Wisconsin Uprising

From Madison and the World

Scott Walker underestimated the people of Wisconsin. He probably imagined the usual dozen activists, plus a handful of trade unionists already dispirited from a quarter-century of retreat, would gather outside his office with the usual brain dead chant...

Milwaukee's Lauren Fox Turns to 'Friends Like Us'

Complex, intimate friendships that span decades are true examples of the power of relationships. In Lauren Fox's new book Friends Like Us, the seasoned friendship between Willa and Jane is at the heart of the story. This duo lives together...

Exploring Why Americans 'Pity the Billionaire'

Thomas Frank examines campaign of the Far Right

With Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right (Metropolitan), Thomas Frank continues his corrosive critique of right-wing ascendance in American politics. In What's the Matter With Kansas?

The Chitlin' Circuit and the Road to Rock 'n' Roll (W.W. Norton), by Preston Lauterbach

Cultural historians usually write off the “chitlin' circuit” that sustained African-American musicians from the 1930s through the '60s as a cruel, exploitative system. Preston Lauterbach thinks otherwise. In his endlessly fascinating and richly evocative account...

Quantum Hippies

From Counterculture to String Theory

The 1960s counterculture was certainly anti-technocratic and distrustful of technology, but was it also anti-science? David Kaiser thinks not, and in How the Hippies Saved Physics (W.W. Norton), the MIT physics professor explores a little known convergence...

Wisconsin Writer Zakharin Displays Russian Soul

Although he was born in Watertown and continues to live in southeast Wisconsin, Mishka Zakharin often migrates in his thoughts thousands of miles to the east. “I feel I have a Russian soul,” he says, and his spiritual and intellectual wandering has resulted...

From the Shadows of North Korea

Adam Johnson's chilling, entertaining 'Orphan Master's Son'

Co-Creation: Fifty Years in the Making, by Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller

Becoming Ray Bradbury (University of Illinois Press), by Jonathan R. Eller

Ray Bradbury was one of the most significant writers to find his way from science-fiction subculture to mainstream literature. Becoming Ray Bradbury is a detailed, readable account of Bradbury's early years, starting with the sci-fi fanzines whose scope...

The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, its Regions, and their Peoples (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), by David Gilmour

A dull author makes for dry history; happily, there is nothing dull in David Gilmour's lucid history of a nation created from many parts. Most Americans are vaguely aware of Italy's north-south divide if only from the vogue for “northern Italian...

Hannah Pittard Finds Her Way to Sugar Maple

The Fates Will Find Their Way is the haunting first novel by acclaimed short-story writer Hannah Pittard. The unforgettable story centers on the disappearance of 16-year-old Nora Lindell, as told by the neighborhood boys who can't quite let her go...

Inside North Korea With the 'Orphan Master's Son'

Author Adam Johnson to visit Boswell

Despite an influx of news reports on the nation's recently departed leader, North Korea remains an unknown entity to most. Indeed, few Americans can imagine the lives of the individuals of that secretive country. Enter Adam Johnson, author of the timely novel...

Greenback Planet: How the Dollar Conquered the World and Threatened Civilization as We Know It (University of Texas Press), by H.W. Brands

The 20th century was the Age of the Dollar, but the world champion among currencies staggered through the first decade of the new millennium, weakened by the dot-com bust, 9/11, a pair of costly wars, the housing bubble and the Great Recession...

Ayad Akhtar's Elegant, Forceful 'American Dervish'

Author Ayad Akhtar, a first-generation Pakistani-American who grew up in Milwaukee, graduated from both Brown and Columbia universities. His somewhat-autobiographical debut novel, American Dervish, tells the emotional story of Hayat...

Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything (Faber & Faber), by David Bellos

David Bellos is an author who could make anything interesting, engaging and informative. In Is That a Fish in Your Ear?, the Princeton professor addresses communication across the lines of language. Bellos points out that in many previous eras and...

Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light (Public Affairs), by Neill Lochery

In the Bogart classic Casablanca, Lisbon is depicted as a portal of escape from Nazi-occupied Europe. In his account of the city during World War II, Neill Lochery shows that the Portuguese capital might have been a better setting than Casablanca for a film...

Lil' Rev Heads 'Ukulele Nation' at Boswell

The ukulele, which roughly translates as “the jumping flea” in a Hawaiian language, is that adorable Hawaiian instrument that resembles a miniature guitar. And now, the instrument is the subject of a new book, Ukulele Nation, by renowned local musician...

Showcasing Hugo Brehme's 'Timeless Mexico'

Picturesque images of Mexico as a land of tall cacti and towering volcanoes, adobe dwellings and Aztec ruins, were already circulating by the time German photographer Hugo Brehme traveled...

René Blum & The Ballets Russes: In Search of a Lost Life (Oxford University Press), by Judith Chazin-Bennahum

René Blum may not have been one of the great 20th-century cultural figures, but as shown in the first biography of the writer, editor and impresario, he worked with several of them and knew many more. The brother of France's socialist prime minister...

Greil Marcus Delivers Another Masterpiece

Rock critic explores The Doors making cultural history

Greil Marcus is already regarded as one of the leading rock music critics. With The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years (PublicAffairs)...

Tolstoy: A Russian Life (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), by Rosamund Bartlett

This fascinating biography of Tolstoy, the first since the fall of the Soviet Union, draws on newly accessible information. Cultural historian Rosamund Bartlett carefully reconstructs each era of Tolstoy's personal history, from his aristocratic childhood to his final...

Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East (University Press of Kentucky), by Stephen G. Fritz

Not unlike the Manifest Destiny expounded by Americans a century earlier, many Germans in the early 20th century advocated expansion into what they regarded as the Eastern Frontier. Hitler, for one, was determined to turn the old dream into reality by...

Kids Explore Outer Space in 'Astrojammies'

Milwaukee author talks book, iPad app at Boswell

A truly interactive children's storybook, Astrojammies is the fantastical tale of a little boy named Jimmy whose magical pajamas transport him on an amazing adventure through outer space. Created by Stacey Williams-Ng, Astrojammies is written in a simple...

Eva Braun: More Than Just a Pretty Face

Görtemaker examines mistress' 'Life With Hitler'

In April 1945, as Russian artillery rounds fell like leaden hail on Berlin, a plain yet eerie ceremony took place in the bunker underneath the Old Reich...

Lost Decades: The Making of America's Debt Crisis and the Long Recovery (W.W. Norton), by Menzie D. Chinn and Jeffry A. Frieden

UW-Madison's Menzie Chinn and Harvard's Jeffry Frieden see the Great Recession as the result of excessive borrowing and spending by the average American as well as the federal government. Our borrowing binge was emulated by other nations...