An end of week recap
“What millions died – that Caesar might be great!”
– Thomas Campbell
This is a weekly post in which I summarise books read, reviewed and currently on my TBR shelf. In addition to a variety of literary titbits, I look ahead to forthcoming features, see what’s on the nightstand and keep readers abreast of various book-related happenings.
CHATTERBOOKS >>
If you are planning a reading event, challenge, competition or anything else likely to be of interest to the book blogging community, please let me know. I will happily share your news here with the fabulous array of bibliowonks who read this weekly wind up.
* Week Four of Reading Wales *
Earlier this week, I finally posted a brief introduction and a few shared thoughts on my book choice for Reading Wales 2022 >> DEWITHON 22: Sugar and Slate by Charlotte Williams >>
There is a dedicated page on which to display your Dewithon-related posts. Here I share your reviews, features, interviews etc. with the book blogging community. >> Reading Wales 2022 >>
Have you posted any content relating to Dewithon on your blogs (or elsewhere)? If so, please be sure to let me know.
* Reading the Theatre 2022 *
* Lit Crit Blogflash *
I am going to share with you a couple of my favourite literary posts from around the blogosphere. There are so many talented writers posting high-quality book features and reviews, it is difficult to limit the list to only these two – both published over the last week or so:
Reading Ukrainian authors, thinking about Russia – Over at Re-enchantment Of The World, Piotrek’s “main concern,” like so many of us, has been about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He has, however, “gone beyond the breaking news” and “reached for some recent Ukrainian literature” translated into English. One book that has made a “huge impression” on him is Serhiy Zhadan’s The Orphanage – a shocking story of the plight of civilians caught up in the ongoing conflict in the east of the country. As a believer in learning “about cultures through novels,” Piotrek has also come across several other titles including The Longest Times by Volodymyr Rafeienko (sadly not translated into English), which he discusses at length along with numerous articles, films and documentaries that go some way towards explaining the current situation. I would recommend this excellent post if you would like to explore more thoroughly the politics behind the ongoing conflict.
* Irresistible Items *
Umpteen fascinating articles appeared on my bookdar last week. I generally make a point of tweeting my favourite finds (or adding them to my Facebook group page), but in case you missed anything, here are a selection of interesting snippets:
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Air Mail: Libraries of Dreams – Temples of Books is a new volume which compiles “photographs of the world’s oldest and most groundbreaking book collections.”
BBC Culture: The stories that reveal the soul of Ukraine – “The history of Ukrainian literature reflects the country’s tragic conflicts, its diverse population, and the people’s distinctive humour, writes John Self.”
Vox: Have we ceased to understand the world? – “Benjamín Labatut’s nonfiction novel [When We Cease to Understand the World] is haunting and astonishing.”
LARB: Near-Coincidences: Digression and the Literature of the Age of the Internet – Gianluca Didino remembers W. G. Sebald through two recent books.
Artnet: In Pictures: See Beloved Author Beatrix Potter’s Magical Drawings From Nature as They Go on View in London – “Potter often based her drawings on her real-life pets,” says Sarah Cascone.
The Conversation: Friday essay: how leftist, feminist poet Dame Mary Gilmore became ‘Aunt Mary’ in the PM’s political narrative – A close friend of John Curtin, Dame Mary Gilmore wrote poems on topics such as colonial violence and the plight of the koala. How has her great, great nephew, Scott Morrison, chosen to remember her?
Writing.ie: Colm Tóibín wins 2022 Rathbones Folio Prize – Irish novelist Colm Tóibín has won the Rathbones Folio Prize for his novel The Magician, which was mostly written following the author’s cancer diagnosis.
Qantara.de: Sleuths on a Sufi path – “Rarely has the world of crime-writing taken such an interesting turn. Richard Marcus spoke to American Muslim historian and novelist Laury Silvers about her four detective novels set in Baghdad under the Abbasid caliphate and the advantages of self-publishing.”
Passa Porta: Which Weapon Should the Writer Choose? – “Just under six years ago, in the week of the terrorist attacks in Brussels, the well-known Russian-speaking Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov delivered this text in Passa Porta” – offering his answer to the question of what he “as a ‘visible writer’ could or should do in times of crisis.”
Slate: She May Have Died in 1999, but Iris Murdoch Is the Perfect Novelist for Our Time – Isaac Butler finds Murdoch’s “absolute refusal to judge her characters […] an antidote to contemporary literary certainty.”
Pop Matters: Marcial Gala’s ‘Call Me Cassandra’ Revolts Against Gender Constraints – “In Call Me Cassandra, Marcial Gala dismantles the suffocating binary of unyielding machismo in pre- and post-revolutionary Cuba,” writes Derick Gomez.
Penguin: An extract from Tove Ditlevsen’s ‘The Trouble with Happiness’ – “Translated into English for the very first time, [The Trouble with Happiness, a collection of] short stories by one of Denmark’s most celebrated writers are brief, devastating, acid-sharp portrayals of love, marriage and family in mid-century Copenhagen.”
The Baffler: The Billionaire’s Bard – Rob Madole on “the rationalist fictions” of American sci-fi writer and “tech oracle,” Neal Stephenson.
DW: Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah on exile and literature – “The Nobel Prize winner talks with [Annabelle Steffes-Halmer] about his decision to leave Zanzibar, to write in English, and about the rise of African writers in the post-colonial era.”
Nippon.com: Matsuo Bashō: A Literary Wanderer – “Through his poetry and travel writing, born from the desire to seclude himself from society, Matsuo Bashō established himself as one of Japan’s most important literary figures, known for refining what later became known as the haiku,” says Fukasawa Shinji.
Arts Hub: Book review: Hovering, Rhett Davis – Hovering is a “transformative tale of overlapping realities and temporal strangeness set in south-eastern Australia.”
Radio Free Europe: Yuz Aleshkovsky, Author Of Songs, Books About Soviet Gulag, Dies At 92 – “Yuz Aleshkovsky, one of the Soviet Union’s best-known dissident writers, has died in the United States at the age of 92.”
Literary Review of Canada: Death of an Author – Sandra Martin on Canadian writer, filmmaker and right-to-die activist, John Hofsess – “the weirdest man [she] never met.”
Quillette: Heading Into the Atom Age—Pat Frank’s Perpetually Relevant Novels – Kevin Mims on the American sci-fi writer Pat Frank, whose “novel about a birth dearth” appeared almost a half-century before P.D. James’s Children of Men.
The Times of India: Women AutHer Awards 2022 Shortlist Announced – “The AutHer Awards – a joint venture between JK Paper and The Times of India – is a celebration of women authors who have added value and creativity to the literary space.”
Publishers Weekly: Ben Okri, Booker Winner, Comes to Other Press – “For over 30 years, Nigerian writer Ben Okri has been at the forefront of international literature, but has not attained widespread name recognition in the United States. Other Press wants that to change.”
Hindustan Times: Essay: The enduring popularity of second hand books – “From cultivating eco-friendly reading habits to feeling like they are part of a community of readers across time, buyers cite different reasons for their interest in pre-owned books,” writes Pooja Bhula.
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development: EBRD Literature Prize 2022: selected shortlist announced – Jane Ross reveals the newly announced shortlist for the EBRD Literature Prize 2022, which recognises the best works of literary fiction translated into English.
Guernica: To My Lost Trishaw Driver – “Pico Iyer on decades of letters to a man he met, once, in Myanmar.”
Wasafiri: ‘Decolonisation is a constant struggle’: An Interview with Gloria Wekker – Gloria Wekker, author of White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race, talks with Elif Lootens and Sigrid Corry about decolonisation and racism in the Netherlands.
Los Angeles Times: Anthony Veasna So, Diane Seuss among National Book Critics Circle Award winners – “Clint Smith, Anthony Veasna So and Honorée Fanonne Jeffers are among the winners of the National Book Critics Circle Awards for work published in 2021.”
Gawker: Why Read Fiction in a Bad World? – “It’s not because fiction teaches us empathy,” says Morten Høi Jensen.
RTÉ: Dublin Literary Award shortlist revealed – “The award is the world’s biggest annual prize for a work of fiction published in English and is worth €100,000 to the eventual winner.”
BBC Europe: Anne Frank betrayal book pulled after findings discredited – “A book that claimed to have solved the question of who betrayed Anne Frank has been recalled by its Dutch publisher after its findings were discredited.”
Slate: What to Do When Your Kid Is Reading a Book That Makes You Uncomfortable – “The author of [Gender Queer,] a memoir banned in schools across America on the value of teens reading challenging work.
The National News: First Emirati novel shortlisted for the 2022 International Prize for Arabic Fiction – “Rose’s Diary by Reem Alkamali is in the final six competing for the $50,000 annual prize.”
Reason: Lambda Literary Awards Reject LGBTQ Author After She Defended a Friend Accused of Transphobia – “I am a queer woman, and I was silenced most of my life,” writes Lauren Hough, author of Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing.”
Conversations with Tyler: Lydia Davis on Language and Literature – “The renowned writer and translator describes life as a passionate polyglot.”
LALT: Frontera cuir by Ingrid Bringas – Vanesa Almada reviews Frontera Cuir (Queer border) by Ingrid Bringas.
Tablet: The Landscape of Ukrainian Literature – “Six writers shaping the future of the plucky, original, and politically significant genre.”
Teen Vogue: The Radical Hood Library Is the L.A. Headquarters of Noname Book Club – “The Radical Hood Library wants to promote liberatory and revolutionary ideas,” finds Kandist Mallett.
Hyperallergic: Rome’s New Cooking Museum Invites Visitors to Feast With Their Eyes – “The oldest mass-printed cookbook, 500-year-old recipes from a pope’s private chef, and varied displays of chocolate moulds will go on view in May,” finds Sarah Rose Sharp.
BOMB: No Obsession Is Too Weird: Caitlin Barasch Interviewed by Rachel Schwartzmann – A Novel Obsession is Caitlin Barasch’s debut novel about “a writer in pursuit of a story worth telling.”
Morocco World News: Ministry of Culture Withdraws Moroccan Book Prize from 9 Writers – “The writers sent a group letter to the ministry, urging it to activate Article 13 of the Decree governing the award as they did not want to split the prize between them,” reports Oumaima Latrech.
Multiversity Comics: Julie Doucet Awarded the Grand Prix at Angoulême – The Quebec cartoonist was awarded the Grand Prix lifetime achievement award at the opening ceremony of the 2022 Angoulême International Comics Festival.
Sludge: Publishing Giants Are Fighting Libraries on E-Books – “The Association of American Publishers filed suit to block a new Maryland law that aims to increase public libraries’ access to e-books, with support from a powerful copyright lobbying group.”
Esquire: The 50 Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time – “Plenty of imitators have tried to match the heights of our No.1,” says Adrienne Westenfeld, “but none have come close.”
Electric Literature: Being a Public Librarian Can Be Dangerous Work, Why Don’t We Acknowledge That? – “A former librarian pushes against the romanticization of what libraries are and who they are for.”
The Offing: The Only Thing Holding Back My Writing is That There are Other Writers, and They’re Better Than Me By Michael Falk – “Think about it,” says Michael, “If I had been born with money, talent, empathy, powers of observation, and discipline, I’d be much better at writing.”
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FINALLY >>
If there is something you would particularly like to see on Winding Up the Week or if you have any suggestions, questions or comments for Book Jotter in general, please drop me a line or comment below. I would be delighted to hear from you.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I wish you a week bountiful in books and rich in reading.
NB In this feature, ‘winding up’ refers to the act of concluding something and should not be confused with the British expression: ‘wind-up’ – an age-old pastime of ‘winding-up’ friends and family by teasing or playing pranks on them. If you would like to know more about this expression, there is an excellent description on Urban Dictionary.