Boswell bestsellers for the week ending July 3, 2021

Boswell bestsellers for the week ending July 3, 2021 - yes, half of 2021 has happened!

Hardcover Fiction:
1. The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig
2. Malibu Rising, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
3. While Justice Sleeps, by Stacey Abrams
4. The Bombay Prince, by Sujata Massey
5. The Other Black Girl, by Zakiya Dalilah Harris
6. Night Came with Many Stars, by Simon Van Booy (Register for July 15 event here)
7. The President's Daughter, by Bill Clinton and James Patterson
8. Golden Girl, by Elin Hildebrand
9. Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir
10. Dream Girl, by Laura Lippman

Here's the plot of the new Clinton/Patterson novel, The President's Daughter: "A madman abducts Keating’s teenage daughter, Melanie—turning every parent’s deepest fear into a matter of national security. As the world watches in real time, Keating embarks on a one-man special-ops mission that tests his strengths: as a leader, a warrior, and a father." I love that the publisher comes up Little Brown Knopf in our system. As opposed to the Big Blue Knopf. From Sarah Lyall in The New York Times: "Let us stipulate that we are not reading this book to gain valuable insights into the inner workings of United States foreign policy. No, we are reading for as many references to military hardware as possible, a formidable alphanumeric arsenal..." "Highly entertaining," Lyall noted.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Me and White Supremacy, by Layla Saad
2. Pocket Neighborhoods, by Ross Chapin
3. Frank Lloyd Wright's Forgotten House, by Nicholas B Hayes
4. Finding the Mother Tree, by Suzanne Simard
5. The Heartbeat of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben
6. Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson
7. Anthropocene Reviewed, by John Green
8. Cruelty Is the Point, by Adam Serwer
9. Hola Papi, by John Paul Brammer
10. Nice Racism, by Robin DiAngelo

Peter Wohlleben, like Suzanne Simard, has had a larger profile since Richard Powers's The Overstory, but unlike Simard, he already had a national bestseller with The Hidden Life of Trees. Now in The Heartbeat of Trees: Embracing Our Ancient Bond with Forests and Nature, Wohlleben returns to the forest and "draws on new scientific discoveries to show how humans are deeply connected to the natural world." From Marc Bekoff in Psychology Today: "I keep my copy of The Heartbeat of Trees in a place where I can grab it and reread different sections. For people who want to read about facts of nature that likely will be new for them, this should be a go-to book."

Paperback Fiction:
1. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, by Quentin Tarantino
2. Hamnet, by Maggie O'Farrell (Info on Boswell-Run Book Clubs here)
3. The People We Meet on Vacation, by Emily Henry
4. The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich
5. Leonard and Hungry Paul, by Rónán Hession
6. The Overstory, by Richard Powers
7. The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, by Grady Henrdix
8. Catch the Rabbit, by Lana Bastasic
9. The Book of Lost Friends, by Lisa Wingate
10. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuon

Dwight Garner in The New York Times on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino's first novel, issued as a dime-store mass market (though it costs more than a dime): "Tarantino isn’t trying to play here what another novelist/screenwriter, Terry Southern, liked to call the Quality Lit Game. He’s not out to impress us with the intricacy of his sentences or the nuance of his psychological insights. He’s here to tell a story, in take-it-or-leave-it Elmore Leonard fashion, and to make room along the way to talk about some of the things he cares about  - old movies, male camaraderie, revenge and redemption, music and style. He gets it: Pop culture is what America has instead of mythology. He got bitten early by this notion, and he’s stayed bitten."