BOOK GROUP NEWSLETTER
MARCH 2023
It's time to play that Age Old Game "I HATE WHEN THAT HAPPENS" (Book Edition)

Don't you just hate it when you're reading a great book and having a little snack and your greasy fingers touch a page or two and you have big stains on your precious book? I hate when that happens.

Don't you just hate it when you let a friend borrow your pristine copy of a book that you've read only once and it still looks like you just bought it. And then your friend returns it and the pages are all bent and it looks like a dog chewed one of the corners and (worse yet) they've lost the dust jacket? I hate when that happens.

Don't you just hate it when you carry a bag of wonderful books from your car to your house and the bag breaks and books are now in a mud puddle and when you try to pick them out you trip and fall and splash muck all over yourself?  And to make matters worse they're library books!! I hate when that happens.

Don't you just hate it when you give a book to a friend, a book that you've really taken time to pick out and he unwraps it when someone at the birthday party yells out, "Hey, David, I thought you only read magazines." I hate when that happens.

Don't you just hate it when you're reading a very exciting thriller and you get to the payoff pages when you realize that a printing error has left out the last chapter? I hate when that happens!

Don't you just hate it when you go to a movie based on a beloved book and the movie is rated R and they've added that nude scene and they've changed the names of the characters and they have a new ending.  And the ushers rush you out of the theatre as you scream "You can't do that to JANE EYRE. It's a sacrilege!". I hate when that happens!

Don't you just hate it when you've just finished a book that you've really enjoyed and you shed a tear as you part with your friends, the characters. I hate when that happens!



Happy Reading and Happy Spring!
Ken 
by Alice Winn

Sometimes great things are hiding in the ARCs (Advanced Reading Copies) on the shelves in our backroom. A few months ago I brought home an ARC called IN MEMORIAM by Alice Winn because it had two things going for it: A World War I setting and a gay theme. Well, it turned out to be one of the best novels I've read this year and probably the best WWI novel I've ever read. I find it quite amazing that this is Alice Winn's debut novel. Henry Gaunt and Sidney Ellwood meet at the English boarding school they attend during the early days of WWI. It doesn't take long for Gaunt, who is half German, to become friends with Ellwood and feel an immediate infatuation with him. Little does he know that Ellwood feels the same for him. To escape this infatuation and to keep away the anti-German sentiment he feels, Gaunt enlists. Soon after, Elwood follows him to the front, much to his horror. As the school paper, The Preshutian, begins to print the names of the boys killed and wounded in action, Gaunt and Ellwood attempt to cope with the violence and brutality of World War I. Author Garth Greenwell comments, "I read through the night to finish this blistering debut, too feverishly engrossed to sleep. When was the last time characters in a novel seems so real to me, so cherishable, so alive? Alice Winn has made familiar history fresh; no account of the First World War has made me feel so vividly its horror, or how irrevocably mutilated the world. That IN MEMORIAM is also an extra ordinary love story is a sign of Winn's wild ambition and her prodigious gifts: this is a novel that claims both beauty and brutality, the whole range of human life."  
by Kim Fay

Kim Fay's delightful and moving novel has received the praise of many of our booksellers and customers. It's a story told mostly by the letters written between Imogen Fortier, magazine columnist, and Joan Bergstrom, one of her biggest fans. Their correspondence highlights the lives of these strong women and their love for cooking. Immy lives outside Seattle and often includes the tastes of the Pacific Northwest in her cooking. Joan becomes a big fan of Mexican cuisine as she experiments with flavorful dishes that occasionally use saffron. The two of them become fast friends and trade recipes and cooking tips as they exchange thoughts on love and kindness during the turbulent decade of the sixties. As I read the novel, Immy and Joan became so real to me that I had to keep telling myself I wasn't reading non-fiction. And I realized that you don't have to be a cook to enjoy this sparkling novel. Author J. Ryan Stradal** says, "Part historical fiction, part friendship saga, and part carnival for the senses, Love & Saffron isn't just for food lovers---it's an ode to risk-takers, trailblazers, and the chefs in all of us. A sweet, savory, and emotional pleasure."

 Our new book group, The Indie Next Book Group will be discussing Love & Saffron on March 16- register here to join!

**Catch J. Ryan Stradal in conversation with Amy Reichert, Daniel Goldin of Boswell, and Lisa Baudoin of Books & Company in person at Books & Company at 2pm on Wednesday, April 26 for his new book, Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club! Register here.
by Jabari Asim

Jabari Asim uses five narrators to tell this remarkable story about the humanity of enslaved characters on the Placid Hill Plantation in the mid-nineteenth century.  They call themselves The Stolen. Their owners are The Thieves. They are taught their captors' tongues and their beliefs, but they have a language and rituals all their own. The story thread that is stitched into the novel is "What would happen if an enslaved person risked everything for love?" As Asim states, "In telling the story of two enslaved couples with everything arrayed against them, including the law, I wanted to examine how people love in impossible circumstances. What did they hope to gain? What would they be willing to lose? I hope you will find that I've told their stories with respect, empathy, and most of all, love." Author Edward P. Jones calls the book, "Exceptional. A splendid addition to the library of fiction on American slavery, which---given the centuries it existed---is not as large as it could be. Skillfully wielding a number of literary tools, including a grand way with language, Asim reveals the slaves' everyday world away from the lash and brutality: the loves, the laughter, the age-old tussles with life. Yonder builds a permanent place in a reader's mind. Asim is to be applauded."
by Frances Liardet

A few years ago I read an historical novel called WE MUST BE BRAVE by Frances Liardet. I found it to be an intriguing look at British home life during WWII. In THINK OF ME Liardet continues her look at small village folk being affected by the war. She brings back James Acton, the vicar of St. Peter's Church in the village of Upton. As she creates his WWII backstory we realize that he was a fighter pilot in Egypt during the North African Campaign. In Alexandria he meets Yvette who he falls in love with and marries, eventually taking her with him to England and his first posting as a curate. Their love is strong until a tragic event drives a wedge between them. This is the kernel of a story that spans decades. Beautifully written with strong characters, this story of love, war and faith is a perfect one for reading groups. And you don't have to read We Must Be Brave to enjoy Think of Me. Author Rachel Joyce calls the book, "an epic and intensely moving novel that crosses the boundaries of place and time to weave a powerful story about overcoming the complications of love and grief---the things we try to spare one another, the things we cannot bear to see. It's a warm book, an intelligent one, richly observed, clear-eyed, and the generosity of its final pages move me to tears." 
BOOKS & COMPANY BOOK GROUPS
Open to the Public
Wednesday, March 22nd
1:00 p.m.
in person at Books & Co.
by Sarah Winman
Registration required-
limited seating available



Wednesday, April 19th*
1:00 p.m.
in person at Books & Co.
by Brendan Slocumb
Registration required-
limited seating available
LINK TO COME
*note date change
Tuesday, March 28th
4:00 p.m.
in person at Books & Co.
by Camille Aubray




Tuesday, April 25th
4:00 p.m.
in person at Books & Co.
by Jean Hanff Korelitz



No registration required for Mystery book group meetings.
Wednesday, March 15th
6:30 p.m.
in person at Books & Co.
by Stephanie Kuehn



Wednesday, April 19th
6:30 p.m.
in person at Books & Co.
by Carolyn Tara O'Neil



No registration required for PRADAS book group meetings.

Wednesday, March 16th
6:30 p.m.
in person at Books & Co.
by Kim Fay



Please register so we have a headcount for seating!
UPCOMING EVENTS!
Readings from Oconomowaukee

JENNY JACKSON

In Conversation with
Daniel Goldin, Lisa Baudoin,
and author Lauren Fox 

Thursday, March 22nd
2:00 p.m.
via Zoom
Boswell Book Company and Books & Company present a special Readings from Oconomowaukee event with Jenny Jackson, author of Pineapple Street- a deliciously funny, sharply observed debut of family, love, and class, this zeitgeisty novel follows three women in one wealthy Brooklyn clan. Jenny Jackson will be in conversation with Daniel Goldin, Lisa Baudoin, and author Lauren Fox.


Readings from Oconomowaukee

J. RYAN STRADAL

In Conversation with
Daniel Goldin, Lisa Baudoin,
and author Amy E. Reichert


Wednesday, April 26th
2:00 p.m.
Books & Company
Join us for lovely in person Readings From Oconomowaukee featuring author J. Ryan Stradal in conversation with author Amy E. Reichert for Stradal's new novel Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club- a story of a couple from two very different restaurant families in rustic Minnesota, and the legacy of love and tragedy, of hardship and hope, that unites and divides them.
 
 
BOSWELL BOOK COMPANY IS HOSTING AN EVENT WITH J. RYAN STRADAL AT 6:30 PM WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26 AT BOSWELL BOOK COMPANY- CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR THAT EVENT