Boswell Book Company

July 11, 2025, Day 5944

Milwaukee sportswriter Jordan Treske appears at Boswell on Tuesday, August 5, 6:30 pm, with his new book, Building the Milwaukee Bucks: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Robertson and the Rapid Rise of an NBA Franchise, 1968-1975. With his first book-length work of history and sports reportage, Treske chronicles the early years of the Milwaukee Bucks in which the team went from merely an idea to NBA champions.

Click here to visit boswellbooks.com/event/2025-08-05/jordan-treske-author where you can register for this event and read more about Treske's forthcoming book.

What started as a quest by Marvin Fishman and Wesley Pavalon to get Milwaukee back in the big leagues became something bigger than they could have imagined when the pieces fell into place for a franchise that asserted themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the NBA. Treske's work covers the unique formation of the NBA franchise that helped restore the image of the city of Milwaukee amid civil unrest and the departure of Major League Baseball. He also delves into the reasons why Kareem Abdul-Jabbar never got comfortable being the face of the Bucks while living in Milwaukee.

Mirin Fader, author, Giannis and Dream, says: "I smiled ear to ear reading this deeply reported, magnificent book on the origins of a beloved franchise who has never quite received its due. Treske's love letter to the organization that has captured the hearts of so many will be one to treasure forever."

Jordan Treske has written and podcasted about the Milwaukee Bucks for a decade. He's a co-host of the Win in 6, and his work has been part of the Gyro Step Podcast Network where they cover the Bucks, Brewers, and Green Bay Packers as part of the Blue Wire Network. Click here and register now for his appearance at Boswell on Tuesday, August 5, 6:30 pm central.

The Book Stall in Winnetka, IL Presents Christine Brennan on Caitlin Clark, Thursday, July 24, 6 pm

Our friends at The Book Stall, 811 Elm Street in Winnetka, IL, host an evening with USA TODAY columnist and television commentator Christine Brennan, who appears with her new book, On Her Game: Caitlin Clark and the Revolution in Women's Sports. It's an electrifying portrait of recent sports phenomenon Caitlin Clark, whose dramatic ascendance, from her college basketball days at Iowa to the WNBA, has captured the attention of media and fans unlike any other female team-sport athlete in history.

This program is free, but registration is required. Please note that The Book Stall also requests that attendees purchase copies of On Her Game from The Book Stall if they intend on entering the book-signing line. To register for this program and find more information, click here and visit thebookstall.com/event/her-game-caitlin-clark-and-revolution-womens-sports-evening-author-christine-brennan.

Clark arrived as a sports and cultural icon a little more than fifty years after the passage of Title IX, the 1972 law that opened the floodgates for girls and women to play sports in America. On Her Game is a sports story, certainly, but it’s also the story of a nation falling in love with what it has created because of that law - millions of new athletes, led by the magical Caitlin Clark. From the starred Publishers Weekly review: "“Top-notch... a triumphant account of a game-changer."

There's Always This Club - The In-Store Lit Book Group Reads Hanif Abdurraqib's Meditation on Basketball, Life, and Home in October

For their October session this year, the In-Store Literary Book Club, run by Boswell proprietor Daniel Goldin, will read and discuss acclaimed poet, essayist, and cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib's latest book, There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension. A New York Times bestseller and a Vulture, Chicago Public Library, and BookPage best book of 2024, There's Always This Year won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was longlisted for the National Book Award.

This installment of the In-Store Lit Group meets on Monday, October 6, with two sessions. A virtual meeting takes place at 2 pm (link available on our book club page - click here). The in-person discussion at 6:30 pm will be held at Serenitea Lounge, 2569 N Downer Ave - just three doors up the block from Boswell.

Growing up in Ohio the 1990s, Hanif Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball in which legends like LeBron James were forged. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make it, who we think deserves success, the tension between excellence and expectation, and the very notion of role models, all of which he expertly weaves with intimate, personal storytelling. There’s Always This Year is a triumph, brimming with joy, pain, solidarity, comfort, outrage, and hope. No matter the subject of his keen focus, whether it’s basketball, or music, or performance, Abdurraqib’s exquisite writing is always poetry, always profound, and always a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, our country, and ourselves.

For more information about the Lit Group as well as all of our other Boswell-run book clubs, including our recent arrival, Thought Daughter Book Club, click here and visit the book club page on our website now.

Newsletter compiled by Chris, and as always, thank you for your patronage and apologies for the typos,

Daniel Goldin with Alex, Amie, Chris, Claire, Greta, Idalis, Ingrid, Jane, Jason, Jen, Jenny, Jeremy, Kathy, Kathryn, Kay, Keith, Kim, McKenna, Oli, Rachel, and Tim