All events subject to change, please call or email us at info@boswellbooks.com if you have any questions.
John T. Edge, author of The Truck Food Cookbook, and five-time James Beard Award nominee, with guest food truck The Fast Foodie, and samples!
Tuesday, May 15, at 7:00 pm
It's the best of street food: bold, delicious, surprising, over-the-top goodness to eat on the run. And the best part is now you can make it at home. Obsessively researched, The Truck Food Cookbook delivers 150 recipes from America's best restaurants on wheels, from L.A. and New York to the truck food scenes in Portland, Austin, Minneapolis, and more. John T. Edge shares the recipes, special tips, and techniques. And what a menu-board: Tamarind-Glazed Fried Chicken Drummettes. Kalbi Beef Sliders. Porchetta. The lily-gilding Grilled Cheese Cheeseburger. A whole chapter's worth of tacos--Mexican, Korean, Chinese fusion. Plus sweets, from Sweet Potato Cupcakes to an easy-to-make Cheater Soft-Serve Ice Cream. Hundreds of full-color photographs capture the lively street food gestalt and its hip and funky aesthetic, making this both an insider's cookbook and a document of the hottest trend in American food.
About the Author John T. Edge is a five-time James Beard Award nominee, and writes the monthly "United Tastes" column for The New York Times. 
His work for Saveur and other magazines has been featured in seven editions of the Best Food Writing compilations. Edge also runs the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi and is author of numerous southern food cookbooks.
About The Fast Foodie The Fast Foodie is a gourmet food truck in Milwaukee that features our unique, trademarked product, the Globaco! Short for "global taco", the Globaco features global cuisines in portable packages. They recently have launched a fleet of eco-friendly food bikes which may also make an appearance at our event.
Tom Montgomery-Fate, author of Cabin Fever: A Suburban Father’s Search for the Wild, at the Urban Ecology Center
Wednesday, May 16, at 7:00 pm
Free for UEC members, $5 for nonmembers. Call (414) 964-8505 to register. The Urban Ecology Center is located at 1500 East Park Place, in Milwaukee.
Written alternately from a little cabin in the Michigan woods and a house in the suburbs of Chicago, Cabin Fever is a seasonal memoir that engages in a serious, yet irreverent, conversation about Thoreau's relevance in the modern age.
Fate's writing reflects this balancing of nature and family in stories such as "The Confused Cardinal," in which a male cardinal feeds chicks of another species and leads to a reflection on parenting; "In the Time of Cicadas," which juxtaposes his wife's hysterectomy with the burgeoning fecundity of the seventeen-year cicadas coming out to mate; and in a beautiful essay reminiscent of E. B. White's "Once More to the Lake," in which Fate takes his son to the same cabin his father took him as a child.
In his exploration of how we are to live "a more deliberate life" amid a high-tech, materialist culture, Fate invites readers into an interrogation of their own lives, and into a new kind of vision: the possibility of enough in a culture of more.
About the Author Tom Montgomery Fate is the author of four books, including the collection of essays, Beyond the White Noise and the spiritual memoir Steady and Trembling. His essays have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Orion, Iowa Review, Fourth Genre, Christian Century, and many other publications, and they often air on NPR's Living On Earth and Chicago Public Radio. He is a professor of English at College of DuPage in Illinois, where he lives with his family. His cabin is in southwest Michigan.
Harold Eppley, author of Ash Wednesday
Thursday, May 17, at 7:00 pm
Ash Wednesday presents a comedic and occasionally irreverent look at small town life, sexual mores, and the decline of mainline religion in contemporary America. A conservative church secretary learns her son is gay and seeks to “cure” him before everyone in town knows his secret. Her boss, an alcoholic pastor whose contentious parishioners are plotting to fire him, uncovers evidence that his beloved predecessor engaged in an affair with his housekeeper. Another pastor’s innovative approach to ministry results in unparalleled success yet his sexual indiscretions threaten his career.
These individuals’ fates are entangled in a story involving same-sex and sexless marriages, legal and illegal abortions, timely and untimely deaths, and feature a variety of eccentric yet endearing characters.
About the Author Harold Eppley has worked as a religious professional in various capacities for 23 years, including four years in the Allegheny Mountains of western Pennsylvania, where his first novel, Ash Wednesday, is set. With his wife, Rochelle Melander, he is the author of seven nonfiction books, including Our Lives Are Not Our Own.
David C. Couper, former Madison Chief of Police, and author of Arrested Development
Saturday, May 19, at 2:00 pm
In Arrested Development: A Veteran Police Chief Sounds Off About Protest, Racism, Corruption and the Seven Steps Necessary to Improve Our Nation’s Police, author David Couper does more than simply point out shortcomings in the system. He offers seven steps police must take to improve and be partners in a democratic society. Couper is well-qualified to offer advice, having transformed the Madison Police Department into a national model, ending the bitter standoffs between protestors and Madison police during the Vietnam War years. In fact, his department’s effective tactics of handling people and crowd control without violence is now known as “The Madison Method.”
The book also delves into Couper’s own rise to success from patrol officer to chief of police, providing the background that shaped his view of police work. His ideal officers are “fair, effective and humanitarian,” he writes. “They can protect our civil rights, work with a variety of people, and take arrested persons into custody with a minimum amount of force.” Couper outlines seven steps for creating an effective police force: police leaders who can envision the future; selecting the finest and brightest to serve; police leaders willing to listen to their officers the and community; professional training and collaborative leadership; continuous improvement; critically evaluating crucial tasks and functions; and police leaders who maintain and continue improvements.
About the Author David Couper served as chief of the Madison Police Department for more than 20 years and a former patrolman and detective, as well as serving police departments in Edina, Minneapolis, and Burnsville, Minn. In Madison, he led his officers through the successful handling of hundreds of public protests without incident, integrated the department and began a more collaborative leadership style. Couper, who has graduate degrees from the University of Minnesota and Edgewood College, and served for four years in the Marines, was ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church after his retirement and serves St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in North Lake, Wis. This is his third book on policing.
John Nichols, author of Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street
Monday, May 21, at 7:00 pm
Nichols will be introduced by Roger Bybee, journalist and contributor to It Started in Wisconsin (for which Nichols wrote the introduction).
“An engrossing, informative take on the mass demonstrations that broke out in Wisconsin in early 2011…. [T]his book is well researched and full of keen insights about the state of organized labor and the power of protest…. Nichols is a capable and energetic narrator with a reporter’s knack for getting to the heart of the matter….Richly detailed and inspiring—worth reading for anyone interested in organized labor, civil disobedience or the spirit of Wisconsin.” –Kirkus Reviews
Last February more than 100,000 public employees, teachers, students, and their allies descended on Madison in response to new legislation related to public workers. The struggle elicited extensive national media coverage and debate—as well as enormous grassroots support for protestors. Uprising provides an anatomy of the event and its implications for the political future of the nation. As state legislatures across the US take up union busting measures, Nichols shows how the Wisconsin case is a blueprint for progressives around America who’ve had enough. He also explores how Wisconsin protesters organized and inspired the Occupy Wall Street movement.
About the Author John Nichols is The Nation’s Washington correspondent and the Associate Editor of The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin. He has covered seven presidential races and reported from two-dozen countries. The author or coauthor of eight books on media and politics Nichols delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Congress of the International Federation of Journalists in Athens and addressed the 2009 Global Forum on Freedom of Expression in Oslo. He lives in Madison, WI and Washington DC.
Diana Abu-Jaber, author of Birds of Paradise, with Samuel Park, author of This Burns My Heart
Tuesday, May 22, at 7:00 pm
About Birds of Paradise Eighteen year-old Felice ran away from home at 13. After five years of scrounging for food, drugs, and shelter on Miami Beach, Felice and the family she left behind must reckon with the consequences of her actions and make life-affirming choices about what matters to them most, now and in the future.
About the Author Diana Abu-Jaber is also author of of the award winning memoir, The Language of Baklava, the best-selling novels Origin and Crescent, which was awarded the 2004 PEN Center USA Award for Literary Fiction and the American Book Awar, and her first novel Arabian Jazz won the 1994 Oregon Book Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. A frequent contributor to NPR, she teaches at Portland State University and divides her time between Portland and Miami.
About This Burns My Heart Park tells the story of a strong-willed and spirited young woman in 1960s, postwar South Korea, as she struggles to find a way to satisfy her traditional-minded parents while living the life she dreams for herself. After choosing a practical man over the one she truly loved, Soo-Ja finds herself in an unhappy marriage and trying to keep her daughter from making the same mistakes.
About the Author Samuel Park is an Assistant Professor of English at Columbia College Chicago. He is a graduate of Stanford and the University of Southern California, where he earned his doctorate in English. He is the author of the novella Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and the writer-director of the short film of the same name, which was an official selection of numerous domestic and international film festivals. He currently divides his time between Chicago and Los Angeles.
Tayari Jones, author of Silver Sparrow, with opener Ann Stewart McBee
Wednesday, May 23, at 7:00 pm
This event will also introduce Ann Stewart McBee, with a piece published in Broken Plate, a literary magazine produced by Ball State University.
Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon’s two families—the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a relationship destined to explode when secrets are revealed and illusions shattered. As Jones explores the backstories of her rich yet flawed characters—the father, the two mothers, the grandmother, and the uncle—she also reveals the joy, as well as the destruction, they brought to one another’s lives.
At the heart of it all are the two lives at stake, and like the best writers—think Toni Morrison with The Bluest Eye—Jones portrays the fragility of these young girls with raw authenticity as they seek love, demand attention, and try to imagine themselves as women, just not as their mothers.
Silver Sparrow was selected as the #1 Indie Next pick for June 2011, and Library Journal, O Magazine, Slate and Salon all selected the novel among the best of the year.
About the Author Tayari Jones is the author of two previous novels, including Leaving Atlanta which was named “Novel of the Year” by Atlanta Magazine and which The Atlanta Journal Constitution and The Washington Post both listed it as one of the best of 2002. Jones holds degrees from Spelman College, Arizona State University, and the University of Iowa. She serves on the MFA faculty at Rutgers, but is finishing up a year at Harvard University as a Radcliffe Institute Fellow.
About the Opener Ann Stewart McBee was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She graduated this year with a PhD in creative writing at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where she taught undergraduate composition, creative writing and literature and served as an editor for cream city review. She has published fiction and poetry in Ellipsis, Untamed Ink, So to Speak, and At Length, among others. Her novel Veiled Men is looking for a home.
Ben Merens, host of Wisconsin Public Radio’s “At Issue” and creator of the audio book, People Are Dying to be Heard
Thursday, May 24, at 7:00 pm
After 25 years as a journalist and 20 years as a talk show host, listening expert Ben Merens believes that People Are Dying to Be Heard. In his new audio book of the same title, Merens relates stories from his many experiences over the years as a professed “in the moment” listener.
He states, "Healthy communication is a two-way process where listening is the key to success. The most important aspect to listening well is to be in the moment and focused entirely on the person you are with. This especially applies to how we interact with everyone, from our friends and loved ones, to our colleagues at work, and even to strangers.”
About the Author Ben Merens has worked in print and broadcast journalism for 25 years in New York, Chicago and Milwaukee. Currently he is host of “At Issue,” which airs weekdays on 90.7 WHAD and on WPR across the state. Merens is author of the audio book Uni-Tasking: 25 Tips for Better Listening and regularly speaks on the “art of listening” to businesses and educational groups. He has taught at Hofstra University, Columbia College and Concordia University.
Mark Your Calendars (other confirmed 2012 events)
June 2, 2pm - JASNA co-sponsors Ava Farmer (aka Sandy Lerner), author of Second Impressions
June 8, 7pm - Natalie Bakopoulos, author of The Green Shore and Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of Once Upon a River
June 11, 7pm - John Scalzi, author of Redshirts
June 12, 7pm - Alyson Hagy, author of Boleto, with opener Laurel Landis
June 14, 7pm - Sarah Terez Rosenblum, author of Herself When She's Missing
June 20, 7pm - Matthew Batt, author of Sugarhouse: Turning the Neighborhood Crack House into Our Home Sweet Home
June 21, 7pm - Catherine Tuerk, author of Mom Knows: Reflections on Love, Gay Price and Taking Action, co-sponsored by Bronze Optical
June 27, 7pm - Sapphire, author of The Kid, and Push
June 28, 7pm - Joy Stocke and Angie Brenner, authors of Anatolian Days and Nights: A Love Affair with Turkey, Land of Dervishes, Goddesses, and Saints
July 9, 7pm - Sheila Kohler, author of The Bay of Foxes
July 10, 7pm - Alexandra Fuller, author of Under The Cocktail Tree of Forgiveness
July 11, 7pm - Patrick Somerville, author of This Bright River, and Dean Bakopoulos, author of My American Unhappiness
July 16, 7pm - Chris Cleave, author of Gold, and Little Bee, co-sponsored by Pablove, ticketed event
July 24, 7pm - St. Sukie De La Croix, author of Chicago Whispers, and Gregg Shapiro, author of GREGG SHAPIRO: '77
July 30, 7pm - Robert Goolrick, author of Heading Out to Wonderful, and A Reliable Wife
August 8, 7pm - Ron Tanner, author of From Animal House to Our House: A Love Story
