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David Ebershoff's Wisconsin Ties
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By Daniel Goldin
 When you live in Milwaukee, the city and its surrounding area is your reality. But when you move away, Milwaukee becomes more like a feeling, a blurry memory, a dream.
Nancy Quinn, Schwartz Marketing Director, and I were discussing this at dinner recently with Milwaukee-bred Daphne Beal, author of the soon-to-be-published novel In the Land of No Right Angles. Beal has also penned an essay about Wisconsin in the forthcoming anthology State by State and it's from the perspective of one who has been there, but doesn't live there now.
We discussed all the writers who have Milwaukee in their pasts and wondered what they'd have to say on the matter. Beal casually mentioned that she'd often meet up with the writer David Ebershoff when both were visiting family.
"Ebershoff's family is from here? What a great writer. I wonder if he has any good Milwaukee memories," I asked. His new book The 19th Wife has gotten excellent reads from several Schwartz booksellers (including myself) and is an Indie Bound Next selection for August 2008.
It turns out Ebershoff does have some wonderful memories, as recounted in Geeta Sharma Jensen's recent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel column. You can read a little bit of his essay here, and then visit their website to read the complete essay and more about Ebershoff.
"In Milwaukee, I'm the other David Ebershoff. The original David Ebershoff is my dad, who grew up in Whitefish Bay. He and my mom moved to California just before I was born, but every June until I was 17 they would put me on a flight for Milwaukee to spend the summer with my grandparents." Read the rest of the essay.
Reserve your copy of The 19th Wife
at your favorite Schwartz bookshop. We'll have it on hold for you when it goes on sale on August 5th. Then don't forget to hear him in person at our Shorewood location on Thursday, August 7 at 7p.m. Read our bookseller recommendations on The 19th Wife.
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New Releases
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From our friends at Shelf Awareness
 The
Time Paradox by Eoin Colfer is the sixth book in the Artemis Fowl
series.
Say
Goodbye by Lisa Gardner follows a pregnant FBI agent tracking a
serial killer.
Rules
of Deception by Christopher Reich examines the web of lies surrounding
a surgeon working for Doctors Without Borders.
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Schwartz News Roundup
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2009 August to August Calendars are Here
Get organized for 2009 with an August to August Calendar. While they are especially appealing to students, they are also perfect for anyone who wants to get a jump on planning for the coming year. Find out what makes these compact planners one of our most popular calendars.
Sidewalk Sale at Brookfield
Get fabulous deals on books and gift items during the Sidewalk Sale at Schwartz Bookshops in Brookfield. The sale is going on now through Saturday, July 19. In addition to great bargains at Schwartz and other shops in the V. Richards Plaza, V. Richards Market will be grilling out on each day of the Sidewalk Sale from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Directions for visiting the Schwartz Bookshop in V. Richards Plaza during construction.
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| Live at Schwartz: Calendar of Events
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Here
is a list of the authors coming soon to the Schwartz Bookshops. For a complete list of upcoming author appearances visit
our events page.
Maggi McCormick Gordon
American Folk Art Quilts
Thursday, July 17 ·
7:00 p.m. talk ·
Mequon
Maggi McCormick Gordon shares her enthusiasm and devotion to the art of quilting with American Folk Art Quilts. The twenty-five quilts in the book are from the Wisconsin State Historical society collection, each with its own unique history and story. Quilters inspired to create their own version of the lovely historical quilts can do so with the aid of patterns and block layouts included in the book.
Christina Schwarz
So Long at the Fair
Tuesday, July 22 ·
7:00 p.m. reading ·
Mequon
Meet Wisconsin's own Christina Schwarz, author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed novel Drowning Ruth. Her latest novel weaves past and present into a portrait of a marriage on the brink of collapse and is set mainly in Madison, Wisconsin, (with scenes in other locations throughout the state including a trip to Summerfest). In 1963 a plot for revenge destroys a career, a friendship and a family. The consequences of the scandalous event reverberate and touch the next generation when, thirty years later, one of the now-adult children struggles to decide whether to end his affair or his marriage. Meanwhile, his wife is harboring a secret of her own.
Read the positive review Christina Schwarz got in the Journal Sentinel.
Meg Waite Clayton
The Wednesday Sisters
Wednesday, July 23 ·
7:00 p.m. reading ·
Brookfield
Friendship, loyalty and love lie at the heart of Meg Waite Clayton's novel of five women who, over the course of four decades, come to redefine what it means to be family. As the years roll on and their children grow, the quintet forms a writers' circle to express their dreams and hopes. Along the way they experience history from Vietnam to the moon landing, to a women's movement that challenges their beliefs.
View the trailer for The Wednesday Sisters.
David Maraniss
Rome 1960: The Olympics that Changed the World
Thursday, July 24 ·
7:00 p.m. talk ·
Shorewood
Pulitzer Prize-winner David Maraniss gets you in the Olympic spirit with the blockbuster story of the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. Learn more about legendary athletes, politics at the games where Cold War propaganda and spies, drugs and sex, money and television, civil rights and the rise of women superstars all converged to forever change the essence of the Olympics.
Daniel Silva
Moscow Rules
Friday, July 25 ·
7:00 p.m. talk ·
Mequon
The violent death of a journalist leads agent turned art restorer Gabriel Allon to Russia. The stakes are high; he's playing by "Moscow Rules" now. The grim Moscow of Soviet times has been replaced with a city awash in oil and bulletproof Bentleys, where a former KGB agent and current arms dealer is about to deliver Russia's most sophisticated weapons to terrorists unless Allon can put a stop to it. But the clock is ticking!
Tana French
The Likeness
Tuesday, July 29 ·
7:00 p.m. reading ·
Shorewood
The author of the Schwartz bookseller favorite In the Woods is back with a follow-up, The Likeness. Detective Cassie Maddox has quit the murder squad, too shaken up to continue her work. But when a young woman, (who happens to look a lot like Cassie and who was carrying an I.D. with Cassie's old undercover name), is found dead, she can't resist the perfect opportunity to go back undercover to draw out the killer.
Jennifer Haigh
The Condition
Wednesday, July 30 ·
7:00 p.m. reading ·
Mequon
The McKotch family's deepest fears, hopes and hostilities collide within the walls of their rambling retreat on Cape Cod in Jennifer Haigh's latest novel. Long divorced, Frank and Paulette hide a mountain of grievances from their three adult children who are busy with crises of their own. As summer approaches, events in their lives force them to confront themselves, their choices, and opportunities for reconciliation and love that may still await. Haigh is also the author of Mrs. Kimble.
Lynn Spencer
Touching History
Wednesday, July 30 ·
7:00 p.m. talk ·
Shorewood
We may think we know the story of 9/11, but Lynn Spencer's moving account of the response by pilots, controllers and military commanders who found themselves on the front lines shows there is much more to the story. Spencer, an airline pilot, offers a riveting account of 9/11 that takes you behind the scenes and shows you the defense launched that day like you've never seen it before.
Rick Perlstein
Nixonland
Thursday, July 31 ·
7:00 p.m. talk ·
Downer Ave.
Richard Nixon's landslide victory in 1972 marked the divide in America into the red-state, blue-state division which still dominates our political landscape. Rick Perlstein depicts Nixon as a troubled and dangerous man who turned the hatred his enemies felt for him into political capital. Filled with details and based on deep research, Perlstein documents the shift in political winds as well as Nixon's calculated response to those changes.
Prem Sharma
Escape from Burma
Thursday, July 31 ·
7:00 p.m. talk ·
Brookfield
With special guests Sandra and Mya Swe
Based on the true story of Sandra and Mya Swe, the novel Escape from Burma is the story of their attempt to flee their country during the turmoil of the 1960s. Milwaukee author Prem Sharma will be joined by the Swes for a discussion of his book, their journey, the political climate in Burma today as well as the devastating cyclone that hit the area earlier this spring.
Lesley Kagen
Land of a Hundred Wonders
Tuesday, August 5 ·
7:00 p.m. reading ·
Mequon
Join Mequon author Lesley Kagen and celebrate the publication of her second novel. Would-be reporter Gibby McGraw, brain damaged after a car accident that took both of her parents, stumbles on the dead body of the next governor of Kentucky. She may have gotten her big break, but she got a lot more than she bargained for too! Good thing she's also learning that some things are more important than all the brains in the world, and that miracles occur in the most unexpected moments.
Ellen Baker
Keeping the House
Wednesday, August 6 ·
7:00 p.m. reading ·
Shorewood
Set in the conformist 1950s in Pine Rapids, Wisconsin, Ellen Baker's novel is the story of a newlywed who falls in love with a grand abandoned house, and begins to unravel dark secrets woven through the generations of a family. Baker explores the courage it takes to shape a life and the difficulty of ever knowing the truth about another persons' desires. Paperback
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Select: Fiction |
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Staff
Pick
Atmospheric
Disturbances
Rivka Galchen
When Dr. Leo Liebenstein's wife disappears, she leaves behind a single,
confounding clue: a woman who looks, talks, and behaves almost exactly
like her and even audaciously claims to be her. While the imposter fools
everyone else, Leo knows better than to trust his senses in matters of
the heart. Certain that the original Rema is alive and in hiding, Leo
embarks on a quixotic journey to reclaim his lost love.
"To me, this brilliantly playful novel evokes Pynchon and Nabokov.
This could be one of my favorite books of the year."
-Dave Mallmann, Brookfield
The
Sister
Poppy Adams
Harlan Coben praised this debut novel as "A wonderful book loaded
with twists and turns that come straight from the heart." Poppy
Adams plunges you into the lives of two sisters, estranged since their
twenties, who are reunited after forty years apart. While Ginny stayed
in their family's deteriorating Victorian home in the countryside,
Vivien fled to London. When she inexplicably returns, Ginny's
ordered life is thrown into disarray. Before long, old tensions and resentments
bubble to the surface in this story of passion, trust, betrayal and
a family that knows only how to destroy itself.
Aviary
Gate
Katie Hickman
In Constantinople, 1599, there are rumors and strange stirrings in the
sultan's palace. The chief eunuch has been poisoned. The sultan's
mother faces threats to her power from her son's favorite concubine, and
a secret rebellion is rising within the palace. Meanwhile, the merchant
Paul Pindar brings a precious gift to the sultan. As he nears the palace,
word comes to Pindar that the woman he once loved, Celia, may be alive
and hidden among the ranks of slaves in the sultan's harem.
 Beijing
Coma
Ma Jian
Translated by Flora Drew
Dai Wei has been unconscious for over a decade. A Tiananmen Square demonstrator
in 1989, he was struck down by a soldier's bullet and fell into
a coma. With the millennium approaching, a sparrow flies through the
window of his room in his mother's home and lands on his chest.
It is a sign that he must emerge from his coma. As he prepares to take
leave of his old metal bed, Dai Wei realizes that the rich, imaginative
world afforded to him as a coma patient is a startling contrast with
the death-in-life of the changed world outside.
Escape from Amsterdam
Barrie Sherwood
"A wit-driven bullet train of a ride through contemporary Japan
complete with eccentric illustrations and a startling simile for every
occasion that always hits the mark. Read Escape from Amsterdam
and be amazed, thrilled and amused by an irreverent expert on a culture
which remains an enigma to the rest of the world."
-John Burdett, Author of Bangkok 8
Wishbones
A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery
Carolyn Haines
Head out west with Sarah Booth Delaney as she packs up her P.I. business
and her hound dog and sets out to take a shot at stardom in Hollywood.
She aces the screen test for a racy remake of the movie Body Heat
alongside Graf Mileau. The chemistry between them is undeniable-and
why not? He has already starred in one of Sarah's previous affairs
and is well on his way to landing a part in the sequel. But her thrilling
new life doesn't come without a price, and it isn't long before
rivalries flare, mysterious accidents occur, and the leading lady finds
herself in some steamy tabloids without starring in a single frame of
film.
The Writing Class
Jincy Willett
The only bright spot in Amy Gallup's life is teaching a writing
class at the university extension. This semester's class is full
of the usual suspects: the overly enthusiastic student, the slacker, the
prankster, and the undiscovered talent. But there's something different
about this time-and the clues begin with a scary phone call and
threats instead of peer evaluations. Amy realizes that one of her students
is a very sick puppy, and when a student is murdered, everyone becomes
a suspect. The Writing Class is a darkly comic, suspenseful tale
by the author of Winner of the National Book Award.
The Foreigner
Francie Lin
Set against the Taiwanese criminal underworld, The Foreigner
is a tale of crime, contrition, and what it means to be a foreigner, even
in one's own family. Emerson Chang is a mild mannered bachelor on
the cusp of forty, financial analyst, child of Taiwanese immigrants, and
a virgin. His only real family is his mother whose subtle manipulations
have kept him close in the name of preserving family and culture. When
she suddenly dies, Emerson sets out for Taipei to scatter her ashes, and
to convey an inheritance to his younger brother who happens to be enmeshed
in very shady business. Emerson isn't about to give up the inheritance
until he uncovers his brother's past and saves what is left of his
family.
Paperback
Say You're One of Them
Uwem Akpan
Uwem Akpan's stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence in Africa,
bringing you into the lives of children from Nigeria, Kenya, Benin and
Ethiopia. The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs
only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school.
Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these
meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family
lives in a street shanty in Nairobi, Kenya, but their way of both loving
and taking advantage of each other strikes a universal chord. Akpan's
stories brilliantly bring the often harrowing lives of children in modern
Africa to life.
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Select: Nonfiction |
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 Staff
Pick
All
the Way Home
David Giffels
With their infant son in tow, David Giffels and his wife comb Akron, Ohio,
in search of just the right house for their burgeoning family. But nothing
seems right until they spot a beautiful, decaying Gilded Age mansion.
A former rubber industry executive's domain, the once grand residence
lacks functional plumbing and electricity, leaks rain like a cartoon shack,
and is infested with all manner of wildlife. But for a young man at a
coming-of-age crossroads-"suspended between a perpetual youth
and an inevitable adulthood"-the challenge is the allure.
"A young family, a nearly condemned house, wild animals, a $1,300
per month heating bill, and $14,000 in Depression-era cash make for a
great story of a somewhat do-it-yourself restoration and the making of
a family."
-Katie Kuenkler, Shorewood
 The
Carbon Age
How Life's Core Element Has Become Civilization's Greatest
Threat
Eric Roston
In The Carbon Age, Eric Roston evokes this essential element,
its journey illuminating history from the Big Bang to modern civilization.
Charting the science of carbon-how it was formed, how it came
to Earth and built up-he chronicles the often surprising ways
mankind has used it over centuries, and the growing catastrophe of the
industrial era, leading us to now attempt to wrestle the Earth's geochemical
cycle back from the brink. Roston will raise your awareness of the seminal
impact carbon has, and has had, on our lives.
 Green
The New Energy Revolution
Jane Hoffman and Michael Hoffman
Green sheds new light on the gamut of issues associated with
renewable energy, a topic whose importance increases exponentially with
every temperature record-setting year. Jane and Michael Hoffman use
their years of experience to explain the technological and economic
future of this ecologically significant issue. They explain its politics,
what countries are doing right now and, most importantly, what they
believe the U.S. should be doing.
Paperback
A Few Seconds of Panic
Stefan Fatsis
Drawing on rare access to an NFL team's players, coaches and facilities,
the author of The New York Times bestseller Word Freak
and NPR contributor trains to become a professional-caliber place-kicker.
As he sharpens his skills, he gains surprising insight into the daunting
challenges-physical, psychological, and intellectual-that
pro athletes must master.
 Loose
Girl
A Memoir of Promiscuity
Kerry Cohen
At just eleven years old, Kerry Cohen recognized the power of her female
form in the leer of a grown man. Her parents had recently divorced,
and it didn't take long before their lassitude and Cohen's
desire to stand out, to be memorable in some way, combined to lead her
down a path she sensed she shouldn't take. She wanted attention
and love, but vulnerable and adrift, she turned to sex instead. Loose
Girl is Cohen's memoir about her descent into promiscuity
and how she gradually found her way to real intimacy.
 Shopping
for Porcupine
A Life in Artic Alaska
Seth Kantner
Seth Kanter's story begins with the arrival of his father, Howard
Kanter, to the remote Arctic of the 1950s and ends with Seth as a grown
man settled in the same landscape. Through a series of moving essays
and vivid photographs, ranging from family histories to hunting stories,
celebrations of people and places, to a lament over a majestic wilderness
rapidly disappearing, Shopping for Porcupine provides an intimate
view of America's last frontier. From the author of Ordinary
Wolves.
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Great Books at Bargain Prices
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This is a sampling of the terrific deals we have on good books. Stop in to
any of our shops to pick up any of these titles or browse our bargain section.
 
 
The
Maytrees
Annie Dillard
Publisher $24.95
SCHWARTZ: $8.99
This
Side of Paradise
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Publisher $14.00
SCHWARTZ: $5.99
Roma
Steven W. Saylor
Publisher $25.95
SCHWARTZ: $8.99
Darkness
At Noon
Arthur Koestler
Publisher $14.00
SCHWARTZ: $5.99
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Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops
Milwaukee's Very Own Independent Bookshop Since 1927
Downer Ave., 2559 N. Downer Ave., 414-332-1181, ondowner@schwartzbooks.com
Brookfield, 17145 W. Bluemound Rd., 262-797-6140, brookfield@schwartzbooks.com
Mequon, 10976 N. Port Washington Rd., 262-241-6220, mequon@schwartzbooks.com
Shorewood, 4093 N. Oakland Ave., 414-963-3111, shorewood@schwartzbooks.com
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