Bestsellers, Achatz, Silverman, Lamott, Brooks, and a Little Stressing Out

I'm not used to having a 12-hour day on a Sunday, but when you have an event with Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas for Life, on the Line on a Sunday night, that's what happens.

The idea of doing it when most chefs are off has seemed to be a good move (that was John Wise's idea, not mine) and tickets are selling briskly, I had to learn how to process tix on our website, but since we're only hours away, that option is now closed. At this point, we're selling tix at the door. And after 6 pm, only the Starbucks door will be open.

We have a few more events with tickets:

March 27, Sarah Silverman at the Riverside:
We are the designated bookseller for the show, and will have available the paperback of The Bedwetter.

$32.50 gets you...a lot of laughs. Buy tix here.

Say hi to us in the lobby.

April 12, Anne Lamott at Alverno College:
For the paperback of Imperfect Birds.
$16 gets you a signed copy of the paperback plus a wonderful Lamott-style talk. A $10 gift card is available as an alternative.
Buy tix on the Alverno website. Our info should be up shortly. There is a ticketing fee per order at Alverno Presents.

May 12, Geraldine Brooks at Boswell:
For the new novel, Caleb's Crossing. I'm reading it now!
$5 gets you...an amazing event and light refreshments from Beans and Barley. The book is extra.

And now, on with the bestsellers:
fiction hardcover
1. Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss

2. A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness

3. The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, by Stieg Larsson

4. The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain

5. The Tiger's Wife, by Tea Obreht*

6. Swamplandia, by Karen Russell

7. Scared Stiff, by Annelise Ryan

8. Sing You Home, by Jodi Picout

9. Minding Frankie, by Maeve Binchy
10. When the Killing's Done, by T.C. Boyle

nonfiction hardcover

1. A Chance to Make History, by Wendy Kopp
2. The Crossley ID Guide, by Richard Crossley
3. Life, on the Line, by Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas

4. A Widow's Story, by Joyce Carol Oates**

5. The Social Animal, by David Brooks

6. Cleopatra, by Stacy Schiff

7. The Information, by James Glieck

8. Swimming in the Daylight, by Lisa Paul

9. How to Write a Sentence, by Stanley Fish
10. At Home, by Bill Bryson

*The Tiger's Wife got dual raves of Michiko Kakukani in the daily New York Times and a front-page review from Liesl Schillinger in The New York Times Book Review. Plus Mike Fischer's review last week in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Today he ponders the wonder that is Jasper Fforde in One of Our Thursdays is Missing. It's a literary joy ride!

**When I spoke to Kathleen Dunn on Wisconsin Public Radio last Monday, she promised a great interview with Joyce Carol Oates for A Widow's Story. Apparently she kept her promise; folks have been coming in since raving about their talk. Listen here.

Regarding the stressing out, it's not worth talking about here!

Saturday Gift Post--New Stuff in the Store, Including Contorting Wooden Snakes and a Blank Book Display that Finally Has Wheels.

I hoped to attend the Minneapolis gift show this weekend, but wound up getting cold feet and staying home. I had the usual panic attack before leaving the store, combined with a "what exactly am I looking for if I spent the whole week receiving gift items?" moment.

On the kids side, we restocked our basics, as we were quite low on puzzles and craft kits. The Easter puppets came in from our favorite puppet vendor--we've put out a teaser table. One customer put in a special order on our notorious bendable robots. Since this was the second request in a short period of time, we restocked. I also brought in these animal whatzits (pictured.) The bendable pirates are on backorder, which is a bit sad, as we wanted them for our "pirate galley-on giveaway" next weekend. Note to publishers: old galleys, old ones. With the purchase of a book. More on that later.

On the adult side, we finally got the remaining pieces of our schmancy new spinner rack, meaning it is tall enough to not look like it belong's in the kids section, and it also has wheels. Our Tag Easter items came in. Last year was definitely rabbit-centric, but I seem to be moving in a more chick-friendly direction.

Tables are moving around a bit. Only a week left of our St. Patrick's display. We decided to go with Celtic cards, journals, and boxes, as they are suitably Irish and yet fit in with our everyday items. We got our first request for St. Patrick's Day cards. We were going to send this customer elsewhere, when he saw our boxed Celtic cards and bought them.

It's very important for us to repurpose our gift items into multiple displays because a) otherwise, we wouldn't know what to do with them and b) we don't have quite enough traffic to sell through everything super fast and I like to change displays relatively quickly, when possible. So the map-related items on the travel table (cards, paperweights, coasters) turn into items for the graduation table. Most of the spring items transition into Mother's Day. If we have a few rabbit puppets left after Easter, they go on the puppet rack.

Of course there's always a little to mark down. But we just took away our markdown table for a while, replacing it with a new home for our tee shirts. We have restocked book jacket tees with designs we sold best and added a few new designs--The Great Gatsby and The Old Man and the Sea. Should be coming in a few weeks. And we're also working on our spring special edition tee shirt. More on that later.

The Many Slaps of Christos Tsiolkas..or How Did Our Book Club Discussion Go?

Slap #1: What most people assume the author is referring to in The Slap takes place at an Australian barbecue. At this outing, a man (Harry) hits a kid (Hugo) who isn't his own. Sides are taken, the police are called, and Tsiolkas sets things up so that while we are incensed by the act, the parents (Rosie and Gary) are so unpleasant that it's hard to say who really is at fault.

Slap #2: This is what stopped one of our participants from reading the novel. Christos Tsiolkas assaults the reader from the first page. Hector, one of several narrators of the story, works his way through bodily functions, meditates on sex and uses enough naughty words to have the book banned in many a school district. It's a dare, really. Like a book with heavy dialect that by the middle seems to be a language that you've translated, the language becomes gentler as the book progresses, even when the narrator jumps at one point to the equally posturing Harry (Hector's cousin, the "slapper.")

Slap #3: It's a multicultural world out there; get used to it. To those folks in Australia (and by extension, the United States) who want to go back to a world where they could navigate their life avoiding Blacks (Aborigines here, but use your own substitute) and Asians and Muslims and gay men and lesbians, Tsiolkas seems to be saying that isn't really possible anymore. It's a development that tears at this Greek community in Melbourne, which of course is interesting, as one time they were the "Blacks."

Slap #4: It's all relative, in more ways than one. Yes, this is a novel about family ties. Is Aisha, Hector's wife, more loyal to her friends or her husband's family, particularly his father Manolis? But more than that, Tsiolkas mines the changing perspectives of the novel particularly well. An unlikeable character becomes likable. Someone we've gotten to know well grows more distant as we read the book through other's eyes. These ties become the key to the truest slap, which winds up directed against Rosie. And by the way, we all liked the way Tsiolkas moved the plot along with each character, with almost no doubling back to revisit events.

Slap #5: Sex and drugs, but not so much rock and roll. It's going to be tough for some people, particularly when seemingly balanced teenagers Connie and Richie are popping pills and shooting up. Remind yourself it's a novel. But boy, you need to be prepared for that.

One of our new participants (we had three--I'm psyched!), who was really the only person who attending who read the book and didn't like it, wondered what we thought of the writing, which she thought was a little flat. There was some agreement, but it's my contention that there is more to a great book than the purpleness of the prose. I should have made her pick up Tinkers then and there; beautifully written with an intricate structure, but not the most complicated of plots. It's always something!

I started this novel, thinking "Boy, there must be some amazing Greek community in Australia." I had seen a novel some years ago about this gay man feeling hemmed in by the traditional community. Of course it turned out to be "Head On", based on Tsiolkas's first novel, Loaded.

So let folks know that this book is an assault on several levels, except, oddly enough, in terms of violence. It's almost prissy in its lack of blood. But if they can handle it, The Slap is a really great novel and a wonderful book club selection. For more, read this Washington Post review or maybe this interview in the Times (UK).

Coming Up:

Monday, April 4: The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, by Heidi Durrow

Monday, May 2: People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks

Monday, June 6: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell.

Winner of The Premio Strega for The Solitude of Prime Numbers is Coming from Italy to Read at Boswell on April 6...in Italian.

One of the things I’ve noticed about our event planning is that themed events will converge together periodically. For example, I noticed that in late March/early April, we had three Italian-themed events. On March 31 at Boswell, 7 pm, we’re hosting Lawrence Baldassaro, author of Beyond DiMaggio: Italian Americans in Baseball. On April 5, the guest speaker at Friends of the Milwaukee Public Library Literary Luncheon at the Woman's Club of Wisconsin (which we co-sponsor, and note that this event is ticketed) is Donna Leon, author of the beloved Venice-set mysteries, the newest of which is Drawing Conclusions. And on April 6, we’re hosting Paolo Giordano for the paperback release of The Solitude of Prime Numbers.

The Solitude of Prime Numbers is not just any Italian novel. It won the Strega Prize (Premio Strega), the most prestigious award in Italy, awarded since 1947. Sadly, many of these novels are not well known to Americans. In fact, I think you’d be hard pressed to name many Italian authors of the last century beyond Umberto Eco and Italo Calvino. In fact, several Italian authors have won the Nobel prize, most recently Dario Fo in 1997.

I was intrigued by the book, which I meant to read in hardcover (sigh). There were comparisons to Mark Haddon and that intrigued me. I think back on the book as a fascinating story told through the eyes of an autistic child, but when prompted, remembered that one of the things about the book that first hooked me was that the chapters were in Fibonacci sequence.

And what mathematical metaphor is more appropriate for sad and lonely people than prime numbers, divisible only by one and themselves? Alice Della Rocha and Mattia Balossini in Giordano’s novel are twin primes, pairs of primes that are only two apart (like 17 and 19), with just an even number between them. Like primes, they become increasingly rare, but also like primes, it is conjectured that there is an infinite number of them*

Alice is crippled by a childhood accident, and her body image issues have led to serious eating disorders. Mattia has a childhood secret regarding his twin sister, and this has led him to be unable to excel in anything except his studies. Both characters are quite memorable and the story is filled with sparkling moments. I don’t exactly know what this means, but it seems to have a modern Italian esthetic about it.

And I know you’re asking, and yes, now that I've read and enjoyed Giordano's novel, I would absolutely recommend it to readers of The Elegance of a Hedgehog.

So I was speaking to Sonya at Penguin, and she told me that while the author is well-versed in English and would love to take questions, he prefers to read in Italian. Well, I saw this an opportunity. I’d already been talking to Paul Salsini and Bobby Tanzilo (the latter of OnMilwaukee.com) about co-sponsoring the event with the Italian Film Festival, and I thought they’d be able to find the English reader (which I thought would be Bobby or Paul). But no! They led me to writer Angela Damiani, a Milwaukee writer and blogger.

Mr. Tanzilo has informed me that there is a pent-up demand for readings in Italian by Italian natives. Hope we’re able to get the word out to this group hungry for the native tongue. I fondly remember the talk for Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie, where the author read in French. I also believe we had at least one speaker who read in Spanish. I’m guessing it was Arturo Perez-Reverte. Feel free to correct me.

So you ask, what about this Italian Film Festival? It’s a national program run out of Saint Louis with ten stops, starting with Minneapolis on March 25th, and moving through Memphis, Denver, and beyond. Get all the details on their website.

I had made a suggestion to show the film version of The Solitude of Prime Numbers, but any project with a film component has been very difficult for me to put together. I also wanted to somehow show a film in collaboration with Robert Elder’s The Film That Changed My Life, to no avail. And then there is Patrick McGilligan’s upcoming biography of Nicholas Ray. And last fall we had Nathan Rabin’s My Year of Flops. Honestly, I’ve hit a brick wall here. Help me out!

I guess reviewers were quite mixed on this film, which did the round of film festivals. But in The Back Row blog of Toronto Film Festival, Tom Hall champions this film: “It is heartening to see a filmmaker in his early 30’s taking on big ideas with delicious visual bravura that still makes way for powerful performances.” Read the rest of his piece here.

So to sum up, Paolo Giordano appears on Wednesday, April 6, 7 pm, reading in Italian from his novel The Solitude of Prime Numbers, with an English reading by Angela Damiani, with a discussion and signing, and all co-sponsored by the the Milwaukee run of Italian Film Festival. The paperback comes out on March 29th, but that's only a week before our event, so I decided to get this post out early and make sure that every Italo-phile in the metro area knows about this very, very special event. Did I mention that Mr. Giordano is also a physicist?

*One of the few proofs I am still able to do is prove that there are an infinite number of primes. My only regret with The Solitude of Prime Numbers was that, with the promise of the title, that there wasn’t a wee bit more number theory. I was happy that Mattia sorted out the issue of zeros in the Riemann zeta function, however.

Another Fun Talk with Kathleen Dunn About New Books

On Monday I got to spend an hour with Kathleen Dunn and her producers Rhonda Fanning and Kryssy Pease. The books I meant to talk about are posted on the radio show's Facebook Page. But did I talk about all of them? No. Did we discuss lots of other books? Yes. Here's what actually got mentioned on the show.

I call this list, What We Actually Talked About

1. Life, on the Line, by Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas
2. Memoir of a Sunday Brunch, by Julia Pandl
3. A Chance to Make History, by Wendy Kopp
4. Wingshooters, by Nina Revoyr
5. Driftless, by David Rhodes, plus his older books The Rock Island Line and Easter House
6. The Invisible Bridge, by Julie Orringer
7. Bloody Crimes, by James Swanson (from a customer)
8. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins (from a customer)
9. Matched, by Allie Conde (from a customer)
10. The Maze Runner, by James Dashner
11. Great Food All Day Long, by Maya Angelou
12. How to Breathe Underwater, by Julie Orringer
13. The Memory Wall, by Anthony Doerr
14. The Tiger’s Wife, by Tea Obreht
15. Swamplandia, by Karen Russell
16. Saint Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, by Karen Russell
17. The Name of the Wind and Wise Man’s Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss
18. Sing You Home, by Jodi Picoult
19. Caleb’s Crossing, by Geraldine Brooks
20. Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand (from a customer)
21. Chris Offutt and Daniel Woodrell suggestions. Later on we thought of Larry Brown, Robert Olmsted, and William Gay.
22. Pride, Prejudice and Zombies and Zombie, Ohio (from customer)
23. The Zombie Survival Guide, by Max Brooks
24. Anything by Malachy McCourt (from a customer)
25. The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook, by Rachel Saunders (from a customer)
26. The Thursday Next series, by Jasper Fforde (from a customer)
27. The Matchmaker of Kenmare, by Frank Delaney (from Kathleen Dunn)
28. Ghost Light, by Joseph O’Connor
29. Saints and Sinners, by Edna O’Brien
29. Seamus Heaney’s poetry, most recently Human Chain (from Kathleen Dunn)
30. My Name is Memory, by Ann Brashares (from a customer)
31. Last Call, by Daniel Okrent (from a customer)
32. The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson (from Kathleen)
33. The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, by Robert Calasso
34. Bound to Last, by Sean Manning
35. The Brown Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang
36. Louisa May Alcott, plus A Girl of the Limberlost, by Gene Stratton-Porter (from a customer) 37. The View from Lazy Point, by Carl Safina (from a customer)
38. Bats Sing, Mice Giggle, by Karen Shanor (from a customer)
39. The Season on Henry’s Farm, by Terra Brockman (from a customer)
40. Wicked River, by Lee Sandlin
41. Michael Crichton suggestion…Daniel suggests James Rollins but I could probably match this a bit closer.
42. Tom Robbins and John Irving suggestion…Daniel suggests T.C. Boyle and Sherman Alexie
43. A Widow’s Tale, by Joyce Carol Oates

And of course, here is a link to listen to the show! Much thanks to everyone for having me on.

Paperback Tuesday--It's Just Crazy Out There with New Releases

If you were waiting for your favorite book to come out in paperback, this might be the week for you. Our front tables seem to have almost completely changed in the last couple of weeks. Our buyer Jason said there was a particularly large release schedule from the Random House companies.

Lord of Misrule, by Jaimy Gordon. If the eight-month cycle for paperback release is becoming more common than not for fiction, can the four-month cycle be far behind. Jaimy Gordon's National-Book-Award-winning novel came out last November. We hosted an event in January, and here it is in March. It's the story of a ragtag bunch of characters at a small-stakes track in West Virginia. Beautifully written, larger-than-life characters, and an author you've got to catch on tour. And don't forget about Jim Higgins' interview with the author in the Journal Sentinel.

Solar, by Ian McEwan. "The funniest book McEwan has ever written" screams Entertainment Weekly, regarding McEwan's novel of the collision between the global crisis of climate change and the personal crisis of a floundering marriage. Seems like I would have liked it, but I didn't read it. But I don't feel as guilty about missing that one as I do about...

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, by David Mitchell. Mitchell turns his writing skills to the historical, setting his new novel in 1799 Japan. This book wound up on all sorts of top ten lists, from the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, the Financial Times, The Globe and Mail, plus personal lists from noted critics Maureen Corrigan and Michiko Kakutani. Am I dreaming when I say that I think I was introduced to Corrigan on a recent visit to Politics and Prose. The whole day turned out to be like a day on the star-spotting bus in Hollywood, only for the intelligentsia.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot. The search for the woman whose cancerous cells led to amazing medical breakthroughs and her poor family that was left behind. Another author we hosted in hardcover that you should go out of your way to see on her paperback book tour. And by out of your way, I'm thinking a plane trip is not out of the question.

The Man from Beijing, by Henning Mankell. At the book fair yesterday for St. John's Home on the Lake, we were talking about all the wonderful Scandanavian authors that folks were reading when they finished Stieg Larsson. One person in the conversation had just read this, and I asked if she had read his famous detective series. She said no, and what's the name of the detective. Darned if I knew. It's Kurt Wallender, of course.

and just so it's not all Random Housian...

Angelology, by Danielle Trussoni. Another fellow came up to me and said he liked both Dan Brown and Umberto Eco--what could I do for him? This is what I came up with, the story of a nun who discovers a correspondence that points her to an ancient conflict between (and I paraphrase) the Angelologists and the Nephilim, descendants of angels and humans. Trussoni has some local ties, so we're hoping that she comes back to town for the paperback eventually (though she's not scheduled on the official tour, to my knowledge).

Off to Marquette for our Teach for America event with Wendy Kopp. In the store? That would be Ron Tanner and his book, Kiss me Stranger.

A Ghost Eulogy for a Ghostwriter

One of the nicest things I've found about being a high-profile bookstore (well, higher profile than when I was the buyer for Schwartz) owner is that I get to know a lot of wonderful people. I noticed this during the past weekend, when I was saying hi seemingly everywhere. And by the way, Amie, one of our customers at the UWM Spring Writing Festival said hi to you. Even when I went to wander around Bayshore Town Center (I do like to poke around retail), I wandered into Board Game Barrister to look at all the cool stuff and the gameseller immediately said, "Hi, I was at Boswell for the Paul Harding event" and we had a nice chat about how wonderful that event was. I bought some sidewalk chalk and glitter glue, by the way.

But knowing lots of people also means, how else to put this, I know lots more people who die. In the past few months we've lost Jerome, a wonderfully talented artist who liked stopping by for a newspaper and sometimes an art book, and Tillie, a beloved member of our science fiction and fantasy book club. And just today, I heard about another death, and I'm a bit devastated. And I've decided to leave out her name, in respect for the fact that some years ago, she ghost-wrote a nonfiction bestseller. I'll call her BLICW*.

BLICW was one of those people that I didn't know that well (who the heck do I know that well?) but always made me happy with her presence. We had some wonderful chats about the store, and about publishing. I talked to several of her classes, and at one point, we did some research on new books that were appropriate for the subject she was teaching. Sometimes she'd come in and spend time reading alongside her teenage daughter. If I had a teenage daughter (and I don't), that's what I'd want to do. How could I not smile?

I've actually known a number of ghostwriters over the years. It's a strange job, isn't it? I Whenever a personality writes a book and has no co-writer credit, I check the copyright page and the acknowledgements and look for clues. I've been known to add the ghostwriter to the author field a couple of times. Why not? It's my little acknowledgement of a pretty much thankless task.

One would hardly say I am at the point of my life where I feel immortal. I do that game where I think to myself, how pissed is everybody going to be if I die and my will is a mess (which it will be if I die in the very near future). OK, if I live to 60, I've got ten years left, what do I do? Say I live to 70, then what? Do I outlive the store? It's a valid question, we're all wondering what happens if bookstores effectively become showrooms for ebooks.

That said, I think the pundits are grandstanding when they say the physical book will be gone in 20-whatever. Nicholas Negroponte and Mike Shatzkin are the Jeanne Dixons of the moment--if they are right, congrats on your prescience! If not, who remembers? It's on to another pronouncement. And of course, they will be right someday, as who needs books when we have Raymond Kurzweil's singularity?

But I digress. It's a conversation I won't be able to have with BLICW. Not only didn't we really have that conversation (though we danced around it), I didn't really say goodbye. It wasn't like another death I heard about today, of a friend's spouse who died in his forties of a heart attack at the gym. But it was relatively quick. So I'm saying goodbye now. Also to Jerome and Tillie and while we're at it, Virginia and Sal and Cousin Cheryle. But especially to BLICW, who offered enouragement to me at the right time. Much thanks too.

*Clumsy, yes, but it has meaning.

Patrick Rothfuss Craziness and How Milwaukee Can Politefully Request a Stop on the Tour

In between stints at our various events around town, I was able to tabulate and send out our weekly bestsellers. Hardcover nonfiction first:

1. Chinaberry Sidewalks, by Rodney Crowell
2. Life, on the Line, by Grant Achatz and Nick Koikonas
3. Swimming in the Daylight, by Lisa Paul
4. Getting Naked, by Patrick Lencioni
5. A Widow's Story, by Joyce Carol Oates

Paul had a breakout session at the UWM writing confererence. One day I will have my camera at the same time I am writing the blog and will include pictures...I think I have at least one good one of the Rodney Crowell concert.

Our big fiction story is Patrick Rothfuss's long-awaited follow-up to The Name of the Wind, the second entry in The Kingkiller Chronicles. And we didn't even get signed copies yet. I think we are getting some. Please request signed copy of The Wise Man's Fear if you order and we'll try to fulfill.

In addition to a lot of single copy sales, I helped someone carry out a carton. I'm sure this is the case for many bookstores (indie, chain, virtual, departmental--next to the cell phone cases make a left when you get to pet food*), but as the author lives not too far away, it might be moreso.

1. The Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss
2. The Fates will Find Their Way, by Hannah Pittard
3. The Paris Wife, by Paul McLain
4. Three Stages of Amazement, by Carol Edgarian
5. Room, by Emma Donoghue

I figured Rothfuss was appearing at a nearby chain store, but was surprised to discover that, at least according to his website, there is no Milwaukee appearance scheduled. He seems to be using MTV's Eventful website to gauge interest. If I were you and wanted a local event, I'd probably take a look at our numbers, which lag other markets. It's not that you don't love him, it's that you haven't told him you love him. I'm not really up for shilling for this site, but you do what you gotta do. Here's the link.**

For those who aren't about to link, I salute you, and present you the tour as set so far.

Seattle, Washington
March 1, 7 pm
University Bookstore
4326 University Way NE
(206) 634-3400

Portland/Beaverton, Oregon
March 2, 7 pm
Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
3415 SW Cedar Hills Boulevard
(503) 228-4651

San Francisco (two events)
March 3, 7 pm
SF in SF Reading Series
The Variety Theater
But tickets for this seem to be at or near sell-out. Correction: It is sold out!

March 3, Midnight
Borderlands Cafe
870 Valencia Street
Which is also in San Francisco
(415) 824-8203

Huntington Beach/Los Angeles, California
March 4, 7 pm
Barnes Noble (plus &)
7881 Edinger Avenue, Huntington Beach
(714) 897-8781

San Diego, California
March 5, 2 pm
Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore
7051 Clairemont Mesa Boulevard
858) 268-4747

Houston, Texas
March 6, 2 pm
Murder by the Book
2342 Bissonnet Street
(713) 524-8597

Madison, Wisconsin
March 8, 7 pm

Barnes & Noble
7433 Mineral Point Road
(608) 827-0809

Oak Brook/Chicago, Illinois

March 9, 7 pm
Borders Books & Music
1500 16th Street, Oak Brook

(630) 574-0800

Beavercreek/Dayton, Ohio

March 10, 7 pm

Books & Company
4453 Walnut Street, Beavercreek

(937) 429-2169

Lexington, Kentucky

March 11, 7 pm
Joseph-Beth Booksellers
161 Lexington Green Circle
(859) 273-2911

Saint Louis, Missouri

March 12 at 7 pm
Left Banks Books
321 N. 10th Street
(314) 367-6731

Washington DC
March 14, 12 Noon
What If Reading Series
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave. SE
(202) 707-6809

No bookstore selling at this event--bring your own book!

Bailey's Crossroads/Washington, DC

March 14, 7:30 pm
Borders Books & Music
5871 Crossroads Center Way, Bailey's Crossroads
(703) 998-0404

Brooklyn, New York

March, 7 pm
Barnes & Noble
267 7th Avenue, Park Slope
(718) 832-9066

Boston, Massachusetts

March 16, 6 pm
Northeastern University Bookstore
Snell Library
360 Huntington Avenue, 4 Eli Hall
(617) 373-2350

If you are going, Mr. Rothfuss would like you to RSVP on his Facebook page.

*I am not necessarily disparaging this. In the old days, I liked nothing more than to find a book department in an old department store. I am more bored by sameness.

**For years, Christopher Moore told us that he was cautious about visiting Milwaukee because he didn't see a strength of fans in the market. Now he has come several times.