What Happened Today, Which is a A Log of Nothingness that Nonetheless Seemed Quite Hectic.

1. Every day that I write a blog that doesn't sell something in particular is a day wasted.  I'm sure Mr. Vaynerchuk would be very upset with me if he were reading this.  Yes, I'm still reading The Thank You Economy, and thinking of all those corporations that are shuning social media.  If you email, Facebook, or blog comment to me, you will almost always get a quick answer.  I am terrible at Twitter and have done little more than register for Linked In and Foursquare.  Because I  am not looking for a job at the moment, I don't really know what to do with Linked in.  Don't forget, Vaynerchuk is here on Tuesday, April 26.  Register here.

 

2. I am now officially exhausted by events, after the high-intensity of Anne Lamott, Anchee Min, and Sister Spit in short order.  Michelle Tea and the Sister Spit gang may be edgetastic, but they were also sweetie pies.  I had this strange disconnect between the language/content of the performance pieces and their lovely demeanor.  We're convinced we could sell a lot more copies of MariNaomi's graphic novel, Kiss and Tell.  Tonight the extravaganza is at Bryant Lake Bowl. 

3. Something's in the air, and what that seems to be is that restaurants want help building book sections.  I had not one, but two appointments with restauranteurs that needed help in this.  Eh, what the heck?  One's a friend-o-Boswell and we'll make a small margin on passing through purchases, and the other was really nice and just wanted some quick advice.  Both bought something from us.  That's something, right?

4. At the Sendik's on Downer, I got a few day-after birthday wishes, and had a nice chat about book club selections.  Apparently Lord of Misrule is starting out slow, though I promised the vernacular dialect would soften by the middle of the book.  They just finished reading Just Kids.  I was curious because another group told me that Patti Smith's memoir would not be a good title for discussion.  She vehemently disagreed and said the talk went great.

5. Today I booked some eclectic events for the store.  You want a yoga for pregnancy book, you got it!  On the Miracle Ball, no less.  Details to follow.  We are also doing a women-and-money kind of book.  Stacie is looking for partners for both events, and when we have them in place, we'll announce them.  I also confirmed several events where nobody but me knew they were happening.  I kept putting the books on the event gondola, and someone else would take them off, with good reason.  Now it's official!

6. Oh, and then I bought some cards and restocked our booklights.  We decided to pick up some booklights that plug into USB ports.  Why would you need that when your screen is lit up?  "Yes, but your keyboard is not," Jason replied. So we got some.

7. And now it's off to introduce Valerie Laken, whose short story collection Separate Kingdoms has just been released.  Tomorrow it's Lee Sandlin at 2, with his Missisippi River history, Wicked River.

Past, Present, Future--Birthdays, Anniversaries, Social Media, and Handmade Books

April is a major month for milestones for me.  Two years ago my booksellers and I opened Boswell Book Company.  25 years ago I started work at the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop in the Iron Block building.  And today is my 50th birthday.  Yikes.

I think about how much the business has changed in my years in book business, and how much more they might change in the future.  Today I read a feature on the possible future of book signings in the age of ebooks.  And I'm currently reading Gary Vaynerchuk's The Thank You Economy*, which posits on the speed of technological change and how not adapting can destroy a business.  No kidding!

*Our event with Gary Vaynerchuk is Tuesday, April 26, at 7 pm, cosponsored by The Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee and the American Marketing Association, Milwaukee Chapter.  The event is free but you need to register.  To do so, visit the Business Journal's website.

I also heard an interview today about the entrepreneur who manufactures handbags in San Francisco, and helps run the SF Made nonprofit.  This called to mind the new book from Trumpter, At Home with Handmade Books: 28 Extraordinary Bookbinding Projects Made from Ordinary and Repurposed Materials, by Erin Zamrzla.

Zamrzla uses traditional Japanese binding techniques, pairing them with modern materials and uses.  There are accordion books and flutter books, four-hole binding and yamato binding. There are also ledger bindings and tortoise shell bindings.

The book has lots of illustrations and complete instructions.  You can make books out of socks and pillowcases.  That would be for a dream journal, of course.

The book is Boswell's Best at the moment.  Alas, it's not made in San Francisco.

Pitching for Fall Events, and the Emotional Rollercoaster that Comes with the Territory.

Needless to say, the bookstore is an emotional rollercoaster.  When traffic is good, all is well with the world.  When we have a slow day, I start worrying about the state of the industry, the state of Milwaukee, the state of our block, or all three.

This can often play into my attitude about hosting or not hosting events.  When we had a nice crowd of folks for Ronnie Hess and Joan Peterson, who drove over from Madison for Eat Smart in France, I thought, "Sure, let's do another."  When 180 people came out of the woodwork for Anne Lamott for a ticketed event (I say this as most people bought tickets to our wonderful evening at Alverno in the last four days--here's a photo of Lamott), I thought, "Yes, let's do more!"

When we had a small crowd for two comics but a large one for The Oatmeal, my answer was, "Humor needs Powerpoints!"  Never mind that Matthew Inman's website gets hits that would daze most other humorists, I seem to need to find a lesson from every event.

And so now that I am making proposals for fall 2011 events, I find myself looking at our last few event successes and wanting to duplicate them.  Grant Achatz ticketed event in the store?  Try that.  A popular reading in Italian?  What other languages have translated authors on tour?

Health and fitness events are hard, but for some reason, these folks seem to tour a lot. Serious nonfiction, which does very well with us?  Not so much.  Some publishers listen, while others are either not hot on us, Milwaukee, or sometimes even the entire midwest.  But we keep trying, and if it's anything like last year, come September we'll have an event booked in just about every open slot we have. 

Looking forward to it!

Lots of Oohing and Ahhing Over Valerie Laken's New Story Collection--Separate Kingdoms Talk/Reading This Friday, April 15 at 7 pm

Valerie Laken, one of our favorite writers*, is appearing at Boswell this Friday, April 15, at 7 pm.  For folks who write both novels and short stories, the traditional way is to publish the story collection first, followed by the novel. Some publishers don't publish collections, which leaves some authors towards separate publishers for story and novel. 

At Harper Collins, they often like to publish the novel, Dream House, first, with the collection following.  They also like to publish story collections as paperback originals.  That gives you no excuse not to buy a copy of Separate Kingdoms.  And here's another reason to buy it--Jim Higgins' review in the Journal Sentinel last Sunday.  Here's his opening.

"Valerie Laken hooked me on Page 2 of “Before Long,” the first story in Separate Kingdoms, where Oleg, the sighted Russian boy, is describing a mostly naked woman in a skin mag to Anton, the blind Russian boy."

"Oh goodie, I thought, here’s some fiction with more than just finely wrought observations on people’s miseries and bad choices. Exotic locales! Humor! Hints of nudity!"

Read the rest of the review here.  And I know you want to!

One thing I love about stories is that you have complete scenarios, but often without the tieing up of loose ends that goes with a novel. It puts the brain into overdrive.  That's also possibly why stories are not for everyone.  Here's my take on Separate Kingdoms:

"It’s at the most stressful points in our lives that we perhaps learn the most about ourselves. A woman whose recently lost a leg is pushed to compete in a golf tournament by her husband. Another man after an industrial accident contemplates his own culpability when he is visited by his shop owner and a lawyer, respectively. A salesman copes with blackouts that have led to a serious car accident. In the aftermath of these crises, there is a call to live, to fight, to find out what’s going on, but Laken adeptly notes that there is another opposing force, which is to hunker down and avoid any sort of insight. Mixed in are what I call the foreign-study stories, including one about a lesbian couple adopting a Russian baby, and another where a young woman who, when her semester in Moscow ends, stays on to witness the collapse of the Soviet empire. In these stories, it is society collapsing rather than the protags’ bodies, but there’s still that pull between action and inaction."

 

I know!  Reading Valerie Laken's collection almost immediately made me sound smarter.  And it was of course even more fun for me as I was a Russian major in college, but I pulled out of our foreign study program at the last minute in the summer of 1980--yes, the year the United States boycotted the Olympics.  I had other reasons, most of them silly.  But Separate Kingdoms was the study abroad I never had.

So the split screen story.  We have to talk about it.  We've had a number of reads of Separate Kingdoms in the store and every conversation converges at the title story, which tells two narratives at the same time.  How did it affect us?  How did it change the way we read? Did it work?  I suggest you come into the store and sit down with a copy and try it for yourself.

So Ms. Laken and I were discussing the event this Friday and she mentioned that she'd like to inject more fun into the evening.  So we have givaways!  Included are:
1. CD soundtracks for the book
2. A limited edition letter-pressed Valerie Laken short story
3. And we don't want to give it all away

Details at the event!

*And that is not only because she is a customer!

What's Coming Up This Week? Hess, Laken, Lamott, Sandlin, Spit, in Alphabetical Order.

Monday, April 11 (tonight!) at 7 pm, Ronnie Hess at Boswell.

Ronnie Hess is talking about her book Eat Smart in France.  This event is co-sponsored by Alliance Francaise.  Hess is a travel writer who continues a series started by Joan Peterson in Madison.  It's a little confusing because her company, Gingko Press, has the same name as an art book publisher in New York. It turns out she had nothing to do with The Disposable Skateboard Bible.

So are you planning a trip to Paris this summer?  Wishing you could go to Paris this summer? Get some advice from an expert on restaurants, markets, and cooking schools.  It's a blend of travel, food, language, and culture, and the perfect prelude to lunch with Patricia Wells next Tuesday at Bacchus.  Don't have your ticket to Well? My apologies, but that event is sold out.  I've also heard that her event in Lake Forest is also sold out. You can still buy a signed copy from us.  We'll have signature only after the lunch, but if you want Salad as a Meal or one of her other books personalized, you'll have to purchase it beforehand.  Contact the store at (414) 332-1181 or you can also request this online.

Tuesday, April 12, 7 pm, Anne Lamott at Alverno's Wehr Hall, which I've learned is 3400 South 43rd Street, for Imperfect Birds.  But I just talked all about this on Friday? 

I know that our reminder email on Friday made some impact as we received a number of calls and visits afterwards from customers with questions.  It also came out last night at dinner at Riviera Maya. You have the option of Imperfect Birds in paperback or a Boswell gift card.  Due to a special purchase, backlist is not substitutable, but you can use the card to get $10 off another Anne Lamott title.  It's time for me to check in with the Alverno Presents gang to see how many tickets we sold over the weekend.  I really want to do Anne Lamott proud.

As an aside (honestly I'm all aside, right?), I was cleaning my desk area (don't ask) and decided to file/toss many piles of paper.  I came across a Schwartz newsletter from 1995, and yes, Anne Lamott was scheduled to appear. That must have been the paperback of Bird by Bird, which continues to be her most popular book. Several people have asked me what is with Lamott and birds?  I don't know, but that's a good question for her.   

Can I still by a ticket?  Yes.

Wednesday, April 13, 7 pm, Anchee Min at Boswell, for Pearl of China (paperback).

Another wonderful appearance by a larger-than-life author, and this one is free at the store.  Like Lamott, we've been selling a lot of backlist off our author display.  Sharon wondered why when we mention the author's coming, the customers (who sometimes buy more than one backlist title at a time) don't seem as enthusiastic as you'd think they'd be.  Part of the deal of author events is to get the books in front of the customer, and in the end, if they buy the book and the event in free, is it really so bad?  Some people just don't like crowds.  I for one, sometimes prefer to be alone...reading.

Thursday, April 14, 8 pm, The Sister Spit tour at Boswell, including Michelle Tea, MariNaomi*, Ali Liebegott, Kirk Read, Blake Nelson, and Amos Mac. I also just did a full blog post on this!  Let's just say it's an extravaganza.

Friday, April 15, 7 pm, Valerie Laken at Boswell, for Separate Kingdoms (paperback). The subject of tomorrow's blog post. I really enjoyed Laken's collection of stories, as did Jim Higgins, who reviewed it in yesterday's Journal Sentinel. 

In putting together our spring print newsletter mailing, we reworked it so many times that we had a gaffe, and Valerie Laken was left out.  I'm going to publicly apologize here.  You want the newsletter to land before the events hit, but you just don't know how long it will take to get through standard mail.  Plus we always underestimate how long it is going to take for the piece to be printed.  I will say that we got it taped and to the post office in record time--all mailed out within four hours of receipt. So I really have two apologies, because some folks are going to get the print newsletter after the Anne Lamott event is over, and possibly after Anchee Min. 

One day I'm going to have to take some pictures of the mailing facility for the blog, if you're allowed to. It's rather fascinating, particularly as it is, at this point, set up for more mail volume than actually occurs.  What it must have been like in the heyday--yet another thing for which to be nostalgic.

Saturday, April 16, 2 pm, Lee Sandlin at Boswell for Wicked River.

These weekend day events can be touch and go, especially in nice weather.  I try to focus on events that skew older, as these are the people who tell me they don't want evening events.  After last week's small turnout, I'm now nervous, but we've been already selling Wicked River pretty well.

Here's an excerpt from the Minneapolis Star Tribune review:

“Sandlin transports readers back to a renegade time on the Mississippi, a rollicking ride full of marauders, floating brothels and rough characters spit straight from the pen of Twain himself. Sandlin’s own prose style is a fluvial joy, conjuring early-19th-century Mississippi voyageurs, red-shirted wayfarers who bartered, bought and stole goods Up North that they transported downstream in primitive skiffs and flat-bottomed boats.” 

More on Sandlin's website.

So how did last week's events go?  I think I've already mentioned that both the Donna Leon and Paolo Giordano events went quite well, for respectively, Drawing Conclusions and The Solitude of Prime Numbers--actually above projection. Here's a photo with Angela Damiani (our English reader), Paolo Giordano, and myself. Signed copies still available.

We knew Jeremy Greenberg's event for Sorry I Peed on You on Saturday was going to be quiet.  Though we were selling books off the event table (and also the Mother's Day display), it was hard to get a handle on what the talk would be about. Unlike Five Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth, Greenberg wasn't quite at a million hits per joke. 

Greenberg did, however, get a good television interview that day.  That said, those don't always translate to audience gains for us.  He did tell us, however, that is Amazon numbers shot up, which I guess was what I expected. Hey, and publicity hits and internet sales are part of the game here. The strange truth is that when we promote a book, the Amazon ranking goes up.

Oh, and if you were planning to attend the Giggles Comedy Club in Brookfield, which I had alluded to in our email newsletter, it apparently closed about three weeks ago.  We had a good time talking to Greenberg, and the several folks that bought the book thought it was hilarious.  It is pretty funny, and is still staying on our Mother's Day table.  It also makes a good shower gift.

And one final note on events passed. An unspecified semi-local author's book whose newest collection of stories didn't sell as well as he'd hoped.  It's got a cartoonish jacket.  It is speculative, an area in which he hadn't previously published.  And the book is over $25 for a paperback.  That price point is out of bounds for all but your best friends. Sometimes I do wish authors would ask our opinion ahead of time.  There's no way that book couldn't have been published at $20, even print on demand.  Once it's done, there's nothing to say, alas.  But now I have another $24.95 paperback fiction event book on the schedule.  This is the last we shall say of this.

Bestseller Lists--Big Leon! Big Hachette! Big Classic Cover Trend!

Our Friends of the Milwaukee Public Library literary lunch with Donna Leon wound up going quite well.  After her wonderful talk, which focused as much on her intriguing new classical music book and CD, Handel's Bestiary, as much as it did on her new novel, Drawing Conclusions (hence the bestseller list results), I mapped out some nearby thrift stores in the area for her before she left town.  She's also a big fan at the Renaissance Books in the airport.  Who isn't? 

hardcover nonfiction

1. Handel's Bestiary, by Donna Leon

2. Bossypants, by Tina Fey

3. Brunetti's Cookbook, by Ro Pianaro
4. Healthy Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, by Jeff Hertzberg
5. Wicked River, by Lee Sandlin (at Boswell next Saturday, 2/16, at 2 pm)
6. Before the Revolution, by Daniel K. Richter

7. Beyond DiMaggio, by Lawrence Baldassaro

8. Malcolm X, by Manning Marable (Alas, here is Mr. Marable's obituary.)
9. The Information, by James Glieck (I come back to this later)
10. Moby Duck, by Donovan Hohn (Jason is a fan)

The seemingly other big news this week is the arrival of David Foster Wallace's unfinished novel, The Pale King.  With the large pop we had for Bossypants, it was sort of a one-two punch for Hachette this week.  Congrats!

hardcover fiction

1. Drawing Conclusions, by Donna Leon (signed copies available!)

2. The Pale King, by David Foster Wallace

3. Emily Alone, by Stewart O'Nan

4. The Tiger's Wife, by Téa Obreht

5. The Solitude of Prime Numbers, by Paolo Giordano (yes, a hardcover event pop!  We ran out of cloth, but we have signed paperbacks.)

6. She Walks in Beauty, edited by Caroline Kennedy

7. Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss

8. The Fifth Witness, by Michael Connelly
9. The Troubled Man, by Henning Mankell
10. Treason at Lisson Grove, by Anne Perry

a. Mr. Giordano, who also held the #1 spot for fiction paperbacks this week for his Premio Strega winning novel, The Solitude of Prime Numbers, was asked who his favorite author was.  He pointed at our display for David Foster Wallace and his backlist, and said, he's over there. 

b. Nice pop for Stewart O'Nan's Emily Alone!  Folks are coming in looking for the first novel of the Maxwell family, Wish You Were Here.  I've been tracking O'Nan sales for many years, and I don't remember folks rushing in like this in quite a while.  On top of the great reviews, that teal jacket really pops, whereas last year I think it would have gotten lost.

c. Remember all those blue-green book jackets last spring?  Well in 2011, everybody's going classic.  We looked at new releases and it was all black on white.  Sometimes all type, other times with a little Malcolm Gladwell style icon, occasionally with a small pop of red or blue or gold.  The big decision, however, seems to be white or off-white.  It's all very old school. What's going on with that? 

Not all old school, I guess.  The layout on James Glieck's The Information (#9 this week) really conveys that sense of overload that most people feel nowadays, doesn't it?

Saturday Gift Post, Outdoor Edition--Gardening and Croquet and Sending "Wish You Were Here" Postcards.

Whereas I felt I was a little short of gift product in January and early February, now I feel we have plenty, perhaps a wee bit too much.  We're slowly building a gardening display, with new whimsical watering cans for kids (or kid-ish adults) and watering can mugs for when you take a break.  We've also got pretty cute garden stakes, but we are still contemplating how to best display them.  And oh, we have little butterfly pots on display now, plus frog ones I haven't put out yet.  All in good time, I guess.

With the weather turning nicer, it's the time of year when customers come in looking for Milwaukee postcards.  My goodness, we could probably develop a side business printing our own, but instead of the generic glossies, I decided to bring in some vintage reproductions.  It's Lake Michigan and the Milwaukee River and the downtown skyline and some famous buildings, like City Hall and the Milwaukee Gas Light and the Milwaukee Public Library.  I couldn't help bringing in a few images long gone, like the Chicago Northwestern train depot.  Hope someone doesn't buy this and tell the gang back home that this was the nicest building in town. 

Our kids outdoor activity table has been up for about a week now.  The kites are going well, as are the kickballs.  Go figure.  I brought in item at a high price point to sort of anchor the whole thing. It's a happy giddy croquet set, which is $49.95.  We've already gotten some enthusiastic comments on this--and hopefully it makes everything else look cheaper!

The Mother's Day table is also coming together.  The books land this week and next, for the most part.  I've still got nice New Yorker puzzle order outstanding; they have some new designs since last fall.

My First Email Newsletter That is Also a Blog Post--Getting Ready for Anne Lamott at Alverno Next Tuesday, April 12, 7 pm. It's at Wehr Hall This Time.

I have friends at another bookstore that send out a separate email for each event.  I can see this if you do one event a month, but I get more than one a week.  I find it fascinating, but I'd fear that I'd get a lot of cancellations.

That said, I just send this dedicated email for our event for Anne Lamott at Alverno next Tuesday, April 12, 7 pm, at Wehr Hall.  Though I know Lamott has lots of big fans in Milwaukee, the event just needs a little extra help.  (On the other hand, our Patricia Wells event for Salad as a Meal on April 18 at Bacchus is sold out.)

And since it's a little more narrative-y than most emails, I decided to convert this into a blog post.  My apologies if you subscribe to both. I get the feeling that many people only read one or the other.  So here I go!

You can order Anne Lamott tickets on the Alverno website or by calling (414) 382-6044 between Noon and 6 pm, Monday through Friday. I'll give you more details about the tickets, plus the best place to park for Wehr Hall, and just about everything you need to know, but first I want to talk a little more about Anne Lamott and her new novel, Imperfect Birds.

Anne Lamott is one of our most beloved writers. Her writing guide Bird by Bird continues to be the bestselling book in its category, and perhaps the only writing book I've ever read. Her chronicle of her son's first year, Operating Instructions, is probably the only book I've ever read that I'd consider a parenting novel (and I just heard that the sequel has been signed up for publication!). Her faith trilogy (Plan B, Grace (Eventually), and Travelling Mercies*) is similarly beloved, and seem to transcend belief systems. Yes, I read Plan B too.

The truth is that Lamott takes anything she writes and brings it to another level of universal understanding. That's no small order. And through it all, she's been writing her novels, seven of them altogether. I have this distinct memory of chasing down an Anne Lamott book for my brother-in-law (dare I say it?) when I first started bookselling some 25 years ago. But that's not even my strongest Lamott memory. Who can't forget the day that Schwartz hosted Lamott and despite a terrible snowstorm, she triumphantly entered the bookstore an hour past the start of the reading? Her fans were so solid that pretty much none of them gave up and left. It was a pretty great night.

Imperfect Birds is the third novel Lamott has written about Rosie Ferguson and her mother Elizabeth, following Rosie and Crooked Little Heart. It's the story of a family in crisis, with a teenager who seemingly has it together, but is flirting dangerously with substance abuse. Her mom, Elizabeth, whose powerful trust in her child cause her to overlook dangerous signs, even though she's a recovering alcoholic herself. I'm going to admit here that I haven't finished the novel yet, but it's a fascinating read, filled with Lamott's wonderful writing and always entertaining insights into human nature.

So you are wondering, do you have to have read Lamott's previous "Rosie" novels to enjoy Imperfect Birds? Absolutely not! I did read Rosie but it was so long ago that I don't remember it anyway. I assure you that it's a self-contained story, not at all like starting Lord of the Rings with The Return of the King.

There's no question that this is a novel that contemplates substance abuse and addiction, a subject that Lamott has tackled several times before, as it comes from her own life. Lamott's journey from alcoholism to sobriety has been touched on in several of her memoirs, and was mother Elizabeth's battle in earlier "Rosie" novels. If this subject is of interest to you, I would like to recommend, as an aside, two absolutely wonderful novels that tackle the subject--Michelle Huneven's Blame and Heidi W. Durrow's The Girl who Fell from the Sky.

So yes, Anne Lamott is a wonderful writer and the new novel is a good read that will make an excellent book club suggestion. But the real reason to come to Anne Lamott is...Lamott is a spectacular speaker! You will be kicking yourself after this one if you are on the fence and don't come. You'll be chatting with one of your friends and they will tell you what an amazing time they had...and you probably won't get a chance to see Lamott for another five years. Even when the publisher and author are fond of Milwaukee as a tour city, it usually rotates onto the schedule about every two to three tours.

*I checked with Stacie, another big fan, and Travelling Mercies is her favorite.

Part 2: Daniel's Guide to a Great Anne Lamott Experience at Alverno College

1. Our event is at Wehr Hall (to be precise, Todd Wehr Auditorium in Christopher Hall, according to the sign outside). Though 39th street will pop up on search engines, this building is closest to 43rd and Morgan, the southwest corner of the campus. The address is 3400 South 43rd. Our website had the wrong number for a short time. Our apologies.

2. You can approach Alverno from the east, taking the Holt exit from 43 and traveling west.

3. I think it is faster and easier for most people (unless you live in Bay View, like I do) to take the Miller Park Way exit from 94. This street turns into 43rd Street. You will pass the redeveloped strip centers of West Allis, then beautiful Jackson Park on your left. The campus starts just after Oklahoma Avenue.

4. See that lot on 43rd and Morgan? Park there. Permits are not needed in the closer lot after 4 pm. Oh, and don't forget to allow for some extra time on the freeways. There are a lot of lane closures out there, particularly on I94.

5. If you do take Miller Park Way to 43rd, I do recommend eating at Pho 43, in the strip center in front of the Target. It's cheap, good, and I wish it were busier. The owners are very nice. I like the pho, the fried rice, and several of the noodle dishes.

6. Here's why you should buy your ticket now, instead of waiting until the last minute. Even if you buy your tickets that day, we'll have will-call at Wehr. But walk-up purchasers will have to go to the Pitman Box Office to buy tickets first, and then head over to Wehr. Ick!

7. There is a service charge of $5 per order. If you're going in a group, please buy your tickets together and save some dough!

8. You have two options--a paperback copy of Imperfect Birds (you get the picture--I'm going to stop obsessively linking), $10 off a different book on display, or a $10 gift card to use at Boswell on anything else you would like.

9. Caveat! Based on advance ticket purchase, we have brought in 200 copies of Imperfect Birds. If by some amazing marketing surge, we go well beyond an attendance that would cover book sales, the books are first come, first serve.

10. Want to read more about Anne Lamoot's Imperfect Birds? Here are reviews in The New York Times, the Seattle Times, and Time Magazine.

11. And here's an interview with Caroline Leavitt, a blogger, whose most recent novel, Pictures of You, was just released in paperback.

12. Hope to see you there! And if you have any questions, email me or call the store during our regular hours (see above) at (414) 332-1181.

So there you have it.  Now what else can I do?  And that's just one of six events we have coming up next week.  Seven, if you include the Jewish Day School reading on Tuesday at the store.