Everything You Wanted to Know About the Books You Heard While Watching Milwaukee TV, Listened to Radio, Read the Paper, or Browsed Websites--Station Eleven, Will it Waffle, The Roosevelts, Ping Pong Diplomacy and Of Course, Body by Simone.

Let's start with Lake Effect this week. Our event with Elizabeth Gilbert and Bonnie North for The Signature of All Things led to this Lake Effect piece on Tuesday. Form the site: "Back in July, bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert spent an evening chatting with Lake Effect's Bonnie North at Boswell Book Company. Before she became a memoir mega star with Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert was an accomplished and critically acclaimed short story writer and novelist."

On Wednesday, Robert Kitzman is interviewed about the science and genetics and whether we should be aware of our genetic makeup. His book, from 2012, is called Just Because You Should. The book has no paperback and is now textbook priced. It appears the author was touring for the ebook.

Alas, Howard Fuller's book, No Struggle, No Progress: A Warrior’s Life from Black Power to Education Reform is not on the Ingram database, which I find a little odd. That said, I'm a little better about adding titles to our database and I've got Fuller's book listed, so you can order it from us. As Lake Effect notes, his new memoir details "his childhood in Milwaukee and at Carroll College in Waukesha, his time as a community organizer in Cleveland and North Carolina to his work in the Pan African movement in the 1970s and founding Malcolm X Liberation University."

Also on Wednesday's show, Lake Effect talks to one of Wisconsin's favorite writers about his new book, where fracking comes to Wisconsin. "Jerry Apps, a former agricultural extension agent and current professor emeritus, has written about the many perspectives to sand fracking in his newest novel, The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County. The book is the sixth in his Ames County series and shines light on what happens within the fictional town of Link Lake when sand fracking becomes a reality."

Over at Wisconsin Public Radio, Kathleen Dunn spoke to Nancy Merrick, a former studen of Jane Goodall, whose recent book is Among Chimpanzees: Field Notes from the Race to Save Our Endangered Relatives. She discusses how the "chimpanzee has gone extinct in four African countries and nearly so in twelve others."

Who hasn't been watching The Roosevelts: An Intimate History, on public television? The first night attracted 9 million viewers. Kathleen Dunn spoke to Geoffrey Ward, the long-time collaborator of show creator Ken Burns, who has penned many of the tie-in books.

Tuesday's Central Time has Rob Ferrett and Veronica Rueckert speaking to Beth Hillson, author of The Complete Guide to Living Well Gluten-Free: Everything You Need to Know to Go from Surviving to Thriving. Of course my questions is what health trend is next?

Also on Tuesday, Central time talked to Samuel Bennett, who spoke about procrastination as author of Get It Done: From Procrastination to Creative Genius in 15 Minutes a Day. "Bennett says that one big reasons people don’t finish the things they want to do to is simple: fear. Whether it's a fear of success, a fear of failure or a fear of investing a lot of time in a lost cause, it's a response that Bennett thinks is an inherent part of taking on projects that matter."

Wednesday's show featured a book featured on our Chinese table, inspired by our visit from Chistina Merritt on September 26 for Once Upon a Time in China. Nicholas Griffin is the author of Ping Pong Diplomacy: The Secret History of the Game that Changed the World. Kirkus's gave it a star: "A quirky, thoroughly enjoyable trek through the implausible beginnings of international table tennis and the colorful characters-cum-diplomats behind it.

Also on Wednesday, Ginger Alden spoke to Central Time about Elvis and Ginger: Elvis Presley's Fiancée and Last Love Finally Tells Her Story. Ginger Alden is an actress (the soap opera Capitol) and model (Virginia Slims, Avon).

On Thursday, Anne Strainchamps of To the Best of Our Knowledge, discusses some new titles, including Dear Committee Members.She discusses John Williams' Stoner (remember the Schwartz craze, where we sold over 200 copies in 2008?) Also featured is Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl.

Reviewed in the Shepherd Express is Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins, by Noah Eisenberg. Reviewer Paul McComas takes issue with a negative Film Comment Review, and notes he and David Luhrssen are working on a book about Ulmer. Meanwhile, if you are interested in filmmakers of this period, you should check out Tami Williams' Germaine Dulac: A Cinema of Sensations. Williams, from the UWM English department, will be at Boswell on Thursday, October 16, 7 pm. We're able to source Eisenberg's January release, but since it's textbook priced, it's special order only.

Thanks to the Shepherd Express for highlighting our event with Emily St. John Mandel on Monday, September 22. Don't forget, Mandel will be joined by Bo Johnson, Stephan Roselin, Josh Perkins, and Margaret Casey from the Soulstice Theatre for our staged reading of Station Eleven.

From Morning Blend, Monday's show offers more on Hank, the Ballpark Pup. Right now to our knowledge, the books' available at the Brewers Gift Shop and through their site. We'll let you know when we get more information.

Thank you to Morning Blend for talking up our Monday event with Daniel Shumski, author of Will it Waffle. Based on how entertaining Mr. Shumski was at the store, I expect a strong online pop of sales for this book. I love how the Morning Blend folks said to "dust that puppy off" and start cooking again, in this case, chicken tenders..You can also watch Shumski on Studio A, where they take on one of the most intriguing dishes in the book, waffled mac 'n' cheese.

Simone de la Rue was on Morning Blend on Tuesday, discussing Body by Simone: The 8-Week Total Body Makeover Plan. She talks about creating a roadmap to total body transformation. Don't forget to turn left at the third thigh from the left.

Wednesday brings Morning Blend Chelsea Cain, who appeared at Boswell on Tuesday. It's for her new series, One Kick, a nail biter! She brought Molly and Tiffany mustache rings, direct from Portland. Imagine Elizabeth Smart taking off the sweater and putting on the catsuit.

Thursday's Morning Blend featured The Pout-Pout Fish Goes to School with Debbie Diesen and Dan Hanna. You can admire the Pout-Pout fish that was so beloved by kids at the schools we visit. They also talk about why children's picture books also need to appeal to adults.

And Friday features Michael Perry, fresh from his day with us talking about The Scavengers, his first novel for middle-grade readers. He came up with the book when he was digging around in the dumps with my authors. We're so glad we had so many authors that were perfect for Morning Blend this week (except for Simone, of course, who I think appeared via satellite). 

When You're Doing Five Events with Three Authors, They Are Bound to Eventually Collide--Diesen Meets Perry.

I'm not going to say I single-handedly worked five events yesterday for three reasons. Firstly, Amie was our bookseller at our Michael Perry school event in the morning in Bayside. And secondly, Carly helped with our second Deborah Diesen and Dan Hanna school event on the Northwest side of Milwaukee, as well as our public event at Oak Creek Library. Next week she'll be doing her first solo venture; wish her luck! And Jen, Scott, and Amie helped with our public event with Michael Perry back at the store. What a day!

It all came together too, because Ms. Diesen was, author of The Pout-Pout Fish Goes to School, was one of our attendees at Michael Perry's event for The Scavengers. Mr. Perry noted that Ms. Diesen and Mr. Hanna's books were very popular read-aloud titles at bedtime, while Ms. Diesen returned the favor by getting a copy of Mr. Perry's newest book.

A great day all around, though I admit that we can't pull off something like this too often.  We had the perfect amount of time between events, thanks to Jannis's scheduling. And you've probably figured out that Amie also worked a very long day to make this work. So thanks to everyone who made this happen--the booksellers, the schools, the publishers, the authors, and the audience!

What Makes a City Happy? Charles Montgomery Investigates.

I have mentioned before how much I love cities--their history, their distinctiveness, and the philosophy behind what makes a good place to live.  The truth is that city or suburb are often just a case of artificial boundaries and compact design or sprawl are the results of competing incentives, created by governments and lobbied by private interests. In a lot of ways, for example, the neighborhood around our store is not that different from Shorewood, the southern half of Bay View has much in common with St. Francis, and parts of Washington Heights and Story Hill have little distinction with Wauwatosa. Ah, but it's those government entities that often make a difference, don't they?

Milwaukee is by no means a small city, but it was a recent visit to New York that got me thinking about urban planning and development, especially because shortly before my trip, our good FOB (friend of Boswell) Tom recommended I read Charles Montgomery's Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design (FSG). The pitch was that Montgomery's book was a combination of two of my loves--not just urban planning but behavioral psychology.The book is currently available in hardcover, but comes out in paperback (a reasonable, trade-priced edition) in October.

Charles Montgomery (at left) comes from a journalism background, but it seems that some of the best work in the field comes from outsiders. For every Janet Holtz Kay (Asphalt Nation) and Witold Rybczynski (A Clearing in the Distance and other works), there is a Joel Garreau (Edge City et cetera) and Tom Vanderbilt (Traffic). Montgomery's jumping-off point was Bogotá, Columbia, and in particular, one mayor, Enrique Peñalosa, who premised that while he couldn't dramatically change the economic fortunes of his city, he could make them happier, and the way he decided to do that was to reject the consultants' advice and redesign his city for cars, not people. I'd link to these books, but they are mostly not available or no longer available at trade discount.  University of California in particular has eliminated bookseller-friendly trade discounts from their catalog. We'll see what the long term effect of that is .

The premise of Happy People builds on studies that show that we often make the wrong choices about what will make us happy, and that one of the major tradeoffs we make in the wrong direction (as anyone who regularly watches House Hunters knows) is that we generally pick space over proximity. How many episodes have I watched where the couple wanted to stay close to the action instead chose a larger home 20, 30, and even 50 miles from the city center. My favorite was a recent episode where the house close to town was 12 miles away. I'm not saying you shouldn't live that far outside a city center, but unless you're in one of the top five markets (they weren't), you shouldn't kid yourself that you're close.

The deck has been stacked against urban development for decades. Depreciation favors new construction. Mortgage loans still rarely cover renovation and mortgage interest deductions (which are uncommon in most of the world) favor using mortgage loans, which, well, you get it. And then of course there was the dismantling of the street car system, which has been incredibly expensive to replace.

Milwaukee still has no light rail, and the truth of the matter is that most bus lines in the city, including the 15, which is the closest bus to my house, do not run with enough frequency (studies say 15 minutes is what we need to not check a schedule) to be dependable. On Sundays, my bus runs once an hour and it's often quite crowded, but there are just not funds available. I often walk to the Green line, which has a more reasonable 20 minute schedule, but according to Montgomery, even that is not going to suit the needs of most people enough for them to give up cards. An interesting aside--people will walk 1/4 mile for a bus but 1/2 mile for light rail.

Like many, Montgomery argues that with the long-term decline of our energy resources and the resulting upward pressure on costs, the urban form will be the cheapest way for us to live. It's also his argument that it is the happiest way. And at this point we have to differentiate between small towns and exurbs. Small towns generally do a lot of things right in terms of proximity. But forces have come into play that have hurt many small towns, from big box development to the decline of family farms, to the internet. How are you all going to gather at the post office when nobody goes to the post office? That's an aside--Montgomery is not really interested in the role that third places play in urban life, at least in Happy City.

Montgomery visits some exurbs in Stockton, California to make his point. Now this metropolis has particular problems, but his thesis is that these far flung, heavily zoned, large lot, inaccessible communities have exacerbated urban problems. Now of course you might argue that some of the worst problems of crime are in places with traditional urban development, and you'd be correct. These ideas are certainly not panaceas. Most cities are well aware that if they do not fix their school systems, they will continue to bleed middle class families to self-segregating outer school districts.

For a different take on urban development, Montgomery looks at Asheville, North Carolina, a town that embraced urban development with very successful results. I'm fascinated to visit the city next winter, where the American Booksellers Association is holding the Winter Institute, and I will definitely recommend to booksellers that they read the Asheville study in Happy City. A lot of the other casework comes from New York (because it's large and Montgomery lives there), Vancouver (because he also lives there, and Vancouver has a great reputation as a good place to live, though he notes it has it's share of ills) and Portland (because it's perfect, apparently). You would not believe how many Milwaukeeans I've known over the years who've either moved to Portland, planned to, or just dreamed about it. And the crazy thing is that thirty years ago, aside from the snow, the cities were very, very similar in profile. Talk about divergent paths.

Montgomery explores what's happening in the world of urban designs. There are cities that are reducing the number of signs on the road. Copenhagen experiments with bench placement. David Liebeskind creates a building on busy Bloor Street that repels people. Manhattan closes Broadway to traffic and hordes of pedestrians fill the space, and the traffic actually moves better. College campuses find that suites as opposed to traditional dorm setups make students friendlier. Townhouses create conviviality more than towers in the sky. And everyone likes a tree. Somebody should tell that to New York. I spotted blocks and blocks of Manhattan without any greenery. Once you're looking, you notice these things.

There are two books that perhaps most inspire Montgomery's work. One is City, by the late William H. "Holly" Whyte (it's out of stock indefinitely, find a used copy), the urban planner that used sociological fieldwork and data to look at what worked in cities and what did not. Why were so many subsidized plazas in New York underutilized? It turns out they were designed that way, with little seating, no greenery, and uncomfortable bars on any sort of ledge to discourage any sort of lingering. The problem was those spaces were for the public, in exchange for zoning variances, and Montgomery looks at the continuing struggle to bring cities back to the many (on foot and bikes) as opposed to the few (in cars).

The other book that Happy City calls to mind is Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream, the platform book of Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. They are considered among the founders of New Urbanism, the group that advocated for compact design that limited car use. Alas, developers did play off the faux traditional forms that accompanied this movement, but things let place new urbanist developments on the far fringes of metro areas. The next stage in this movement is sprawl repair, but it as Duany and Plater-Zyberk argued, the big hurdle continues to be adjusting zoning codes. Why do streets have to be big enough to accommodate enormous fire trucks. Why do cities not have control of designated state roads in their jurisdictions?

Choosing proximity over space is one way the citizens can likely improve their happiness level. One thing a governing body can do is focus on public spaces. Make sure people have them and make sure they are usable. We live green space, sure. But more than that, we like interacting with other people. At the same time, we also want the ability to withdraw to our private spaces. That's why row houses work so well, and work best when they are not flush against the sidewalk, but have a buffer zone in front of them, preferably of the natural, not parked car variety.

The big change since my heyday of reading urban planning books is the rise of bicycle culture. This has been a sea change, and Milwaukee has added bike lanes just as many cities have. We're even experimenting with raised lines--there is one by my house on Bay Street. But we're certainly nowhere near bike-car parity. Other places have curb differentiations, and Bogotá did something fascinating and flipped the traditional model of where bikes and pedestrians belong on the street, in the middle of the road, moving cars to the edge.  One attitude change I had from Happy City is bike helmets. As you know, Americans push to helmet use while Europeans do not. It's a bit ironic in Wisconsin, as motorcyclists almost never wear helmets, and they are going at speeds that are more likely to be fatal if there's an accident. But some studies show that helmets are more likely to lead to accidents, partly because bicyclists take more risk, but worse still, motorists are more likely to take risks with bicycles, giving them substantially less breathing space on the road.

Does enlightened planning solve urban problems? No, and even some of Montgomery's case studies I've found lacking in practice. On my recent visit to Vancouver, the newly developed neighborhoods seemed sterile and car scaled, with lots sizes too large, lots of bland, generic apartment housing, and little ability for infill. Some of the nice older neighborhoods seemed to have no reinvestment going on. It almost seemed like they were slated for destruction. I think that's one of the costs of being a city in demand, like New York, Toronto, Vancouver, San Francisco, and Seattle. This harkens back to another of my favorite books that touches on development, if from a completely different perspective, Tony Hiss's The Experience of Place. Change is going to happen, but what are the changes that improve a city and what are the changes that destroy it, and how do you keep growth and happiness balanced?

One of Montgomery's findings has been green space. When I visit a city and see a struggling urban area, I head to a map and count to blocks to a green space, and small parks are almost better than large ones, as they are manageable. Why hasn't Milwaukee tried to spur development in the Park East Corridor by replicating a Cathedral Square? It's a small price to pay for possible later payoff.

Now all someone has to do is explain to me why in Wisconsin, light rail is a battle of left vs. right, whereas large rail developments have sprouted in states that are as conservative or more conservative than Wisconsin, including North Carolina, Arizona, Utah, and Texas. Light rail is actually on track for Oklahoma City. Really, explain this to me!

Needless to say, I had a great time reading Charles Montgomery's Happy City. It will find a permanent place on my urban planning bookshelf at home (which also contains some travel lit and history). The book has received much positive press, and recommendations from such leaders in the field as Richard Florida, whose book, The Rise of the Creative Class gave cities an economic incentive to invest in their urban centers. He offers: "“The place we live is key to our happiness. In Happy City, Charles Montgomery helps us understand why and provides a guidebook for living a happier, more fulfilling and meaningful life." For me, the read was both nostalgic (reminding me of my once heavy reading on the subject) and forward thinking, looking at the latest developments. Thanks to Tom for bringing it to my attention.

Happy City comes out in paperback on October 7, 2014. The hardcover is still available, or you can pre-order a copy of the paperback here. And there's more on the author's website.

The Email Newsletter Has Gone Out, The Award Nominations are Coming In for Current and Former Boswell Guests, and I Learn That the Band Survivor Had a Lot of Troubled Relationships, But Idea of March was Relatively Happy.

1. First of all, I should note that our email newsletter has gone out. Folks who read the blog will get a week ahead on events--there are features through October  4 and listings through October 16. There's a piece on the Milwaukee Film Festival and on several other events that are not ours, some of which we're selling books at (Betty Medsger's The Burglary) and some we aren't (Michelle Alexander, Stuart Gibbs and William Alexander). I know there's a good number of you interested in the Michelle Alexander event for The New Jim Crow, based on how many we've sold.

2. We've been crowing about how both Americans on the first Man Booker shortlist to include Americans read at Boswell for their most recent novels. Karen Joy Fowler's We are All Completely Beside Ourselves is already out in paperback, but Joshua Ferris's To Rise Again at a Decent Hour is fresh enough that it got scheduled as a daily New York Times review and far from disparaging it to prove it was the right decision to skip over it in the first place, she raved about it.

"This is also the first novel by Mr. Ferris that really lives up to the reputation he established too quickly. It’s a major achievement that far outshines the much-publicized Then We Came to the End, his entertaining but weightless debut, and The Unnamed, a baffling, downbeat aberration. Neither of those books anticipated the wonders that turn up in this one." Holy cow!

2a. Now it appears that Boswell is about to host not one but two authors on the Scotiabank Giller Prize shortlist. I thought we had a chance, but I kept assuming that one of the titles would be Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven (the novel that we have been gushing over of late). I forgot that David Bezmozgis is also Canadian, which I should have figured out since we were working with the publicist on getting the author from Toronto to Milwaukee (and yes, there is a direct flight).

So The Betrayers is one of the books, and the other is Miriam Toews' All My Puny Sorrows. The funny thing about that was that I noticed that our event (November 11) is only a day after the prize is awarded. I said to the publicist, what if Miriam Toews wins the prize? Would she still do our event? So far, everyone is committed. Do you think I obsess too much about the Giller Prize? Did you know that one of the books that made the 2012 Giller longlist, The Crooked Maid, is written by Dan Vyleta, an author we hosted when he lived in Milwaukee. But I'm sort of sad that in general, it's been hard for the Giller winners to get a toehold in the United States. In the old days, we at Schwartz did pretty well with several winners from unknown writers, including Richard B. Wright's Clara Callen and Bonnie Burnard's A Good House. Maybe this year I'll vow that we'll read the Giller winner in our in-store lit group (unless it's something I've read already).

3. I was reading a story in The Wall Street Journal, arguing that 30 minutes of uninterrupted reading was highly beneficial to your wellbeing, just the sort of propaganda a bookseller likes to hear, and I realized that I've been so busy that I haven't been drinking my own medicine. The problem has been that I've been jumping from book to book, not able to get into anything.

Of all things, I wound up gravitating to Jim Peterik's memoir, Through the Eye of the Tiger: The Rock 'n' Roll Life of Survivor's Founding Member, written with Lisa Torem. As a person who obsessively followed music in the 70s and 80s, it was fun to know what was going on behind the scenes of a band I was pretty familiar with, and Peterik wrote not just for Survivor, but also cowrote must of the hits for .38 Special. Plus I jump at any excuse to pull out my well-worn copy of The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits, 1996 edition, written by Menomonee Falls' own Joel Whitburn.

Little did I know that this outside work with Don Barnes was cause for some of the bad blood he had with Survivor's lead guitarist, who was also his writing partner. It was a pretty complicated relationship and while I'm only reading Peterik's side, one gets the feeling that whoever was right or wrong in this feud-like relationship, it made Peterik's most successful years also among his least happy. Just another example of superstar success being overrated.

Jim Peterik (Jimbo!) will be at Boswell on Saturday, October 18, 7 pm. He's a Berwyn boy, you know.

4. So while I'm writing this, the National Book Award longlist came out. I really have to say that I love these longlists. So it turns out that we once again have two contenders as events, but in this case it's one past and one future. Congratulations to Rabih Alemeddine, author of An Unnecessary Woman, and Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven. How cool is that?

New Books from Lawrence Wright, Zephyr Teachout, Christian Rudder, Terrence Holt, and Diane Ackerman

As you know from the Boswellians post, today is the day that Sarah Waters' The Paying Guests come out, but we're talking up nonfiction today. The first book on our list is Lawrence Wright's Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David (Knopf). If you're like me, you already devoured Terry Gross's interview on Fresh Air today. The piece* that resulted was unprecedented, and a lot of it came from Carter's unique relationship with Sadat--it just goes to show how important inter-personal relationships are to world events. Joe Klein in his New York Times review explains that the origins of this "magnificent" book about a piece* of history mostly ignored by historians was a play that Lawrence Wright called Camp David. That Wright is a man of many talents; it's too bad I missed his epic opera about Scientology.

When our Harvard/Yale/MIT rep was in today, I asked him if Zephyr Teachout, the author of Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin's Snuff Box to Citizens United (Harvard) was related to Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal drama critic. She is not, but their common name led them to a friendship. John noted that Ms. Teachout did just capture a third of the vote in the Democratic primary running against Andrew Cuomo in the Working Families Party. Here is a profile of Teachout in The New Yorker; it turns out that the book doubles as a campaign platform, albeit a particularly academic one.

Speaking of The Wall Street Journal, I just read an article that discussed how online quizzes, all the rage right now, are a goldmine for advertisers too. For some reason, we're much more likely to give out personal relationships if it reveals which character in Grease we most resemble. That's my segue to Christian Rudder's Dataclysm: Who We Are* (*When We Think No One's Looking.) (Crown). It's about how we live so much of our lives online that data scientists can finally observe us in vast numbers, without filters. The author was a co-founder and president of OKCupid (now part of IAC Interactive and also the focus of a Wall Street Journal story--that subscription is really paying off, though this link is to an old article which speculates on them spinning off the Match group. Here's The Washington Post review from recent guest Jordan Ellenberg.

It's a rather black group of covers, isn't it? I'll switch things up with a plug for Internal Medicine: A Doctor's Stories (Liveright), from Terrence Holt. Holt's short stories, In the Valley of Kings, had a long-time staff rec at Boswell and was a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham award. Well of course he was a doctor (MDs are such overachievers, are they not?) and as such, here are some essays of being a resident; this time Boswellian Jane flagged this an important and powerful book. Danielle Ofri remarked in The New York Times that Holt's prose was "exquisite and restrained." The much-missed Susan Gusho (of Harry W. Schwartz and Next Chapter, now at Watermark in Wichita) gushes: "Both human and humane, Internal Medicine beautifully spans the gap between doctor and patient, between data and meaning, between science and art. If fiction is a lens revealing greater truth, readers can glean much about the hopes and frailties of doctors and patients, that we are all, finally, heir to." Read the whole review here. 

At the sister imprint of Liveright, W.W. Norton, a major fall release is The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us, by Diane Ackerman. In what is said to be her landmark book (seems impossible, as she's had several groundbreakers already), "she confronts the unprecedented reality that one podigiously intelligent and meddlesome creature, Homo sapiens, is now the dominant force shaping the future of the planet Earth." Jared Diamond writes: "Ackerman's vivid writing, inexhaustible stock of insights, and unquenchable optimism have established her as a national treasure, and as one of our great authors." Rob Nixon reviewed the book in The New York Times; he called it a "dazzling achievement but questioned some of her pronouncements." And here's Barbara J. King in The Washington Post.

Hope something here captures your attention. Every featured title is Boswell's Best through at least next Monday.

*Originally said "peace." I hit a certain age and my brain stopped catching homonym spellings automatically. This was not a mistake I would have made at 30.

Monday Event Post--Daniel Shumski's Waffles, Chelsea Cain Kicks It, Kevin Miyazaki offers a Re-lake-able Series of Portraits, the Pout Pout Fish Goes to the Library, Michael Perry Does Dystopian, and the UWM English Department Unites in Reading.

Monday, September 15, 7 pm, at Boswell:

Daniel Shumski, author of Will It Waffle?: 53 Unexpected and Irresistible Recipes to Make in a Waffle Iron, with samples by Julie Pandl, author of Memoir of the Sunday Brunch.

From the publisher: "How many great ideas begin with a nagging thought in the middle of the night that should disappear by morning, but doesn t? For Daniel Shumski, it was: "Will it waffle?" Hundreds of hours, countless messes, and 53 perfected recipes later, that answer is a resounding: Yes, it will! Steak? Yes! Pizza? Yes! Apple pie? Emphatically yes. And that s the beauty of being a waffle iron chef waffling food other than waffles is not just a novelty but an innovation that leads to a great end product, all while giving the cook the bonus pleasure of doing something cool, fun, and vaguely nerdy (or giving a reluctant eater your child, say a great reason to dig in)."

Behind the griddle is Julie Pandl, one writer whose spent many a brunch behind a waffle iron. The author of Memoir of the Sunday Brunch is helping us with samples. 

Kristine Kierzek speaks to Shumski in the Journal Sentinel food section.

Listen to Daniel Shumski on Central Time's Food Friday segment on Wisconsin Public Radio.

Watch Shumski today on Morning Blend on WTMJ4 and Studio A on Fox6.

Tuesday, September 16, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Chelsea Cain, author of One Kick and Heartsick:

After a series of adventures with psychopath Gretchen Lowell, her new heroine, Kick Lanigan, has a dark past, having been kidnapped as a child, and held captive for several years. Now as an adult, she's investigating another missing child: Booklist raves: "This is an edge-of-the-chair thriller, and Cain negotiates the twists and turns with finesse while keeping her foot firmly on the gas pedal. Excruciating yet always compelling."

Alison Flood in the (UK) Guardian praises Cain's newest: "Leavened with Cain's pitch-black wit, One Kick, the start of a new series, is a dark, dangerous journey into evil to find the vanished children, and entirely hide-away-until-you-finish-it gripping."

Wednesday, September 17, 6 pm, at the Haggerty Museum of Art, 530 N 13th St, Milwaukee, WI 53233: Kevin Miyazaki, photographer of Perimeter: A Contemporary Portrait of Lake Michigan.

From the publisher: "Commissioned by the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University to create an artwork reflecting on the importance of freshwater, Milwaukee-based photographer Kevin J. Miyazaki embarked on a two-week, 1,800-mile drive around Lake Michigan. In Perimeter, Miyazaki's images of the lake and those drawn to it produce what he calls 'a contemporary portrait of Lake Michigan.'"

Read this interview with Mary Louise Schumacher in the Journal Sentinel regarding Perimeter's original exhibition at the Haggerty.

Thursday, September 18, 4 pm, at the Oak Creek Public Library, 8620 S Howell Ave, Oak Creek, WI 53154:
Deborah Diesen and Daniel X. Hannah, author and illustrator of The Pout Pout Fish Goes to School.

On The Pout Pout Fish Goes to School: "Mr. Fish nervously awaits his first day of school. He frets about not knowing how to write his name, how to draw shapes, and how to do math until he's reassured that school is the perfect place to learn how to master all of these new skills."

Watch Deborah and Dan on Morning Blend on Thursday. I'll have the link posted this weekend. Meanwhile you can enjoy these Pout Pout Fish videos.

Thursday, September 18, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Michael Perry, author of The Scavengers and Coop: 

Michael Perry's first novel for kids is, per the publisher, "an imaginative and humorous novel for middle-graders. With a neighbor's help, 12-year-old Ford Falcon learns to survive in the harsh world outside the Bubble Cities by scavenging for items to use or tradeNskills she needs after her parents go missing."

Kirkus Reviews enthuses: "Sufficient unanswered questions exist to fuel a sequel, but there's no cliffhanger-Perry provides a satisfying closing for his restless heroine.Comparisons to other gritty, engaging tough-girl-with-a-strong-moral-compass stories are inevitable, but Maggie has originality and grit to spare."

Listen to this interview with Michael Perry on Wisconsin Public Radio's Larry Meiller Show.

Friday, September 19, 7 pm, at Boswell:
The UWM Department of English presents United We Read. One faculty and three graduate students from the Creative Writing program will be reading from this work in the fall 2014 launch of this popular series that moves from bookstore to bar to park.

This week's fantastic lineup includes Professor Kimberly Blaeser, and graduate students Ann-Marie Blanchard, Franklin Cline, and Mark Brand.​


A sneak peek at Monday, September 22, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven, reading with the Soulstice Theatre.

Entertainment Weekly gave Station Eleven a resounding A: "One of her great feats is that the story feels spun rather than plotted, with seamless shifts in time and characters. Here, a young Arthur's fateful meeting with his first wife. Then, a Michigan airport where stranded passengers cluster in huddles of horror beneath screens showing CNN. Now, a resolute band of actors whose caravan roams between dystopian settlements performing Shakespeare and Beethoven. ''Because survival is insufficient,'' reads a line taken from Star Trek spray-painted on the Traveling Symphony's lead wagon. The genius of Mandel's fourth novel—the first with the marketing muscle of a major publisher—is that she lives up to those words. This is not a story of crisis and survival. It's one of art and family and memory and community and the awful courage it takes to look upon the world with fresh and hopeful eye."
 

Sigrid Nunez reviews Station Eleven in The New York Times Book Review: "Station Eleven is as much a mystery as it is a post-apocalyptic tale, and Mandel is especially good at planting clues and raising the kind of plot-thickening questions that keep the reader turning pages. Why does the prophet own a dog with the same name as a dog owned by Dr. Eleven? What is the meaning of the two black knives tattooed on Kirsten’s wrist? Who is this “V.” to whom Arthur has written a slew of letters over the years? If Mandel has to rely heavily on coincidence to bring certain parts off, she does so with satisfying panache."

Here's our blog post about the Soulstice Theatre collaboration, featuring Margaret Casey, Bo Johnson, Josh Perkins, and Stephan Roselin, and organized by Mark Flagg. Their next production is a staged reading of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, on September 19, 20, 26, and 27.
 

Annotated Boswell Book Company's Sunday Bestsellers, Week Ending September 13, 2014, including Sunday Journal Sentinel Reviews

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Liar's Wife, by Mary Gordon
2. The Bone Clocks, by David Mitchell
3. The Long Way Home, by Louise Penny
4. Vampires of Manhattan, by Melissa de la Cruz
5. Perfidia, by James Ellroy
6. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, by Haruki Murakami
7. The Children Act, by Ian McEwan
8. The Secret Place, by Tana French
9. The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt
10. Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel

We highlighted six new fiction books this week, Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven on Tuesday, plus five more on Wednesday, but we didn't yet get around to James Ellroy's Perfidia. His World War II novel is set after Pearl Harbor, when a team of three Los Angeles detectives (including one Japanese-American) is charged with solving the murder of a Japanese family. Colette Bancroft in the Tampa Bay Times (you should know her because her excellent reviews are often reprinted in the Journal Sentinel) writes: "James Ellroy is back at work on his version of the 20th century. And if, like me, you are among his legion of fans, you will dive into Perfidia with a shiver that is equal parts anticipation and fear — because you know it's going to get very dark very fast."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. The Happiness of Pursuit, by Chris Guillebeau (event is Wednesday, September 24, 7 pm, at Boswell)
2. Perimeter, by Kevin Miyazaki (event is Wednesday, September 17, 6 pm, at the Haggerty)
3. 13 Hours, by Mithcell Zukov
4. Waking Up, by Sam Harris
5. Everything I Need to Know, I Learned from a Little Golden Book, by Diane Muldrow
6. World Order, by Henry Kissinger
7. Elephant Company, by Vicki Croke
8. The History of Rock and Roll in Ten Songs, by Greil Marcus
9. Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy, by Karen Abbott
10. Death of a King, by Tavis Smiley

A customer came up to me who was reading Henry Kissinger's World Order, was in wonder that the statesman was now 90-something. John Micklethwait, in The New York Times, is more struck by an alternate history in which Kissinger might still be running foreign policy: "If you think America is doing just fine, then skip ahead to the poetry reviews. If, however, you worry about a globe spinning out of control, then World Order is for you. It brings together history, geography, modern politics and no small amount of passion."

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Illusion of Separateness, by Simon Van Booy (event is Tuesday, September 30, 7 pm, at Boswell)
2. Behind God's Back, by Miki Knezevic
3. The Mathematician's Shiva, by Stuart Rojstaczer
4. TransAtlantic, by Colum McCann
5. Longbourn, by Jo Baker
6. A Guide for the Perplexed, by Dara Horn
7. Unmentionables, by Laurie Loewenstein
8. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, by Anthony Marra
9. Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson
10. The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman

Based on the number of titles in the top ten that I've read, you can guess that we had a major book club selecting their titles for the year. The Illusion of Separateness was further buoyed by a program Mr. Van Booy is doing at an area school. He'll be speaking to two high school classes, and the kids will be reading the book ahead of time. I just can't figure out why other stores haven't jumped on the hand-sell bandwagon was this book. It's a deceptively easy read that nonetheless offers a poetic style and much food for thought, but best of all, a lot of readers finish the book very enthusiastic and ready to spread the word. That's why the Milwaukee area sales for the hardcover were among the best in the country. It wasn't just us--it was folks who learned about the book from us recommending it to other people. And our enthusiasm continues; Mr. Van Booy visits on Tuesday, September 30,  7 pm.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. The Girls of Atomic City, by Denise Kiernan
2. The Boys in the Boat, by Daniel James Brown
3. The Bully Pulpit, by Doris Keans Goodwin
4. Inside the Godfather, by Daryl Brown
5. Stuffed and Starved, by Raj Patel

With the Roosevelts: An Intimate History documentary series from Ken Burns starting (and getting great advance reviews, like this from David Bianculli at Fresh Air), Simon and Schuster moved up Doris Kearns Goodwin's The Bully Pulpit to take advantage of the resulting enthusiasm. She was one of the historian consultants for the series, per this article from Mark Dawidziak in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Books for Kids:
1. Fiona's Lace, by Patricia Polacco
2. Mr. Wayne's Masterpiece, by Patricia Polacco
3. The Unwanteds, by Lisa McMann
4. The Blessing Cup, by Patricia Polacco
5. Horton and the Kwuggerbug and More Lost Stories, by Dr. Seuss
6. Blue Bloods, by Melissa de la Cruz
7. The Keeping Quilt, by Patricia Polacco
8. Found, by Margaret Peterson Haddix
9. Gifts of the Heart, by Patricia Polacco
10. The Keeping Quilt, by Patricia Polacco

Did I mention that Patricia Polacco visited this week? But I should also note there's been a lot of enthusiasm for the previously unpublished Dr. Seuss stories, Horton and the Kwuggerbug. Here's a story about the book's release from NPR's Morning Edition.

In the Journal Sentinel, Jim Higgins reviews the new novel from Lauren Beukes, Broken Monsters, which chronicles the search for a bizarre serial killer through modern Detroit. Higgins writes: "Beukes, a genre-busting South African novelist with a sharp prose style who has a good handle on America, won the United Kingdom's top sci-fi prize for the dark fantasy Zoo City, then delivered The Shining Girls, one of the great horror-thrillers of our time. I'd rate Broken Monsters just a tick below The Shining Girls because of the great compassion she invested in the earlier novel's victims. But we're talking here about the difference between an A+ and an A." Mike Fischer reviews The Paying Guests, the new novel by Sarah Waters, that we've had some great reads on at Boswell. Several Boswellians even interviewed the author. Fischer writes: "This being a Waters novel, ecstasy of a different sort awaits us; for all their differences, Frances and Lilian's physical proximity soon becomes intimacy. Waters always writes well about sex and her new novel is no exception: It's both hot and sensually beautiful, transcending cheap cliché." That said, he was pretty disappointed in the book, particularly when a criminal act separates the two and yet binds them together with a secret.

I totally understand where Fischer is with this, but since I've got three fans on staff, I've got to counterpoint the review with one from the Boston Globe, where Rebecca Steinitz claims Waters is writing "at the height of her powers." She has a caveat: "Despite — or perhaps because of — its ominous tension, the middle slows to a near-glacial pace (including a single climactic evening that stretches to about 30 pages of minute detail). But overall, the novel is so delicious that, by its gasp-worthy last few pages, any bitter taste is long forgotten."

Here's info on the Sterling North Book Festival, taking place at Edgerton High School on September 27, featuring David Wiesner, Deborah Blum, David Benjamin, and several other area writers. More info here.

A Hank the Dog book is coming. We'll find out if it's for the Brewers only to sell, or whether they want us to sell it too. In the old days, you wanted other retailers to participate, but nowadays, online sales take care of that reach.

Wrapping the Week Up in Words: Book-Related Segments from the Shepherd Express, Urban Milwaukee, OnMilwaukee.com, Lake Effect, Wisconsin Public Radio, and Morning Blend.

First of all, don't forget to read Friday's post on The Boswellians, where Sharon, Jen, and Carly interview Sarah Waters, author of The Paying Guests, on sale Tuesday, September 16.

And now for this week's books in the news, Milwaukee edition. First up is the Shepherd Express book page. David Luhrssen reviews Brazil: The Fortunes of War: World War II and the Making of Modern Brazil, by Neill Lochery. His take?: "Lochery writes with an eye for detail, putting readers in the Copacabana and on the beaches of Rio as well as the smoke-filled conferences were deals where made."

While we hosted James Brown's son Daryl, The Shepherd Express came down on the side of his sister Yamma Brown, featuring Cold Sweat: My Father, James Brown, and Me, written with Robin Gaby Risher. David Luhrssen calls this a "dishy account of an imperious talent whose uncontrollable rage included beating her mother behind closed doors." My take on this one? They haven't finished arguing this legacy out.

And thanks for featuring Miki Knezevic's Behind God's Back as the Book Preview this week. We had a great time.

On to Will Stotts, Jr.'s column in Dial/Urban Milwaukee. This week he recommends the third volume in Lev Grossman's Magicians trilogy. He dares you to start right in on volume three, The Magician's Land. From Stotts: "Purists would never start at the end of a trilogy, but I think this book is good enough to make you set those prohibitions aside. Compulsives may balk, but I wouldn’t want to delay this kind of gratification just because I hadn’t read the two previous novels."

From OnMilwaukee.com, I was remiss in not linking to Bobby Tanzilo's interview with Stuart Rojstaczer, author of The Mathematician's Shiva. On his Milwuakee connections: "I grew up in a colorful community of Polish and Soviet WWII survivors who ended up in Milwaukee and my childhood is a great wellspring of emotions and creative ideas. I write a lot of short stories that take place in Milwaukee. There might be a time when I take a selection of them and create a book." It turns out that Rose Anne, a long-time FOB (friend of Boswell) went to high school with Mr. Rojstaczer. And yes, the "j" is pronounced like a "y."

Over on Milwaukee Public Radio Lake Effect, Mitch Teich interviewed Joshua Wolf Shenk, author of Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs. From their write up: "These creative pairs span a diverse group of fields - computer science (Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak), biology (Francis Crick and James Watson), and even art (Vincent van Gogh and his brother, Theo). But Shenk says no pair better exemplifies the power and the chemistry of creative partnerships than John Lennon and Paul McCartney."

On Fresh Air, Terry Gross interviewed a member of another collaborative pair this week, Bob Gaudio who made his start with the four seasons. Early in their career, he and Frankie Valli made a handshake deal--Valli would share in the publishing royalties of Gaudio's songs, and Gaudio would split Valli's performance revenues. It still holds more than fifty years later.

Stacy Tonio and Ken Keffler appeared on Monday's show to talk about canning and preserving the flavors of summer. Their most recent book is Truth about Nature: A Family's Guide to 144 Common Myths about the Great Outdoors.

On Wednesday, Lake Effect talked to Patricia Skalka, author of Death Stalks Door County. The inspiration?: "Author Patricia Skalka has been traveling to Door County for nearly 30 years. She and her family have a rustic cottage where they stay to enjoy the serenity and the county’s culture. But her long periods of time there got her to thinking: What about the dark side of Door County?"

Our Door County fiction event is on Monday, September 29, 6:30 pm, at the Milwaukee Public Library's Loos Room. J.F. Riordan appears, author of North of the Tension Line, the first in a series of novels about Door County, which as you've guessed, is "north of the tension line."

Friday's Lake Effect features two book segments. First up is Karen Abbott, author of Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy, "the story of how four women were involved in the war effort on both sides during the Civil War."

Up next is Jordan Ellenberg, UW-Madison mathematician who recently appeared at Boswell for How Not to Be Wrong. He explains how "math is all around us, all the time." Right now there's just a link to the whole show. If I see segmented links, I'll update this post.

Over at Wisconsin Public Radio, Kathleen Dunn spoke to Clarence Page on Tuesday, whose new book, Culture Worrier: Selected Columns 1984-2014: Reflections on Race, Politics and Social Change, has just been released by Agate Publishling. The book contains 172 columns originally published by the Chicago Tribune.

On Thursday, Kathleen Dunn spoke to sociologist Marianne Cooper, author of Cut Adrift: Families in Insecure Times. From the program notes: "The author of a new book about about inequality and risk in American society joins Kathleen for a discussion about rising economic insecurity, rolled-up safety nets, and what really keeps Americans up at night." Publishers Weekly writes that "Cooper offers a robust analysis of gender dynamics, with sharp insights about the heavy burden on women to manage the family's anxiety. Cooper's necessary and timely study is a discomfiting reminder of the human cost of the recession"

On the Wednesday Joy Cardin show, also on Wisconsin Public Radio, the guest was Paul Roberts, author of the The Impulse Society: America in the Age of Instant Gratification, a book that we recapped in our new and noteworthy column. I listened to this interview and found the author's premise provocative: that online social networking and shopping has worsened our impulses to act impulsively.

On Thursday, Joy Cardin spoke to Parker Palmer, author of numerous books about spirituality, education, and politics. I should note that Parker Palmer is appearing in Milwaukee on Thursday, October 16, for a rare Milwaukee appearance. It's a ticketed event sponsored by The Medical Society. $40 tickets includes a book. Register here.

Over on Central Time, Veronica Rueckert and Rob Ferret talked with Jen Shelton, an English professor at Texas Tech University, on the topic of how World War I changed literature.

This week's Wisconsin authors segment features 13-year-old author Emily Page (Rawn), who has completed the second volume of a young adult trilogy called The Spirit's Shadow. She talks about how she writes in between her eighth grade studies. As the book is on a print-on-demand publishing platform, it's available from us to order, but pre-payment is necessary and the book is nonreturnable.

Friday's Central Time brings democratic candidate for governor Wendy Davis, who has written a new memoir, Forgetting to be Afraid. She's known as the politician who led an 11-hour filibuster to block a plan to close most abortion clinics in Texas.

On a lighter note, our new pal Daniel Shumski was featured on Wisconsin Public Radio's Food Friday (twice, as these things go, in the 3 pm and 5 pm hour) for Will it Waffle. Featured dishes are waffled eggs miga and red velvet waffled ice cream sandwiches. I am particularly excited about this interview as I overnighted the book, so I share some excitement in the booking. And of course Daniel Shumski will be waffling with Julie Pandl at Boswell next Monday, September 15, 7 pm.

On the Morning Blend, Friday's show featured Betsy Woodman, who that day was our host at Boswell. She spoke about the Jana Bibi novels, including her newest, Emeralds Included.

Wow, what a week in books! Hope you found something of interest for your to-be-read pile.