An end of week recap

“In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it ‘Christmas’ and went to church; the Jews called it ‘Hanukkah’ and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say ‘Merry Christmas!’ or ‘Happy Hanukkah!’ or (to the atheists) ‘Look out for the wall!”
– Dave Barry

Wherever you live and however you plan to spend the next few days, I wish you a restful and restorative end of year. I will catch up with you before 2023 is out.

As ever, 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.

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.

* 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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Shereads: Exclusive Interview with Chikodili Emelumadu – A brief interview with British Nigerian speculative fiction author, Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ, whose latest novel, Dazzling, “is a take on West African mythology.”

The Guardian: ‘It’s totally unhinged’: is the book world turning against Goodreads? – “The influential user review site has suffered a year of controversies, from cancelled book deals to review-bombing, and exposed a dark side to the industry,” says Washington correspondent David Smith.

The Point: Fame’s Shadow – “James Redfield and me” – or will the real James Redfield please stand up.

The Japan Times: A wish list of hidden gems for Japanese literature lovers – Eight translators reveal their top Japanese books that English readers have yet to enjoy.

AnOther: Sjón, the Icelandic Poet Behind Björk and Robert Eggers’ Best Work – “As his new novella is published in English, Sjón talks about his illustrious career, which includes collaborations with Björk, Lars von Trier, and The Northman director Robert Eggers.”

The Critic: The meaning of laughs – Simon Evans writes in praise of Douglas Adams and a new collection of late author’s ephemera, 42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas of Douglas Adams.

Scroll.in: 2023 Sahitya Akademi Award: Novelist Neelum Saran Gour’s ‘Requiem in Raga Janki’ wins in English – Neelum Saran will receive a cash prize of Rs 1,00,000 for her historical novel Requiem in Raga Janki.

Bomb: A Conversation by Elina Alter & Bela Shayevich – “Two writer-translators discuss post-Soviet feminist literature, the alternative realities of the immigrant imagination, and writing that has faith in life.”

iNews: Mog always got her turkey before me: Christmas with my mother, Judith Kerr – “The children’s author’s famous feline was inspired by her family’s first cat. Her son Matthew Kneale remembers the festive season with the real-life Mog.”

Slate: On Minor Detail – Daniel Torday talks about Adaniyah Shibli’s Minor Detail, the “novel that helped [her] and [her] college students talk about the war.”

Arts Hub: 10 underrated books in 2023 – Thuy On with a selection of “worthy Australian books published this year that may have escaped your attention.”

The New York Times – He Made a Magazine, 95 Issues, While Hiding From the Nazis in an Attic – “The people who hid Curt Bloch, a German Jew, in the crawl space of a Dutch home gave him both food and the materials he needed to make a highly creative magazine now drawing attention.”

LARB: A Feminist Chorus: On Clara Schulmann’s “Chicanes” – Edmée Lepercq reviews French author Clara Schulmann’s newly translated book-length essay Chicanes.

Al Jazeera: A tale of two Rumis – of the East and of the West – “Exactly 750 years after death, Jalaluddin Mohammad Rumi remains a mystery. Was he a Muslim scholar or spiritual pundit?” wonders Indlieb Farazi Saber.

BBC History Extra: The mystery of the ‘real’ Milady de Winter of The Three Musketeers – “A spy and agent of Cardinal Richelieu, the enigmatic Milady de Winter is a constant shadow working against D’Artagnan and the three musketeers in Alexandre Dumas’ famous fiction. But could she – and the affair of Queen Anne’s diamonds – be based on a real story? Historian Josephine Wilkinson investigates.”

LALT: Bookstore Gato Caulle: A Literary Community in the South of Chile – Michelle Mirabella goes in search of Gato Caulle – a “magical” place with “welcoming bright blue doors.”

Open Book: Get Cozy with Open Book: The Open Book Team on Our All-Time Coziest Reads – “As the end of a busy year full of ups and downs approaches, [the editorial team] decided to focus on cozy comfort” and “share the books that [brought them] calm, comfort, and peace.”

The New Yorker: Vanishing Panels – Ali Fitzgerald reveals the “secret history of Patricia Highsmith’s career in comics” (in comic form).

The Paris Review: On Sven Holm’s Novella of Nuclear Disaster – Jeff VanderMeer looks back at Danish author Sven Holm’s 1967 dystopian novel Termush – republished earlier this year by Faber.

The Washington Post: Fed up with that Hallmark good cheer? Escape with a classic mystery. – “Classic crime fiction is the perfect way to restore your holiday spirit — and old tales are best, especially when they appear in shiny and inviting new editions,” says Michael Dirda.

World Literature Today: Polish Literature as World Literature – Alice-Catherine Carls looks at Polish Literature as World Literature, a curated collection of chapters by literary scholars from around the world – edited by Piotr Florczyk, Thomas Oliver Beebee and K. A. Wisniewski.

The Conversation: Friday essay: do readers dream of running a bookshop? Books about booksellers are having a moment – the reality can be less romantic – Bookshops and books, says Rose Michael, are “worlds within worlds within worlds.”

Publishers Weekly: AAP Honors Brave Publishing Around the World – For the first time, the Association of American Publishers has not chosen a single recipient for its International Freedom to Publish Award, instead anonymously honouring “all publishing houses” facing an increase in censorship and harassment worldwide.

The Chronicle of Higher Education: A Historian of Genocide Sounds the Alarm – Jacob Mikanowski asks how Israeli-born historian Omer Bartov, author of The Butterfly and the Axe, thinks about the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The Monthly: Writing in nature – “The laureate of the Western Australian surf break [Tim Winton] sees a task ahead for our essayists, our novelists and our poets alike in the fight against climate catastrophe.”

BBC Wales: Rhianna Pratchett: Fantasy author’s quest for mythical creatures – “Rhianna Pratchett grew up being told fantastical stories by her father, the late fantasy author Sir Terry Pratchett, and being taken to sci-fi and fantasy conventions around the world,” says Nicola Bryan.

UnHerd: Zola understood our lust for shopping – “The Ladies’ Paradise captures how consumerism was born,” finds Agnes Callard.

N+1: Comparison Is the Way We Know the World – “We know something they didn’t know” – A talk given by Masha Gessen, the Russian-American journalist, author, translator and activist who has been an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, after receiving the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought.

Tove Jansson: Christmas celebration with Lucia in the Jansson family – The Christmas celebrations in Tove Jansson’s childhood home were a mishmash of traditions from Finland and Sweden, due to her parent’s different heritages.

Pop Matters: The Best Books of 2023 – “It won’t surprise PopMatters readers that many of [their] best books of 2023 are excavations of our increasingly clamorous culture. It wasn’t a year for escapism.”

Literary Hub: A Look Inside the 17th-Century Witch Trials of the Arctic Circle – “Chelsea Iversen [author of fantasy novel The Witches at the End of the World] asks: What if northern Norway’s accused witches fought back?”

Ploughshares: The Double’s Extreme Break – Sarah Appleton Pine writes: “What makes Fyodor Dostoevsky’s second novel so painful is the extreme tactic he uses to ‘penetrat[e] into the depths of the normal human soul,’ as translator Richard Pevear observes, and the dramatic shift in character that tactic evokes.”

The Collector: 9 Times Virginia Woolf Made a Lasting Impact on Art – “As a member of the Bloomsbury group, Virginia Woolf had an enduring influence on art. Explore Woolf’s art criticism, impact on modernism, and the artworks she inspired.”

Public Books: There is No Such Thing as a Good Book: on “The Art of Libromancy” – “I do not think bookselling is an art,” says Kyle Francis Williams. “I think it is a job.”

The Yale Review: The Night Watch – “I first sought sanctuary during the Troubles. I’m still looking for it,” says Irish non-fiction writer Darran Anderson, author of Inventory: A Memoir.

On the Media: Who Cares About Literary Prizes? – “It turns out, a lot of us,” concludes Brooke Gladstone.

Börsenblatt: “Werther’s World” at the Frankfurt Romantic Museum – “To mark the 250th anniversary of Goethe’s Werther novel [in 1774], the twelve-part exhibition ‘Werther’s World – The Year 12’ will open [January 2024] in the manuscript studio of the German Romantic Museum.”

BBC News: Lord of the Rings fan fiction writer sued for publishing own sequel – “A fan fiction writer has been sued by the estate of JRR Tolkien for copyright after publishing his own sequel to The Lord of the Rings,” reports Yasmin Rufo.

Chron.: Books removed from Texas plantation for being too focused on slavery – “Emails obtained by Texas Monthly suggest the Texas Historical Commission was concerned about retaliation from lawmakers for carrying the books,” reports Ariana Garcia.

Slate: We Think Only of Him – “Had a bad relationship with a man? Mr. Darcy’s not to blame,” according to Chels Upton.

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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: Books, Christmas Books, Dave Barry, Reading