Boswell bestsellers for the week ending July 16, 2016, plus links to Journal Sentinel book page

I can only imagine how exciting our bestseller list will be this week! We simply can't keep you in suspense any longer.

Hardcover Fiction:
1. First Comes Love, by Emily Giffin
2. Black Widow, by Daniel Silva
3. The Girls, by Emma Cline
4. The Light of Paris, by Eleanor Brown (ticketed event at Lynden, Tuesday, July 19, 7 pm)
5. Sweetbitter, by Stephanie Danler
6. The Nightingale, by Kristin Hannah
7. Barkskins, by Annie Proulx
8. Eligible, by Curtis Sittenfeld
9. After You, by Jojo Moyes
10. Wintering, by Peter Geye

Stephanie Danler's tale, Sweetbitter, of a busser who gets a job at a restaurant which is said to be not unlike The Union Square Cafe has been a national bestseller for several weeks, and we finally got a nice sales pop too. Gabrielle Hamilton in The New York Times wrote: "It would be a tired story if it weren’t so, well, for one thing true and for another so brilliantly written. A coked-out girl who sees the sun come up as many times as Tess does might cause her writer to run out of metaphors for unwelcome daybreak - 'a dagger of morning prowled outside the open windows,' 'sunrise came like an undisclosed verdict' - but Danler never does, and her description of the panic of the unannounced health department inspection was so engrossing to read, I missed a flight even though I had already checked in and was waiting at the gate."

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Evicted, by Matthew Desmond
2. But What If We're Wrong, by Chuck Klosterman
3. Milwaukee: City of Neighborhoods, by John Gurda
4. The Gene, by Siddhartha Mukherjee
5. Lonely Planet National Parks of America
6. Ratf**cked, by David Daley
7. John Bascom and the Origins of the Wisconsin Idea, by J. David Hoeveler (event Wed Sep 7, 7 pm at Boswell)
8. Wisconsin Supper Clubs, by Ron Faiola (event Mon Aug 8, 7 pm, with Kyle Cherek, at Boswell)
9. Wisconsin Supper Clubs: Another Round, by Ron Faiola
10. Seinfeldia, by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong (event Mon Sep 12, 7 pm, at Boswell)

It's rare to have a travel guide on our bestseller list, but Lonely Planet's National Parks of America is different, as it really is an inexpensive coffee table book as well. It's had some nice success as it's jumped from display to display - we're currently featuring on our National Parks Centennial table. If you're wondering what the most-visited park is, it's the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee, which according to National Geographic, is double the attendance of #2.

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen
2. A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman
3. Luck, Love and Lemon Pie, by Amy E. Reichert (event Mon Jul 18, 7 pm, at Boswell)
4. The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins
5. Me Before You, by Jojo Moyes
6. The Little Paris Bookshop, by Nina George
7. She Weeps Each Time You're Born, by Quan Barry
8. The Coincidence of Coconut Cake, by Amy E. Reichert
9. Counting Heads, by David Marusek
10. Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson

When you see a book like Girl on the Train come out in paperback, you can generally do the math - it means the film is coming out in about three months, and sure enough, it's scheduled for October 7 with Laura Prepon and Emily Blunt in the lead roles. Is there a trailer? Of course!


Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Wisconsin Supper Club Cookbook, by Mary Bergin
2. Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow
3. Staging the Great Circus Parade, by Jim and Donna Peterson
4. Fast and Easy Five Ingredient Recipes, by Philia Kelnhofer (event Mon Jul 18, 6 pm, at the Public Market)
5. Night, by Elie Wiesel
6. Heart of a Soldier, by James B. Stewart
7. World War II Milwaukee, by Meg Jones
8. The Oregon Trail, by Rinker Buck
9. I Am Malala, by Malala Yousafzai
10. Old Records Never Die, by Eric Spitznagel

It's always a bit bittersweet when the display that is driving sales is an obituary table. Instead of multiple displays, which can sometimes make the bookstore look like a mausoleum, we did three authors on one display - Michelle Cliff, Michael Herr, and Elie Wiesel. In addition to Night hitting our bestseller list, we've sold several copies of Michael Herr's Dispatches.

Books for Kids:
1. The Author's Odyssey: The Land of Stories V5, by Chris Colfer
2. I Am a Bunny, by Ole Risom and Richard Scarry
3. Where the Wild Things Are (hardcover), by Maurice Sendak
4. The Haters, by Jesse Anderson
5. Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney
6. Wild Robot, by Peter Brown
7. Wake Up Island, by Mary Casanova with illustrations by Nick Wroblewski
8. Return of the Padawan: Star Wars Jedi Academy V2, by Jeffrey Brown
9. The Search for the Slimy Space Slugs; Doodle Adventures V1, by Mike Lowery
10. El Deafo, by Cece Bell (which is also currently displayed with graphic memoirs and bios in the general fiction area)

It's a reboot of 2015 to see Where the Wild Things Are on our bestseller list, having had a good run during our Milwaukee Public Library store for the traveling exhibit last year. But the book I want to give a shout out to is Wake Up Island by Mary Casanova and Nick Wroblewski. Published by the University of Minnesota Press of all places, its illustrator is well-known to Boswell card shoppers. Wroblewski's designs (which you can also see at Beans and Barley, and at some Colectivos) are woodcuts inspired by Japanese tradition and his Wisconsin home, though I should note that their collaboration is set in Minnesota. In School Library Journal Lindsey Jensen of the Nashville Public Library called this: " A lovely, versatile title to be used in storytime and to supplement many classroom lessons."

You want to hear more about Wroblewski's process? Of course you do!

Sway: Portrait of Nick Wroblewski, Woodcut Printmaker from davinHb on Vimeo.


Over at the Journal Sentinel, Mike Fischer reviews Romeo And/Or Juliet: A Choose-able Path Adventure, by Ryan North. Fischer writes: "Time to fess up: For the first time in the thirty-odd years I've been reviewing books, I am writing a review of one that I didn't finish. It's Ryan North's Romeo and/or Juliet, and the title gives a clue as to why I'm still not done, despite playing with it for weeks: It has 46,012,475,909,287,476 adventures and more than 100 endings." Fischer notes that he's reviewed Romeo and Juliet four times in the past year alone, but in none of them did Ophelia kill Romeo in Denmark.

Alejandra Zambra has been called one of Latin America's rising stars and his new novel Multiple Choice was named one of the best books of summer by The Wall Street Journal and others. From the review by Jim Higgins: "Alejandro Zambra's Multiple Choice made me laugh repeatedly, often ruefully. Zambra refashions the Chilean Academic Aptitude Test, a precollege exam like our SAT, into an instrument for fiction, simultaneously mocking standardized testing and demonstrating how choices are central to storytelling. While committing these metafictional and postmodern pranks, Zambra also crisply fictionalizes romantic and parental woes and mocks hypocritical Chilean society." The book is available July 19 - we'll hold a copy for you. Request in-store pickup when linking to the title.

I hope you noticed the thematic relationship between the two titles here.

Also in the print edition, Marion Winik tackles Elizabeth Swados's final novel, Walking the Dog, first published in Newsday. Best known for her play Runaways, Swados work gets accolades from Winik, gaining insight from a previous memoir: "In My Depression she mentions writing a novel whose main character morphed from an ex-con from a wealthy background to an ex-junkie dog walker, then onto several other identities. 'I wrote it in eight days. No one will ever see it,' she writes. Since Walking the Dog is about a former druggy enfant terrible who becomes a dog walker in New York City after serving 25 years of a life sentence, we can assume Swados spent at least a couple more days polishing up this novel of hers."

And lastly, another reprint -  Sharon Eberson of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's take on Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarther's Hamilton: The Revolution coffee table book offers: "It’s said that Hamilton, the show, contains 24,000 words. The book, at 287 pages, contains Mr. Miranda’s words and an inside look at how they came to be and the fireworks that followed. At one point in the musical, Angelica Schuyler, as Hamilton’s future sister-in-law, sings, 'You want a revolution, I want a revelation.' Hamilton, the book, has both. Please note, however, that a recent print raised the list price of the book from $40 to $45. To sate demand, the publisher had to air freight books from an overseas printer, which drove up the cost.

The "What did the book club think of Anne Tyler's A Spool of Blue Thread" post turns out to be a jumping off point for me to write about my longtime love of Anne Tyler.

I'm missing an Anne Tyler book!

This thought came to me I was putting together my thoughts on A Spool of Blue Thread, the 20th novel by Anne Tyler, and the subject of our most recent in-store lit group discussion. I knew I had read every book since Digging to America, bought but skipped reading The Beginner's Goodbye and Noah's Compass, and then when Spool exploded in sales for us (compared to her last few), I realized I was choosing the only Tyler book I didn't own to read. Go figure.

My college friend Julia recommended her first to me, and they always say that you have a particularly warm place in your heart for the first novel that you come to love. For me, it was Searching for Caleb, the story of a tight-knit family, the Pecks, and the patriarch Daniel's attempt to locate his long-lost brother Caleb. I find the book so interesting now because it resonates with some of the themes of Tyler's new book, and all of them, but it reminds me that I haven't really heard from my friend in 14 years, having sort of disappeared after she released a rather reflective memoir. Art imitates life, or vice versa.

I don't know if I feel comfortable reading my copy of Searching for Caleb, as it's a rather brittle mass market. I think I read the book in 1981 or 82 because Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant was the first of her hardcover books that I paid attention to. I thought I bought it in hardcover, but hey, I barely had a job and picked it up in mass market (which is a correction from the original post. See more below.* After finishing that, I looked around for more backlist titles and finding them turned out to be harder than I thought - several of the titles had slipped out of print.

Back then, paperback rights were generally sold off by hardcover publishers to (mostly mass market) paperback houses. I ran around looking for copies that were still available and finally hit the jackpot at the Womrath's in Fresh Meadows (next a Bloomingdales, and seemingly closed an hour after the department store announced it was leaving the area). They were Popular Library editions, first part of CBS, which I think they acquired with the magazine company Fawcett, and became part of Random House's Ballantine division. I'd say that is why the paperbacks are published by Ballantine today, instead of being fed from Knopf to  Vintage or Anchor, which would keep it within one Penguin Random House division, but those Popular Library books were sold off to Warner, and the ones we had the rights on stayed with us for a few years until the rights were renegotiated to Berkley, which I think started publishing Tyler when they acquired Playboy Books (really, there was one), who bought the paperback rights to Morgan's Passing for a lot of money. But who really knows? Look closely and you can see the Playboy colophon on my paperback. It's not a bunny, by the way.

I have kept very few of my old mass markets - just these and an assortment of Margaret Atwoods. Maybe I'll start reading Atwood again too? But I stopped reading her because of the science fiction direction (too different) while in the case of Tyler, it might have been overfamiliarity. When I'd read mystery series, I'd eventually stop, thinking, OK, I get it. This was back when I could read faster and whatever I wanted - now of course I'm forced to read new and upcoming events, and that means I get to read one book in a series before I stop, instead of 5-6 or in the case of Dick Francis (and his wife), about 10. Elmore Leonard is different. I considered him more like Anne Tyler than a mystery. he didn't even really start doing recurring protagonists until late in his career. But I digress.

Anne Tyler's 20th novel - I can't say it's the newest, as Vinegar Girl was just released - is set in Baltimore, of course. It's about a quirky family, the Whitshanks, who don't always get along but still stick together, sort of. Their son Denny has no tolerance for conflict and is likely to run off after a spat and disappear. Some have compared the parents Red and Abby to the couple in Breathing Lessons, the Pulitzer Prize winning novel that pretty much takes place during a couple's road trip, very different people that have trouble getting along but wind up unable to break the bonds of family and time. Not sure if I got that exactly right - I am definitely not going to read 21 novels to write a blog post, unless somebody pays me enough money to hire people to do all the other things I have to do at Boswell. Seems unlikely.

Someone implied that like Tyler's other creations, the Whitshanks lived in the old money Roland Park, but I don't remember that ever being mentioned. I do know that Abby's family lived in Hamden, where her father ran a hardware store, and wherever Red's parents lived, it was considered more upscale than that.

So Red's father Junior builds this beautiful house for a client (the family is in construction) and Red and Abby wind up living there too, but it's likely that their kids will not, until they decide that their parents need someone to take care of them, mostly because Abby is having these blackouts. She pooh-poohs them, insists its not dementia, but it's a little scary that she is, as they would say, disappearing. It was interesting to our book club to discuss this soon after Angela Flournoy's The Turner House. Boswellian Jane had also noticed the similarities and somewhere she has a chart (alas, I'm not going to duplciate it hear) with Tyler and Flournoy's novels compared and contrasted.

I have mentioned that A Spool of Blue Thread has been a much bigger success than her previous two novels, and while it was before Boswell, I'm guessing it is outselling books going further back like Digging to America. Reviews have been good but not always - Michiko Kakutani was quite dismissive, comparing it unfavorably to earlier works, with Digging to America being the last book that she liked, probably because she liked the immigrant themes that Tyler wove into that story. It's not a great review so I'm not linking to it. Do your own digging.

But I really think what's been driving sales has been the British reaction to A Spool of Blue Thread. While she's been published in the UK, they definitely had a big campaign for this one themed around "Anne Tyler is the best novelist you've never read" and Tyler supported that with a good more interviews than she's done of late. And while I don't think you could ever relaunch Tyler like that here, due to previous accolades, her reaction in the UK has been quieter. So the book was shortlisted for the Bailey's Women's Prize (formerly the Orange Prize) and then it truly hit paydirt. In only the second year that the Man Booker was opened to all books written in English and published in the UK, A Spool of Blue Thead made the shortlist. And Tyler is just the kind of author the that much of Great Britain adores - you can see her fitting into the canon of Barbara Pym, Penelope Fitzgerald, Angela Thirkell, and even Ivy Compton-Burnett.

So what did the book club think? Of the 12 of us, most of were in the middle, liking the book but not feeling it was groundbreaking. I remember reading recently, perhaps in Chuck Klosterman's But What If We're Wrong, that someone who has produced a good amount of work finds their newest creations judged not just against other works, but against their own work. So if you don't keep breaking new ground, you're falling behind. But I've noticed a contrary development as well, the building buzz factor. So it you haven't broken out, each book gets better, in the sense that it gets more attention and reviews, as more people discover it. But this did not account for the folks in the group who had not read Tyler before and still thought it was perfectly fine. I will note that several attendees took exception to Red and Abby being old in their seventies. Even one of Tyler's biggest fans thought maybe the couple should have been in their eighties But Tyler herself is 74, and so it seems fair her to make that decision.

One interesting discussion we had was about believability. Amusingly enough, when one attendee complained about a certain incident that gave the book its title, I was able to note from an interview that while Tyler in general does not draw from her own life, at least consciously, that said incident actually happened to her. But my usual reaction to the "didn't believe it" argument is "It's a novel. It didn't really happen."

We had one attendee who absolutely hated the book, which is always interesting if you don't take the assault on your own taste personally, as it keeps the discussion lively. But for me, it just reminded me that I not only have three Anne Tyler books I haven't read, but that I have 17 others to reread. Being that my sister Merrill is currently rereading every Anita Brookner (an author where I've read everything except her last novel, and I don't know why I stopped there), it certainly can be done. And there's always Olivia S., our bookseller who has read Harry Potter 32 times.

We had a little bit of a conversation about what were the touchstone Anne Tyler books. Of course I am partial to Searching for Caleb, being my first, but I think that most people would say Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (her first breakout bestseller, her first to get multiple award nominations, and for a long time, said to be her favorite), The Accidental Tourist (because of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the movie), and Breathing Lessons (because of the Pulitzer). I'm guessing that A Spool of Blue Thread is going to be on this shortlist as well.

Upcoming in-store lit group discussions:

--Monday, August 1, 7 pm: we discuss Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer

--Tuesday, September 6, 7 pm: we discuss Quan Barry's She Weeps Each Time You're Born (with the date being changed because of the Labor day holiday)

--Monday, October 3, 7 pm: we discuss Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie, with guests from the Florentine Opera, who will be performing the world premiere of this adaptation on October 7 and 9, 2016. Tickets now on sale.

PS--the book I was missing is Earthy Possessions. It's a good one too - I think I must have lent it out. *And when I looked closer, I realized I own Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant in mass market, not hardcover as originally noted, so I wasn't able to start buying hardcovers until The Accidental Tourist. (Author photo credit is Michael Lionstar)

Are you a Josie or a Meredith? Just one of the questions you'll be thinking about after a ticketed evening with Emily Giffin, author of "First Comes Love," Friday, July 15, 7 pm, at Boswell.

Are you a Josie or a Meredith?

That's the obvious question that comes to mind while reading Emily Giffin's new novel, First Comes Love. It's the story of two sisters who've gone in two directions with their life. Josie is a single school teacher, while Meredith is a married lawyer. They made some rash decisions in the wake of a family tragedy, and now, 15 years later, they are rethinking their choices.

Emily Giffin exploded onto the book scene with her first novel Something Borrowed in 2004. Her books, a mix of drama and comedy, have struck a nerve with many readers. I'm not sure, but I think she came to Next Chapter when they were around. But this Friday, July 15, is our first event with Ms. Giffin and I thought it would be a good idea to get a handle on the book by reading about 50 pages, especially after several of our regulars told me what fans they were of Giffin's work.

So I start the book. The next thing I knew, I was on page 260. I'm not a particularly fast reader, but Giffin sure knows how to write a compelling plotline. Josie and Meredith's alternate stories left me alternately connecting with Meredith and perturbed at Josie, followed by a complete reversal. And I've seen my friends go through these kinds of crises - we make decisions at some point in our life, and later, when we see options disappearing, we second guess them. What is it about lawyers that so many of them know how to write compelling novels, whereas I don't recall people talking about briefs as being unputdownable?

Here's another Boswell recommendation, from Sharon K. Nagel: "Emily Giffin's latest is the story of two sisters, Josie and Meredith, who lose their much-loved older brother in a tragic accident when they are young. Their already tenuous relationship becomes even more contentious and strained. The novel is set in alternating chapters: Josie's voice, and then Meredith's. On the 15th anniversary of their brother's death, long-buried secrets and feelings come to the surface. I greatly enjoyed my first reading of this very popular author."

While First Comes Love is only moderately place-y, I definitely drew on my one visit to Atlanta, where I went beyond downtown and the landmarks to visit several neighborhoods and local haunts. I am glad I got to Dante's Down the Hatch (the suburban one, the downtown one was long gone) before it closed, but now I regret not visiting Johnny's Hideaway, another local icon that becomes a plot point--it's a nightclub where they mostly play Neil Diamond. I wonder if Giffin ever set a scene at Your Dekalb Farmers Market. I still dream about that place.

And when Nolan takes Meredith to Blackberry Farm, and they talk about how expensive it is, let us assure you, it's expensive! Sharon looked it up.

So one of the wonderful things about Emily Giffin coming to Wisconsin is that her sister Sarah lives in the town of Merton and will be there at the event. You can read all about that in Jim Higgins's great profile in the Journal Sentinel. Giffin has an homage to Wisconsin (where she vacations annually) in Pete, her last ditch online match. He asks Josie to meet at Brio, a chain Italian restaurant, a little trick to weed out pretension. I thought that was pretty Wisconsin. Go Pete!

The big question of course is that if this is a sister story, and Emily and Sarah are sisters. Which is Meredith and which is Josie. So it turns out her mom says they are both kind of Meredith. But I think I might be a Josie...mostly.

As you know, our ticketed event with Emily Giffin is this Friday, July 15, 7 pm. Tickets are $28, including admission and a copy of First Comes Love, currently the #1 hardcover fiction book on The New York Times Bestseller List. If you've already bought the book, we do offer a Boswell gift card of $20 in lieu of the book. And yes, we'll have extra copies of the book for sale, as well as some backlist titles. And yes, it's okay to bring your other Giffin titles from home to get signed. Ms. Giffin has personalized sticky notes and bookmarks, as well as several First Comes Love tee shirts to give out (pictured above right).

Our event is cosponsored by Milwaukee Magazine, and Giffin will be introduced by editor-in-chief Carole Nicksin. See you there!

Event happening this week: at ticketed event with Emily Giffin plus Bonnie Nadzam, Circus Parade book from Arcadia, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Amy E. Reichert, and Phila Kelnhofer

Here are some bookish happenings this week!

Tuesday, July 12, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Bonnie Nadzam, author of Lions and Lamb

Bonnie Nadzam, author of the critically acclaimed Lamb, winner of the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, returns with this scorching, haunting portrait of a rural community in a living ghost town on the brink of collapse, and the individuals who are confronted with either chasing their dreams or—against all reason—staying where they are. A story of awakening, Lions is a novel that explores ambition and an American obsession with self-improvement, the responsibilities we have to ourselves and each other, as well as the everyday illusions that pass for a life worth living.

For more about Bonnie Nadzam and Lions, here's an interview with Royal Young in Interview magazine. A taste: "Nadzam weaves ghosts, myths, longing, and an aching American landscape into a fascinating fable about the lengths we go to for the people we love. Tender, intense, and desperate for a better life, Nadzam's characters are easy to relate to. We spoke with Nadzam about lost love, how we live our lives according to legends, dark culture, ghost towns, and the sublime."

Bonnie Nadzam currently lives in Madison. A film version of Lamb was released at several film festivals and received a very positive reception. It was produced by Menomonie Falls native Mel Eslyn.

Tuesday, July 12, 6 pm, at the North Point Lighthouse, 2650 N Wahl:
A ticketed evening with John Gurda, author of Milwaukee: City of Neighborhoods.

While we are not involved with North Point's evening with John Gurda, I must mention this great opportunity--you can't go wrong with a night of John Gurda stories. Tickets are $35 and include on drink and light refreshments. Historic Milwaukee will be selling books at this event. The North Point Lighthouse is a treasure on Milwaukee's East Side. If you haven't been, why not visit this summer? Business hours are 10-2 on Tuesdays and 1-4 on Saturdays and Sundays.

Wednesday, July 13, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Jim and Donna Peterson, author of Staging the Great Circus Parade.

From the introduction: "In the early 1900s, Wisconsin was home to over 100 circuses. The Ringling Brothers show stared out in Baraboo, Wisconsin. Chappie Fox was fascinated by horses, trains, and circuses. He was an avid photographer and took many pictures of his three favorite subjects...With help from John M. Kelly, a lawyer who worked for Ringling Bros., Chappie worked to start a circus museum in Baraboo." The parade was originally set up to showcase the museum. Ben Barkin, a marketing exec, put Fox in touch with Schlitz Brewing Company, who provided the financing for the first run of the parade, from 1963 to 1972. Later on it was put on by the Great Circus Parade Foundation, also put together by Barkin. What Milwaukeean of a certain age doesn't have memories of visiting the parade and grounds?


Jim Peterson grew up in Milwaukee and volunteered for the first run of the Great Circus Parades. By 1980, Jim was married with a young family when Circus World Museum called and asked him to volunteer again. He agreed as long as his wife, Donna, could volunteer as well. Like Jim, she was assigned to the flag and banner crew and was hooked, participating in every parade through 2009. During this time, the Petersons amassed a collection of photographs that documents the extensive volunteer effort dedicated to putting on a magnificent show, with the best from the archive gathered within this book.

Friday, July 15, 7 pm, at Boswell:
A ticketed event with Emily Giffin, author of First Comes Love
This event is cosponsored by Milwaukee Magazine

Boswell Book Company is pleased to present a ticketed event with Emily Giffin, author of seven bestselling novels, including her latest, First Comes Love. Tickets are $28, including admission for one and a copy of the new book, and all taxes and fees, purchased via Brown Paper Tickets*. On the night of the event only, a $20 Boswell gift card is available in lieu of the book. Don't forget, a signed copy of First Comes Love makes a great gift.

Congratulations to Giffin, who reached #1 on The New York Times bestseller list for First Comes Love!

From Sharon Nagel at Boswell"Emily Giffin's latest is the story of two sisters, Josie and Meredith, who lose their much-loved older brother in a tragic accident when they are young. Their already tenuous relationship becomes even more contentious and strained. The novel is set in alternating chapters: Josie's voice, and then Meredith's. On the 15th anniversary of their brother's death, long-buried secrets and feelings come to the surface. I greatly enjoyed my first reading of this very popular author."

And here's Jackie K. Cooper at The Huffington Post: "There are enough relationships in this novel to fill five other books but each one is pertinent to the story and each one is developed in a way as to be completely fulfilling. Plus each relationship impacts all of the other relationships directly or indirectly. Kudos to Giffin for it takes a talented and resourceful writer to create a wealth of characters and have them all be fully described for the reader to understand and enjoy."

Milwaukee Magazine Editor Carole Nicksin will be introducing our author.

Sunday, July 17, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, author of Before We Visit the Goddess
Introduced by Shawna Singh Baldwin, author of The Selector of Souls and The Tiger's Claw

Presenting a beautiful and powerful new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of Oleander Girl and The Mistress of Spices about three generations of mothers and daughters who must discover their greatest source of strength in one another—a masterful, brilliant tale of a family both united and torn apart by ambition and love.

Divakruni has been a Boswell favorite for a long time. Boswellian Jane Glaser offered up a recommendation of the classic novel, Sister of My Heart: "Set against the backdrop of the cultural traditions of India, this is a moving story about two cousins, born twelve hours apart and raised in the same Calcutta household. Forming a lifelong bond of mutual dependency and self sacrifice, they confront their inheritance of firmly rooted family expectations of the societal roles for women and arranged marriages. Timelessly engaging storytelling by a brilliant writer, Sister of My Heart has been a longstanding favorite on my bookshelf!"

 And here's Daniel Goldin with his recommendation of Before We Visit the Goddess: "Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has been exploring the bonds of family in her work, and in her latest, she writes about three generations of women – Sabritri, Bela, and Tara – and how their decisions resonate over the generations. The story is told through linked stories, propelled forward over the narrative but with time hopping to make things interesting. So can you have an ideal life when visions of love and family don’t measure up? The answer is that there are alternate paths to fulfillment and peace, one of which definitely involves tasty food. Before We Visit the Goddess makes the journey both enlightening and rewarding."

 Monday, July 18, 6 pm, at Milwaukee Public Market, 400 N Water St:
Philia Kelnhofer, author of Fast and Easy Five-Ingredient Recipes: A Cookbook for Busy People

Philia Kelnhofer (aka Phi) started her food blog sweetphi.com as a place to share her favorite recipes with friends and family. After getting numerous requests for more of her five-ingredient meals, she introduced Five Ingredient Fridays with the simple belief that "five ingredients is all it takes to create fantastic dishes." A native of Chicago, Phi attended graduate school at Cornell University in New York, has lived in North Carolina, and now calls Milwaukee home, where she lives with her husband and their dog.

Monday, July 18, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Amy E. Reichert, author of Luck, Love & Lemon Pie.

The author of The Coincidence of Coconut Cake is back with her second Milwaukee-set novel. This time its about a woman who decides to bond with her poker-playing husband, only to find herself with such a talent that she starts entering professional tournaments. All well and good for self-esteem, but not exactly the move to re-bond with her spouse.

I was at a luncheon in Appleton yesterday and I could hear the other side of the table animatedly discussing their new favorite book. I hardly imagined it would be Reichert's The Coincidence of Coconut Cake! Kimberly said to me, offhandedly, "You've probably hosted her in the bookstore" and my reply was "Actually she'll be at Boswell really soon!" Maybe Reichert's new book will be your next favorite book too.

The annotated Boswell bestsellers, week ending July 9, 2016

Here are the Boswell Book Company Weekly Bestsellers for the week ending July 9, 2016

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Dead Don't Bleed, by David Krugler
2. The Girls, by Emma Cline
3. Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi
4. Before the Fall, by Noah Hawley
5. Vinegar Girl, by Anne Tyler
6. Barkskins, by Annie Proulx
7. City of Mirrors, by Justin Cronin
8. The Nest, by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
9. As Good as Gone, by Larry Watson
10. The Vegetarian, by Han Kang

The Hogarth imprint of Crown has two books in the top ten this week. In addition to Anne Tyler's Vinegar Girl, The Vegetarian, by Han Kang, makes its first appearance. It is currently in our awards case for winning the Man Booker International Prize, which is for the best book in translation. Han Kang's novel, first published in South Korea, is about a dutiful wife who decides to become a tree. She has a second novel translated into English, Human Acts, that to date has only come out through Portobello Books in the UK. In the press release, it was noted that translator Deborah Smith is only 28.

Oh, and it's another strong week for The Girls. Emma Cline's debut novel made the top five for Milwaukee (and that's hardcover and paperback, fiction and nonfiction combined).

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. One in a Billion, by Mark Johnson and Kathleen Gallagher
2. Evicted, by Matthew Desmond
3. Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
4. Help Thanks Wow, by Anne Lamott
5. Hamilton, by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter
6. Milwaukee: City of Neighborhoods, by John Gurda
7. Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari
8. Seinfeldia, by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong (event at Boswell, Mon Sep 12, 7 pm)
9. Einstein, by Steven Gimbel
10. Wisconsin Supper Clubs: Another Round (event at Boswell, Mon Aug 8, 7 pm)
of note: White Trash, by Nancy Isenberg

The two highest profile local-interest nonfiction books take the top spots, but they've had different trajectories. Pulitzer winners Mark Johnson and Kathleen Gallagher have keep One in a Billion in the public eye with local events and publicity, but Evicted hasn't had to do much consistency place in the top 50 of the Bookscan Milwaukee chart. Here's an interview with Desmond in Madison's Isthmus, where they note that Evicted is this year's freshman incoming read for UW-Madison.

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen
2. Our Souls at Night, by Kent Haruf
3. A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman
4. The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend, by Katarina Bivald
5. A Spool of Blue Thread, by Anne Tyler
6. The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt
7. So Many True Believers, by Tyrone Jaeger
8. Banquet of Consequences, by Elizabeth George
9. Me Before You, by Jojo Moyes
10. The Coincidence of Cononut Cake, by Amy E. Reichert (event at Boswell, Mon Jul 18, 7 pm)
of note: 13. The Weird Sisters, by Eleanor Brown (ticketed event at Lynden Sculpture Garden, Tue Jul 19, 7 pm)

The 19th Inspector Lynley novel released in paperback this week, which had a good Washington Post review from Patrick Anderson when Banquet of Consequences came out in hardcover last fall. He writes "George’s mystery unfolds with great psychological depth, finely drawn characters and gorgeous portraits of the English countryside." And Moira Macdonald in the Seattle Times added: "While George, a Seattle-area resident, doesn’t vary the rhythms of her books much — they’re all long, dialogue-heavy and pleasantly crowded — she excels at creating and developing her characters, revealing just enough to leave readers happy yet yearning for more."

Paperback Nonfiction"
1. Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow
2. The Zookeeper's Wife, by Diane Ackerman
3. Looking at Mindfulness, by Christophe Andre
4. Milwaukee in the 1930s, by John D. Buenker
5. Barbarian Days, by William Finnegan
6. Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson
7. Mindfulness for Beginners, by Jon Kabat-Zinn
8. We Should All Be Feminists, by Chimananda Ngozi Adichie
9. Happy Felsch, by Thomas Rathkamp
10. Hold Still, by Sally Mann
of note: 11. Max Perkins, by A. Scott Berg (the film Genius was playing at the Downer for the last two weeks)

The Zookeeper's Wife is being read by the Milwaukee Catholic Home book club. I don't generally know why certain books pop but there was a little extra discussion about ordering titles in, enough that I became aware of it. The book's been a steady seller since its 2007 release, but I expect to see it pop up more in 2016 as a film version is expected to be released next spring with Jessica Chastain and Johan Heldenbergh in the roles of the Zabinskis. We have another book club reading the Mindfulness titles.

Books for Kids:
1. Snail and Worm, by Tina Kügler
2. In Mary's Garden, by Tina and Carson Kügler
3. The BFG, by Roald Dahl
4. There is a Tribe of Kids, by Lane Smith
5. A is for Activist, by Innosanto Nagara
6. The Thank You Book, by Mo Willems
7. I Am a Bunny, by Ole Risom and Richard Scarry
8. Carry On, by Rainbow Rowell
9. The Book of Impossible Objects, by Pat Murphy
10. Eleanor and Park, by Rainbow Rowell
of note:
14. Peril at the Top of the World: Treasure Seekers V4, by James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein

The Rainbow Rowell pop comes from a backlist display that Amie bought that had signed copies of Eleanor and Park and Carry On, as well as Fangirl. While a paperback of Eleanor and Park is not likely until a movie comes out, there's a special edition due to be released this fall with a new jacket, an exclusive interview with Rowell, and a collection of fan art.

If you haven't seen Lane Smith's There Is a Tribe of Kids, most of the trade reviewers implore you to explore a copy. It's the story of a little kids odyssey through the animal world--the titular tribe refers to baby goats. Some of the groupings use the real term, while others are imagined by the author. The starred Booklist: "The result is a kaleidoscopic look at nature, imbued with a playful love of language that young readers can't fail to embrace."

Over in the Journal Sentinel, this week's featured local review is The Big Book of Science Fiction. Jim Higgins begins: "Surprisingly, the literary spirit that haunts Ann and Jeff Vandermeer's massive new anthology, The Big Book of Science Fiction, isn't Arthur C. Clarke or Isaac Asimov or even H.G. Wells. It's Jorge Luis Borges, the creator of miniature fables of humans grappling with their double-edged longing for and terror of infinity and omniscience. He's represented by a signature story, name-checked in another one and appears to influence several more." He notes that several Wisconsinites are included.

Also included is a profile of Terry McMillan by Jeneé Osterheldt, originally published in the Kansas City Star. On the philosophy of her books, and of I Almost Forgot About You in particular, McMillan said: "It’s a given with black women: We see ourselves as sisters, not just friends. We don’t B.S. each other. We are very honest. We get angry with each other. Sometimes we don’t speak for months, but usually, almost 90 percent of the time, what made us mad was the truth. I’m not saying other women don’t have these types of relationships, I know they do. I just know black women in particular consider their friends to be the people who are supportive and have your back but will also give you a lashing when your behavior was silly. Our friendships are another way of parenting.” Read the rest of the interview here.

Also featured is Marion Winik's review of The Girls, which as you can see above has been a big hit both nationally and at Boswell. She writes in the piece, which was originally published by Newsday: "I missed a meeting at work recently because I was so lost in Emma Cline’s novel, “The Girls,” that I didn’t even look at the clock until it was an hour past time to leave. At that point, I figured I might as well give in and spend the day finishing it — then lay awake, turning its final images over in my mind. Consider yourself warned."

Which way do you like year teens - observed through a glass or strapped onto their pituitary gland? And other meditations on Patrick Ryan's "The Dream Life of Astronauts"

I was listening to Michael Harvey's great conversation with Ruth Jordan last week, and two things really stuck with me. The first was that anyone who likes Dennis Lehane should read Brighton, and not only because they are mining the same neighborhood (they grew up within blocks of each other, and I'm sure both were heavy users of the Brighton branch of the Boston Public Library), but also because they are both interested in the bonds of family, the gray areas of morality, and how character drives action. Because that was the second thing - plot is great, but in the end, it's all about character. Harvey figures out who he's writing about, what the setup is, and they go where they need to go.

And yet, Harvey talked about how he was cautious of writing short stories, which are in some ways the essence of character. Here's a man who writes novels, mysteries, screenplays, documentaries, and probably five other things, but he understands that a great short story gets right to the heart of things, and understood how difficult a great short story can be. Many authors start with the short story form (particularly ones in writing programs, where the story form dominates), and move on to novels with experience, with only the best short-form specialists returning again to stories? And why? Well, did you ever try to sell a collection of short stories to a publisher? And can you imagine what you get for stories, compared to novels, unless you are George Saunders or something.

So I was pleased to see a new collection of stories come out from Patrick Ryan called The Dream Life of Astronauts, the long-awaited follow up to Send Me, which some have called a novel but I should note was packaged as “fiction,” which is what publishers sometimes call a collected connection of stories when they don’t want to call them stories. It’s my contention that the new stories are somewhat connected too, but more by place, specifically Merritt Island, a residential sliver of a peninsula that includes Cape Canaveral, hence the astronaut themes that weave in and out of the stories. The title story is about a gay teenage kid who obsesses about astronauts, and goes ballistic when a former astronaut seems to be coming on to him, offering a private tour. Peninsula or island? I have been staring at maps for a while and cannot figure out whether the connections are natural or man-made.

I was hooked from the first paragraph, when the young protagonist of "The Way She Handles" notes, while reading the Hardy Boys: “If I’d been reading something else I might not have been so in tune to things, but a mystery by flashlight turns everything into a clue.”

Patrick Ryan’s stories immerse you not just in a place, but in another time, the 1970s and 80s. The details don’t hit you over the head but they are there – The Challenger, Watergate. It’s a time when roles were more defined and options were seemingly more limited. Yes, the gay teen doesn’t have many options. But neither does the fellow in the senior center whose presence in the witness protection program makes him a captive of Villa Ponce de Leon, or the once-again single woman who now takes care of her grandchild, after her daughter ran off to California. Julian, the boy who is bullied by two brothers in his scout troop may have it bad, but in no better boat is the brothers’ father, who is recovering from a stroke and cannot keep his sons in line.

Ann Patchett has been a longtime champion of Patrick Ryan, and yes, there’s a recommendation on the book jacket of Astronauts. She writes: “Stories that moved me beyond words…I loved every single one of them.” While working out the details of her upcoming visit for Commonwealth on October 19 (in conversation with Jane Hamilton. Tickets on sale July 15), I asked her what she was reading, and Ryan came up first on the list.

I should note that Patchett is not Ryan’s only writer fan of note – a who’s who of writers offer laurels for Ryan’s writing, from Ann Beattie to Richard Russo to Elizabeth Gilbert. Reviews have already been appearing. Michael Upchurch in The Seattle Times writes: “Patrick Ryan’s short stories go down lightly — but that doesn’t mean they’re lightweight. In the best of them, Ryan’s transparent prose and seemingly casual tone sneakily ensnare you in tough moments and wryly rueful deflations of the heart and spirit.” And Tray Butler in The Atlanta Journal Constitution (or at least the blog), writes: “The satire here and in other stories comes closer to the films of Todd Solondz, revealing the twisted proclivities that lurk beneath a polite suburban veneer.” Though I’d hardly quibble with comparison to Todd Solondz, I’m not sure I’d characterize his stories as satire.

Patrick Ryan has that uncanny ability to get inside the heads of a diverse assortment of characters, including teenagers, and that got me thinking, because in between Send Me and The Dream Life of Astronauts, he wrote a series of young adult novels under P.E. Ryan as well as Patrick Ryan. Since I had a copy of his most recent novel, Gemini Bites, on my bookshelf, I thought I’d read that and compare his adult and YA-targeted fiction. This has been of interest to me because we have hosted Patrick Ness in the past, and this fall we’re hosting both Jacqueline Woodson and Gayle Forman, writers who have made their mark with books for kids, but nonetheless write for adults as well.

Gemini Bites is the story of two siblings who haven’t gotten along since their parents separated. Even though Mom and Dad have since reunited, Kyle and Judy have not. The story alternates points of view. Kyle has just come out as gay, and is struggling with his first encounter, with a guy who then blew him off. Judy has a crush on a football player, and she decides to join his Bible study group, even though she’s not previously shown interest in her Christian faith. The teens are quite competitive, and while Kyle seems to not know where this comes from, and wonders if she’s unhappy with his being gay, Judy’s true anger runs a little deeper.

So anyway, their dad agrees to take in a coworkers son after his parents move away, just so he can finish out the school year. Garret definitely goes his own way, with black clothes and a touch of makeup. But his real secret might be that he’s a vampire. Despite this rumor, and despite the twins’ seeing him as a bit weird, they both start to take an interest in him, but is it true attraction, or competition? And will the winner get a boyfriend or eternal damnation?

Wow! Such different books and not just because Gemini Bites was set in Virginia instead of Florida. The YA novel is completely through the perspective of the kids – there are parents and older siblings and teachers but they are side notes. In The Dream Life of Astronauts, the landscape plays such a strong part in the story, whereas this could be anytown. I’ve noticed this to be common in YA, but it doesn’t have to be the case. Look at the rich Utah setting of Ally Condie’s Summerlost, for example. But in general, the YA world doesn't seem to like as much placiness in the realist fiction, which is only odd because the fantasy side is heavy on place detail.

But the biggest difference seems to be the way emotion is repressed in the stories, whereas Kyle and Judy are completely awash in feelings. One has us peering into the volcano while the other is all hot molten lava. How do I say this so that it makes sense? There’s all this energy bouncing around both books, but in the collection, you’re sort of behind a glass watching, but in the YA novel, you’re right there in the thick of things. Though as I should note, the other difference is that while YA fiction seems more creative and freewheeling than ever, there are lines you do not cross, and I’d say that Ryan crosses them in The Dream Life of Astronauts.

One reviewer noted that Mr. Ryan formerly worked at Granta (where full disclosure, I once worked with him on a promotion and a potential appearance by John Freeman which did not come to fruition), but is now at One Teen Story, an offshoot of One Story, the subscription story service. The current selection is “Fortune for Your Freshman Year,” by Lucy Silbaugh, a 17-year-old writer who matriculates at Columbia University this fall. It looks like the mission is two-fold: celebrate emerging and better known YA writers and highly teen writers themselves. But I did notice that Ryan’s day job isn’t listed in his bio. Do we like to think that short story writers wouldn’t sully themselves that way?

But now I’m digressing into author bios and why certain details are featured and others are hid and that’s probably for another post. The Dream Life of Astronauts published on July 5.

Event post! David Krugler on Wednesday, Dave Madden, Tyrone Jaeger, and Theodore Wheeler on Friday, Tina Kügler on Saturday.

Wednesday, July 6, 7 pm, at Boswell:
David Krugler, author of The Dead Don't Bleed.


Washington D.C., 1945. Victory in the war looms, but a new fear transfixes the wartime capital. Fear of communist spies and the atomic secrets they covet. When the corpse of Logan Skerrill, a Navy Intelligence officer is found on a cobblestone back alley, Lt. Ellis Voigt is called in to investigate. It’s his first murder, but in the plot that he quickly begins unraveling, it won’t be his last. Publishers Weekly notes: “Before his death, Skerrill was looking into the background of some new employees of the Soviet Union’s trading company in the U.S., but his work was (atypically for him) subpar. He gave the new hires a clean bill of health despite evidence that they were Russian spies. Might Skerrill may have been a blackmail victim?”

Pursuing crosses and double-crosses, Voigt goes undercover and the fragments he discovers (a defecting German physicist, a top secret lab in New Mexico, and Uranium-235) suggest something far larger than the usual spy v. spy shenanigans. Soon enough he’s in a race to identify the killer, to keep the bomb away from the Russians—and to keep ahead of his own secrets.

David Krugler, who grew up in Wauwatosa, is a Professor of History at UW Platteville, who teaches American history and African American History. He is also the author of 1919, the Year of Racial Violence: How African Americans Fought Back. Krugler has served as a faculty leader for teacher education programs at Chicago’s Newberry and the Master of American History and Government program at Ashland University.

Want a recommendation? Here's David Strafford in the Richmond Times-Dispatch: "Krugler, the author of several works of nonfiction, brings expertise and authenticity to his first thriller, as well as a penetrating portrait of wartime Washington. And Voigt — a man with secrets of his own — stands out as one of the most intriguing characters in espionage fiction. Expect the unexpected in this thumping good read."

And check out this interview on Southwest Ohio's WYSO for The Book Nook program, Krugler discusses how his work as a historian helped shape the novel. In particular, a book called This Is Only a Test: How Washington D.C. Prepared for Nuclear War from 2006 provided a good amount of background information.

Friday, July 8, 7 pm, at Boswell:
Short Story Summer with Dave Madden, author of If You Need Me I’ll Be Over There, Tyrone Jaeger, author of So Many True Believers, and Theodore Wheeler, author of Bad Faith. That last link should be working soon!

We had quite the close call on this one. With more smaller presses moving to print on demand for distribution, it seems like that buffer period is shrinking. The ability to purchase one of these titles went live only last Friday, giving us a very small window to order books in time and no time to display them. It's my feeling that unless your a big name or this is your family/friends/colleagues launch, a little more of a window si a good idea! Here's some info about the books and the readers on Friday.

After the Plains queered him, Dave Madden decided to return the favor. His new collection of short stories, If You Need Me, I’ll Be Over There tells the tale of a different kind of difference one not set in the glittering lights of New York or Los Angeles, but in the grand and wide American Midwest. For Madden’s characters, their queerness is part of the environment, like the soil, the sky, and the supermarket: an HIV-positive chemist uses football to connect with his brothers; a 17-year-old girl tussles with a cartoon cobra to avoid thinking about the mother who abandoned her; and a hotel concierge starts attending Mass even though his partner was molested by a priest. In seeking out the ordinary struggles of extraordinary people trying to figure out their place within families and communities, Madden masterfully explores what it means to be an outsider always looking in.

Dave Madden is also author of The Authentic Animal: Inside the Odd and Obsessive World of Taxidermy. His shorter work has appeared in Harper’s, Prairie Schooner, and The Rumpus, and he’s the recipient of the Sherwood Anderson Award in fiction and a Tennessee Williams Scholarship at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. He teaches in the MFA program at the University of San Francisco.

Tyrone Jaeger’s So Many True Believers gives voice to the wanton, the restless, and those hellbent on self-destruction. The Nat Mota School for at-risk youth is the nexus of Tyrone Jaeger's spiraling narrative; loosed from it is an array of characters yearning, raging, and chasing down their misguided dreams. There is Jeremy, mourning the loss of his girlfriend to a UFO cult; Harold, the betrayed husband exploring intimacy in unfamiliar waters; and Ginny, the teenage runaway hiding out with a band of video-obsessed squatters. Mystery, magic, and gritty realism are coiled against a backdrop of failed relationships and addictions in this darkly humorous debut collection depicting the frayed edges of the American psyche.

Tyrone Jaeger is also author of the cross-genre novella The Runaway Note. His first novel, Radio Eldorado, is forthcoming with Queen’s Ferry Press in 2017. His work has appeared in the Oxford American, Southern Humanities Review, and The Literary Review,. He is the recipient of the Frank O’Connor Award for Short Fiction and Theodore Christian Hoepfner Award. He lives in Conway, Arkasnsas with his family.

And finally, with results both liberating and disastrous, the characters of Theodore Wheeler’s Bad Faith flee the trappings of contemporary domestic life. A father visits a college friend in El Salvador rather than face difficulties with the birth of his third child. A boy comes to terms with his fractured family and the disabled father responsible for his care after his soldier mother is stationed overseas. A biracial man journeys across Nebraska for the funeral of his white mother and strikes up an improbable if dishonest relationship with a centenarian Irish woman. And in the collection’s title story, the running narrative of a pathetic yet oddly compelling ladies man culminates in an unexpected and deadly confrontation. In Theodore Wheeler’s collection of prize-winning stories, the herd can’t always outpace the predator.

Theodore Wheeler is a fiction writer and legal reporter living in Omaha, Nebraska. His short stories have been collected in Best New American Voices, The Kenyon Review, and The Southern Review. He is also the author of a novel-in-progress titled Kings of Broken Thing which won the Tarcher/Penguin Top Artist Writing Contest. I suspect Wheeler is collecting material for his writing as we speak. It's surely been a very exciting process.

Saturday, July 9, 2:00 pm, at Boswell:
Tina Kügler, author and of Snail and Worm.

Combining deceptively simple art with clever wordplay, Snail and Worm, told in three comical, episodic shorts and ranging in topic from adventuring to having pets, will have both girls and boys delighting in the friends' silly antics, making it a perfect book for readers transitioning between picture books and chapter books. Boswell will host a storytime, activities, and a possible guest appearance by either Snail, Worm, or both. We’re still negotiating.

Boswell’s proprietor Daniel Goldin writes: “Snail and Worm are two pals who just get each other. In the story “Meet My Friend,” Snail introduces Worm to Bob the Rock and Worm returns the favor by bringing Ann the Stick into the circle. In “Snail’s Adventure,” our hero attempts to scale…a flower. I’m not going to tell you what happens in “Meet My Pet” because I don’t want to give everything away. Charming illustrations collide with goofy humor. If you long for the adorable absurdity of James Marshall, rejoice, as his spirit lives on in Tina Kügler.”

Don't trust me? Here's Publishers Weekly: "Snail and Worm’s direct, simplified dialogue is perfect for beginning readers, and their unabashed dopiness—equally evident in their conversations and in Kügler’s mixed-media cartoons—delivers a steady stream of laughs."

Author-illustrator Tina Kügler grew up in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, and now lives in the Los Angeles area with her artist husband, three sons, and an enormous hairy dog named Harryhausen. When she is not making picture books, she can be found trying to befriend snails and worms in her backyard. She is also the author of In Mary’s Garden, written and illustrated with Carson Kügler.

Display Tour--celebrating summer clearance, national parks, Soho mysteries, and the summer games.

Though it seems like summer has just begun, a lot of folks look at July 4th as it's midpoint, particularly if they get out of school at the beginning of June and return by August. Whatever your calendar, Jen has set up a nice clearance display of gift items. I have my eye on the Roz Chast mug, a toy robot for my collection, and the Beatles greeting cards. And note that some things, like one Gobblet Gobblers game, is only discounted 50% because of sun damage.

We're open 10 am to 5 pm for both July 4th and Labor Day, and so far, traffic has been fairly what you'd expect for a holiday like this. It's a good amount of visitors, some brought to the store by locals, and others exploring on our own. We're in the Visit Milwaukee tourist map for the first time, and I'm hoping that makes an impact.

Our smaller National Parks display expanded to one of the larger tables, as Jason got the feeling that July 4th would lead to a publicity hit for this 100th anniversary. Sure enough, here's an essay in The New York Times travel section from Elaine Glusac and  NPR has been doing a series of pieces on the centennial. I'm pretty sure there was something on this morning but I can't find it indexed yet.

Here are some titles of note that were published for this auspicious anniversary:
--The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks, by Terry Tempest Williams
--The National Parks: An American Legacy, by Ian Shive (which appears to be out of stock at at least one of our wholesalers)
--Lassoing the Sun: A Year in America's National Parks, by Mark Woods
--See America, by the Creative Action Network
--National Parks of America, from Lonely Planet

We're celebrating the 25th anniversary of Soho Press with a display featuring their titles. Clark printed us an 11x17 version of Soho's diagram of their publishing program, which each author identified by a distinctive color. We just hosted midnight blue, which would be Cara Black.

And finally, a display with a special challenge. It seemed time to put up an Olympics display, but I've heard that the Committee often demands that retailers take down displays that use the word Olympics or show the rings, though I should note this is generally only in the city where the games are taking place.

Just in case someone official shows up, I think we've addressed the problem pretty well. We're also promoting Jessie Garcia's for Going for the Wisconsin Gold: Stories of Our State Olympians. It's Wednesday, August 10, 6:30 pm, at Shorewood Public Library, 3920 N Murray Ave.

Here are some Olympics titles that are of note.
--The Games, by James Patterson and Mark Sullivan (a thriller)
--For the Glory: Eri Liddells Journey from Olympic Champion to Modern Martyr, by Duncan Hamilton
--Speed Kings: the 1932 Winter Olympics and the Fastest Men in the World, by Andy Bull
--The Three-Year Swim Club: The Untold Story of Maui's Sugar Ditch Kids and Their Quest for Olympic Glory, by Julie Checkaway

--Today We Die a Little!: The Inimitable Emil Zatopek, the Greatest Olympic Runner of All Time, by Richard Askwith
--The End of the Perfect 10: The Making and Breaking of Gymnastics Top Score from Nadia to Now, by Dvora Meyers
--Dancing with the Devil in the City of God: Rio de Janeiro and the Olympic Dream, by Juliana Barbassa
--Tumbling, by Caela Carter, a YA novel
--What Are the Summer Olympics?, by Gail Herman

According to the trademark info, if you are specifically referring to the mountain range, you are free to use the word in your branding, but you better be in Washington State!

And of course Jason added a pile of Zika: The Emerging Epidemic, by Donald G. McNeil, Jr.