In Short: Green Eggs and Ham, A Toast to the Jordans, a Short Goodbye.

a. If you follow The New York Times bestseller lists, you may think you know the bestselling book titles in America, but of late, the actual top ten, at least in the trade marketplace, are books that aren't listed, due to their age. There's been a huge Dr. Seuss promotion going on at mass merchants and those titles have completely dominated sales for the last few weeks.  The top title overall was Green Eggs and Ham, and both One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and The Cat in the Hat were in the top ten.

b. Playing catch up, I wanted to note that Friends of Boswell Jon and Ruth Jordan are being feted at the Mystery Writers of America banquet on April 29. They are receiving the Raven Award, for "outstanding achievement in the mystery field outside the realm of creative writing." Jim Higgins profiled them in February in the Journal Sentinel. Publishing Crimespree Magazine in their spare time (yes, they both hold other jobs), Jon and Ruth make Milwaukee a go-to destination for mystery writers. As Hillary Davidson says, they are "The heart and soul of the crime fiction community."

c. And finally, we're saying goodbye to two dear friends this week. As the person who makes the obituary signs, I sort of spend a little extra time with each author that passes away. Already this year we've had displays for Kent Haruf and Robert Stone, and today I put up the display for Terry Pratchett, finally taking down the P.D. James display from November. It's always tricky to determine which author or popular figure warrants a display, as we don't want the bookstore to become a mausoleum. So adios to Leonard Nimoy and Sam Simon as well, whose creations (in collaboration with others, of course) became numerous Star Trek and Simpsons books, respectively.

d. And on a personal note, I need to say goodbye to Bob Wosewick, who together with Kay, have been two of the dearest Friends of Boswell since we've opened. It started on a bit of a sour note, as the couple moved back to Milwaukee, lured in part by Harry W. Schwartz, their favorite bookstore. And as they were moving, Schwartz announced their closing. They tentatively threw in their lot with us and didn't look back, befriending more than half the Boswellians, and always up for some book discussion. When one of my colleagues threw me a surprise birthday party several years ago, Kay and Bob were two of the customers that Rebecca invited, and they came, and they celebrated.

When the news looked bad, the couple sold their house in Shorewood and relocated to a condo, and darn it if it wasn't just a block from Boswell. And over the last few months, Bob's friends and family have been making pilgrimage to Milwaukee to say goodbye, and just about every person came to the bookstore. In true Bob fashion, he finished his bucket list several days before he passed away.

Of late, every visit from Bob ended with a just-in-case hug. I'm generally not a touchy person (a quirk some use to torment me, and I'm talking to you, Aaron) but in this case, I'm grateful. (And if you think my showing The Long Goodbye is just a pun, we had recently had a conversation about  reading Raymond Chandler's novels. The title is just a coincidence.)

On Finding Adult Books that Work in High Schools, Two Upcoming Paperback Author Sort-of Repeats, and Pondering Whether Target is Paying Attention to Our Event Programming--Nicklas Butler and Cristina Henríquez Back in Milwaukee for Their Paperbacks of "Shotgun Lovesongs" and "The Book of Unkown Americans", Respectively..

I'm not going to get on a high horse and tell you that 100% of my purchases are from local companies. The truth is that while we have moved a lot of our supply purchases over to Downer Hardware, and that by far the bulk of my grocery purchases come from Outpost, I do shop at Target on occasion. While they seem far from the East Side, there's one walking distance from my home in Bay View and another across the street from Pho Cali on 27th Street, where I buy a lot of V2 and V4 (two varieties of bun, or hot/cold Vietnamese noodle salad).  In addition to looking for limited editions of Method soap, I like to browse the book department and see what's going on.

What I've realized is that like Pennie at Costco, my taste overlaps a lot with whoever chooses the Target Book Club. For the second month in the row, their selection has been a book that we touted quite a bit in hardcover. It happened in February when I saw Shotgun Lovesongs on the front page of a Target circular. Wha? But this story, about four friends from high school who find themselves back at their hometown outside Eau Claire, is heartland friendly, wonderfully written, and still a good read.  As you know, Nickolas Butler is returning to Milwaukee in April for the Shorewood Reads program on April 16. In addition to his event at 6:30 pm at the Shorewood Public Library, he's appearing at Shorewood High School and well, I'm going to confess to Priscilla right here that I am not exactly sure of the rest of his schedule. What I do know is that he's doing a lot!

Yes, there was some disagreement about whether Shotgun Lovesongs was appropriate for high school readers, but I just want to note that the backstory of the characters takes place in high school. My best argument is seeing two teenagers reading the book for over an hour at Boswell (yes, these things happen). I asked them if they were in Shorewood High School and participating in the Shorewood Reads program. The answer was that one was; the other just liked the book!

As you may remember, we hosted Mr. Butler at Boswell on launch day and have the pickled eggs to prove it. I was convinced that if we'd had the event a few weeks later, we probably would have had a bigger turnout, though the twenty-something (that's number, not age range) crowd was nothing to sneeze at. We continued to sell the book through 2014 and had a great holiday pop in sales. And now of course we're recommending Shotgun Lovesongs in our book club brochure.

So I walk into Target (where I'm going to be up front and say that as a peanut gallery critic, they lost their way when they sold off the Marshall Field's/Dayton's/Hudson's stores, where their cousins in the department store land kept them appraised of upmarket design trends they could forward to the masses. Who says that activist investors know what they are talking about. They are really only concerned with short-term payouts. But I digress..) and see that Cristina Henríquez's The Book of Unknown Americans is their newest pick. We hosted Henríquez with Rebecca Makkai when their books were in hardcover, and had a wonderful event, where of course the best part was the two authors' interaction. I loved The Hundred Year House, and was thrilled that our sales substantially eclipsed Makkai's first novel at Boswell, but it was Henríquez where I saw unusually good paperback potential.

This was because at the center of the story were teenagers, and that means I could pitch the book to high schools in paperback. Now The Book of Unknown Americans is no YA (young adult novel); I have been told more than once that a novel does not fit in that genre if anything is from an adult perspective, and one of the main teens in the story doesn't tell her own story; as she's had a brain injury, the perspective is from her mother's. But the good news is that we have several high schools who like having the authors of "adult" novels come too and we quickly set up an event at Nicolet High School.

For our public event, Henriquez is the next event in the Women's Speaker Series at Lynden Sculpture Garden on Wednesday, April 8, put on by Margy Stratton's Milwaukee Reads and co-sponsored by our friends at Bronze Optical. Henriquez is so charming, and that event has a social (schmoozing) element to it, so charm is of the utmost.  I think the core attendees will really like the story, but Polly Morris at the Lynden is also outreaching to Latino groups, and we've got at least one Hispanic professionals' book club coming out for the event. Tickets are $22, or $18 if you're a member of the Lynden, and include a copy of the book, wine and refreshments, and since it's April, I can say that you also get admission to the grounds. Reserve your space now!

The Book of Unknown Americans takes place in Wilmington, Delaware, at one particular apartment building. Among the voices in the story are folks from Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Venezuela, and Paraguary, but at the center are two families, one from Panama, and the other from Mexico. The Toros escaped Panamanian politics some years ago, while the Riveras have just arrived, looking for a better school for their daughter Maribel. One of the things I love about the story is that Henríquez shows many different ways to be Latino, when the tendency is to lump very different people together, something that I guess befalls all kinds of ethnic and religious groups (and was a theme of Jason Reynolds' The Boy in the Black Suit too).

Henríquez writes with grace about all her characters, even finding a little understanding for the bully, Garrett, who drives some of the story. And if there's not much positive to be said about the company that owns the mushroom farm that Arturo Rivera works at, she also keeps the entity rather devoid of personalities. One figures that if she had written a boss into the story, she'd try to find some semblance of understanding and honor.

I do always say that it doesn't make sense to repeat an author in paperback at the store but I'm sure you can agree that these paperback events are suitably remixed and are likely to find much larger audience the second time around. How cool is that?

Hey, your April calendar is already filling up!
Wednesday, April 8, 7 pm, at the Lynden: Cristina Henríquez
Thursday, April 16, 7 pm: Nickolas Butler...plus more programming for the Shorewood Reads Shotgun Lovesongs here, including a Red Oak Writing Workshop and the Shotgun Lovesongs in concert at Three Lions Pub.

And if you're at a high school that would like to work with us on author visits, email Phoebe.

And if you're the Target Book Club selector, keep posted to this blog for more suggestions.

And if you're wondering whose got the photo credits, Nickolas Butler's is Olive Juice Studios, while Cristína Henriquez's is Michael Lionstar.

One additional thought: notice that Target doesn't seem to be obsessed as some retailers (Barnes and Noble comes to mind) concerning book jacket artwork. It's interesting to me (and one of my reps noticed this) that in both cases, the paperbacks kept their cloth cover treatments.

New Fiction on Boswell's Best: Jill Ciment, Kazuo Ishiguro, Jamie Kornegay, Máirtin Ó Cadhain, Mario Vargas Llosa.

I'm convinced that I have in my past read a novel by Jill Ciment. Her first novel, The Law of Falling Bodies, was published by Poseidon, and for a number of years, I followed that imprint closely. It makes me sad that I am not as loyal to editors as I once was. A customer came up to me and said "I don't know what to do now that Amy Einhorn's name isn't on the spine of books I like." Jason and I assured Morgan that we're told that she's overseeing the fiction from Flatiron, and while we can't guaranty it's edited by her personally (though it might be at first), it looks like it will be edited by someone working under her. But of course that doesn't guaranty an aesthetic, does it?

So Ciment's newest novel is called Act of God and it's about an apartment building in Brooklyn where  a mysterious mold sprouts, and the four women who are closely affected by it. Billed as a horror-screwball comedy hybrid, the book has a recommendation from Boswellian Jen Steele. She writes: ""If you find a strange glowing mushroom in your closet—like twin sisters Edith and Kat did—you’d better get rid of it quick or risk losing precious artifacts. If you're a landlady-Shakespearean actress like Vida, and happen to discover the same glowing substance in your closet, you should call your insurance company! Unfortunately for Vida, when she does alert her insurance company, they consider the mold to be an ‘Act of God’ and refuse to cover the cost of removal or repairs. Soon, this 'supermold' spreads all over the neighborhood and everyone has to endure HAZMAT showers, eviction, and the loss of everything they hold dear. Act of God is a delightfully dark comedy that shows us the touching beauty to be found even during hard times."

Seriously I should apply for a grant to index my old reading lists. Did I read more than The Remains of the Day from Kazuo Ishiguro? A lot of folks reference Never Let Me Go as his other great book, and that's good because his newest, The Buried Giant, also has speculative elements as it plays on the Arthurian legend. I called out the packaging previously, but when I see a nice black top stain like this, I want to shout it from the rooftops.

I mentioned to our rep Jason that reviews were coming in mixed so he sent me a list of Buried Giant reviews to choose from. It's my feeling that when I see more than two sets of ellipses, that review was more mixed than positive, but perhaps that's just a gut reaction, unproven by facts. So here's the quote I was given from Sam Sacks in The Wall Street Journal: “Axl and Beatrice’s adventures . . . grow in urgency yet never sacrifice the mood of quiet, elegiac pessimism that has always characterized Mr. Ishiguro’s writing—and that makes his novels strangely both melancholic and soothing. . . . For all its fantastical trappings, Buried Giant is a simple and powerful tale of love, aging and loss—no radical departure for this splendid writer but another excellent novel all the same." And reading the full review, I have to stand corrected; this is an excellent review with no caveats!

I feel I should give shout outs to fellow bookstore proprietors when they can run a bookstore and write a novel on the sly, and that's what Turnrow's Jamie Kornegay has done. His new novel Soil, about, to use the publisher's copy, "an idealistic young farmer who moves his family to a Mississippi flood basin, suffers financial ruin--and becomes increasingly paranoid he's being framed for murder" seems to be the right tone to take for someone who owns a bookstore, right? Our Norton sales rep Dave came in early on having read and really loved the book, and while you might say, "Hmmm....doesn't he sell to Turnrow too?" I'd have to answer "Yes, but I'm sure you can count on half a hand the number of sales reps who read Soil, really read it, not just said they read it. Sorry, but I've had one too many experience where "read" (the completion) is purposely confused with "read" (the process). I like to say "I've read some of it" which I feel is fairer, though I'm now going to confess that one customer put me on the spot about a book last week where I said I'd read some of a book when in fact that amounted to cover copy and some reviews. And Dave is a great reader, and would have been up front with me if he'd actually not liked the book.

Soil is also featured on the March Indie Next List, with a recommendation from Josh Christie at Sherman's Books and Stationery in Bar Harbor, Maine: “In his debut novel, Kornegay has confidently announced himself as a writer to watch. Centered around Jay Mize, an idealistic farmer whose luck just keeps breaking bad, the story kicks into high gear when Jay discovers a corpse on his failing farm. Fearing he is being framed by his less progressive neighbors, Jay hides the discovery rather than reporting it. Kornegay expertly heightens the tension, tightening the screws on the increasingly paranoid Jay in a way that makes it impossible for the reader to put the book down. With Soil, Kornegay joins Wiley Cash and Tom Franklin as a strong voice in the world of Southern gothic fiction.” Whenever I hear about a bookstore that sells stationery, my thoughts turn to colored staples.

Oh, and Happy St. Patrick's Day. Is there really a novel on our Boswell's Best from Yale? Indeed there is, Máirtin Ó Cadhain's The Dirty Dust, ranked (by someone) as the most important work written in modern Irish. All the characters are telling the stories from their graves and it's completely told in dialogue too. Here's a post from The Modern Novel blogger. Among the other recently read books are a bunch of Russian novels, in Russian. And I'm linking to this why? Because the only thing I can say in Russian after six college classes that is more than one syllable is "Goodnight Ice Cream?"

And finally (a phrase which I inadvertently used twice in our last email newsletter), there is a new novel from Mario Vargas Llosa, awarded the Nobel Prize in 2010 and once again, I'm scrambling to remember if I've read anything by the author beyond Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, which I'm fascinated to note, ranks in Spanish higher than English on the Ingram demand list. In fact, most of Vargas Llosa top demanded titles are in Spanish. I'm assuming course adoption.  The Discreet Hero, per the publisher, follows two fascinating characters whose lives are destined to intersect: neat, endearing Felícito Yanaqué, a small businessman in Piura, Peru, who finds himself the victim of blackmail; and Ismael Carrera, a successful owner of an insurance company in Lima, who cooks up a plan to avenge himself against the two lazy sons who want him dead. Ah, another plot that a small business owner can sink his or her teeth into!

Thomas Mallon's essay in The New Yorker not only reviews The Discreet Hero, but puts it in the context of Vargas Llosa's other work, his life, and Peru itself. He writes that "The Discreet Hero feels retrospective in a personal and perhaps valedictory way, a fulfillment of themes and characters that have populated his work for decades." I'm surprised there's an open link, but I've gotten used to the fact that media turn off and on articles to general linking at whim, and I totally understand their inability to make a decision about this. After all, I know the lyrics to "Present and Future Business Models for Monetizing the Newspaper Industry."

All these books are Boswell's Best, 20% off list price in the store, at least through March 16, 2015.

Event Mania! This Week Features Cat Warren on Dogs, Joseph Kanon on Spies, Jennifer Chiaverini in Mequon on Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant, Obert Skye on Creepy Reform Schools, Gavin Schmitt on Milwaukee Crime Kingpins and Next Week, Phillip Naylor on North Africa.

Here's the Boswell lowdown for the week of March 9:

Tuesday, March 10, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Cat Warren, author of What the Dog Knows: What the Dog Knows: Scent, Science, and the Amazing Ways Dogs Perceive the World. Ms. Warren will be introduced by Anne Reed, executive director of the Wisconsin Humane Society.

Associate professor of English at North Carolina State Cat Warren was formerly a reporter for several newspapers around the United States, including the Hartford Courant, and now teaches science journalism, media, and gender studies. But it was her dog Solo who led her into the world of working dogs.

From the publisher: "Training and searching with Solo was the beginning of Warren’s odyssey into the world of working dogs: cadaver dogs, drug and bomb detecting K9s, tracking and apprehension dogs—even dogs who can locate unmarked graves of Civil War soldiers and help find drowning victims more than 200 feet below the surface of a lake. Working dogs’ abilities may seem magical or mysterious, but Warren shows the multifaceted science, the rigorous training, and the skilled handling that underlie the amazing abilities of dogs who work with their noses."

"Warren interviews cognitive psychologists, historians, medical examiners, epidemiologists, forensic anthropologists—as well as the breeders, trainers, and handlers who work with and rely on these remarkable and adaptable animals daily. Along the way, Warren discovers story after story that proves the remarkable capabilities—as well as the very real limits—of working dogs and their human partners. Clear-eyed and unsentimental, Warren explains why our partnership with working dogs is woven into the fabric of society, and why we keep finding new uses for the working dog’s wonderful nose."

OK, it's a little odd to feature a quote from mystery writer Robert Crais, who enthused “If you have ever loved a dog, you must read this book. I loved it!” But actually Robert Crais has done extensive research on military dogs, which he incorporated into his book Suspect. You can read more about it in the USA Today profile from Carol Memmott.

Wednesday, March 11,  7 pm, at Boswell:
Joseph Kanon, author of Leaving Berlin.

If you subscribe to the Boswell and Books blog, you'll be receiving my post about Joseph Kanon's espionage novels concurrent with this event post, but if you've found it via Facebook or Twitter, you can read the whole thing here. And here are a few more enthusiastic write ups.

From Sherryl Connelly at the New York Daily News: "What follows is a supremely tense, intricately plotted thriller. Alex is coerced into agreeing to spy for the emerging German secret police as well. Meanwhile, Irene should come with hazard lights . Her life is fraught with dangerous complications, not the least being her brother, Erich, who shows up having escaped slave labor in the uranium mines, the existence of which is a state secret."

Here's the review of Istanbul Passage, Kanon's previous novel, from Chris Pavone, published in Publishers Weekly. On discussing the "passage" reference: "Finally, there’s Leon’s journey—rather, his many journeys—as protagonist. From a civilian to a spy to whatever will follow. From a temporary expat to a possibly permanent resident. From a blind patriot to an independent operator. From a happily married man to something else. From an idealist to a pragmatist. Istanbul Passage is a first-rate espionage novel, filled with complexity and thrills, but its greatest success may be in this much more universal literary exploration: how an ordinary man is transformed by extraordinary circumstances."

David Martindale, in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: "The old-fashioned spy craft, the many plot twists and the moral ambiguities that exist in all of the characters make Leaving Berlin an intriguing, page-turning thriller. There’s also a star-crossed love story — and an airport farewell — that might remind some readers of Bogie and Bergman. But it’s the author’s attention to historical detail — his ability to convey the sights, sounds and feel of a beaten-down Berlin — that makes this book so compelling."

I could go on, but we've got more events to cover!

Thursday, March 12, 6:30 pm, at the Frank L. Weyenberg Library in Mequon:
Jennifer Chiaverini, author of Mrs. Grant and Madame Jule.

In 1844, the shy Missouri belle Julia Dent met Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant, a brilliant horseman and reluctant soldier. The two fell deeply in love, but four years passed before Julia’s father permitted them to wed. The groom’s abolitionist family refused to attend the ceremony.

Despite her new husband’s objections, Julia kept as her slave another Julia, known as Jule. Since childhood they had been companions and confidantes; Julia was gifted with prophetic dreams, which Jule helped her interpret. Julia secretly taught Jule to read, while Jule became her vision-impaired mistress’s eyes to the world. But beneath the gathering clouds of war, the stark distinctions between mistress and slave inevitably strained and altered their tenuous friendship.

As Ulysses rose through the ranks of the Union army during the Civil War, he often summoned Julia and their four children to join him at military headquarters. The general’s wife rarely failed to bring her favorite maid along, tearing Jule from her own beloved husband, whom she had secretly married in defiance of the law. Both women risked certain danger as they traveled to and from the field of war, but for Jule, the hazards of travel also brought knowledge and opportunity.

Even as Julia Grant championed the Union cause and advocated for suffering women on both sides of the brutal conflict, she continued to hold Jule as a slave behind federal lines—until the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation inspired Jule to make a daring bid for freedom. Mrs. Grant and Madame Jule is the first novel to chronicle the singular relationship of these two remarkable women, bound by light and shadow.

Read this profile of Jennifer Chiaverini by Jeanne Kolker in the Wisconsin State Journal. And don't forget, our event is at 6:30. The Frank Weyenberg Library of Mequon-Thienesville is located at 11345 N. Cedarburg Road (highway 57), just south of downtown Thienesville. There is no registration for this event, but if you have any questions, please call the library at (262) 242-2593.

Friday, March 13, 6:30 pm, at Boswell:
Obert Skye, author of Witherwood Reform School.

Mr. Skye has previous written the Leven Thumps series and most recently, another series called Creature from My Closet. In fact, there's a new book in this series coming this fall, following Wonkenstein, Potterwookie, Pinocula, and Katfish. #5 is called Lord of the Hat, and might I note, this is quite the unusual closet.

Here's my take on Witherwood Reform School, since you ask: "There’s no question Tobias and Charlotte Eggers deserved to be punished, what with putting tadpoles in their nanny’s gravy and her almost choking on it. And their widowed dad Ralph only meant to teach them a lesson by dropping off the siblings at Witherwood Reform School. Their father couldn’t have imagined he’d have that accident that left him unable to come back and rescue his kids. And Tobias and Charlotte couldn’t have imagined the horrors behind the school’s walls. Witherwood Reform School has a bit of the ominous tone of A Series of Unfortunate Events, skewing a little more fantasy adventure than gothic. Be warned; you are completely left hanging at the end of volume one and it will be hard to wait a year to find out what happens."

Think the adventurous spirit of Brandon Mull crossed with the wry humor of Lemony Snicket. And I should note that every advance review of the series (Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, Booklist) referenced A Series of Unfortunate Events. Publishers Weekly called it Snicketesque, which is officially my new favorite adjective. I thought they called it "Snickeresque" which I also liked, because it sort of put it on the level of the epic Tom Jones (as in picaresque). I'm going to caveat that it isn't exactly the same tone, as I've never read a book that made me cry such demonic tears of laughter, but it's fun nonetheless.

Fans of Brandon Mull, as well as Brandon Sanderson and Shannon Hale, you've come out for these authors--now please spread the word and cheer on Obert Skye as he makes (what I think is) his first visit to Milwaukee. It's certainly a first for us!

Saturday, March 14, 2 pm, at Bowell:
Gavin Schmitt, author of Milwaukee Mafia: Mobsters in the Heartland

From the publisher: "Milwaukee's Sicilian underworld is something few people speak about in polite company, and even fewer people speak about with any authority. Everyone in Milwaukee has a friend of a friend who knows something, but they only have one piece of a giant puzzle. The secret society known as the Milwaukee Mafia has done an excellent job of keeping its murders, members and mishaps out of books. Until now. From the time Vito Guardalabene arrived from Italy in the early 1900s, until the days the Mob controlled the Teamsters union, Milwaukee was a city of murder and mayhem. Gavin Schmitt relies on previously unseen police reports, FBI investigative notes, coroner's records, newspaper articles, family lore and more to bring to light an era of Milwaukee's history that has been largely undocumented and shrouded in myth. No stone is left unturned, no body is left buried."

Other interesting things to know.

1. Schmitt previously published with Arcadia a picture book called Images of America: Milwaukee Mafia. In it was a photo of Boswell Books, where the author noted that Frank Balistrieri had a jukebox warehouse.

2. The author volunteers at the Neenah Historical Society. His other previous Arcadia books were on Neenah and nearby Kaukauna.

3. The book was partially funded on Kickstarter.

We've been selling Milwaukee Mafia quite well and I'm chasing down more copies for Saturday's event. That always makes things exciting.

Coming Next Week:
Monday, March 16, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Phillip Naylor, author of North Africa: A History from Antiquity to the Present.

Marquette historian Phillip Naylor offers a fascinating history of North Africa, from antiquity to the recent changes that are rocking the region today. More next week!

The Annotated Boswell Bestsellers for Week Ending March 7, 2015, Plus the Journal Sentinel Book Reviews.

Hardcover Fiction
1. Epitaph, by Mary Doria Russell
2. The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins
3. All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr
4. The Buried Giant, by Kazuo Ishiguro
5. The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, by Rachel Joyce

Kudos to Knopf for doing a beautiful job on Kazuo Ishigruo's The Buried Giant. Love the black stain, which is apparently the color of the moment for these sort of things, as we saw it this fall with Michel Faber's The Book of Strange New Things. Neil Gaiman covered the book for The New York Times Book Review (exceptional, but he didn't fall in love with it), while Christine Pivovar tackles the book for the Kansas City Star, where she notes "it’s impossible not to ask if this story is supposed to mirror in some way a more recent moment in Britain’s past or even its present."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Marie Kondo
2. Schubert's Winter Journey, by Ian Bostridge
3. Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande
4. Believer, by David Axelrod
5. Make it Ahead, by Ina Garten

Yes, in the age of struggling symphoneies, a good book on classical music can still have a sales pop at an independent bookstore. in Schubert's Winter Journey, Ian Bostridge (a tenor himself) waxes on Winterreisse, a song cycle based on 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller. Michael Dirda in The Washington Post notes that “Schubert’s Winter Journey both deepens and contextualizes this emotionally somber masterpiece, the ideal music for darkest February. While reading, I also listened to him (Bostridge) sing, and even though I grew up on Fischer-Dieskau’s baritone, I’m nearly persuaded that a light tenor voice is best for this still, sad music."

Paperback Fiction:
1. What Burns Away, by Melissa Falcon Field
2. Mr. Palomar, by Italo Calvino
3. Doc, by Mary Doria Russell
4. Redeployment, by Phil Klay
5. Dept. of Speculation, by Jenny Offill

A little course adoption (Calvino), some great events (Russell and Field) plus the announcement of our next two in-store lit group picks (Dept of Speculation on April 6 and Redeployment on May 4) round out this week's top five. Redeployment won the National Book Award for fiction. He's not up for the National Book Critics Circle award, which is announced this week, but we have a 60% chance of having co-hosted the winner since we've opened. While Rabih Alammeddine was at UWM for An Unneccesary Woman with Boswell selling books, Lily King and Chang-rae Lee appeared at Boswell for their previous novels.

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Milwaukee, Mafia, by Gavin Schmitt (event is Saturday, March 14, 2 pm)
2. Christianity without God, by Daniel Maguire
3. The Boys in the Boat, by Daniel James Brown
4. Thinking Fast and Snow, by Daniel Kahneman
5. What the Dog Knows, by Cat Warren (event is Tuesday, March 10, 7 pm)

There are apparently two ways to hit the Boswell bestseller lists, at least this week's nonfiction paperback top five. One way is to have an event with us--both Gavin Schmitt's Milwaukee Mafia and Cat Warren's What the Dog Knows will be featured in the upcoming week. Warren is touring several cities for the paperback; here's Warrens profile in the Portland Oregonian in conjunction with her visit to Vintage Books in Vancouver, Washington. And the other way apparently is to share my first name, albeit a very popular one.

Books for Kids:
1. Listen, Slowly, by Thanhha Lai
2. Inside Out and Back Again, by Thanhha Lai
3. Mitzi boo and Mia, Too: Go to England, by Gina Cilento
4. Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson
5. Double Exposure, by Bridget Birdsall
6. The Thickety: A Path Begins, by J.A. White (two events Wednesday, March 18, 4 pm at Elm Grove Library and 6:30 pm at Boswell)
7. Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
8. Rumble, by Ellen Hopkins
9. Impulse, by Ellen Hopkins
10. The School for Good and Evil, by Soman Chainani (event is Sunday, April 19, 3 pm)

So you don't think kids' like poetry? Half of this week's top 10 kids' titles are in verse, including Thanhha Lai's Inside Out and Back Again, Jacqeline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming, plus all three books from Ellen Hopkins.  Of course, our entire top ten is current (Ellen Hopkins, Thanhha Lai, Gina Cilento, Bridget Birdsall) or future events, aside from Woodsall, so it just might be that we're pushing poetry on kids. How devious!

This week in the Journal Sentinel, Mike Fischer reviews Know Your Beholder, by playwright Adam Rapp, whose new novel is about a 36 year old fellow who has lost the love of his life and finds himself unable to leave the attic of his childhood home. Fischer writes: "This is familiar territory for Rapp, many of whose stage plays involve people who are similarly stuck in neutral or worse...Unlike many of those plays — beautifully written but sometimes overheated as they lay bare various characters' existential angst — Know Your Beholder approaches the same material with humor."

Carole E. Barrowman reviews Dennis Lehane's World Gone By, the conclusion of his crime trilogy (which alas, I didn't know was a trilogy. You really need to pay attention to these things). It focuses on Joe Coughlin, set in 1940, at the center of an organized crime family. She writes: "With his trilogy, Lehane explores a world gone by, a watershed in American history when the Cold War looms on America's horizon and Cuba is soon to fall from it, and although this third book stumbles at times from the weight of too many characters (real and imagined) and their back stories, World Gone By is a poetic conclusion to an accomplished American crime story."

And Greg Kot reviews Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon's Girl in a Band, reprinted from the Chicago Tribune.

Oh, and our event with Joseph Kanon made the "The Week Ahead" column for our Leaving Berlin event.Come see Kanon on Wednesday, March 11, 7 pm. More on his event tomorrow.

Gettng Ready For Joseph Kanon and "Leaving Berlin"--To Series or Not to Series, Consistent Packaging and Whether That Drives Bestseller Sales, and Our Event on March 10.

I wasn't planning to write a post specifically about Joseph Kanon's visit for Leaving Berlin on Wednesday, May 11 (7 pm, at Boswell), but I find that I have so much to say every time I talk about the book and author, that I find myself actually wanting to pull up a mouse and start rambling.
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One thing I always have to note to newcomers is that Joseph Kanon doesn't write series. Whenever we have a series author, I always have to decide whether I start at the beginning or just jump right into the newest volume and hope for the best. Readers should know by now that I am not the kind of person who discovers and author and zips through their entire oeuvre, at least not at my age. When I was young, there were mystery authors I followed, and I still pull them out of my arsenal on occasion.

But the truth is that many of the authors I did like did not write series, at least not until towards the end of their writing cycle, when the push from commercial forces was just too strong not to. My two favorite writers who worked in genre, Elmore Leonard and Dick Francis (or rather his wife, who is said to have written the books), had a similar but different hero at the heart of many of my favorite works. This is unusual, to be sure, though Tana French does something even more interesting, pulling different but connected narrators to the center of her works. And yet I haven't read her, though I've hand-sold hundreds of copies of In the Woods. Just one of those contradictions!


John Grisham is perhaps the most prominent writer who hasn't tended towards sequels, though he has at least one. David Baldacci, who initially followed the John Grisham playbook, is now almost exclusively writing series. Harlan Coben is one author who went in the opposite direction, starting with series but not breaking out until his stand-alones. But these stand-alones are usually with ordinary folks at the center of the narrative, almost like a Hitchcock movie. Once you have a professional protagonist, it's hard not to keep going.

The espionage genre has a stronger tradition than straight-forward mystery, if only perhaps because of the looming presence of John LeCarré, whose series and stand-alone work is almost fifty-fifty. Alan Furst is another writer who carries the espionage torch, and he also doesn't generally repeat protagonists, though the novels are said to be a series, because characters jump from one book to another. But is this a true series or a marketing conceipt? 

There are of course plenty of writers with spies, or special agents, at their center, such as Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan and Jason Bourne in Robert Ludlum's series, but wait, Ludlum's books were stand-alones, and it wasn't until after he died that his most famous protagonist became the center of his novels. What's true is that series are easier to sell in, especially to big box discount retailers. They become review proof, and in fact, most of them don't even get reviews.   But that's not true at most indie retailers. Without the reviews or the strong reads and word of mouth, our sales on grind-em-out series sink to negligible sales.

Kanon's books do connect though, in that they are all set in the same time period, that moment between World War II and The Cold War, though they take place all over the globe, from Istanbul to New Mexico. If it weren't for this darn job, I'd read them all to see if he does play games with incidents in one book reverberating in another. I'd want to know if there is some grand master plan.

As I mentioned, Kanon's lack of a recurring protagonist probably prevents him from consistent bestsellerdom. There's another hitch, at least in terms of building momentum in bookstores; he's bounced around to several publishers and that's given him an inconsistent look for his backlist titles. Some of his books are trade and others are mass market. At least one important book is now print on demand, and a bit overpriced at $20. I'd love to see a consistent look for his work, and that's not impossible, even for an author at several houses. Andrew Wylie once negotiated a reissue of Elmore Leonard's work at several houses, and the cover treatment was quite consistent. And best of all, Kanon is a slower writer, meaning it doesn't take as much time to collect them all, and Atria's current look works well in that regard.

If you don't much about Joseph Kanon's Leaving Berlin, I will tell you that at the heart of the story is Alex Meier, a half-Jewish writer who fled Germany before World War II, for obvious reasons. But after 15 years in the United States, he's finding himself unwanted there too, with the rise of anti-Communist sentiment and his socialist leanings. So he heads back to Berlin, where the Russian sector has invited him back to be an artist in residence. The socialists in control, with several Jews involved, think that they are building a new Germany, but in fact, they will soon find themselves under Russia's thumb. So the Germans and Russians think they are working together, but they are really at cross purposes. And it turns out that Alex has divided allegiances as well; he actually will be allowed to stay in the United States, but only if he does some spying first, with the target being an old family friend. Needless to say, this is a great setup for any number of double crosses.

In some ways, Leaving Berlin is a hybrid, with the first half of the book being more of an intellectual mood piece, and the second half being more plot driven. It reminds me of playing a pinball machine (I can't help it, I just spent over an hour at the Asheville Pinball Museum, and I have to agree, the Flintstones live-action movie was pretty bad but the accompanying game was spectacular) with a very slow pulling back of the plunger.

Like we did for Mary Doria Russell, we took advantage of an early booking to start promoting Joe Kanon's event before Christmas, putting Istanbul Passage on our "coming in 2015" event display and picking it as a selection of our mystery book club. We had pretty good success with advance sales, and while it did not rocket us to the top of the Above the Treeline (selected indie bookstore) numbers, it certainly got us into the top ten. There are some stores out there who sell massive numbers of Kanon!

The newest book is getting really great reviews, such as Tom Nolan's in The Wall Street Journal. He writes "Leaving Berlin is a mix of tense action sequences, sepia-tinged reminiscence, convincing discourse and Berliner wit (“The Russians think aspirin is a miracle drug”). The book is stuffed with incident and surprise yet it heeds the sage advice of Mr. Kanon’s simulacrum of shrewd playwright Brecht, who advises: 'Leave something for the second act.'" And yes, Brecht is a character in the book.

As you know, I'm not the kind of person who can pick a bestseller, though I can often predict which kind of book has breakout potential. Kanon's last, Istanbul Passage, hit #13 on The New York Times, and I think his newest could break even bigger. We're the second week of sale, so we'll probably know how the book's doing by the time of his event on Wednesday (yes, March 11, 7 pm). I'm hoping for top ten.

Your Joseph Kanon checklist:
Los Alamos
The Prodigal Spy
The Good German
Alibi
Stardust
Istanbul Passage
Leaving Berlin

What did the Book Club think about The Boy in the Black Suit?

Last year we hosted The Gentleman’s Tour, a group of young adult authors from Simon and Schuster. We had a great time with all of them, Brendan Kiely, author of The Gospel of Winter, John Corrie Whaley, author of Noggin, and Jason Reynolds, author of When I Was the Greatest. We had a great school event for all of them, and a fine evening at the bookstore where we had kids carpooling in groups from pretty far away. What a great evening we had.

So when we saw that Jason Reynolds’ second novel was coming out the next year, we made a proposal for another day of schools. The folks at Simon (actually the Atheneum imprint) agreed and we quickly booked three schools up, plus our first public event at East Library, all on Monday, April 13, 6:30 pm. I hope you have marked your calendars.

But I wanted to do more. I have been continually trying to send our in-store lit group off in new directions, and I realized that while we do read diverse voices, we’d yet to read a young-adult novel. I thought it would be an interesting experiment.

The Boy in the Black Suit is about Matt Miller, a senior in high school who is set up to do a work-study job with a local bank. The only problem is that Matt’s mom is dying, and during this process, the job is filled by another kid. So now she’s passed away, and he’s completely stuck. He just can’t seem to grieve the right way, his friends don’t know how to help, and his father has turned to the bottle, which is a way of saying he’s having trouble as well.

He applies for a job at a local fast food place, and while he likes the cute cashier, he’s turned off by an obnoxious customer and at least one other gross thing that happens. But one of the other customers is the local funeral director, who knows the family and offers him a job there. After thinking about it, he’s in, as long as he doesn’t have to touch the dead bodies. And once here’s there, he finds himself inexplicably drawn to the services, and starts attending them. And that’s the set up.

Very few of my attendees had read a true YA novel before, though coincidentally, one of our attendees had just read The Fault in Our Stars for her other book club. The response from the group was pretty polarized. A few of the attendees loved the book, particularly a retiree who had worked in social services and felt that this book was a must read for anyone dealing with kids. Some folks disliked it for various reasons and other people fell in the middle.

I had come into the story very enthusiastic. I thought the story was quite nuanced, and the characters were quite strong. Matt was so compelling to me (let's be honest, I was completely taken by him!), particularly in his attempt to understand his grief. Sure there was an idealization of some of the characters, particularly the women. But we all idealize someone after they passed, so come on, you have to give him a break on his Mom. And as for his love interest, Love, yes, she does seem a little too good to be true, a teenager running a homeless shelter? I felt she would have worked better as a friend than love interest, but I think that’s a function of YA. Had there not been a love interest, the book wouldn’t have seemed complete. There’s also some implausibility in some of the coincidences of the story, but as I always say, it’s a novel and a certain amount of coincidence is necessary to drive a good plot forward. And one coincidence in The Boy in the Black Suit, which I will not mention here, is important for Matt, to strengthen his connection to Love and come to terms with his own grief.

One thing that shone through strongly was how important the community was in Matt’s life. You just could see that without other folks in the neighborhood coming to his rescue, his life might have gone south. It wasn’t just getting a job, but also the numerous times the community came together to help other people out, like when his dad had an accident. And you had to figure that Matt was absorbing these lessons, and would grow to be a better person for it.

Having talked to other writers about the rules of the YA genre, I asked folks how the book might have been different if it was written outside the genre. For one thing, we could have had more voices. We really only get a hint of what Mr. Ray’s life was like as a basketball player, what his motivations are for taking in Matt, and what he got out of life in a funeral home. We began to wonder whether young adult work is sometimes shaped by editors, when developing authors want to go out of the bounds of what is acceptable in the YA genre. That said, I’ve certainly read books where I thought the book had an inappropriate age level recommendation. Just this school year alone, we once decided to target 4th grade and up on a book that the publisher thought was appropriate for 3rd, and another time, we turned down a book for middle school, because we really thought the book was geared more for high school, and maybe not even 9th grade. But some of these rules, like never telling the story from the adult’s perspective, has nothing to do with content or language. It’s just a perception of what a kid would want. But then again, I just had an 11-year-old tell me he finished All the Light We Cannot See and loved it, so what do we all know?

One thing came to mind to me while I was reading this book was that despite the preponderance of texting in the story, many of the other details felt old school. Was this Bed Stuy right now, or was this memories of Reynolds’ youth, maybe more from the 1990s? Several other attendees wondered this as well, and I’m interested to see what the author says when he visits. My guess is that a YA editor would not want a book set in the 1990s, as it’s neither historical nor contemporary, but adult writers love setting books in the recent past, partly so they can conform to their own memories, and partly because they don’t have to deal with technological advances that have made havoc of classic plot devices.

So as I said, the group was mixed on The Boy in the Black Suit, but I was particularly surprised when one attendee said she didn’t think kids would like it. Not enough action, and so forth. This was partly because I already knew that several of the kids who are getting a visit from Reynolds in April did read it and really liked it. I think what my attendees might have been missing is that this might be a quiet story, but for a lot of kids, it’s a story they haven’t heard before, mostly because that kid is like them. And while we can all learn a lot from all sorts of stories, there’s something eye opening about being a Black kid and identifying with another Black kid having some life issues. And this kid is neither idealized perfection (the way many White writers with big hearts write their Black characters), nor the street tough that is the default characterization for popular culture, particularly in hip hop music. He’s just a kid, and if you haven’t come across that before, it’s incredibly special. Here's Alaya Dawn Johnson's take on NPR.

And that’s the thing that struck home for me. This is an African American story, but it’s not a story about “race” and that’s the kind of book that can open the eyes of all sorts of kids. Matt learns that there are all kinds of ways to live in the world, all different kinds of ways to be African American. Black kids get a story they can identify with, and other kids see stereotypes broken.

To me, that’s pretty great! Hope you agree and you’ll join us at East Library on Monday, April 13, 6:30 pm. And did I mention that Reynolds was just awarded the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award from the American Library Association for his first novel, When I Was the Greatest?

Up next, we discuss (with the help of Boswellian Carly) Dept. of Speculation, by Jenny Offill, on Monday, April 6, 7 pm.

And then on Monday, May 4, 7 pm, we’ll discuss Redeployment, the National-Book-Award-winning stories from Phil Klay. The book club is free and open to the public.

If You Are an Adult, The Craziest Bubble You've Lived Through Was Not for Tech Stocks or Real Estate, but For Plush: On Zac Bissonnette's "The Great Beanie Baby Bubble."

From the tulip bulb craze of history to the more recent financial bubbles of internet stocks and real estate, we have been time and time again been convinced that whatever is rising in value will continue to do see for the unforeseeable future. But in recent history, nothing compares, in absurdity or perceived cuteness, the Beanie Baby bubble of the late 1990s. In The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute, Zac Bissonnette, whose previous books were more in the self-help vein, but has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and Bloomberg, now chronicles what exactly happened to turn so many thousands of people into crazed profiteers.

At the center was Ty Warner, an inveterate salesman with numerous personal quirks, some of which would aid the Beanies’ success. He just wanted to create a cheap plush with nice details and less stuffing than normal, allowing kids to have a better play experience. But the two things he did that broke the mold were retiring styles publicly, and limiting distribution to independents and smaller chains (and most notably, Hallmark franchises). What Warner never understood, was that much of what made Beanies take off was completely out of his control, and Bissonnette includes many of the key players, including the early suburban Chicago collectors who’d call around the country buying up stock, and the folks who made the guide books that spread popularity and drove up prices. I’ll never think about price guides the same way again; in the days before the internet, the price guides set the prices, and the creators knew this and kept increasing prices accordingly. Nobody wants to invest in a product (or the guides) of a collectible with stagnant or deteriorating values.

I think of myself as a cautious person and not susceptible to speculative bubbles. I didn’t invest in internet stocks, but I also didn’t have the money to invest in internet stocks. My partner and I bought a house in the real estate bubble, convinced not that it would be a great investment, but that we’d never be able to afford a house if we didn’t act. That said, they hype around home buying convinced us to make a decision that I hadn’t before considered.

But that’s nothing compared to the speculative bubble of Beanie Babies that I found myself inadvertently watching with from a very close distance, a mania that rivalled* the classic tulip bulb run-up in 17th century Amsterdam. This piece in the Economist blog argues as to whether or not this famous incident was in fact irrational, but as we can see, what seems irrational in retrospect seems perfectly legit at the time.

Ty Warner had already established his eponymous brand after leaving the once-powerhouse plush brand Dakin, when he introduced the first nine Beanies in 1993. I was the book buyer for Schwartz so I would probably not have been paying attention, but when Schwartz brought them in, I was managing the Mequon store, so I saw this strangely large shipment (we never got anything in twelves) arrive of these strangely cute, poseable plush with something like awe. I found myself immediately thinking “I am the parent to a bunch of bears, pigs, and lobsters. Folks have been asking to see a photo of me in my pony tail thirties, and here is one, arms full of Beanies. (Editor's note: I seem to not be able to get the photo ready to post. Psychological block, perhaps?)

We were probably in on the phenomenon a little early, partly because Milwaukee is quite close to the epicenter of Chicago, but eve more notably, we operated Dickens Discount Books in the factory outlet/mall hybrid called Gurnee Mills. This led to many early phone calls wondering if we had Beanie Babies, which led to us bringing in Beanie Babies.

We saw the strangely exponential growth, the order limits, and the shortages. The frantic collectors coming in, first with kids, and then without kids. We saw firsthand the misdirection by customer service, which always said that the product was just about to ship. And yes, we had a product that at one point was so valuable, that we had our product stolen from boxes on route by UPS. As the line slowed down in the Milwaukee stores (the Downer branch, now home to Boswell, probably had the least momentum of all the locations), the buyer kept them in the distribution loop, but all the product would then be transferred to our highest volume stores in Kenosha (at the Factory Outlet Centre) and Gurnee.


There’s no question that Ty put in place some of the practices that would help create the Beanie boom. By limiting distribution to specialty gift stores, working with toy chains like Zany Brainy and Noodle Kidoodle and airport stores like Paradies (unmentioned by name, but I remember seeing them there fairly early in the run), but avoid mass merchant discounters, groceries, and drug chains, and buy limiting shipments, he gave the product the appearance of scarcity, even when he was shipping out huge numbers of units. Retiring slow-selling items is a very common practice in the gift business, but he made it an art. And there’s no question that the product was very inexpensive, a good starter collectible, was cute, and had several iconic touches, like birthdays and poems for each animal. The truth, however, was that Warner got those ideas from others, and rewrote the story for his own purposes.

He also had no control over the other players in the game that made Beanies a phenomenon, the obsessive collectors, the publishers of the guides, and the media. Early players would actually buy out stock in other areas of the country and resell them in Chicago. And some things Ty did to excite collectors was completely inadvertent, like his tinkering with products, changing the faces of the early teddy bears, adding a spot to spot the dog, and most notably, changing the color of Peanut the elephant. He only did one major interview, with People Magazine, but once the story took off, the legends of price values for early discontinued or first-generation Beanies, like royal blue Peanut drove up prices for the entire line.

Ty Warner himself is no less fascinating. A singular character, with a lot of issues, his compulsive behavior led to many fascinating stories about the way his company was run. Completely hands on, he’d spend months at the factories finding exactly the right fabric for each Beanie. He might update a Beanie by changing the stitching. But things were no less strange in his personal life, with his huge wealth only exacerbating his parsimonious nature. Despite both his long-term girlfriends being heavily involved in the company, neither owned a piece. The first only made her fortune after their breakup, after she went on to run the European division of Ty, while his second, well, she got even less. Others in the game made and lost fortunes, but Warner sunk a lot of money into hotels, and as we now know, into Swiss Banks.

Slowly the fad ended for kids, who moved on to Pokemon, but unlike say Russ Berrie’s Trolls or the more recent phenomena with Japanese erasers and Silly Bandz, the momentum kept going for Beanie Babies, almost now completely adults who were sinking their life savings into huge purchases, which they’d then encase in plastic. Bissonnette chronicles a few of these stories, most notably one fellow who was previously an actor on General Hospital. You spent how much collecting Beanie Babies?

In the end, the internet helped create the Beanie boom, not just his groundbreaking website, but also Ebay, which drove interest and sales, but in the end, it probably also contributed to its demise. Many fans blame the mass retirings of Beanies in 1999, but Bissonnette notes that it’s not unusual for folks caught up in a speculative bubble to blame an outside force for its collapse. Like multi-level marketing and Ponzi Schemes, it has to collapse eventually. You simply run out of suckers to sell products to.

What a fun and fascinating read this is! On top of a great story and larger-than-life characters, there are actually some marketing lessons embedded in the narrative. For one thing, if you are creating something collectible, you really want to have a checklist. After reading The Great Beanie Baby Bubble, do I think something like this can happen again? Not this way, much as I think it’s unlikely to see, as our buyer Jason noted, another children’s series that comes along like Harry Potter. But will there be bubbles in the future. That’s one thing you can count on.

The Great Beanie Baby Bubble goes on sale today.

*I'm sad because the world has moved on to "rivaled" and I'm still stuck on "rivalled."