Howdy, readers! It was nice to see so many of you at Independent Bookstore Day. And it really was so many of you: our busiest day since December! We deeply appreciate every single person who came out, especially given the rain! And if you weren't able to make it, the next Independent Bookstore Day is in 356 days!

We have a great deal of beloved 2021 titles coming out in paperback this week, an anthology edited by a former Next Chapter employee available for preorder, plus a release event for a novella by a current Next Chapter employee, and the first installment of our new Reader Poll...

Congratulations to all you graduating seniors at Macalester and elsewhere (and parents thereof -- we know you put in the work too). If you have a friend or relative who's getting their tassel flipped, we'd be thrilled to help you pick out a book to mark the occasion. Here's a few we have spotlighted in the store right now that might get your gears turning. And don't forget a card; we have beautiful handmade ones by Saint Paul mixed media artist Miriam Simons -- in the Macalester colors, no less!

Sex and the Single Woman –  Ed. Eliza Smith & Haley Swanson

Edited by former Next Chapter bookseller Haley Swanson! Sixty years ago, Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl sent shockwaves through the United States. Now, in these critical, wry, and expansive essays, twenty-four writers revisit Helen's writing, fielding topics that she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—conceive of in 1962: contraception and abortion, queer and trans womanhood, polyamory, celibacy, interracial dating, bodies of all kinds, consent, sex work, IVF, and pop culture. Eliza Smith and Haley Swanson’s anthology honors Brown’s irreverent spirit while validating our modern experiences of singlehood, encouraging us to reclaim joy where it’s been so often denied.

River of the Gods –  Candace Millard

Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke were given one mission by the Royal Geographical Society: to find the headwaters of the Nile and claim them for England. Diametric opposites, they clashed from the start. Leading and protecting them was Sidi Mubarak Bombay, who had escaped enslavement and forged a living as a guide. Upon return to England, Speke claimed he had found the source, which Burton disputed. As their public rivalry grew, Speke launched another expedition to Africa to prove his claims. In River of the Gods Candice Millard has written a peerless story of adventure, set against the backdrop of the colonial powers' race to exploit Africa.

You Have A Friend in 10A –  Maggie Shipstead

From the Booker Prize nominee and NYT-bestselling author of Great Circle, a piercing, collection of short stories exquisite in their craft and audacious in their range. A love triangle plays out over decades on a Montana dude ranch. On the slopes of an unfinished ski resort, a young woman searches for her vanished lover. In the mesmerizing title story, a former child actress breaks with her life in a Hollywood cult. Rich in imagination and dazzling in its shapeshifting style, You Have a Friend in 10A excavates the complexities of love, sex, and life in ways unsparing and hilarious, sharp-eyed and tender.

The Hurting Kind –  Ada Limón

An astonishing collection about interconnectedness--between the human and nonhuman, ancestors and ourselves--from National Book Critics Circle Award winner Ada Limón. With her remarkable ability to trace thought, The Hurting Kind incorporates others' stories and ways of knowing, makes surprising turns, and reaches a place of startling insight. These poems slip through the seasons, teeming with horses and kingfishers and the gleaming eyes of fish. Along the way, we glimpse loss. There are flashes of the pandemic, ghosts whose presence manifests in unexpected memories and the mysterious behavior of pets left behind. But The Hurting Kind is filled, above all, with connection and the delight of being in the world.

Bad Actors – Mick Herron

The Downing Street superforecaster—a specialist who advises the Prime Minister's office on how policy is likely to be received by the electorate—has disappeared without a trace. Claude Whelan, former head of MI5, has been tasked with tracking her down, but the trail leads back to Regent's Park itself. There are bad actors everywhere, and in a world where lying, cheating and backstabbing are the norm, sometimes the good guys can find themselves outgunned. This is the eighth entry in Herron's lauded Slough House series, a Next Chapter favorite that was recently adapted into an Apple+ series starring Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas.

Paradais – Fernanda Melchor

Inside a luxury gated community, two misfit teenagers sneak around and get drunk: Franco Andrade obsessively fantasizes about seducing his married neighbor, while Polo dreams about quitting his grueling job as community gardener and fleeing his overbearing mother and their narco-controlled village. Each facing the impossibility of getting what he thinks he deserves, Franco and Polo hatch a mindless and macabre scheme. Written in a chilling torrent of prose by one of our most thrilling new writers, Paradais explores the explosive fragility of Mexican society—with its racist, classist, hyperviolent tendencies—and how the myths, desires, and hardships of teenagers can tear life apart at the seams.

There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness: And Other Thoughts on Physics, Philosophy and the World – Carlo Rovelli

One of the world’s most prominent physicists and fearless free spirit, Carlo Rovelli invites us on an accessible voyage through science, literature, philosophy, and politics. Written with his usual clarity and wit, this journey ranges widely, from Newton's alchemy to Einstein's mistakes, from Nabokov’s lepidopterology to Dante’s cosmology, from mind-altering psychedelic substances to the future of physics. Charming, pithy, and elegant, this book is the perfect gateway to one of the most influential minds of our age.

Uncommon Charm – Emily Bergslien and Kat Weaver

Most of you know our bookseller / book-buyer / book genius Emily. You may not know that she is also a book writer -- she and her wife Kat are the authors of Uncommon Charm, soon to be published by Neon Hemlock as part of their 2022 series of queer fantasy/sci-fi novellas. 

This event is free and non-ticketed, but we will be collecting donations for Letjaha, an aid network assisting Ukrainian refugees in Poland. If you'd like to preorder Uncommon Charm, you can do so here.

Democracy Under Fire: Donald Trump and the Breaking of American History – Lawrence R. Jacobs

The ascendance of Donald Trump is the culmination of nearly 250 years of political reforms that gradually ceded party nominations to small cliques of ideologically-motivated party activists, interest groups, and donors -- not an aberration but a predictable outcome of trends deeply rooted in American history which accelerated in the last few decades. In Democracy under Fire, Lawrence Jacobs provides a highly engaging, if disturbing, history of political reforms since the late-eighteenth century that over time weakened democracy, widened political inequality as well as racial disparities, and rewarded toxic polarization. Jacobs concludes with recommendations to restrain the unbridled ambition of politicians who thrive on division and instead generate broad citizen engagement with tangible policy making. Lawrence R. Jacobs is founder and director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance (CSPG) and holds the Walter F. and Joan Mondale Chair for Political Studies at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

Summoned – Margaret Hasse

Prognosis – Jim Moore

Margaret Hasse is a poet, teacher, and writing mentor, and has been a consultant to arts organizations throughout the country. She's author of six full-length collections of poems, and a collaborative book with watercolor artist Sharon Demark. In Summoned, Hasse explores the sorrows and delights of daily life through narratives and ruminations enlivened by her lightning-quick imagination and her care in choosing just the right detail. Her attention ranges widely, from the distant past, seen through a filter of nostalgia to the humor and acceptance of aging that enliven the present.

Jim Moore is the author of seven books of poetry. His poetry has appeared in The Nation, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Spoleto, Italy. In his eighth collection, he looks into unrelenting darkness where moments of tenderness and awe illuminate, at times suddenly like lightning in the night, at others, more quietly, as the steady glow of streetlights in a snowstorm. These are poems of both patience and urgency, of necessary attendance and helpless exuberance in the breathing world—something rare in contemporary poetry. Written in Minneapolis amid the COVID-19 pandemic’s masked and distanced loneliness, after the police murder of George Floyd, as an empire comes to an end, Prognosis turns toward the living moment as a surprising source of abundance.

Something Wicked: A McKenzie Novel – David Housewright

Tickets $5 or Free With Purchase of the Book: Purchase Here

David Housewright is the three-time winner of the Minnesota Book Award and a past president of the Private Eye Writers of America (PWA). In Something Wicked, the nineteenth book in his Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie series, Rushmore McKenzie is talked into doing one last job as a favor for an old friend -- a favor involving a castle, an inheritance feud, and at least one mysterious death. Join us for a reading and signing event celebrating the release of the latest book in this beloved series!

Witches – Daisuke Igarashi

"This is not Disney magic -- this is folk magic, blood and dirt magic, the magic that connects and fills all things, as beautiful, terrible, and inscrutable as the universe itself. Taking us from the Amazon to the Alps to rural Japan, these seven stories showcase Igarashi's taste for striking, dreamlike imagery, especially during the memorable splash pages and spreads. It's a dark joy to read the work of such a master in print at last. From the opening title spread, rendered painstakingly in the style of an illuminated manuscript, Witches grabs you with its uncanny beauty."

-Graham

Generation Dread, by Britt Wray