Congratulations to our 2023 Rotary Person of the Year

Daniel Goldin, Owner of Boswell Book Company 

Daniel Goldin is obsessed with books and is on a single-minded mission to connect books to Milwaukeeans. While Bud Selig gets credit for saving the Brewers and Herb Kohl the Bucks, Daniel Goldin can be credited with saving the independent bookstore experience for Milwaukee. In creating Boswell Book Company, he has persevered against low margins, the dominance of Amazon, and the shuttering of COVID, through persistence, business savvy, and incredible hard work.

In 2015, he received the Christopher Latham Sholes Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers for outstanding encouragement of Wisconsin writers and in 2016 he was named as one of three judges for the Story Prize, awarded to the best short story collection in English.

Daniel is a graduate of Dartmouth with a degree in Mathematics. He has been bookselling for 34 years. In his role as a book buyer for the former Schwartz Bookshops, Daniel cultivated many relationships and connections with New York publishers. He has used these relationships to bring a steady stream of authors to Milwaukee to talk about their books, while bringing national recognition to our city. As a native Long Islander, he is uniquely qualified to extoll the virtues of Milwaukee to East Coast residents.

Boswell’s evening author events, scheduled 3 to 4 times every week, are an important part of Milwaukee’s social life and a key gathering place for building community. Daniel himself is the rare intellectual who is also an extrovert, sharing his passion for local authors, urbanism, department stores and Band-Aids with anyone who walks into his store.

Daniel is a strong supporter of local libraries and public radio. His long-lived partnership with the Milwaukee Public Library (MPL) has enabled them to develop and grow a strong fan base for literary programming by delivering quality author events to diverse communities across the city. The library’s budget is modest and with Daniel’s support and enthusiasm for serving the community, MPL is able to host many acclaimed authors to curious and adoring audiences for free.