Greetings!

As you can imagine, we're still recovering from the busy holiday season. We're all grateful that so many of you chose to shop local retailers for Christmas, and we hope that, for the most part, we did a good job meeting your expectations. Those last few days, when we're no longer able to order from our warehouses, can make shopping with a list a bit tough, and if that list included something like The Art of Fielding, I can only imagine how hard you had to look. Note that a new shipment of Harbach's novel should be showing up in early January.

On Monday evening, we'll be doing our annual inventory. You can think of us and smile. If you were going to participate in our in-store lit group, our discussion of Dinaw Mengestu's How to Read the Air has been moved to Monday, January 9, 7 pm. So far, I've had word from three participants who have all loved it. One noted that I might be overplaying the Ethiopian angle. I guess that will be up for discussion!

An Award-Winning Author Recounts a Day in the Life of an Emergency Room, Thursday, January 5, 12 Noon, at the Medical College.

We are taking a short event break until January 11, when our schedule fires up again. But if you're looking for something to do before then, I'd recommend hearing James Fleming, author of Tengo Sed on Thursday, January 5, 12 Noon, at the Medical College of Wisconsin, 8701 Watertown Plank Road, Room H3120.  It's a brown bag lunch session, so you're welcome to bring food.

James Fleming's novel recounts a day in the life of a resident of emergency medicine at an urban hospital. Hovercraft, the protagonist, is named such because he is always around, always on edge. Through Hovercraft's sleep-deprived eyes we see patients and their families, doctors, and nurses, and we share Hovercraft's increasingly nightmarish perceptions of a world in which things are not going right.

Tengo Sed was awarded the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Fiction. James Fleming is an emergency physician at Albuquerque VA Hospital and an assistant professor of Emergency Medicine at University of New Mexico. And yes, he honed his emergency skills while attending the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Our January Event Schedule is Ready for its Close Up.

Here are our upcoming events for January. Stacie has done a great job of writing them up for our website, which you can read here.

Wednesday, January 11, 7 pm, at Boswell:

Leigh Stein, author of the novel, The Fallback Plan, and the forthcoming book of poetry, Dispatch from the Future, tells of a college graduate turned babysitter, who finds the job much harder than expected. The author is a popular book blogger.

Thursday, January 12, 7 pm, at Boswell:

Ayad Akhtar, actor, screenwriter, playwright, is also author of the first novel, American Dervish, a coming of age story of a Pakistani boy that is set in the Milwaukee suburbs. I loved this novel and you're likely to be seeing a lot about it in the coming weeks.

Tuesday, January 17, 7 pm, at Boswell:

When David Finch was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, he decided to learn to read social cues in order to be a better husband. He recounts what he learned in his comic memoir, The Journal of Best Practices. Such a fun and interesting book, and Finch, whom I heard read at a bookseller conference, is absolutely delightful.

Thursday, January 19, 7 pm, at Sugar Maple, 441 E. Lincoln Ave.

It's our now-annual pub-lit affair, this time with two of our favorite writers. Hannah Pittard will read from her much-lauded first novel, The Fates will Find Their Way, now in paperback. Patrick Somerville, author of The Cradle, will dip into his story collection, The Universe in Miniature in Miniature, and might preview his forthcoming novel, This Bright River.

Monday, January 23, 7 pm, at Boswell:

Adam Johnson, author of The Orphan Master's Son, came to UWM last year and read from his previous works, Emporium and Parasites Like Us, but nothing could prepare us for the power of his new novel, a literary thriller set in North Korea. The raves have already come from David Mitchell, Richard Powers, and Jennifer Egan. You heard it here first.

Thursday, January 26, 7 pm, at Boswell:

David Yost, Joseph Michael Rein, and Chris Drew, graduate students in creative writing at UWM, have edited Dispatches from the Classroom: Exercises for Creative Writers and Creative Teachers. Whether you're are a grad student, a teacher or a nosy book lover on the sidelines, here's your inside look at the field.

Friday, January 27, 7 pm, at Boswell:

Paul Wilkes, author of   The Art of Confession: Renewing Yourself Through the Practice of Honesty, looks at the practice of confession from everything from ancient Greece to modern psychoanalysis. And here's something our friend Rebecca at Workman promised me--Marquette grad Wilkes looks at celebrity confessions to separate the authentic wheat from the lip-service chaff.

Monday, January 30, 7 pm, at Boswell:

Steve Boman, author of Film School: The True Story of a Midwestern Family Man Who Went to the World's Most Famous Film School, Fell Flat on His Face, Had a Stroke, and Sold a Television Series to CBS, chronicles...well, the subtitle says it all, doesn't it?