Staff Recommendations, Week of April 25, 2023

 

After a few weeks of neglect, the staff rec blog is back. Who knows, we might even get to some of those left out weeks worth of recs soon, too! But this week is full of good released, and you've surely been waiting with baited breath for the Boswellians words on new books, so away we go.

First up is a two-fer. In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune has recs from Jen Steele and Margaret Kennedy. First, from Margaret: "In this new retelling of the classic Pinocchio, TJ Klune once again grabs us by the hearts and takes us on fantastical, heart wrenching journey of found family and love of all forms. Victor Lawson, who lives with his android father in a robot-populated future, is possibly the only ‘real boy’ (human) left. When his father is kidnapped and taken to the City of Electric Dreams, Victor teams up with a lovable vacuum, a delightfully sadistic nurse, and an angry amnesiac android to get him back. Along the way, they will learn new things about themselves, each other, and what it really means to be human. If you give a robot a heart, won’t it feel love just the same? Bittersweet and whimsical, Victor’s story reads like a fairytale of old, and yet at the same time brings a message of forgiveness and hope that is entirely unique for anyone disillusioned with the world as it is now."

And Jen adds: "It's official, I will drop whatever I'm reading to read a new book by TJ Klune. In The Lives of Puppets is the book that you should stop everything and read right away. Victor Lawson, a real boy raised by his android father Gio, lives in a forest far from civilization with a lovable vacuum cleaner named Rambo and Nurse Ratched, a robot built both to heal and drill (if you misbehave). When Victor finds a discarded android, it will change his life in unimaginable ways. Poignant, thought provoking, funny, and sure to make your heart skip a beat in this twist on The Adventures of Pinocchio."

Daniel Goldin for Fifth Avenue Glamour Girl by Renée Rosen. Daniel says: "Much like Park Avenue Summer was a fictional take on Helen Gurley Brown, Rosen’s latest imagines the life of another groundbreaking woman, Estée Lauder, through the eyes of everywoman Gloria Downing, who meets Lauder when she gets a job washing hair at a neighborhood salon and works her way up to the buying department at Saks. Many of Lauder’s life elements are woven into the story - Rosen offers an appendix to differentiate the true from the tweaked. But more than entertaining historical fiction, Fifth Avenue Glamour Girl is also a fascinating exploration of artifice and reinvention. What else would you expect from a story about the Queen of Cosmetics?"

Tim McCarthy for The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History by Ned Blackhawk. Tim says: "Blackhawk adds to a series of highly praised recent books on indigenous history by going beyond cultural perspectives to offer an objective and encompassing new look at America. He’s focused on how original communities have both shaped and been shaped by the newcomers to this land throughout U.S. development. Past portrayals of European arrivals leading glorified national progress have been incomplete at best and a continuation of indigenous elimination at worst. Here we have a new foundation for history, showing how all aspects of America have been influenced by its complex Native-newcomer interface. Beginning with the Spanish arrival in the southwest and ending with late 20th century activism to renew self-determination, Blackhawk (Western Shoshone) shows us the work he’s doing as a Yale history professor and faculty coordinator of the Yale Group for the Study of Native America. Meanwhile, I’m the grateful retired teacher who’s forever waking up to the ways our past defines our present. Blackhawk’s advanced scholarship and interpretation are enormous contributions to my quest. His elaborately documented accuracy satisfies beyond anything I’ve read in a career of teaching young children about American history."

Rachel Copeland was made glad by Happy Place by Emily Henry. Rachel says: "Harriet and Wyn were each other's happy place until five months ago, when their years-long relationship suddenly, and secretly, ended. Now, at one last annual getaway with their four best friends, they have to grit their teeth and pretend everything's fine - and that they're not still madly in love with each other. This is Emily Henry at her most mature - capturing that real, enduring love that goes beyond the spark and the declarations, to the aches and pains of a life lived uncertainly, the façades we build to avoid causing a fuss. Harriet and Wyn broke my heart and then put it back together in that wonderfully bittersweet way that only a god-tier writer can achieve. It's a story to keep you up past your bed time, to make you cry, to make you say 'damn you Emily Henry' with not just love but gratitude in your heart."

Kay Wosewick has two recommendations for this week. First, Secret Life of the City by Hanna Bjørgaas. Kay says: "Bjørgaas's musings can serve as a rough guide to what to look for, and how to engage with, a variety of life in large cities. From trees, ants, soil, crows, pigeons and others, there is much to learn. Over the course of a year, Bjørgaas becomes less judgmental (pigeons!), more curious and exploratory, and decidedly wiser about nature in the city."

Next, Kay recommends Ascension by Nicholas Binge. Of this, Kay says: "Ascension glides so effortlessly you won’t realize you haven’t shifted in your chair for hours. It has tentacles in many genres - adventure, thriller, sci-fi, horror, psychology, philosophy, many sciences - plus fabulously eclectic characters. Stunning."

Finally, in the new-new books, here's Jenny Chou with a rec for a new YA novel, Star Splitter by Matthew Kirby. Jenny says: "Jessica Mathers has every right to be angry. First her parents abandoned her on earth for a research trip into outer space, and then, once she’s settled in with her grandmother and her friends, they insist she join them on their mission. Space travel in 2199 means using a 3-D printer to teleport across the universe. Before departure, a hard drive backs up memories for safekeeping in case the traveler's body is destroyed. When Jessica climbs out of the printer light years away from earth expecting to see her parents, she instead finds herself on a crashed ship on a bleak, seemingly abandoned planet. The truth behind what happened makes for a thrilling page-turner, but what I found really interesting was the way Star Splitter explores how life experiences can create wildly divergent emotional journeys. Because while illegal, it is possible to print two copies of the same person. The dual-narrative of dual Jessicas is brilliantly done here, and the wholly unexpected ending really packs an emotional punch. Teen readers will love the twisty plot, but don't miss out on this clever sci-fi just because you’re a grown-up!"

But it wouldn't be the staff rec blog without some paperback picks, would it? Nope. So here are some!

Daniel recommends Marrying the Ketchups by Jennifer Close, which gets a snazzy new cover in this paperback edition. Daniel says: "The Sullivans have run their family restaurant in Oak Park for three generations, but three unexpected occurrences send the family into disarray - the 2016 election, the Cubs World Series victory, and the sudden death of Bud, the family patriarch. Then there are the setbacks that should have been expected, given the ill-chosen life partners of the Sullivan third generation, Gretchen, Jane, and Teddy. The story is centered on them, two sisters and a cousin, with special appearances by Teddy’s younger half-sister Riley, as their lives spin out of control, sending them back to Sullivan’s. But family is not the best place to avoid drama. This first-rate fractured family free-for-all is Chicago-infused and food forward, from sandwich loafs to sliders. So glad I finally read a Jennifer Close novel - I can’t wait to read another!"

Daniel also recommends Search by Michelle Huneven. Of this, he says: "Restaurant reviewer Dana Potowski is asked to be on the committee to pick the new minister for her Unitarian Universalist congregation and decides to write a memoir about the experience, but how is she going to do that when she’s agreed to confidentiality? The committee, a varied lot of big personalities, seems to be on the same page regarding generalities, but when it comes to the specifics, conflicts arise, factions take hold, and Dana’s not exactly the only committee member keeping a few secrets.  If you had asked me for a shortlist of compelling plots for a novel, I would not have come up with this one, but I would have been dead wrong, and not just because whenever I describe it to someone, I often get the response: I would read that! Search is a wonderful novel filled with vibrant characters, essential philosophical questions (most notably, what do we want from life?), and a cornucopia of foodie delights."

Staff Recommendations, Week of March 7, 2023

 

Spring into March with new book recommendations.

First up, we've got one, two, three staff recs for the latest work of scientific investigation by Milwaukeean (and two-time Pulitzer finalist) Dan Egan - The Devil's Element: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance. First, from our proprietor Daniel Goldin: "It’s almost like a child’s riddle: What’s one thing you can have too much of and not enough of at the same time? The traditional sources of phosphorus are disappearing, and the element, a key fertilizer ingredient that is vital to keeping the world fed, is being overused in agriculture. Today’s prime villains are corporate mega-farms that are exempt from the Clean Air Act, leading to runoff that is poisoning our waterways. As in The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, Egan’s historical research, expert reporting, and storytelling skills combine to lay out a problem that must be addressed before it’s too late."

Next, from Tim McCarthy: "Dan Egan is a great storyteller, and this is the full story of phosphorus, an essential ingredient to all life on Earth. From the opening page when a Florida man almost dies of the effects of too much phosphorus, to the contrasting crisis over the depletion of this limited natural resource, Egan describes the broken natural cycle of what many people know simply as fertilizer. Personally, I’m deeply committed to the topic, having spent years teaching children about the environment, and yet I confess that I was not expecting Egan to captivate me with phosphorus. He did. The plain-spoken and dramatic way he conveys information is what works the magic. Well, that and amazing tales of alchemy, battlefield scavenging, the human population explosion, soap bubbles, algae blooms, and so much more. Ok, so here’s my second confession in a row. I haven’t read Dan Egan’s The Death and Life of the Great Lakes. That mistake will soon be corrected!"

And finally, Kay Wosewick adds: "Egan makes phosphorus a fascinating and easily digestible subject. Run-off from fertilizers is a problem many of us near Lake Michigan know about, but the green stuff often seen blooming today is not algae. It’s photosynthesizing bacteria (cyanobacteria), which is highly toxic to man and animals alike. These outbreaks are now common in places as different as the Gulf of Mexico, Florida water canals, and natural pools of water where elephants drink. Once phosphorus enters non-sewage waterways such as these, it is pretty much unrecoverable. Add to that a fixed, rapidly dwindling supply of phosphorus, and a new environmental crisis is making news. Egan does offer several avenues of hope in this fast-paced, true thriller."

Please note that our launch-day event featuring Egan at the Schlitz Audubon Nature Center is currently at capacity and there is no wait list. However, keep an eye on our upcoming events page and our weekly email newsletter for an announcement about a future Egan event!

Our next two recommendations also come from Daniel. First up, it's Pineapple Street, the new novel from power-editor-turned-debut-novelist Jenny Jackson. Daniel says: "Ever since Edith Wharton, great novelists have been writing about the vagaries of life among the moneyed classes of New York. But it’s always Manhattan. Surely there’s a novel about old Brooklyn money? Indeed, there is, and what a delicious tale Pineapple Street is! The three Stockton siblings have more money than most of us can imagine, but that doesn’t mean they make better decisions than the rest of us. Darley? She invoked the generation skipping trust when she wouldn’t have her husband sign the prenup. Georgina? She finally meets Mr. Right, only he might be Mr. Wrong. And Cord? He might have committed the worst sin of all, marrying a middle-class woman who is mistaken for the caterer. It is she, Sasha, who guides us into the world of money, the Tom Townsend of the group, for those who obsess over the film Metropolitan. But by the end of the story, our sympathies have extended quite a bit further, with lots of laugh-out-loud moments along the way. Someone compared Jackson’s first novel to The Nest (or rather, everyone has) and I have to say, it’s about the best comparison I can come up with, too. And I loved The Nest, so connect the dots."

Sounds great, no? Even greater - the March installment of Readings from Oconomowaukee features Jenny Jackson in convo with Daniel and Books & Company proprietor Lisa Baudoin, and they'll be joined on the virtual event call by Milwaukee author Lauren Fox, one of Jackson's editees. Now that's a jam packed event! It's Wednesday, March 22, at 2 pm central. Click here, find out more, and register now.

Daniel also recommends In Memoriam, the new novel by Alice Winn. Of this, he says: "Despite the age requirement of 19 to be a British army solider, there is much pressure at In Memoriam’s boarding school to enlist earlier, what with the rah-rah nature of the student newspaper and the shaming words of the white feather girls. So enlist they do -  and war’s horrors await. In addition to focusing on the quasi-closeted nature of the special friendship at the center of the novel, Winn touches on the race and class tensions of the time, as well as the growing awareness that the British empire may not withstand the confrontation, whether they win or lose. It’s hard to believe that a novel could be so brutal and so romantic at the same time, but that’s the case for Alice Winn’s passionate debut."

Kay also has another rec for us this week, Birnam Wood, the latest from Booker Prize finalist Eleanor Catton. Kay says: "This complex, masterfully paced thriller is set in New Zealand, where a group of young adults secretly grow food on other people’s land. An American billionaire's arrival wreaks wide-ranging havoc on land and lives alike. Tension builds from the first chapter thanks to rich inner monologues of key characters."

And now, it's back to Tim, for his take on Palace of Books, the latest from author/illustrator Patricia Polacco. Tim says: "Patricia Polacco is an iconic picture book author and illustrator. Her stories and distinctive art work rise to the level of beloved children's Americana. Palace of Books is her own story, that of a young girl who moves to the city, away from the family farm where her grandfather taught her to love and protect birds. She's fortunate to have a new teacher who understands her problems with reading and values her drawings and connection to nature. She's even luckier to discover a grand public library, where a welcoming librarian shows her a rare copy of John James Audubon's prints. When her class rallies around her, the school creates something lasting and very special. In the process, Polacco sets out on the road to becoming an artist and amateur ornithologist. It's a loving and beautifully detailed personal story that touched my heart."

In paperback releases this week, we've got a legacy rec to share from former Boswellian Julio Garcia for Brothers on Three: A True Story of Family, Resistance, and Hope on a Reservation in Montana. Of this book, Julio says: "What are the Arlee Warriors playing for? In 2018, a small basketball team of Indigenous high school students from the Flathead Reservation powered their way to the Montana State Championship, which they won despite being out-manned and out-muscled. Despite the success of this team, Abe Streep goes and tries to answer the question that looms for the team: What's next? Through following members of the team, Streep gives an in-depth and personal account on what this championship means for the community of Arlee, what the next step for the players are, and tries to answer the question: What are the Arlee Warriors playing for? This is a book of heartbreak, joy, and a new perspective on the coming-of-age tale."

We'll see you next week with more great books. Until then, read on!

Staff Recommendations, Week of February 28, 2023

 

A couple of staff recs to finish off the month. Sounds good to me!

First, Oli suggests you read A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon, which is a standalone prequel to The Priory of the Orange Tree. Oli says: "Samantha Shannon delivers the best of epic fantasy once again, in a standalone novel worth all eight hundred and eighty pages. I was hooked on this glorious, sprawling tale from the start. The lives of four main characters - one each from the North, South, East, and West - are about to change: a long-slumbering evil wakes, bringing fire, plague, and a draconic army raised against humanity. Set 500 years after The Nameless One rose from a mountain of fire and was vanquished, and 500 years before the events of The Priory of the Orange Tree, A Day of Fallen Night is rich in history, legend, and depth to both the world and its characters. I'm obsessed, and you should be, too!"

And what better way to hope for spring than along with The Greedy Worm, a new picture book by Milwaukee author/illustrator Jeff Newman. Recommended by Chris: "What a delight! The Greedy Worm feels like a classic picture book that you’ve loved your whole life, yet it’s still full of imagination and surprise. What do you get when you combine an apple, a cohort of bugs, and one greedy worm? A perfectly illustrated, wordlessly imparted, life-long lesson about sharing, caring, nurturing, and sheltering one another. The kind of picture book that you’ll reflect on throughout life as you navigate how to be a friend."

We'll see you next month with more recommendations. Until then, read on.

Staff Recommendations, Week of February 21, 2023

 

We've got a few recommendations for you this week, so let's get right to them.

First it's Daniel with his write-up of the latest from Pulitzer finalist Rebecca Makkai, author of The Great Believers. Her new novel is I Have Some Questions for You, and of it Daniel says: "Bodie Kane arrives back at Granby, the New Hampshire prep school of her youth, to teach a short class on podcasting, and one of her students asks to take as a project the case of a student death where she posits that the wrong person is in prison. And being that Bodie was her former roommate, this unearths a torrent of memories, while at the same time confronting a #metoo case focusing on her separated husband. As the story unfolds, a panoply of sexism emerges, from microaggressions (who's watching your kids?) to abuse and assault, leading Bodie to question her entire school experience while also trying to figure out exactly what happened in this case. This a twisty and sophisticated take on psychological suspense - I dare you to stop reading!"

Kathy brings us a recommendation for a YA novel by Patricia Park entitled Imposter Syndrome and Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim. Kathy says: "I loved this often poignant, sometimes funny story that is full of insights about identity and the struggle to fit in. 18-year-old Kim doesn't feel like she belongs anywhere - not at her expensive private school, nor in her diverse Queens neighborhood, or even with her own family. A well-written exploration of the lives of people who immigrated to the US, people with multiple identities, the distance between the haves and have nots, and the frequent missteps of even well-meaning white people attempting to support people of other races and ethnicities."

And a middle-grade novel recommendation comes from Tim, who suggests Whale Done by Stuart Gibbs. Tim says: "Teddy Fitzroy would never have seen the whale explode if a kangaroo hadn't burned down his house, but this tends to be fourteen-year-old Teddy's world. He’s always in the middle of trouble while solving crimes involving bad things that people do to animals. He's good at it, and living at FunJungle Wild Animal Park, where both his parents work, gives him the desire and the opportunity to nail perpetrators. This time, he's far from his Texas FunJungle home, on a trip to Malibu with his rich girlfriend, whose parents own FunJungle. She cares a lot more about animals than money, and together it's time to figure out why anyone would want to detonate a massive, beached blue whale that already died, right in front of a bunch of mansions. There’s a lot to love about this book. The writing is smooth and fun, the characters are excellent, and I learned a lot. For example, rich people don’t like huge chunks of whale crashing through their obscenely expensive stuff, but more than that, Gibbs does a fine job of explaining nature and environmental issues without lecturing. I truly enjoyed learning from him while I was sailing through his story."

That's it for this week, we'll see you back here in 7 days with more staff recommendations from the Boswellians. Until then, read on.

Staff Recommendations, Week of February14, 2023

Welcome to February and welcome back to the Boswellians weekly recommendations blog. 

This week, Kay Wosewick has a short, sweet write-up for On Writing and Failure: Or, on the Peculiar Perseverance Required to Endure the Life of a Writer by Stephen Marche. Kay says: "I am not a writer, and after reading Marche’s astonishingly quotable book, I am very grateful I’m not a writer. If you are or want to become a writer, beware: Marche will give you dozens of pithy reasons why you shouldn’t. But if you insist, Marche helpfully describes exactly what it takes to be a writer. This is a tiny gem!"

At Kay's urging, Chris also read Marche's book, and he recommends it, too! Here's his write-up: "A central (perhaps the central) paradox of the writing life is this: in order to churn out the freest, most generous, truest work possible, the writer must embrace the utter and complete futility of the task of writing. As a writer at the beginning of a new project, I couldn’t ask for a better companion to carry me through the coming, inevitable, necessary days of failure, joy, and frustration. Marche’s essay is such a heartening guide through the writer’s life (of failure). As a reader, Marche’s perspective on the lives, hopes, frustrations, and failures of some all-time greats is nothing short of a marvel. It’s like being able to see into the upside-down of centuries of literature. Any person interested in language, books, stories, and meaning-making will find themselves richer for reading this exceptional little book."

And that's the rec of the week! We'll be back soon with more recommendations, and until then, read on.

One mid-week event for a book about the Midwest: Jon K Lauck, at Boswell for The Good Country

Starting this week, our event blog posts have relocated to our Boswellians blog. Hello, Boswellians readers! 

Wednesday, February 1, 6:30 pm -

Jon K Lauck, author of The Good Country: A History of the American Midwest, 1800-1900
at Boswell, in conversation with Bill Glauber.
 Click here to register! 

Boswell hosts former Midwestern History Association president Jon K Lauck for an evening in which we’ll celebrate our region with his new book, The Good Country, a first-ever chronicle of the Midwest’s formative century which restores the American heartland to its central place in the nation’s history.

At the center of American history is a hole - a gap where some scholars’ indifference or disdain has too long stood in for the true story of the American Midwest. Lauck, the premier Midwest historian, puts Midwestern 'squares' center stage - an unorthodox approach that leads to surprising conclusions. The American Midwest, in Lauck’s cogent account, was the most democratically advanced place in the world during the nineteenth century, and The Good Country describes a rich civic culture that prized education, literature, libraries, and the arts, and generally put democratic ideals into practice to a greater extent than any nation to date.

In a trying time of contested politics and culture, Lauck locates a middle ground, fittingly, in the center of the country. The Washington Post calls the book "well-researched and provocative," and author Gregory L. Schneider says: "I know of no historian who has done such a superb job chronicling and framing the history of the American Midwest than Jon Lauck." AP News also published a review of the book, which you can read here. Apparently Lauck "developed the book out of his own search for a comprehensive history of the region to teach in his classes at the University of South Dakota. He discovered that while scholarship dedicated to the American South and West was flourishing, historical study of the Midwest had long been neglected." His hard work is our gain! 

From Bill Glauber's profile in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, when asked about Midwest stereotypes: "The stereotype that's most offensive is that nothing happens here so we can just ignore this region. The Midwest was the biggest region in the country at the end of the 1800s. It's where all the manufacturing took place. It's where we grew our food. And it helped shaped early America and helped win the Civil War. And these are things we forget and that we neglect and people on the coasts aren't going to look out for us, so we need to do it."

Jon K. Lauck has authored and edited several books, including The Lost Region: Toward a Revival of Midwestern History, Finding a New Midwestern History, and three volumes of The Plains Political Tradition. He teaches history and political science at the University of South Dakota and is Editor-in-Chief of Middle West Review.

Photo credit: Jon Lauck by Mike Barry

Staff Recommendations, Week of January 31, 2023

A light week to wrap up January.

Here's Kay's recommendation for Exiles, the latest mystery by Australia-based Jane Harper. Kay says: "Harper favors rural areas or small towns, but she likes to change up where in Australia her mysteries take place. Her books are very atmospheric, so I enjoy vicariously experiencing different Australian locales. Exiles is set in wine country, with hills, cliffs, forests, scrublands, lakes and rivers... all handy when it comes to missing people. Kim, a well-known woman, disappears in a crowded festival. None of the exit monitors see her leave. Her baby is found tucked in her buggy at the end of the evening. Where could Kim be? With fresh eyes, a first-time visitor proves to be useful. Jane Harper scores again!"

See ya next month, readers.