Hello!
Happy middle of August! There are a few weeks left to wrap up your summer reading and move that unread stack to the official Fall Reading List! Seriously, where did summer go? Tonight, Daniel (Boswell Book Company) and I will be chatting with author Christine Simon about her delightful novel, The Patron Saint of Second Chances. This was one of our favorite summer books. You still have time to sign-up, make a few snacks, and settle into your favorite deck chair to watch the conversation.
Cheers and Happy Reading!
Lisa with Katrina, Ken, Chloe, Toni, Elisabeth, Beth, Lynn, Judy, Emma, Lizzy, Connie, Susie, Ava, Jewell, and Keri
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Current Store Hours
Monday - Friday 9:00 - 7:00 Saturday - Sunday 9:00 - 5:00
Curbside pick up and shipping still available.
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Readings From Oconomowaukee
CHRISTINE SIMON
in conversation with
Daniel Goldin & Lisa Baudoin
Thursday, August 18th
7:00 p.m.
Via Zoom
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Join Boswell Book Company and Books & Company for August's Readings from Oconomowaukee event featuring Christine Simon, author of The Patron Saint of Second Chances- a charming, hilarious, and heartwarming debut novel.
Books & Company Bookseller Chloe introduced us to this lovely novel and she says "When a small Italian village is in danger of closing down forever, a little white lie about a movie star coming to shoot his latest takes on a life of its own when everyone in town wants to get in on the action! I had the best time reading this gem!"
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PETER GEYE
Monday, September 26th
7:00 p.m.
Books & Company
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Join us in welcoming back author Peter Geye to Books & Company! Geye will be discussing his new book, The Ski Jumpers, a novel about a writer and former ski jumper facing a terminal diagnosis who takes one more leap--into a past of soaring flights and broken family bonds.
Please register for this free event! Mask are requested due to the close proximity during the event.
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Readings From Oconomowaukee
MATT CAIN
Thursday, September 29th
2:00 p.m.
Via Zoom
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September’s Readings from Oconomowaukee is pleased to reach across the pond once again for an afternoon with British author Matt Cain and his latest novel, The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle. Books & Company booksellers love this novel! Bookseller Ken calls it "A hopeful novel about a closeted British postal worker who comes out when he's in his mid 60s and goes on a quest to find his long lost teen love." And bookseller Lizzy says it's perfect "For fans of All the Lonely People. Such a sweet story of friendship and found family. One of my new favorite books!"
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Readings from Oconomowaukee
JOANNA QUINN
Tuesday, October 11th
2:00 p.m.
Via Zoom
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Readings from Oconomowaukee presents its October edition featuring Joanna Quinn joining us virtually from the UK for a conversation about The Whalebone Theatre, her irresistible debut novel that takes its heroine from the gargantuan cavity of a beached whale into undercover operations during World War II and through a story of love, bravery, lost innocence, and self-transformation.
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Books & Company Book Groups |
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Wednesday, August 24th
1:00 p.m.
in person at Books & Co.
by Steven Rowley
registration required-
limited seating available
Wednesday, September 28th
1:00 p.m.
in person at Books & Co.
by Tracey Lange
registration required-
limited seating available
link coming soon.
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Tuesday, August 23rd:
2 meetings!
by Riley Sager
4:00 p.m.
in person at Books & Co.
no registration required
or
6:00 p.m.
via Zoom
Tuesday, September 27
4:00 p.m.
by Lauren Beukes
in person at Books & Co.
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Wednesday, August 17th
6:30 p.m.
in person at Books & Co.
by Robin Benway
Wednesday, September 21st
6:30 p.m.
in person at Books & Co.
by Rebecca Hanover
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BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS - hardcover |
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FICTION
New and Favorites in Hardcover!
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by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Written in Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s singular voice, the wildly entertaining and complex lives of the Lopez family fill the pages of this multigenerational western saga. Bookseller Susie says "Any book with a touch of clairvoyance catches my eye. So yes a book about a young woman with her family gift of seeing the past and future in the tea leaves I am going to read. It was a worthy read taking me into “Little Lights” difficult life in Denver, Colorodo in the 1930s. Though her life was full of challenges she found hope and light as did those around."
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by Anthony Marra
The epic tale of a brilliant woman who must reinvent herself to survive, moving from Mussolini’s Italy to 1940s Los Angeles—a timeless story of love, deceit, and sacrifice. Written with intelligence, wit, and an exhilarating sense of possibility, Mercury Pictures Presents spans many moods and tones, from the heartbreaking to the ecstatic. It is a love letter to life’s bit players, a panorama of an era that casts a long shadow over our own.
**Signed copies available while supplies last!**
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by Jamie Ford
Dorothy Moy breaks her own heart for a living. As Washington’s former poet laureate, that’s how she describes channeling her dissociative episodes and mental health struggles into her art. But when her five-year-old daughter exhibits similar behavior and begins remembering things from the lives of their ancestors, Dorothy believes the past has truly come to haunt her. Fearing that her child is predestined to endure the same debilitating depression that has marked her own life, Dorothy seeks radical help.
**Signed copies available while supplies last!**
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NONFICTION
New and Favorites in Hardcover!
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by Maya Payne Smart
Reading for Our Lives challenges the bath-book-bed mantra and the idea that reading aloud to our kids is enough to ensure school readiness. Instead, it gives parents easy, immediate, and accessible ways to nurture language and literacy development from the start. Through personal stories, historical accounts, scholarly research, and practical tips, this book presents the life-and-death urgency of literacy, investigates inequity in reading achievement, and illuminates a path to a true, transformative education for all.
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by Erika L. Sanchez
Growing up as the daughter of Mexican immigrants in Chicago in the nineties, Erika Sánchez was a self-described pariah, misfit, and disappointment—a foul-mouthed, melancholic rabble-rouser who painted her nails black but also loved comedy, often laughing so hard with her friends that she had to leave her school classroom. Twenty-five years later, she’s now an award-winning novelist, poet, and essayist, but she’s still got an irrepressible laugh, an acerbic wit, and singular powers of perception about the world around her.
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by Hilary A. Hallett
The modern romance novel is elevated to a subject of serious study in this addictively readable biography of pioneering celebrity author Elinor Glyn. Hallett has done nothing less than elevate the origins of the modern romance genre to a subject of serious study. In doing so, she has also reclaimed the enormous influence of one of Anglo-America’s most significant cultural tastemakers while revealing Glyn’s life to have been as sensational as any of the characters she created on the page or screen.
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BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS - paperback |
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FICTION
New and Favorites in Paperback!
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by Mike Gayle
In weekly phone calls to his daughter in Australia, widower Hubert Bird paints a picture of the perfect retirement, packed with fun, friendship, and fulfillment. But it's a lie. In reality, Hubert's days are all the same, dragging on without him seeing a single soul. Until he receives some news- that his daughter is coming for a visit. Books & Company booksellers love this novel! If you want a book that will make you laugh, cry, and feel good- this is it!
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by Jackie Polzin
Over the course of a single year, our nameless narrator heroically tries to keep her small brood of four chickens alive despite the seemingly endless challenges that caring for other creatures entails. From the forty-below nights of a brutal Minnesota winter to a sweltering summer which brings a surprise tornado, she battles predators, bad luck, and the uncertainty of a future that may not look anything like the one she always imagined.
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by Maud Casey
In a fusion of fact and fiction, nineteenth-century women institutionalized as hysterics reveal what history ignored. Bookseller Katrina calls this "A slim, ethereal novel centering around women in the 19th century Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris. Featuring black and white photos and snippets from medical documents, we hear the stories of these women "hysterics" and the "cures" their male doctors forced upon them."
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NONFICTION
New and Favorites in Paperback!
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by Michael Perry
A new collection of essays from local favorite Michael Perry! "Although these pieces were written during times of unrest and pandemic, they drew on human connection," says Perry. These essays are "Something to go with morning coffee. Something to read before bed. Something heartfelt, something goofy. Something to lighten the hunker."
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by W. Kamau Bell
& Kate Schatz
Revelatory and thought-provoking, this highly illustrated, highly informative interactive workbook gives readers a unique, hands-on understanding of systemic racism—and how we can dismantle it. Packed with activities, games, illustrations, comics, and eye-opening conversation, Do the Work! Challenges readers to think critically and act effectively.
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by Jerry Apps
Jerry Apps explores the history of county and state fairs in Wisconsin, from their earliest incarnations as livestock exhibitions to today’s multitude of exhibits and demonstrations, grandstand entertainment, games and rides, and competitions of all sorts. Drawing on his extensive research, interviews, and personal experience as a 4-H leader, county extension agent, fair judge, and lifelong fairgoer, Apps takes readers back through 178 years of Wisconsin fair history.
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BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS - kids/teen |
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by Bellen Woodard
When Bellen Woodard’s classmates referred to "the skin-color” crayon, in a school and classroom she had always loved, she knew just how important it was that everyone understood that “skin can be any number of beautiful colors.” This stunning picture book spreads Bellen’s message of inclusivity, empowerment, and the importance of inspiring the next generation of leaders.
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by Greg Pizzoli
Do YOU like PIZZA? Because right now, somewhere in the world, someone is eating it. Did you know that in the United States we eat 350 slices of pizza every second? All over the world, people love pizza—but where did it come from? And who made the first pizza? Join award-winning author and illustrator Greg Pizzoli as he travels through time and around the globe to discover the mouth-watering history of pizza.
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by Rebecca Gardyn Levington
When it's time to write in class, one child feels like she has absolutely nothing to say. But suddenly--ker-plink--one drop, one tiny thought, hits her. And before long she's caught in a shower of funny phrases, a whirlwind of adjectives and verbs, a downpour of huge ideas. Boom, CRASH A regular brainstorm of creativity for her to soak up and play in. With writing prompts and a glossary in the back matter, this is a story to inspire imagination and ingenuity in all readers.
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by Natalie Lloyd
Twelve-year-old homeschooled Olive is tired of being seen as “fragile” just because she has osteogenesis imperfecta (otherwise known as brittle bone disease) so she’s thrilled when she finally convinces her parents to let her attend Macklemore Elementary. Olive can’t wait to go to a traditional school and make the friends she’s always longed for, until a disastrous first day dashes her hopes of ever fitting in.
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by Greg Van Eekhout
When Mott finds a puppy abandoned in a recycling bin, she’s ready to do everything she can to protect him. What she doesn’t realize, however, is that this is the legendary wolf Fenris, who’s prophesied to bring about the end of the world by eating the moon.
Now Mott has found herself in charge of making sure the hungry pup doesn’t see all of California as an appetizer, while also hiding him from the Norse gods who are hot on his trail, determined to see the prophecy come true.
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by Christina Diaz Gonzalez
Can five overlooked kids make one big difference?
There’s George: the brain, Sara: the loner, Dayara: the tough kid, Nico: the rich kid, and Miguel: the athlete.
And they’re stuck together when they’re forced to complete their school’s community service hours. Although they’re sure they have nothing in common with one another, some people see them as all the same, just five Spanish-speaking kids. Then they meet someone who truly needs their help...
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by Rory Power
Ever since Margot was born, it's been just her and her mother, struggling to get along. But that's not enough for Margot. She wants family. She wants a past. And she may have just found the answer: A photograph, pointing her to a town called Phalene. Only, when Margot gets there, it's not what she bargained for. Bookseller Keri says "Family roots run deep in this chilling novel as our main character, Margot, goes the extra mile(s) to unravel the secrets her mother tried so hard to save her from. This book will leave you with the grim reminder that the secrets that we bury the deepest, can always be resurfaced."
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by Francesca Zappia
Using chapters alternating between the past and the present, acclaimed author Francesca Zappia weaves a spine-tingling, suspenseful, and haunting story about tragedy and the power of memories. A tale of family, love, tragedy, and masks—the ones others make for us, and the ones we make for ourselves. Bookseller Katrina says "What a wild ride! Cat doesn't know why she and some of her classmates are stuck in school or why they are mutating, but in order to find out, she has to search deep within her memory. You won't be able to stop reading until you find out the answer!"
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by Cristina Fernandez
Falling for a superhero is dangerous. You have to trust that they’ll catch you.
Astrid isn’t a superhero, not like the ones she sees on the news, but she has something she thinks of as a small superpower: She has a perfect sense of time. And she’s not going to waste a single second.
Her plan for college is clear—friends, classes, and extra-curriculars all carefully selected to get her into medical school.
Until Max Martin, a nerdy boy from high school, crashes back into her life...
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Upcoming events from our friends at Boswell Book Company! |
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Virtual Event
Emily Sullivan
in Conversation with Beth Gabriel and Rachel Copeland
Tuesday, August 23
6:00 pm
Join us for a virtual celebration of The Hellion & The Hero, the third book in Emily Sullivan’s critically-acclaimed League of Scoundrels series, hosted by Milwaukee Public Library and Boswell. Sullivan appears for a conversation with Beth Gabriel of Milwaukee Public Library and Rachel Copeland of Boswell.
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In-Person at Boswell Book Company
Anna Lardinois
Thursday, September 8
6:30 pm
Boswell is pleased to welcome Gothic Milwaukee founder Anna Lardinois back to the shop for an event featuring her latest book of spooks and specters, Madison Ghosts and Legends, in which she recounts the ghastliest tales of our state’s capitol city.
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Take a look at our previous newsletters, now conveniently archived on our website!
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