boswell event video)
2. The Lives of Edie Pritchard, by Larry Watson (watch Boswell event video)
3. Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
4. The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett
5. Crooked Hallelujah, by Kelli Jo Ford (watch Boswell event video)
6. Axiom's End, by Lindsay Ellis
7. The Second Home, by Christina Clancy
8. American Dirt, by Jeanine Cummins
9. Three Hours in Paris, by Cara Black (register for this August 11 event here)
10. Blacktop Wasteland, by SA Cosby (register for this August 4 event here) 

Several breakout bestsellers have had coronavirus-related printing delays, but we're glad to say we've caught up with backorders for Mexican Gothic. The great reviews keep coming - here's Laura Miller in Slate: "Truth be told, even those of us who love a high-end gothic novel must admit that many of the genre’s devices have lost their flavor. How many books can you read about inexperienced but scrappy young women (or, in the case of Rebecca, gormless ingenues) arriving in gloomy English country estates where dark secrets lurk behind moth-nibbled velvet drapes? Even this premise, once so delicious, can get stale. The genre’s palette is typically limited, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be—as Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic amply, deliriously, and gloriously demonstrates."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X Kendi
2. The King of Confidence, by Miles Harvey (Boswell event video coming soon)
3. Too Much and Never Enough, by Mary Trump
4. Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
5. Untamed, by Glennon Doyle
6. Me and White Supremacy, by Lala F Saad
7. Educated, by Tara Westover
8. Begin Again, Eddie S Glaude
9. Milwaukee Brewers at 50, by Adam McCalvy
10. Price of Peace, by Zachary D Carter

We've had steady sales of The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes, by Zachary D Carter, a senior reporter at Huffington Post. Lots of raves on this, including a recommendation from Jon Meacham. From the publisher: "Keynes was not only an economist but the preeminent anti-authoritarian thinker of the twentieth century, one who devoted his life to the belief that art and ideas could conquer war and deprivation. As a moral philosopher, political theorist, and statesman, Keynes led an extraordinary life that took him from intimate turn-of-the-century parties in London’s riotous Bloomsbury art scene to the fevered negotiations in Paris that shaped the Treaty of Versailles, from stock market crashes on two continents to diplomatic breakthroughs in the mountains of New Hampshire to wartime ballet openings at London’s extravagant Covent Garden."  Here's Jennifer Szalai's New York Times review.

Paperback Fiction:
1. Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead
2. There There, by Tommy Orange
3. Salvage the Bones, by Jesmyn Ward
4. The Book of Unknown Americans, by Cristina Henriquez
5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon
6. All the Right Mistakes, by Laura Jamison (register for this August 13 event here)
7. Miracle Creek, by Angie Kim (Read the book? register for our book club discussion here - no author involved)
8. The Lager Queen of Minnesota, by J Ryan Stradal
9. Normal People, by Sally Rooney
10. Late Love, by Paula Goldman (register for this September 10 event here) 

Jung Yun in The Washington Post recommended Angie Kim's Miracle Creek, which went on to win an Edgar Award. From the review: "Kim’s real-life experience as a former litigator shines throughout the courtroom scenes. Her sharply drawn prosecutor hammers away at the evidence of Elizabeth’s guilt, while her defense attorney offers up alternative explanations for how the fire started. While the courtroom scenes and plot pyrotechnics are sure to delight readers of legal thrillers and mysteries, at its heart, Miracle Creek is a deeply moving story about parents and the lengths they will go for their children."

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson (pre-order Caste here)
2. They Called Us Enemy, by George Takei
3. I Was Their American Dream, by Malaka Gharib
4. My Father's Shadow, by Myles Hopper (watch Boswell event video)
5. March V1, by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell
6. White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo
7. Intimations, by Zadie Smith
8. Make Me, by Eric Toshalis
9. Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann
10. Stamped from the Beginning, by Ibram X Kendi 

George Takei's graphic memoir They Called Us Enemy got many wonderful reviews and profile pieces, but I don't think it hit our bestseller list until we got some school adoptions. This story, of Takei's imprisonment as a child in American internment (concentration) camps in World War II. The book won the 2020 Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature. Jacqueline Woodson wrote that the book is "moving, thoughtful, important, engaging, and stunningly rendered. I am so excited to see this book's impact on the world." An expanded version of They Called Us Enemy goes on sales August 25. You can preorder here.

Books for Kids:
1. Dear Martin, by Nic Stone (If you love this author, stay turned for an announcement)
2. Far from the Tree, by Robin Benway
3. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, by Benjamin Alire Saenz
4. On the Come Up, by Angie Thomas
5. Turtles All the Way Down, by John Green
6. Long Way Down, by Jason Reynolds
7. Love Hate and Other Filters, by Samira Ahmed
8. The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo
9. Nimona, by Noelle Stevenson
10. The Realm of Possibility, by David Levithan 

I'm not sure I'll find another book with advance praise from Angie Thomas, John Green, Jason Reynolds, and Jodi Picoult - one didn't make it to the front jacket of the paperback. Dear Martin won raves when it was released in 2017 and went on to be a national bestseller and a William C Morris Award finalist. Adrienne Green wrote in The Atlantic: "Dear Martin belongs to a growing body of young-adult literature exploring racial injustice and police brutality from a teen perspective. 2015’s All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely followed a black high-school student beaten by a cop who mistakes him for a shoplifter. Jay Coles’s Tyler Johnson Was Here, about a boy whose twin brother is a victim of police brutality, will be published in the spring. Jewell Parker Rhodes’s forthcoming Ghost Boys tells the story of the ghost of a black boy who meets the spirit of Emmett Till after he is killed by law enforcement and enters the afterlife." Note - this is an old article, so these books are now published.

Over at the Journal Sentinel, here's a profile of Paula Kiely, Milwaukee's Chief Librarian since 2006. Thank you to your great contribution to the city and the literary community! We're honored to have been a library partner for many programs over the last 11 years. 

When asked what's changed over the years, Kiely noted technology and then: "The other change, of course, is in the libraries themselves, and how the libraries look, how they function. When I started off in 2006, I knew that the facilities were going to be a big part of what I did. But when I look back, it is surprising to me how much time I've spent working on these library developments and how differently the libraries really function. We don't focus on how many books we can sort of squeeze into the space. It's how many people can we accommodate in the spaces that we want to create for different groups of people. And I think, especially in the new library (Good Hope) that will be opening up shortly, children and teenagers really have a big win here. Because we realize how important it is to have children engaged early on." 

Also, congratulations to Joan Johnson, the incoming Chief Librarian.