An end of week recap

“If the library in the morning suggests an echo of the severe and reasonable wishful order of the world, the library at night seems to rejoice in the world’s essential, joyful muddle.”
– Alberto Manguel

This is a 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.

PAUSE FOR A POD >>

* Lie Back and Listen *

Here I recommend engaging podcasts and other digital recordings I have come across in recent weeks. Hopefully, you too will enjoy them.

In a recent episode of Between the Covers, a literary radio show and podcast hosted by David Naimon for Tin House, the novelist, essayist and critic Professor Kate Zambreno has a profound but engrossing discussion about Tone – a recently published examination of literary tone – with her authorial collaborator, the scholar, novelist and educator Sofia Samatar. As an archival bonus, the two also share “a wonderfully robust 40-minute call and response” session in which “Kate discusses and reads from works important to their project,” after which, “Sofia responds with a reading of her own, speaking to Kate’s reading through her choices.” However, to hear these extras you must join the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter – although, membership starts from as little as £1/$1 per episode. The programme is available on most platforms and there is also a word-for-word transcript available on the website. >> Kate Zambreno & Sofia Samatar: Tone >>

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.

* We’re Off to Read the Wizard *

Already underway (my apologies for coming a week late to this bibliojolly) is a rather delightful literary challenge hosted by Lory at Entering the Enchanted Castle and Deb from The Book Stop. Starting this month and continuing throughout the whole of next year, Ozathon – a readalong of the Oz books by American author L. Frank Baum – involves working one’s way through all 14 titles in the series (though, it is stressed you are under no pressure to finish every one). Originally “published from 1900 to 1920, […] the plan is to start in December and read in published order through January of 2025,” says Deb (aka CurlyGeek), who was apparently enchanted by these books as a child. At present, the ladies are “diving into the classic that started it all, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” However, Lory encourages you to peruse the full schedule and then, if possible, choose “a version [of the book] with illustrations” to enjoy the full experience of W.W. Denslow’s original art. To find your way to the yellow brick road, please head over to #Ozathon24 begins: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz for directions.

* Tackle a Tome or Two *

Deacon Nick Senger of One Catholic Life has announced his next brobdingnagian chapter-a-day readalong, which will commence on 1^st January. In a recent blog he divulges that the entirety of 2024 will be devoted to “reading some of the most beloved modern classics in all of literature: The Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, and the entire Harry Potter series.” As ever, the intention with this eagerly anticipated event is “to introduce challenging classics to those who might not otherwise read them” and tackle them in “chapter-sized bites, [so] they become more readable.” To be a part of Nick’s magical literary happening, please make your way over to his wonderfully comprehensive post, Announcing the 2024 Fantasy Classics Chapter-a-Day Read-Along, where you will find a wealth of useful information prior to getting started.

* Irresistible Items *

Umpteen fascinating articles appeared on my bookdar last week. I generally make a point of tweeting/x-ing (soon, perhaps tooting or bsky-ing) a few favourite finds (or adding them to my Facebook group page), but in case you missed anything, there follows a selection of interesting snippets:

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The Economist: The best books of 2023, as chosen by The Economist – “This year’s picks transport readers to mountain peaks, out to sea and back in time.”

Independent: I met Benjamin Zephaniah several times – he was as open and kind-hearted as his poetry – “Helen Brown interviewed the poet and writer on many occasions before his death. Here, she speaks about what made him so special, both to herself and her autistic son on whom his poetry had such a profound effect.”

Asian Review of Books: “The Kidnapping of Mark Twain” by Anuradha Kumar – Anuradha Kumar’s interleaves fact and fiction in her recent page-turner – a ‘Bombay mystery’ featuring Mark Twain.

Slate: The Revenge of Miss Jan Gay – This remarkable 1930s lesbian journalist was snubbed in her lifetime. Now a novel (see next item) based on her work has won the National Book Award.

The Washington Post: ‘Blackouts’ returns an erotic charge to a historical record – “Justin Torres’s inventive novel uses redactions, photographs and illustrations in revisiting a 1941 committee report about homosexuality,” says Charles Arrowsmith in this review published prior to Blackouts winning the National Book Award for fiction.

Arts Hub: ‘How is the Great Australian Novel going?’ – “Author Nicholas Jose says the Great Australian Novel ‘isn’t doing too badly, thanks’.”

World Literature Today: 75 Notable Translations 2023 – Michelle Johnson with an overview of WLT’s pick of top translations of the year.

The Chronicle of Higher Education: The Line Between Knowledge and Magic Is Thinner Than We Think – Colin Dickey shares his thoughts on Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa, Anthony Grafton’s history of the learned magician and his place in the intellectual, social and cultural world of Renaissance Europe.

The Mit Press Reader: Rereading My Childhood – In this article adapted from Timothy C. Baker’s memoir Reading My Mother Back: A Memoir in Childhood Animal Stories, the author “examines how our childhood reading shapes our memories and the way we see the world.”

The Walrus: The Case for Never Reading the Book Jacket – Tajja Isen doesn’t want to “be told what’s going to happen” and neither does she wish “to be told what the book is ‘about.’”

Metropolis: Food in Japanese Film and Fiction – Trevor Kew on “the hidden protagonist in films and literature.”

The Society of Authors: Announcing the Translation Prizes 2023 shortlists – Jasmine Scott reveals 50 shortlisted works across eight prizes for the Translation Prizes (with a £28,000 prize fund).

MIT News: 3 Questions: Wiebke Denecke on a landmark project for Chinese literature – “The Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature brings six centuries of classic texts to the world, in bilingual editions,” reveals Peter Dizikes.

The Art Newspaper: The top art books of 2023—chosen by The Art Newspaper’s book team – “There is something for every art lover among [this] pick of publications—from a forgotten 17th-century painter to a lively history of dyes.”

The New Yorker: The Forgotten Giant of Yiddish Fiction – “Though his younger brother Isaac Bashevis Singer eventually eclipsed him, [the Polish-Jewish novelist] Israel Joshua Singer excelled at showing characters buffeted by the tides of history,” says Adam Kirsch.

AS/COA: LatAm in Focus: Beyond the Boom—Latin American Writing in Translation – “Translators Megan McDowell and Esther Allen discuss the state of Latin American letters in English and honor the legacy of Edith Grossman.”

Tor.com: Five Excellent Norse Fiction Books From Indie Publishers – “These are indie titles in the truest sense of the word,” says Rowdy Geirsson in his introduction to a selection of Norse books “that weren’t released by one of the Big Five publishers.”

TNR: What Betty Friedan Knew – “Judge the author of the [The] Feminine Mystique not by the gains she made, but by her experience,” suggests novelist Hermione Hoby in her review of Rachel Shteir’s Betty Friedan: Magnificent Disrupter.

TRT World: Russia’s formerly-German Kaliningrad digitises philosopher Kant’s works – “Immanuel Kant spent his entire life, from 1724 to 1804, in what was then the Prussian city of Koenigsberg, and the project is part of citywide celebrations of next year’s 300th anniversary of his birth.

The New European: Anne Michaels and the past that’s closer than we imagine – The “Canadian author only writes one book each decade. But” says Charlie Connelly, “her latest novel, Held, shows why it’s worth the wait.”

The Hedgehog Review: Unfinished Business – “Unfinished works bring their makers’ unfulfilled plans to the fore,” writes Richard Hughes Gibson.

The Smithsonian: Jane Austen’s Annotated Copy of ‘Curiosities of Literature’ Is For Sale – “The novelist used a pencil to underline roughly 15 passages from the text by Isaac D’Israeli,” writes Sarah Kuta.

Read Japanese Literature: 2024 New and Upcoming Japanese Fiction Releases – Alison Fincher suggests a range of forthcoming Japanese titles translated into English.

ekathimerini.com: ‘Z’ author Vassilis Vassilikos dies – “Vassilis Vassilikos, a highly acclaimed Greek writer best known for his 1967 political novel Z, has passed away at the age of 89.” 

Litprom: The Litprom Best List »World Receiver« No. 61: Winter 2023/2024 – “Since 2008, the »World Receiver« has been nominating new fiction translations from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Arab world in order to make outstanding literary voices known in the German-speaking world” – this is their 2023/2024 winter selection.

The Point: Transfixing – Rowan Wilson volunteered to work at the gay male history archive in Cologne because she “was going insane” at home.

The Dial: The Norway Model – Ida Lødemel Tvedt looks at how “the Scandinavian country became a literary powerhouse.”

The Paris Review: Postcards from Elizabeth Bishop – “Elizabeth Bishop delighted in the postcard,” writes Langdon Hammer in his piece about the celebrated American poet and writer’s penchant for this simple but pleasurable method of communication.

Taiwan News: International forum promotes translations of Taiwanese literature – “Translators, authors, publishers gather to bring Taiwanese literature to [the] world stage,” reports Sean Scanlan.

Literary Review: Unlimited Dream Company – Selected Nonfiction, 1962-2007 By J G Ballard – J G Ballard died in 2009, yet his writings seem to address many of the issues raised by technologies that have since emerged. In her review of Selected Nonfiction, 1962-2007 By J G Ballard, Joanna Kavenna considers how the English novelist can help us navigate the fraught world of AI.

Australian Book Review: Pleasure and Peril – Susan Midalia on Gunflower, Laura Jean McKay’s new satiric collection about “embodiment”.

Shondaland: 10 Books About Protecting Our Oceans From the Climate Crisis – Emily Zemler hopes this piece will help readers “learn more about this complicated issue and how [it is possible to] help.”

The American Scholar: Bodies Grotesque and Beautiful – Sierra Bellows finds Art Monsters: Unruly Female Bodies in Feminist Art “shocks” the reader and “presents us with images that cause strange, sometimes uncomfortable feelings” in its search for “aesthetics and meaning in the monstrous.”

New Welsh Review: George: A Magpie Memoir [by] Frieda Hughes – “Solly Hardwick on [George,] a super-perceptive account of a woman-avian relationship that raises questions about the purpose of nature writing: whether it is to expand our sense of life outside the human realm, or to work through human problems.”

Africa in Dialogue: The Breadth and Beauty of African Literature: A Dialogue with SarahBelle Selig – Kris Van der Bijl interviews publicist and South African office head for Catalyst Press, SarahBelle Selig, from her workplace in Cape Town, via email.

The Nobel Prize: A Silent Language – Jon Fosse gave the 2023 Nobel Prize Lecture in Literature on 7^th December. You can read or watch his speech here.

Literary Hub: Leopards, Messiahs, and AI Storytellers: December’s Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books – Natalie Zutter presents Wrap Up the Year, which includes “speculative debuts and sequels from Geoff Ryman, Foz Meadows, K.J. Parker,” and others.

The Guardian: Arthur Conan Doyle secretly resented his Sherlock Holmes creation, says historian – Harriet Sherwood discovers the author “blamed literary success of the fictional detective for his highbrow historical novels ‘lying unread.’”

Great Lakes Review: Hiromi Ito and Jeffrey Angles: When a Great Writer Meets a Great Translator – “When you read the final page of Hiromi Ito’s The Thorn Puller and put the book down, you walk away in a daze at what she’s accomplished,” says Rex Bowman.

London Review of Books: Why don’t Romanians read more? – “There are about 25 million Romanian speakers in the world,” yet “more than half of [them] haven’t read a book in the past year,” says Paula Erizanu. Why is this, she wonders?

CNN: Opinion: Christopher Hitchens was right about Henry Kissinger – Peter Bergen argues that any sober assessment of Henry Kissinger’s actual record must surely conclude that writer Christopher Hitchens was more accurate than not about deeming Kissinger a “war criminal.”

BBC Cambridge: Cambridge author writes new Hercule Poirot novel – “Cambridge author Sophie Hannah has been chosen to write the new Hercule Poirot novel.”

People: Patricia Cornwell on Listening to Chilling Bigfoot 911 Calls: ‘It Makes Your Hair Stand On End’ (Exclusive) – “The author researched the creature for her new book and latest installment of the Kay Scarpetta series, Unnatural Death,” finds Carly Tagen-Dye.

Vice: Montreal Libraries Will Be Able to Kick Out People for Smelling Bad – “The new rules will allow libraries to fine and remove people for ‘personal hygiene that inconveniences staff,’ reports Manisha Krishnan.

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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.

Categories: Winding Up the Week

Tags: #Ozathon24, Alberto Manguel, Between the Covers, Book Podcasts, Fantasy Classics Chapter-a-Day Read-Along, Harry Potter, Kate Zambreno, L. Frank Baum, Lord of the Rings, Ozathon, Sofia Samatar, The Chronicles of Narnia, Tin House