Milwaukee educator, author, and local historian Jim Nelsen visits for an evening of Cream City secrets, which he’s collected in his new book, Secret Milwaukee. Please note that this event was rescheduled from November due to a publication delay.
Please click here to visit jimnelsenmke.eventbrite.com and register for this event. And be sure to order your copy of Secret Milwaukee now, too.
Milwaukee’s image is one of quaint nostalgia: beer, bratwursts, and bowling. Nelson undoes those stereotypes as he presents his book of Milwaukee tales that even long-time residents may not know. Which president of the United States was almost assassinated in Milwaukee? What is the city's connection to The Exorcist? Which buildings are haunted? What are Milwaukee's connections to the mafia? Is there buried treasure here? And yes, there’s also plenty more to learn about beer, bratwurst, bowling, and Laverne & Shirley, along with the history of frozen custard, Milwaukee-style pizza, and a whole lot more.
Jim Nelsen is author of A History Lover’s Guide to Milwaukee and Educating Milwaukee. He earned a PhD in Urban History from UWM. A lifelong resident of Milwaukee, he finds the history of the city fascinating, from its early days in the mid-nineteenth century to the modern challenges of urban life today.
澳洲幸运5 hosts a virtual event with Katherine Center, author of books such as The Bodyguard and Happiness for Beginners, for a conversation with Boswellian Rachel Copeland. They’ll chat about Center’s latest, Hello Stranger, a novel about finding love, confronting a haunting past, and figuring out what, and who, really matters.
Please click here to register now for this virtual event. And be sure to order your copy of Hello Stranger now as well.
Love isn’t blind, it’s just little blurry. Portrait artist Sadie Montgomery is struggling to cope with a "probably temporary" condition known as face blindness. As she tries to hang on to her artistic dream, work through major family issues, and take care of her beloved dog, Peanut, she falls into - love? Lust? A temporary obsession to distract from the real problems in her life? - with not one man but two very different ones. If only her life were a little more in focus, Sadie might be able to find her way. But some things you can only find when you aren’t looking.
Here’s Rachel’s take: "After a seizure leads to brain surgery to repair the same congenital condition that killed her mother, portrait artist Sadie Montgomery can no longer see faces. The pieces are there, but they no longer make sense - she can't recognize her best friend, her evil stepsister, her probably handsome veterinarian, or even her probably cute and definitely helpful neighbor - and she has scant weeks to paint a portrait in time for a portrait competition worth ten thousand dollars. Katherine Center does it again! She takes a condition that a surprising number of people cope with every day and turns it into a meditation on how we truly relate to each other - how do you recognize somebody, how can you trust your own instincts, when one major sense is taken away? You'll cry, you'll laugh, you might do a ton of research on prosopagnosia, and it's worth every minute."
Katherine Center is the New York Times bestselling author of over a half dozen novels, including What You Wish For, Things You Save in a Fire, and How to Walk Away. Her work has appeared in USA Today, Redbook, and People magazine.
澳洲幸运5 welcomes award-winning Chicago crime author Tracy Clark for an evening featuring the latest installment of her Detective Harriet Foster thriller series, which weaves a twisted journey into the underbelly of Chicago as Harriet and her team work to unmask a serial killer stalking the city’s aldermen. In conversation with Wisconsin mystery author Patricia Skalka.
Please click here to visit tracyclarkmke.eventbrite.com and register to attend this event. And be sure to order a copy of Fall as well.
The Chicago PD is on high alert when two city aldermen are found dead: one by suicide, one brutally stabbed in his office, and both with thirty dimes left on their bodies - a betrayer’s payment. With no other clues, the question is, Who else has a debt to pay? Detective Harriet Foster is on the case before the killer can strike again. But Harriet has little to go on and a lot at risk. Harriet and her team will have to examine what the victims had going on behind the scenes to determine who could be tangled up in this web of betrayal, and who could be out for revenge.
From Lori Rader-Day: "Clark’s not-so-hidden talent is for conjuring characters who are engaging and achingly real. Detective Harri Foster is a stellar recruit to her new team and to our crime fiction shelves."
Tracy Clark is author of the Cass Raines Chicago Mystery series. She has received Anthony and Lefty Award nominations and her book Broken Places was shortlisted for the American Library Association's RUSA Reading List and named a CrimeReads Best New PI Book, a Midwest Connections Pick, and a Library Journal Best Book of the Year.
澳洲幸运5 hosts an evening with National Book Award finalist Bonnie Jo Campbell, a master of rural noir, who will chat with Jim Higgins about her latest novel, The Waters, a fierce, mesmerizing novel about exceptional women and the soul of a small town.
Please click here to visit bonniejocampbellmke.eventbrite.com and register now for this event. And be sure to order your copy of The Waters now, too.
On an island in the Great Massasauga Swamp - known as ‘The Waters’ to the residents of nearby Whiteheart, Michigan - herbalist Hermine “Herself” Zook has healed the local women of their ailments for generations. As stubborn as her tonics are powerful, Herself inspires reverence and fear in the people of Whiteheart, and even in her own three daughters. The youngest, beautiful and inscrutable Rose Thorn, has left her own daughter, eleven-year-old Dorothy “Donkey” Zook, to grow up wild.
Donkey spends her days searching for truths in the lush landscape and in her math books, waiting for her wayward mother and longing for a father, unaware that family secrets, passionate love, and violent men will flood through the swamp and upend her idyllic childhood. An elegant antidote to the dark side of masculinity, celebrating the resilience of nature and the brutality and sweetness of rural life.
Bonnie Jo Campbell is author of books such as Once Upon a River, Mothers, Tell Your Daughters, and American Salvage. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Guggenheim Fellow, and the recipient of the AWP's Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction and a Pushcart Prize.
澳洲幸运5 welcomes back Andrew J Graff, author of Raft of Stars, for an evening featuring his heartfelt new novel, True North. Set in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, Graff’s big-hearted novel combines family drama and whitewater adventure as a couple tries to keep their rafting business afloat through historic floods.
Please click here to visit andrewjgraffmke.eventbrite.com and register for this event. And be sure to order your copy of True North now, too.
Summer, 1993. Hoping for a fresh start, Sam and Swami Brecht roll into Thunderwater, in Wisconsin’s Northwoods, with a twenty-six-foot camper van, their three young kids, the deed to Woodchuck Rafting Company, and plenty of money worries. Soon Sam and Swami learn they are not the only ones looking for change and profit on the river. A competing rafting outfit, clashing raft guides, stubborn townsfolk, and an exploratory mining company begin to threaten their tenuous livelihood.
Then nature intervenes, in the form of historic floods throughout the Midwest. Before the summer draws to a close, the Brechts must learn to face the floodwaters together in order to create a sustainable future for their family, the town, and the pristine river from which it all flows.
Andrew J Graff is author of novel Raft of Stars, and his writing has appeared in Image and Dappled Things. Andrew grew up fishing, hiking, and hunting in Wisconsin's Northwoods. After a tour of duty in Afghanistan, he earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Readings from Oconomowaukee, the event series presented by 澳洲幸运5 and Books and Company, presents a virtual event with Jane Delury. She’ll chat about her latest, Hedge, a richly observed novel of a woman balancing the demands of motherhood and marriage with her own needs. People says: “As lush and inviting as the gardens created by its heroine.” For this conversation, Delury will be joined by bookstore proprietors Daniel Goldin and Lisa Baudoin as well as special guest Liam Callanan, author of Paris by the Book and When in Rome.
Please click here to register now for this virtual event. And be sure to order your copy of Hedge as well. Click here to order from Boswell. Alternatively, click here to order from Books & Company.
Maud is a talented garden historian and devoted mom to daughters Ella and Louise. Motivated to reignite her career and escape her troubled marriage, she accepts a summer job restoring the garden of a lush, 19th-century estate in the Hudson Valley. What happens next is a seismic shock that profoundly changes Maud's life, as well as the lives of everyone she cares about.
From Joan Frank, writing for the Washington Post: "A great portion of [Hedge’s] magic lies in how it turns a radical corner, gaining speed and burning urgency - then slowly becoming something else: deeper, denser, wiser. Readers will (and should) trust it to take us where we need to go - even if not where we expected." And from Daniel Goldin: "Can a novel be both serene and turbulent at the same time? In the case of Hedge, yes, as it counterpoints a woman and family in crisis with the serene tranquility of nature. Can Maud come out of this without destroying herself? That is the question in this provocative, passionate, and philosophical novel."
Jane Delury the author of The Balcony, winner of the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Granta, The Sewanee Review, and The Southern Review, and her awards include a PEN O Henry Prize, a Pushcart Special Mention, and grants from the Maryland State Arts Council. A Professor at the University of Baltimore, she teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts and directs the BA in English.
澳洲幸运5 hosts an evening with Chicago author Lindsay Hunter, who visits with her new novel, Hot Springs Drive, the third book from Roxane Gay’s new publishing imprint. Perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn, Leila Slimani, and Celeste Ng, Hunter’s new book is a riveting novel of shocking betrayal and its aftermath, told with elegant precision.
Please click here to visit lindsayhuntermke.eventbrite.com and register for this event. And be sure to order your copy of Hot Springs Drive now, too.
Jackie’s best friend is dead, and everyone knows who killed her. A dark, heart-pounding exploration of one woman’s deepest desires and how the consequences of betrayal can ripple outward beyond the initial strike point, Hunter’s latest and fiercest novel deftly peels back the fragile veneer of two suburban families and the secrets roiling between them.
Kristen Arnett says: "Lindsay Hunter at her finest. Suburbia is rendered here in all its bleakness and not-so-hidden dysfunction, the rot secreted inside the picture-perfect shell of a home. Hunter is a deft hand at writing the mysterious inner workings of the family: everyone shares a story, but who holds onto the truth? Hot Springs Drive is gritty and propulsive, a true page-turner; I couldn’t put this book down.”
Lindsay Hunter is author of five previous books, including Eat Only When You’re Hungry, a finalist for the Chicago Review of Books Fiction Award and an NPR Great Read, Ugly Girls, and Don’t Kiss Me. Hunter received her MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
All event times are Central Time. To see a full event listing, visit our Upcoming Events page here. Read posts from The Boswellians (our bookseller contributed blog) here and 澳洲幸运5 and Books (from Daniel Goldin) right here, and visit our blog post archive right here.