This Saturday, November 4, is the annual Murder and Mayhem conference at the Irish Cultural Center near the Marquette University campus downtown.The program features panels, interviews, and signings with these authors: James R Benn, Lou Berney, Chelsea Cain (pictured), Susanna Calkins, Reed Farrel Coleman (also pictured), Lori Rader-Day, Danny Gardner, Shaun Harris, Rob Hart, Matthew Fitzsimmons, Linda Joffe Hull, Stephen Mack Jones, Dave Krugler, SW Lauden, Kristen Lepionka, Bill Loehfelm, Nick Petrie, Thomas Pluck, Bryon Quertermous, Nathan Singer, F. Paul Wilson, and Lili Wright.
Who's out at the last minute: though on the guest list, we just learned we will not be seeing Sean Chercover. And one never really knows until the day of the event. Last year, one of our attendees had a flight cancellation.
Who's in, as of the latest update: Blake Crouch, Jamie Freveletti, Marcus Sakey
Here's the schedule of panels and interviews. Each panel tends to have four to six participants.
9 am: Violence in a Violent World
10 am: Worst. Panel. Ever.
11 am: Nick Petrie’s Mother is in the Audience
1 pm: F Paul Wilson interviewed by Nathan Singer
2 pm: What’s It All About?
3 pm: Chelsea Cain interviewed by Ruth Jordan
4 pm: Wondrous Woman of Crime Fiction
Register here! Tickets are $42.95 (including the ticketing fee) for a full day of thrills.
And of course on Friday, November 3, we're hosting a Murder and Mayhem preview event with Stephen Mack Jones, author of August Snow and Danny Gardner, author of A Negro and an Ofay.
Stephen Mack Jones is a published poet, an award-winning playwright, and a recipient of the prestigious Kresge Arts in Detroit Literary Fellowship. He was born in Lansing, Michigan, and currently lives in Farmington Hills, outside of Detroit. He worked in advertising and marketing communications for a number of years before turning to fiction.
In his debut, August Snow, the son of an African-American father and a Mexican-American mother grows up in the city's Mexicantown and joins the police force only to be forced out by corrupt officials and officers. It's not long before he's summoned to the palatial Grosse Pointe Estate, home of business magnate Eleanor Paget. Powerful and manipulative, Paget wants August to investigate the increasingly unusual happenings at her private wealth management bank, which he declines. A day later, Paget is dead of an apparent suicide – dragging Snow into a rat’s nest of deception and danger.
Joining him will be debut author Danny Gardner. From his beginnings as a young stand-up comedian, Gardner has enjoyed careers as an actor, director, and screenwriter. He is a recent Pushcart Prize nominee for his creative non-fiction piece Forever. His first short fiction piece, Labor Day, appeared in Beat to a Pulp, and his flash fiction has been featured in Out of the Gutter and on Noir On The Air. Gardner is a proud member of the Mystery Writers of America and the International Thriller Writers.
The novel A Negro and an Ofay takes place in 1952. After a year on the run, disgraced Chicago Police Officer Elliot Caprice wakes up in a jailhouse in St. Louis. Friends from his hometown secure his release and he returns to find the family farm in foreclosure and the man who raised him dying in a flophouse. Desperate for money, he accepts a straight job as a process server and eventually crosses paths with a powerful family from Chicago's North Shore. A captain of industry is dead, the key to his estate disappeared with the chauffeur, and soon Elliot is in up to his neck. The mixed-race son of Illinois farm country must return to the Windy City with the Chicago Police on his heels and the Syndicate at his throat. Good thing he's had a lifetime of playing both sides against the middle.
It's been a good year for mysteries, especially in Milwaukee, the setting for Nick Petrie's debut novel, The Drifter, which has now been a finalist for six prizes, and is the winner of the International Thriller Writers Best Debut Novel. We'll have copies of The Drifter and Burning Bright at the show, and you'll probably hear a little about his next novel, Light It Up, which releases next January. I feel like this could be the one that breaks him big!
I make decisions on what books we read for our In-Store Lit Group in all sorts of ways. Sometimes we have an event coming up with that author. Sometimes it's a book that I feel is missing from my literary vocabulary, and often that is because so many people have told me to read it. It could be spotted on the new paperback table or the awards case. And of course some books are suggested by our regulars. Our October selection was a combination of reasons, but a stray comment from an author/critic sealed the deal.
I hadn't started reading Michael Perry until we opened Boswell. Before that, whatever advance reading copies we'd get would be enthusiastically scooped up by his fans on staff. And because we generally were hosting him at one of our stores, a spare extra would go to that store, in the hopes that we'd pick up another read or two from a bookseller who could then help sell the book and the event.
And once Boswell opened, one of those booksellers became me. Our first event with Perry was for Coop, which came out in 2009, only weeks after we opened. Perry appeared at Boswell as well as Next Chapter and Oconomowoc's Books & Company. Because Schwartz had never placed Perry at an "urban" store (I hate air quotes, but here they feel appropriate, because any New Yorker would look at Downer Avenue and laugh at the notion of urban. It looks more suburban than most towns half an hour outside city limits), we set up 35 chairs with the hopes that we'd have 50 attendees.
When we wound up with 165 people, we learned several things:
--People will drive pretty far to see Michael Perry
--We can add a lot of chairs very quickly
--Urban schmurban.
I have a rule. While I can't read every book for every event, if an author's event is successful and returns to Boswell, I will do everything I can to read their book as long as my reading it actually helps sell the event. In other words, if it's clear I'm not liking it, it's better off for me to stop and say I haven't read it.
So it was in 2012 that I read Visiting Tom. At that time, we still had an art wall and the acclaimed photographers J. Shimon and the late J. Lindemann, who had worked with Perry in the past, curated a selection of photographs to make a mini gallery space. I read Visiting Tom and fell in love with Perry's storytelling voice, love of language, and sense of humor.
Then I read The Jesus Cow and it became one of my favorite novels of the year. We had a particularly wonderful event that had Perry in conversation with fellow writer Dean Bakopoulos. And there've been other events too, like bringing Perry into schools for his kids book, The Scavenger, and selling books at several area libraries that hosted Perry.
As I grew to become a Perry-phile, something nagged at me. We hosted Jim Higgins for his spring book, Wisconsin Literary Luminariesand Perry was one of his chosen writers to feature. And Higgins noted that while Perry has created a great Wisconsin-packed body of work, Population 485 was still his book that stood above the others.
With Higgins words ringing through my ears, it was easy - the In-Store Lit Group would read Population 485. Like many, no, most of Perry's works, it's a memoir divided into a series of essays. In this case, Perry discusses his early work as an EMT and later as a volunteer fire fighter. Each chapter has a through line of one incident, jumping off in a hundred different ways to both complete the narrative and tickle us with delightful asides. Think of it as a tree - the branches can't' survive without the trunk, but it's the branches that give the tree its character.
I would say the group split bell curve style, with a more pronounced hump on the positive side. Most of us liked it. Some were lukewarm, while others would say they really, really liked it. Su., who couldn't attend, wrote me a note saying this was the second time she read the book and she couldn't imagine there was a person who wouldn't like it. So of course A. didn't, and wrote out many pages of notes explaining why. And then there was M., who knew she'd love the book as soon as she heard A. was having problems with it (and they are good friends, and wouldn't the world be a better place if more people who disagreed went to book club together and talked it out).
We had two folks who brought personal experiences to the reading. G's father was a fireman while J. has been an EMT. They said the stories were quite realistic and brought back a lot of memories. D. was reminded of growing up in Nebraska and compared Perry's writing to Ben Logan's The Land Remembers. I haven't thought about that book in a long time, since we used to get the books from Northword Press (anybody remember Loon Magic?)
And then there was Sa. I had no idea what she'd say when she started speaking. And then she said she wouldn't have read Perry, but she did for the Group, and completely fell in love with his voice and after we met, she went on to buy more of his books. And that's all I needed.
That's the thing about Michael Perry. Make assumptions about who he is and he will confound you. And Perry takes that to the next level on his newest book, Montaigne in Barn Boots, which comes out November 7. The book is a meditation on Michel de Montaigne's work, with each chapter being an exploration of a different aspect of Montaigne's writings, spun through the lens of Perry. Much like Montaigne, he takes the philosophical and makes it personal. Perry has never been afraid to talk about mortality, reaching back to Population 485. You can't be an EMT or volunteer fire fighter without being aware of the fragility of life.
It's such a great work, reminding me a lot of perhaps my favorite essayist, Phillip Lopate. When I first read Lopate as part of my "I love everything that Ann Patty at Poseidon Press publishes" phase of my life, I had the same reaction as Sa. I dropped everything I read one Lopate after another, whether he was writing about being a new York public school teacher, feeling lost in Houston, or shaving. That's from memory - did he really write about shaving? Lopate is probably best known for editing The Art of the Essay, but if you want to know the book that turned me on to Lopate, it was Against Joie de Vivre. Montaigne in Barn Bootsgave me that same exhilaration, much as Montaigne's essays have done for generations of readers. You're already primed to love Montaigne, because his work is an important part of Amor Towles's runaway bestseller, A Gentleman in Moscow. Now that I've read Population 485, I don't know whether to tackle the essays themselves (800 pages of Penguin Classic, can I handle this?) or Sarah Bakewell's How to Live. We'll see how this goes. I also expect to one day catch up on several more of Michael Perry's books. I keep my reading list (only the books I finish) on the blog, so you can keep track.*
Important dates to know!
Tuesday, November 14, 7 pm, at Boswell: Michael Perry discusses Montaigne in Barn Boots. He'll also be at Books & Company on Wednesday, November 15. I really can't say enough about how good this book is and I shouldn't have to convince you that Michael Perry is a joy in person.
Monday, November 6, 7 pm, at Boswell: The In-Store Lit Group discusses The Atomic Weight of Love, by Elizabeth J. Church. This selection was suggested to me by our friend and voracious reader Nancy at Schlitz Audubon Nature Center.
Monday, December 4, 7 pm, at Boswell: The In-Store Lit Group discusses Zadie Smith's Swing Time. I seem to be on an every other book cycle with Smith for reading purposes.
*I should note that Mr. Perry has spoken highly of Boswell in the past, most notably in Milwaukee Magazine, so you may consider this logrolling.
Back when I lived in Queens, one of my father's favorite walks was down Northern Boulevard, all the way from Bell Boulevard, near where we lived, to Main Street, where he would have lunch at one of the many Chinese restaurants. I accompanied him on his walk many times, and one of the things we enjoyed was the changing cultural influences as we moved through the borough. It was a long time since our neighborhood had been heavily Jewish, but there still was a delicatessen on 73rd Avenue which had particularly good potato knishes. Along the way were pockets of Irish, African Americans (despite most Black people living on the south side of Queens, there was a long-established black community just off Northern Boulevard), Greeks, Chinese, and Koreans. By the time our walks ended, that Korean community had expanded, and that's one of the reasons I am enjoying Re Jane, the novel from Patricia Park which came out in 2015. Much of its setting is along the very strip of Northern Boulevard that I used to share with my Dad.
After having a good reading summer, I've been stuck, spending long periods of time reading books I can't finish, and in some cases, can barely start. I knew I needed something that one of my fellow booksellers (Jane) calls light with a bite, and when I saw Park's novel while shelving another book, I picked it up. A contemporary take on Jane Eyre set in Brooklyn and Queens? I think I can do this! I want to sit down and not come up for air for 100 pages. This intoxicating feeling was hammered home to me yesterday when I was speaking to one of the families at the event for Katherine Rundell's The Explorer last night. First Charlie read it, and then his dad got a hold of it, and didn't stop reading for three hours. As Liz Lemon often said in 30Rock, I want to go to there.
There are nobody of reasons why Korean American literature is on my mind. For one thing, tensions with North Korea are at an all-time high. I wonder what it's like to live in South Korea right now. I'm reminded of what my Jewish friends have told me about their relatives who live in Israel, or our former Lebanese customer (he's coming back for an event at Boswell when his novel is published, and it will be) when he visits family in Beirut. But is it that different from living in the prospect of (or the wake of) hurricanes or earthquakes or gang violence? You go on with your life.
But my focus in this post is not on Korean writers in South (or North) Korea. I'm interested in the Korean American experience - how it's parallels the stories of other groups and how it's different. But sometimes, like in this year's Pachinko, the story is not set in the United States, but living here probably affects the narrative.
I'm always thinking about events, and as you know, we're cosponsoring a ticketed event with Min Jin Lee forPachinko on Thursday evening at the Lynden Sculpture Garden*. Pachinko was just longlisted for the National Book Awards, plus our recent author (and old friend) Bill Goldstein raved about it at his talk for The World Broke in Two. Plus fellow bookseller Jen just told me that the novel is going in her top five for the year, meaning even if it doesn't win the National Book Award (I'm well aware it's a long long long shot) we'll be featuring the novel through the end of the year. If you like historical novels and maybe don't want to read the 34th one set in World War II Europe, maybe you should consider this, a multi-generational saga about Koreans living in Japan. Here's Anita Felicelli's review in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Jen told me that as soon as she finished Pachinko, she knew it would be in her top five and had she not picked it, it might have been in mine. Instead, I went with another recent novel I've written about before, Lonesome Lies Before Us, by Don Lee. It's the novel I can't stop thinking about this year, and being that it focuses in on both cultural identity and class, it should be at the forefront of way more people's consciousnesses. I think that part of the reason it's not is because it takes on identity by not writing about it - almost all the characters are brown, black, or yellow, but nowhere are there any physical descriptions. I'm guessing a lot of folks interested in this sort of thing want to be more, well, direct. And of course there's a place for those books. But there's also a place for this one.
I think I wrote this once before but Don Lee and Allegra Goodman would be great in conversation together, as I think Goodman was trying something similar with her most recent novel, The Chalk Artist.
But come on, how can you not love a failed alt country singer who blames his weight, his stage fright, and his hearing loss, but not the implied fact that he's Korean? Both my sisters read the book, and while they both liked it a lot, one called it terribly sad. But it's funny too. And I like sad-funny a lot. I think it's the two best emotions to put together in a book. I think most people prefer scary and romantic, but maybe not together. If you've not read this blog before, catch up with Lloyd Sachs's review of Lonesome Lies Before Us in the Chicago Tribune.
Speaking of sad, I keep thinking about another Korean American writer who told me about the second book he was working on when he visited us twice for his first (twice). Samuel Park taught at Columbia College in Chicago and recently passed away. He told me this story about a glamorous Korean actress, and as I remember, the story kind of had a high-drama noir vibe to it. We still have a copy of his first novel, This Burns My Heart on our shelves, and I think you should read it.
Did you know that there's at least one novel about the Milwaukee Korean community and it came out from a major publisher? I read it but here's the thing. I don't remember the author or title. But if I did, I'd mention it now. I think it came out from Dutton and might have been published about twelve years ago. Any ideas? (Editor's note: our friend Jason, who I think worked at Penguin at the time, came up with the answer. It's In Full Bloom, by Caroline Hwang.)
So maybe see you Thursday night, but before I get to work today, i'm going to spend a little more time reading Re Jane. And then I'm going to try to figure out a good place to get sweet potato noodles, a delicacy I haven't had since Seoul restaurant ended their lunch buffet several years ago.
*There's a second daytime event on the UWM campus for Min Jin Lee, focusing on students.
Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye, by David Lagercrantz
2. A Legacy of Spies, by John Le Carre
3. Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng
4. Forest Dark, by Nicole Krauss
5. Sing, Unburied Sing, by Jesmyn Ward
6. The Ninth Hour, by Alice McDermott
7. A Column of Fire, by Ken Follett
8. Y Is for Yesterday, by Sue Grafton
9. The Golden House, by Salman Rushdie
10. Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders
Alice McDermott's new novel is The Ninth Hour. Here's what Sarah Begley said about the book in Time: "Not much happens to the Little Nursing Sisters of the Sick Poor, the stars of Alice McDermott's new novel The Ninth Hour - they live to serve others. But plenty has happened to those in their care." She's goes on to call it a "story with the simple grace of a votive candle in a dark church." Read the rest of the review.
Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. It Takes Two, by Jonathan Scott and Drew Scott
2. The 3D Body Revolution, by Donald Driver
3. The Happpiness Prayer, by Evan Moffic
4. The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder, by Marta McDowell
5. What Happened, by Hillary Rodham Clinton
6. A Self-Made Woman, by Denise Chanterelle DuBois
7. Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann
8. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan
9. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, by Neil DeGrasse Tyson
10. Killing England, by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard
Here's what we learned from selling It Takes Two at the Riverside from Jonathan and Drew Scott. The show is Property Brothers, but Jonathan and Drew are the Scott Brothers. We had a fun time and enjoyed chatting with the fans. The VIPs were especially thrilled.
Here's an interesting column from Caitlin Flanagan in Vulture about how HGTV promulgates house flipping and another bubble in the making. Please note that the Scotts are not flippers; Flanagan just notes their popular diamond-in-the-rough transformations are what many people like about the flip shows and helped lead to them dominating the HGTV lineup. For me, I sort of miss the early Suzanne Whang House Hunters, to say nothing of Design on a Dime and Decorating Cents.
We didn't get to do the Scott autographing, but we had a similar giddy experience working one of the signings for Donald Driver's new book, The 3D Body Revolution. I'd ask a random person who'd just gone through the signing-and-photo line, "Are you a changed person?" and each person would chime "Yes!" very enthusiastically. We have signed copies available.
Paperback Fiction:
1. Moonbath, by Yanick Lahens
2. The Iliad, by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles
3. Karolina's Twins, by Ronald H. Balson (event 10/24 at Chai Point, 3 pm, at Boswell, 7 pm)
4. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
5. Under the Harrow, by Flynn Berry
6. The Atomic Weight of Love, by Elizabeth J. Church
7. Arrows of Light, by Andrea Potos
8. In Grace's Time, by Kathie Giorgio (event 9/25, 7 pm, at Boswell)
9. Chronicle of the Murdered House, by Lucio Cardoso
10. Lilac Girls, by Martha Hall Kelly
Last year's Best First Novel Edgar Award, Under the Harrow, by Flynn Berry, has had well over a year of strong sales and continued to make regular appearances in our top ten. Elizabeth Brundage wrote in The New York Times: "I was expecting a knockoff of Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train or another rendition of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. Ever since those books’ phenomenal success, any new novel that is at all similar greedily begs comparison. Indeed, Under the Harrow contains similarities that will undoubtedly attract readers — but underneath its hard-driving, page-turning, compulsively readable narrative is a striking, original."
Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Stop Anxiety from Stopping You, by Helen Odessky
2. Evicted, by Matthew Desmond
3. Easy Italian Step-by-Step, from McGraw Hill
4. Cream City Chronicles, by John Gurda
5. Horsemen of the Trumpcalypse, by John Nichols (event 9/27, 7 pm, at Boswell)
6. A Little History of Religion, by Richard Holloway
7. Run, Hide, Repeat, by Pauline Dakin
8. Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande
9. The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander
10. I Hear She's a Real Bitch, by Jen Agg
Just out is Pauline Dakin's Run, Hide, Repeat: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood, which is unusual in that it's a Viking paperback original. I'm not a buyer so I don't see every book that comes out, but I haven't noticed a Viking paperback in a long time. This CBC journalist and Halifax professor has written "a memoir of a childhood steeped in unexplained fear and menace. Gripping and suspenseful, it moves from Dakin’s uneasy acceptance of her family’s dire situation to bewildered anger at a cruel charade. As she revisits her past, Dakin uncovers the human capacity for betrayal, manipulation, and deception—-and the power of love to forgive. As compelling and twisted as a thriller, Run Hide Repeat is an unforgettable portrait of a family threatened by those closest to them."
Picture Books and Board Books for Kids:
1. Little i, by Michael Hall
2. Big Machines, by Sherri Duskey Rinker with illustrations by John Rocco
3. Wherever You Go, by Pat Zietlow Miller, with illustrations by Eliza Wheeler
4. The Quickest Kid in Clarksville, by Pat Zietlow Miller, with illustrations by Frank Morrison
5. Pomegranate Witch, by Denise Doyen, with illusrations by Eliza Wheeler
6. Frankencrayon, by Michael Hall
7. Wolfie the Bunny, by Ame Dyckman, with illusrations by Zachariah Ohora
8. Little Poems for Tiny Ears, by Lin Oliver with illustrations by Tomie DePaola
9. John Ronald's Dragons, by Caroline McAlister, with illustrations by Eliza Wheeler
10. The Great Pasta Escape, by Miranda Paul, with illustrations by Javier Joaquin
Last weekend we sold books at the SCBWI. You can tell that one of the featured speakers was illustrator Eliza Wheeler, including Pat Zietlow Miller's Wherever You Go and Denise Doyen's The Pomegranate Witch. Also featured was local writer Pat Zietlow Miller. Here's an interview with Miller by Colleen Riordan in the SCBWI-Wisconsin newsletter.
Of The Pomegranate Witch, which is also featured on our Halloween table, Publishers Weekly writes in its starred review: "Working in ink and watercolor, Wheeler contrasts the rich red of the pomegranates with washes of pale, sickly green, saturating the pages with a sense of otherworldly magic."
Chapter Books through Young Adult
1. Fantastic Frame: Danger! Tiger Crossing, by Lin Oliver
2. Guitar Notes, by Mary Amato
3. Fantastic Frame: Splat! Another Messy Sunday, by Lin Oliver
4. Here's Hank: Bookmarks Are People Too, by Henry Winkler
5. Waking in Time, by Angie Stanton
6. Native People of Wisconsin, by Patty Loew
7. Odin's Promise, by Sandy Brehl
8. Sol Ray Man and the Freaky Flood, by Jane Kelley
9. Mari's Hope, by Sandy Brehl
10. Octo Man and the Headless Monster, by Jane Kelley
Another speaker at SCBWI-Wisconsin, has both picture books and chapter books featured on our bestseller list. The first two entries in the Fantastic Frame series are featured. The Booklist review notes that Danger! Tiger Crossing notes that "Oliver bases this new series on an unusual, promising premise: an ornate magic picture frame that sucks bystanders into any painting it holds...Kallis' color scenes of bug-eyed children add bright notes of comedy and terror, and an afterword about Rousseau's life and art rounds off the breathlessly paced adventure with a dash of arts education. More adventures follow in a copublished sequel, Splat! Another Messy Sunday."
On the TapBooks page of the Journal Sentinel, Jim Higgins reviews Fred Hersch's Good Things Happen Slowly: A Life in and out of Jazz. Higgins notes: "Writing this memoir, too, has been a way for Hersch to weave the strands of his life together and to accept himself more fully. Hersch spent nearly two months in a coma in 2008, brought on by AIDS-related dementia. In the ICU, when his partner Scott asked Hersch's doctor about his condition, the doctor replied, in a case like this, 'good things happen slowly,' then added, 'but bad things happen fast.'"
Other reviews to check out in the print edition:
1. Laurie Hertzel, originally in the Star Tribune, reviews A Disappearance in Damascus: "It's a pity that Deborah Campbell's new book has such a Nancy Drew-like title, because it is actually a serious, riveting work about a part of the world that too many of us know too little about."
2. Marion Winik, originally in Newsday, reviews our top ten bestseller, Celeste Ng's latest: "While Everything I Never Told You focused intensely and single-mindedly on solving the mystery of a teenage death within a context of gender and racial stereotyping, Little Fires Everywhere has more pages, more characters, and more themes, among them affluence, conformism, and their discontents: cross racial adoption and the rights of biological parents, and what artists have to offer the rest of us."
a. Space window - We got the idea for this one because we are either sponsoring or cosponsoring two astronauts coming to UWM in October. First up is Kathy Sullivan, the first woman in space, who has a kids book called To the Stars. Her talk on Tuesday, October 3, 7 pm at the UWM Student Union is called Looking at Earth. It's free, but registration is requested.
Our second out-of-this-world event is with Scott Kelly, who is doing a ticketed event, also at the UWM Student Union, for his memoir Endurance: A Year in Space, a Lifetime of Discovery. He's in conversation with WUWM's Bonnie North on Tuesday, October 24, 7 pm. Tickets are $32 and include a book. On September 18, tickets go on sale for UWM students, faculty, and staff, at a slightly discounted price. ID is required for purchase.
Peter made the display with the help of Olivia V., who is called Olivia the Elder in house. The planets are made out of papier mache over balloon molds.
2. Montaigne and Perry display - I'm always looking for events in different ways. Frequent visitors to Boswell know that I almost always have a recommendation table from an upcoming author. The authors profiled in Bill Goldstein's The World Broke in Two were featured on a table. And what better way to talk up Michael Perry's forthcoming essay collection,Montaigne in Barn Boots, but to feature books by and about Montaigne. It's not a large table, so it doesn't need much to fill it. The only problem is that the Montaigne books keep selling off it!
Michael Perry will be at Boswell on November 14, 7 pm to talk about the book, which goes on sale November 7. I enjoyed the book so much - it really takes Perry in a slightly new direction, though Perry is still uniquely true to himself - that I lent it to one of our customers who is a Montaigne fanatic. He's now excited to be coming to the event.
This is just a small sample of the books in this topic that have come out in the last year. Some of the other books on display are Becoming Mrs. Burton, by Susan Burton, Cuz, by Danielle Allen, and Solitary: The Inside Story of Supermax Isolation and How We Can Abolish It, by Terry Allen Kupers.
Bill Goldstein, the founding editor of the books site of The New York Times on the Web, reviews books and interviews authors for NBC's Weekend Today in New York. He is also curator of public programs at Roosevelt House, the public policy institute of New York's Hunter College.
I thought maybe this book came out of Goldstein's doctoral thesis (City University Graduate Center, 2010), but it turns out the subject of that was John Milton. I read Paradise Lost in college, but sadly, I cannot discuss it at length. Or even briefly.
The World Broke in Two tells the fascinating story of the intellectual and personal journeys four legendary writers make over the course of one pivotal year and how their writing lives are changed by the publication of two seminal works, most notably Ulysses.
The Times Literary Supplement just published an over-the-top rave of the book from Gerri Kimber, in advance of the British publication. It begins "It is hard to imagine there is anything left to say about 1922, the literary annus mirabilis that saw the publication of the twin pinnacles of modernist prose and poetry: Ulysses and The Waste Land...Goldstein takes four authors – Eliot, Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence and E. M. Forster – and weaves around them a fascinating and engrossing tale, not only of their writing during that one special year, but their personal lives as well" You'll have to log in to read the entire review, or maybe, like our good customer Dennis, you already got your copy in the mail and found the review to be nothing short of smashing."
Every event for this book has had 50+ people. Let's hope Boswell does not break the streak.
Matthew Janzen is a Waterloo native and UWM graduate. He was an advertising copywriter before quitting to follow his interests in craft beer while also maintaining a position in the Marine Corps Reserve as a scout sniper instructor.
Matthew Janzen spent over two years collecting the images and stories featured in this 272-page journey across the state visiting over 130 breweries, farms, factories, and industry suppliers. Following his curiosity down the rabbit hole, Janzen quit his job to delve into the nitty gritty of making beer. He worked with brewmasters, owners, employees, and farmers to capture every stage of the process. This book brings to life the beer we know and love. Now, he gears up to release the book, which was also 100 percent sourced and manufactured in Wisconsin.
Of State of Craft Beer, Chris Drosner writes in the Wisconsin State Journal that State of Craft Beer "is a 272-page dopplebock of a coffee table book that’s impressive both in- and outside its handsome leather cover."
Thursday, September 14, 7:00 pm, at Boswell:
Sandy Brehl, author of Mari’s Hope.
Muskego-based Sandy Brehl is a teacher and an active member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.
Mari's Hope is the dramatic conclusion to Brehl’s historical fiction set in occupied Norway sees Mari become more involved in her village’s resistance. Despite ever-present dangers, including a snooping German soldier and a former friend turned collaborator, Mari is determined to do the right thing.
Here’s what others have had to say about Odin’s Promise and Bjorn’s Gift, the first two books of the series. Kathleen Ernst, author of the American Girl Caroline Abbot series, says “Readers will cheer for Mari as she discovers her inner strength – and the courage to help celebrate Norway’s spirit of resistance.” Angela Cerrito, author of The Safest Lie, raves “An exciting and detailed look at the occupation of Norway, through the eye of a young, brave girl.”
Cosponsorship!
Thursday, September 14, 7:30 pm, at The Riverside Theater, 114 W Wisconsin Ave:
Boswell is cosponsoring the Scott Brothers House Party, in conjunction with the release of It Takes Two: Our Story
For their millions of fans around the world, twin brothers Jonathan and Drew Scott are masters of the impossible - finding and transforming ordinary houses into stunning dream homes. As hosts of multiple top-rated series on HGTV including Property Brothers: Buying & Selling, Property Brothers at Home and Brother Vs. Brother, they entertain millions of fans with their winning blend of sibling rivalry and humor. Now Milwaukee fans can experience the duo in person during a stop on their nationwide tour, The Scott Brothers House Party at the Riverside Theater on Thursday, September 14.
Jonathan and Drew’s House Party tour, inspired by their new memoir, It Takes Two: Our Story, offers fans an uncensored look into their lives. There will be plenty of audience participation as they breakdown their dos and don’ts, share the wisdom they’ve gleaned as entrepreneurs, and reveal all the hilarious moments that don’t make it onto television. Door prizes, impromptu design consults, behind-the-scenes bloopers, and plenty of laughs will round out this fun evening with Jonathan and Drew.
Tickets are now available, and include admission and a copy of It Takes Two. A limited number of VIP seats that include the best seats in the house and a post-show photo opportunity are available. Doors open at 6:30 pm.
Friday, September 15, 6:30 pm, at Boswell:
Jason Reynolds, author ofPatina.
Jason Reynolds is crazy about stories. He is a New-York-Times-bestselling author, a National Book Award Honoree, a Kirkus Award winner, a Walter Dean Myers Award winner, an NAACP Image Award Winner, and the recipient of multiple Coretta Scott King honors.
Ghost. Lu. Patina. Sunny. Four kids from wildly different backgrounds with personalities who are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school track team—a team that could qualify them for the Junior Olympics if they can get their acts together. They all have a lot to lose, but they also have a lot to prove, not only to each other, but to themselves.
In The New York Times Book Review, Tom Rinaldi reviewed Patina along with another running book for kids and wrote: "For nearly all of us who see ourselves (wishfully or otherwise) as athletes, competitive sport leaves us behind long before we’re ready. Yet we often find meaning in memories of competition from years past, and we hope our children will find the same. There is, and will always be, a competitiveness to life, and a ready metaphor in how that competition plays out in sports. And whether you’re an athlete or not, such themes carry a lasting power." Of the book, he wrote: "Reynolds’s ability to weave story lines in Patina’s life across both particular and universal ground — race and class, acceptance and grief, loyalty and individuality — is seamless and moving."
This event is cosponsored by REDgen, a nonprofit that promotes balance and resiliency in the lives of children and teens.
Based in Chicago, Helen Odessky is a highly sought after clinical psychologist, coach, and anxiety expert. She has been working with individuals, teens, and couples for nearly 15 years.
In her book, Dr. Odessky offers an explanation of the process of anxiety and strategies that work. Dr. Odessky draws on fifteen years of clinical experience to guide adults and teens through the process of not only learning how to overcome anxiety, but also how to enrich their lives. Here's Odessky on The Morning Blend talking about the book.
Stop Anxiety from Stopping You offers a foreword from John Duffy, a highly sought-after clinical psychologist, certified life coach, parenting and relationship expert, relationship expert on The Steve Harvey Show, and author of The Available Parent.
At age 30 Evan Moffic became the leader of a large congregation. He had great success. But he couldn't find happiness. Then he found a 2000-year-old prayer. In it were hidden elements of Jewish wisdom. They became a part of his life and those of his congregation and transformed them and him. In the tradition of Rabbi Harold Kushner, Moffic opens up wisdom that has been at the heart of Judaism for thousands of years. He distills the "Eilu Devarim", an ancient prayer for happiness found in the Talmud, into ten practices that empower us to thrive through setbacks, so nothing can hamper our happiness.
Here's Moffic talking to Illinois Public Media on the show The 21st, where he talks about the relationship between spirituality and happiness.
Hardcover Fiction:
1. George and Lizzie, by Nancy Pearl
2. A Legacy of Spies, by John LeCarre
3. Glass Houses, by Louise Penny
4. My Absolute Darling, by Gabriel Tallent
5. One of the Boys, by Daniel Magariel
6. A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
7. Dinner at the Center of the Earth, by Nathan Englander
8. Sing, Unburied, Sing, by Jesmyn Ward
9. Mrs. Fletcher, by Tom Perrotta
10. August Snow, by Stephen Mack Jones (at Boswell on November 3, 7 pm, with Danny Gardner. At Murder and Mayhem Milwaukee on November 4)
The numbers in hardcover fiction are up this week, not just at the top (where we had our ticketed event with Nancy Pearl) but in the middle, where we had our best numbers for titles ranked from 2-10 for non-event books in a while. Nathan Englander's Dinner at the Center of the Earth and Jesmyn Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing, if I have my calculations correct, are the second and third novel respectively for these talented writers. I read the previous novels from both writers, but I'm behind in their newest entries.
David L. Ulin in the Los Angeles Times calls Englander's latest: "a kaleidoscopic fairy tale of Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation … or its inverse. Shifting fluidly among characters and settings, the book divides its action between 2002 and 2014."
And Carter Hillyer in Biloxi's Sun Heraldwrote: "Jessy Ward’s previous novel, Salvage the Bones, won the 2011 National Book Award for fiction. Sing, Unburied, Sing is better and should be a contender in awards season, not to mention a potential best-seller. Some reviewers identified the influences of other, great writers in Ward’s new novel: stream-of-consciousness and horror techniques found in both Faulkner’s and Stephen King’s fiction; the magic realism of Garcia Marquez; the harsh pathos of Dickens."
Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Happy Accidents, by David Ahearn
2. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan
3. Hillbilly Elegy, by J.D. Vance
4. Al Franken, Giant of the Senate, by Al Franken
5. The Driftless Reader, by Curt Meine and Keeley Keefe
6. Wisconsin Sentencing in the Tough-on-Crime Era, by Michael O'Hear
7. Getting Tough, by Juilly Kohler-Hausmann
8. Hue 1968, by Mark Bowden
9. The World Broke in Two, by Bill Goldstein (event Mon 9/11, 7 pm)
10. Crash Override, by Zoe Quinn
The Driftless Reader is a new anthology of a collection of work from Native people, explorers, scientists, historians, farmers, songwriters, journalists, and poets. Contributors include Black Hawk, Mark Twain, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Frank Lloyd Wright, Aldo Leopold, and David Rhodes. We're still hoping to have one or both of the editors come to Boswell.
Paperback Fiction:
1. Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel
2. Bernie Weber and the Riemann Hypothesis, by Matthew Flynn
3. Pryme Knumber, by Matthew J. Flynn
4. Swing Time, by Zadie Smith (In-Store Lit Group Mon Dec 4, 7 pm)
5. A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman
6. News of the World, by Paulette Jiles
7. It, by Stephen King
8. The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy
9. The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
10. The Atomic Weight of Love, by Elizabeth J. Church (In-Store Lit Group Mon Nov 6, 7 pm)
It opened in theaters Friday to bigger-than-expected box office. From Deadline: " Stephen King’s It has been gathering up the records like a handful of balloons: The best opening day ever for a horror title ($51M), the highest pre-show for a horror film ($13.5M), the highest three-day opening record weekend for the genre and the second-highest opening for an R-rated pic (behind Deadpool's $132.4M), the best September opening for any genre which means the best September opening to date for the studio, and likely more records coming as New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. sorts through all of their stats early this AM."
Paperback Nonfiction: 1. The Education of Kevin Powell, by Kevin Powell
2. Two Dollars a Day, by Kathryn Edin and H. Luke Schaefer
3. The Black Male Handbook, edited by Kevin Powell
4. Evicted, by Matthew Desmond
5. Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande
6. Sheet Pan Suppers, by Molly Gilbert
7. Kinnikinnic Avenue, by Lisa Ann Jacobsen
8. Pigeon Tunnel, by John LeCarre
9. Optimism Over Despair, by Noam Chomsky
10. How to Bake Pi, by Eugenia Cheng
Books for Kids:
1. Little i, by Michael Hall
2. Dog Man: A Tale of Two Kitties, by Dav Pilkey
3. Frankencrayon, by Michael Hall
4. Wonderfall, by Michael Hall
5. Perfect Square, by Michael Hall
6. Patina, by Jason Reynolds
7. Mari's Hope, by Sandy Brehl
8. Tower of Dawn, by Sarah Maas
9. Red, by Michael Hall
10. Miles Morales, by Jason Reynolds
Three upcoming events dominate the kids list with presales. First up is Michael Hall, whose Little i will be featured at the Oak Creek Public Library's Family Fun Night on September 19, 6:30 pm. He's got five books in our top ten. Kirkus Reviewscalled Little i "an inventive alphabet book for the perceptive reader." Then there's Jason Reynolds who will be at Boswell on Friday, September 15, 6:30 pm. Both his new novels,Patina and Miles Morales, the latter a Spider Man novel, score. And finally there's Sandy Brehl, who will be at Boswell on Thursday, September 14, 7 pm, for Mari's Hope, the third novel in her Norwegian historical saga.
Here's Jason Reynolds talking to Shelly Diaz at School Library Journal about getting the call to write Miles Morales: "I wish I could give you all a better answer for this question - one filled with drama and magic - but the truth is, Marvel and Disney reached out to my agent. That’s all. I know - not very exciting. But, trust me, when you get a call about writing Spider-Man, it doesn’t matter how it comes. They could’ve texted me, or sent me a telegram, or even broken into my home, and it wouldn’t have changed the feeling for me. It was mind-blowing!"
Here's what's reviewed this week in the Journal Sentinel TapBooks section:
1. Journal Sentinel contributing writer Mike Fischer covers Nicole Krauss's Forest Dark, which he's calling the best novel he's read this year. It's hard to get a chunk of review that explains the book and what Fischer feels about it, but let's try the opening: "Having gradually lost her faith in language, Nadia in Great House has come to distrust herself. In Forest Dark, Nicole – who shares numerous biographical details with Krauss and reminds one of those narrating doubles in Philip Roth – tells us that she can’t write because 'in my work and my life, 'I had become distrustful of all the possible shapes tat I might give things.' Nicole isn’t alone. While she flounders in Brooklyn, where her writing has stalled and her marriage is failing, alternating chapters in “Forest Dark” feature a third-person narrative revolving around Jules Epstein, a 68-year-old New York lawyer whose story might be the one Nicole is trying to write as a means of finding herself."
2. Originally appearing in the Seattle Times, Moira MacDonald profiles Sue Grafton. MacDonald writes: "InY Is for Yesterday, in which Kinsey gets pulled into a decade-old case involving a sexual assault at an elite private school, you get a sense of a soon-coming final farewell, like the cast of a musical assembling on stage for one last number. But Grafton says she's resisting bringing back too many old characters...and that she doesn't yet know exactly how Z Is for Zero will end."
3. Charles Finch in USA Todayreviewed Bill Goldstein's literary history, reprinted in today's Journal Sentinel. He writes: "The real strength of The World Broke in Two lies not in its overarching vision, but in its beautiful mosaic work. Goldstein pieces thousands of lovely quotations and long-neglected anecdotes together, arranging them to precise effect, describing in rich detail Forster's dying first love, Woolf's endless acuity, Lawrence's tormented mind, Eliot's rigid depression." He goes on to call it an "imperfect book with something perfect on every page, a line, a story, a joke." Did we mention (more than once) that Bill will be at Boswell tomorrow, September 11, 7 pm?
4. And while its not a review, we'll take that blow-up photo of Jason Reynolds for his Friday night at event at Boswell anytime. Don't forget, Friday, September 15, 6:30 pm, at Boswell, cosponsored by the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee.
This Saturday, November 4, is the annual Murder and Mayhem conference at the Irish Cultural Center near the Marquette University campus downtown.The program features panels, interviews, and signings with these authors: James R Benn, Lou Berney, Chelsea Cain (pictured), Susanna Calkins, Reed Farrel Coleman (also pictured), Lori Rader-Day, Danny Gardner, Shaun Harris, Rob Hart, Matthew Fitzsimmons, Linda Joffe Hull, Stephen Mack Jones, Dave Krugler, SW Lauden, Kristen Lepionka, Bill Loehfelm, Nick Petrie, Thomas Pluck, Bryon Quertermous, Nathan Singer, F. Paul Wilson, and Lili Wright.
Here's the schedule of panels and interviews. Each panel tends to have four to six participants.
Stephen Mack Jones is a published poet, an award-winning playwright, and a recipient of the prestigious Kresge Arts in Detroit Literary Fellowship. He was born in Lansing, Michigan, and currently lives in Farmington Hills, outside of Detroit. He worked in advertising and marketing communications for a number of years before turning to fiction.
In his debut, August Snow, the son of an African-American father and a Mexican-American mother grows up in the city's Mexicantown and joins the police force only to be forced out by corrupt officials and officers. It's not long before he's summoned to the palatial Grosse Pointe Estate, home of business magnate Eleanor Paget. Powerful and manipulative, Paget wants August to investigate the increasingly unusual happenings at her private wealth management bank, which he declines. A day later, Paget is dead of an apparent suicide – dragging Snow into a rat’s nest of deception and danger.
Joining him will be debut author Danny Gardner. From his beginnings as a young stand-up comedian, Gardner has enjoyed careers as an actor, director, and screenwriter. He is a recent Pushcart Prize nominee for his creative non-fiction piece Forever. His first short fiction piece, Labor Day, appeared in Beat to a Pulp, and his flash fiction has been featured in Out of the Gutter and on Noir On The Air. Gardner is a proud member of the Mystery Writers of America and the International Thriller Writers.
The novel A Negro and an Ofay takes place in 1952. After a year on the run, disgraced Chicago Police Officer Elliot Caprice wakes up in a jailhouse in St. Louis. Friends from his hometown secure his release and he returns to find the family farm in foreclosure and the man who raised him dying in a flophouse. Desperate for money, he accepts a straight job as a process server and eventually crosses paths with a powerful family from Chicago's North Shore. A captain of industry is dead, the key to his estate disappeared with the chauffeur, and soon Elliot is in up to his neck. The mixed-race son of Illinois farm country must return to the Windy City with the Chicago Police on his heels and the Syndicate at his throat. Good thing he's had a lifetime of playing both sides against the middle.
