News from The Book Stall

August 13, 2025

Monday - Thursday: 9:30 am - 6:30 pm

Friday: 9:30 am - 5 pm

Saturday 10 am - 5 pm

Sunday: 11 am - 5 pm

Buy One of Our 

"Staff Recommends" Titles,

Get a Free Galley

Buy a book from our Staff Recommends shelf just across from our check-out counter, and the staff member who rings up your sale will offer you a free galley of an already released book that is wrapped in plain paper. Also known as ARCs, or advance reader copies, galleys are produced by publishers and distributed to booksellers and journalists prior to the official release date. 


Do come in and browse our shelf of Staff Recommends; they're good titles, and each has a note from our staff members saying why they like the book!

JAMES BAISLEY

A Grandfather's Advice on How to Succeed in Business

Thursday, August 14, 6 pm

Join us for a discussion and book signing featuring James Baisley, author of A Grandfather's Advice on How to Succeed in Business. In a world where business decisions are often driven by profit alone, Baisley offers a refreshing and powerful reminder: doing what is right is not only ethical — it's essential for long-term success. Drawing on over four decades of experience as a corporate lawyer and General Counsel, James Baisley distills a lifetime of wisdom into 12 practical, principle-based guidelines for navigating the business world with integrity.


Please contact the store (847) 446-8880 to order your copy.

A Storytime with Illustrator

JAY FLECK

Tiny T. Rex and the First Day Oopsies

Saturday, August 16, 10:30 am

Our weekly Saturday Storytime welcomes a special guest star! Author and ilustrator Jay Fleck joins us to celebrate the latest in the Tiny T. Rex series, Tiny T. Rex and the First-Day Oopsies: A Back-To-School Book.


An Author Talk at Regina Dominican Auditorium

701 Locust Road, Wilmette

ANN MUNO

Powerful Girls

Monday, August 18, 6 pm

We are pleased to support Regina Dominican High School as they welcome Ann Muno for a discussion of her book, Powerful Girls: Raising Strong, Just, and Compassionate Young Women. This book equips parents and mentors with practical tools to help girls and young women cultivate confidence, identity, and power while overcoming everyday challenges. By fostering a healthier culture where girls thrive, it paves the way for them to reshape the world they’ll inherit and lead.


This event is free and open to the public. Books will be for sale and the author will be happy to sign her work! 

JOHN E. RIELLY

My Foreign Affairs

Tuesday, August 19, 6 pm

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We welcome author John E. Rielly to the store for a discussion featuring his book, My Foreign Affairs: From Hubert Humphrey's Vietnam to America's Role on the World Stage, a White House insider’s journey through war, diplomacy, and America’s place on the world stage. His book is both a candid political memoir and a masterful reflection on U.S. foreign policy—from the Kennedy years to the post-Cold War era.


From the shadowy corridors of the White House to the international halls of diplomacy, Rielly went on to lead the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, where he spent decades in conversation with some of the most influential leaders of our time.


This event is free with registration.

An Author Talk at Highland Park Public Library

494 Laurel Avenue

CHARLIE DONLEA

Guess Again

Thursday, August 21, 7 pm

Chicago author Charlie Donlea speaks about his twisty new psychological suspense novel Guess Again. On the 10th anniversary of a teenage girl’s disappearance, her cold case breaks open in dangerous ways…and threatens to tear apart her small Wisconsin town all over again.


Books will be for sale and the event will conclude with a book signing. Register here.


Every Saturday from 10:30 - 11 am, we host our Saturday Storytime hosted by staffer Linda Diekman, who features our store's best picture books--some brand new, some old favorites! It's perfect for picture book fans of all ages! 


New Releases

Fiction

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I Know How This Ends by Holly Smale ($30)

Margot Wayward is in a manically gleeful self-destruct mode. Following the implosion of a 10-year relationship, she's derailing her successful career, taking down men on dating apps, and living in total chaos. Until one day, Margot meets single-dad Henry, the vision comes true: exactly as she'd foreseen it. As her future continues to reveal itself, a glimpse at a time, Margot realizes she knows exactly what's going to happen, and when. And there's nothing she can do to change any of it.

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Seduction Theory by Emily Adrian ($28)

When two married professors tiptoe toward infidelity, their transgressions are brought to light in a graduate student’s searing thesis project. “A campus novel for our times…Sharply funny.” –New York Magazine 

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Vulture by Phoebe Greenwood ($27)

In November 2012, Sara Byrne, an ambitious young journalist, is sent to Gaza to cover a war from The Beach. At the four-star hotel, staff work tirelessly to provide safety, comfort and generator-powered internet for the world's media, even as their own homes and families are under threat. Greenwood's debut novel draws readers into the dark heart of western media, and with audacity and humor, and questions its complicity in the tragedies that feed it.

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Loved One by Aisha Muharrar ($30)

When her first-love-turned-close-friend, Gabe, dies unexpectedly at age 29, 30-year-old Julia is launched into an intercontinental quest to recover his lost possessions. Her journey takes her from Los Angeles to London and into the murky realm of the past. It also sets Julia on a collision course with the last woman he loved.

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Dogs by C. Mallon ($26.99)

This debut novel traces the fallout of one catastrophic night in the lives of five high school wrestlers, asking what can survive in the blast radius of latent trauma and violence.

Nonfiction

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The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire by Joseph Sassoon ($22)

A spectacular generational saga of the making (and undoing) of a family dynasty: the riveting untold story of the gilded Jewish Bagdadi Sassoons, who built a vast empire through global finance and trade—cotton, opium, shipping, banking—that reached across three continents and ultimately changed the destinies of nations. With full access to rare family photographs and archives.

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To Lose a War: The Fall and Rise of the Taliban by Jon Lee Anderson ($30)

From one of the great foreign correspondents of our time, author of some of the most essential reporting from Afghanistan from before 9/11 to the return of the Taliban to power in 2021, the first full accounting of that entire era, combining previously published dispatches and new reporting into a single epic tapestry.

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Ready for My Close Up: The Making of Sunset Boulevard and the Dark Side of the Hollywood Dream by David M. Rubin ($30)

This is a a cultural history about the making and lasting significance of Sunset Boulevard, whose piercing—and in many ways, prophetic—critiques of fame continue to resonate today.


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The Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City by Jonathan Mahler ($32)

“A rip-roaring, sweeping, essential work of history . . . a deeply reported and brilliantly observed account of how the modern city was born and why all of us continue to live with the results.”—Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of King: A Life


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The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces by Seth Harp ($30)

A groundbreaking investigation into a string of unsolved murders at Fort Bragg in North Carolina--America’s premier special operations base--and what the crimes reveal about drug trafficking and impunity among elite soldiers in today’s military.

Children/Young Adult

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The Wishing Leaf by Kallie George, illustrated by Paola Zakimi ($18.99)

As the seasons change from fall to winter, Bear eagerly waits for the last leaf to fall so that he can make a wish. A story of patience, friendship, and awe, this is a picture book full of wonder for the changing seasons, with a perfectly cozy ending. Ages 3 - 5

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Incredible Penelope by Lauren Myracle ($18.99)

Penelope has been all over the globe, traveling alongside her godmother, the super celebrity Queenie Bee. And she’s done things most kids never dream of, like feeding giraffes, exploring real glaciers, and hopping from one five-star hotel to the next. But there’s one thing she has never done, and she desperately wants to give it a try: go to school! Ages 8 - 12

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Good Morning Main Street by Catherine Bailey, illustrated by Fiona Lee ($18.99)

Rise and shine! Here is a lyrical, lively, and irresistible story about Main Street getting ready for the day! Everyone is up and at 'em, looking their best. Well, everyone except the yawning bookstore cat. Can he keep up throughout the day to join the fun? Ages 4 - 8

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A Monstrous Bedtime by Kerilynn Wilson ($19.99)

A glass of water, a fan whirring gently, a story, and a song. Close your eyes. Time to sleep. But what if the monster under your bed can’t fall asleep? How do you help it? Join one little girl determined to help her monster with a special—monster-sized!—version of her nightly ritual.

Ages 4 - 8

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The Atlas Obscura Explorer's Guide to Inventing the World by Dylan Thuras and Jennifer Swanson, illustrated by Ruby Fresson ($19.99)

The team behind the bestselling Atlas Obscura presents a kids’ illustrated STEM-oriented exploration of the world’s most interesting technologies, inventions, and scientific discoveries. Ages 8 - 12

The Book Stall's Bestsellers

for the week ending August 10

  1. Culpability by Bruce Holsinger
  2. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
  3. An Inside Job by Daniel Silva
  4. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
  5. The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali
  6. Monopoly X by Philip E. Orbanes
  7. My Friends by Fredrik Bachman
  8. The Wedding People by Alison Espach
  9. One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune
  10. These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean

Indie Bestsellers Across the Country

Every week, independent booksellers across America report their bestsellers, providing the most current snapshot of what's selling in indie bookstores nationwide. Click here to reach the American Booksellers Association (ABA) website, where the latest lists are posted every Wednesday afternoon.


New York Times Bestsellers, August 17

Click here for an advance look at the hardcover fiction and here for the hardcover nonfiction bestsellers that will appear in the New York Times book section on August 17. You can see these NYT fiction bestsellers and nonfiction bestsellers on our website, where you can order them directly from The Book Stall.

Our Literary Community Bulletin Board

The Book Stall is pleased to host this Literary Community Bulletin Board. Any news of interest to readers and writers? Send your information to events@thebookstall.com with "Literary Community Bulletin Board" in the subject line. Note: The Book Stall reserves editorial privilege.

Tonight

Wednesday, August 13, 7 pm

Re:ignite

NEXUS Chamber Music Concert

Winnetka Congregational Church

725 Pine Street, Winnetka

These young musicians are truly world-renown, with several musicians coming from overseas to perform. Their musical home is the unique Guarneri Hall in Chicago.  https://guarnerihall.org/

 
Be sure to check our website for the latest Book Stall information.