An end of week recap

“People without hope not only don’t write novels, but what is more to the point, they don’t read them.”
– Flannery O’Connor

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.

* Lit Crit Blogflash *

I am going to share with you one of my favourite literary posts from around the blogosphere. There are so many talented writers posting high-quality book features and reviews, it was difficult to pick only this one – which was published over the last week or so:

In Italy by Cynthia Zarin – Jacqui of JacquiWine’s Journal declares herself captivated by In Italy: Venice, Rome and Beyond, which she describes as a “gorgeous collection of personal essays” that weave together “elements of travel writing, personal reflections and touchstones from the world of literature.” The “short pieces” – comprising “four personal meditations of varying length” – are “expressed in an evocative, meandering style,” the author drawing on “her skills as a poet” to convey “her surroundings in vivid, painterly ways.” In short, says Jacqui, this book “offers a lovely escape from the mundanity of daily life” by “blurring the margins between the past and present in a highly engaging way.” Furthermore, she particularly recommends it to those who admire the works of “Lauren Elkin, Valeria Luiselli and Deborah Levy.”

* 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 follow a selection of interesting snippets:  

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The Age: Eight books: Margaret Atwood’s group novel and two philosophers chat – Cameron Woodhead and Fiona Capp cast their eyes over recent fiction and non-fiction publications.

The Book Reader: The Pianist – Wladyslaw Szpilman – “When you’re surprisingly glad you’ve seen the movie before you read the book” – in this instance, Wladyslaw Szpilman’s The Pianist.

Current Affairs: The Dystopias of Yesterday – Richard Eskow looks “back on the disaster scenarios of vintage sci-fi.”

Open Letters Review: A Nasty Little War by Anna Reid – Steve Donoghue describes A Nasty Little War The Western Fight to Reverse the Russian Revolution as a “wonderfully lively history of the West’s attempt to defeat the Bolshevik Revolution.”

CrimeReads: The Power of Neurodiverse Characters in Mystery – “Brandy Schillace on finding ND representation in the genre.”

BBC India: Gulbadan Begum: The epic voyage of a daring Mughal princess – “On an autumn day in 1576, a Mughal princess led a cohort of royal women on an unprecedented voyage to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina,” writes Cherylann Mollan in this piece announcing the newly translated Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan by Ruby Lal.

The Paris Review: Cooking with Franz Kafka – “The tension in Kafka between appetite and its fulfilment is a crucial aspect of the writer’s work,” writes Valerie Stivers.

Guardian Australia: My Brilliant Sister by Amy Brown review – Stella Miles Franklin-inspired novel about women and art – “Split between three narrators – Franklin’s sister, and two women in the present day – Brown’s debut is a thoughtful reflection on creative fulfilment and domestic life,” says Bec Kavanagh.

The Hamilton Spectator: Read your way across Canada – “The Canadian Literary Trail is marked by plaques with a poem or a passage from fiction in the places where their authors imagined them.”

The Critic: Josephine Tey, woman of mystery – “Deeply private, her elegant and sharply engaging writing has often been wrongly overlooked,” reveals Malcolm Forbes.

Open: Lost and Found in Kashmir – Sharanya Manivannan finds Hari Krishna Kaul’s “short stories [from For Now, It Is Night] sparkle with wit and empathy.”

The Conversation: Nervous Conditions: on translating one of Zimbabwe’s most famous novels into Shona – Tinashe Mushakavanhu on Tsitsi Dangarembga, the first black Zimbabwean woman to publish a novel in English in 1988 with Nervous Conditions. 

Public Books: A Hole at the Bottom of the Book – For the writers Annie Ernaux and Hilary Plum, Aidan Ryan detects the emergence of a paradox with each new book: writing attempts “carry to completion” something lived, but also changes the original experience.

The Wall Street Journal: ‘Byron: A Life in Ten Letters’ Review: The Regency’s Rakish Rock Star – “The poet’s performative extravagance—in his verse and his behavior—masked deep inner turmoil,” writes D.J. Taylor in his review of Andrew M. Stauffer’s Byron: A Life in Ten Letters.

Reactor: Coming to Terms With “Cozy” Fiction – “Categories and genres are weird things,” says Molly Templeton. “Sometimes they make perfect sense; sometimes they feel like mental sandpaper.”

The Point: Is Philosophy Self-Help? – Kieran Setiya goes in search of “practical wisdom.”

Arts Hub: Book review: The Star on the Grave, Linda Margolin Royal – “Ashleigh Meikle looks at a “novel inspired by the ‘Japanese Schindler’ and the [Australian] author’s personal ties to his wartime actions.”

The Markaz Review: Eyeliner: A Cultural History by Zahra Hankir—A Review – Nazli Tarzi reviews Eyeliner: A Cultural History, a book that challenges the uncritical view of eyeliner as a mere ‘exercise in vanity’ and probes its use across many societies.

The New Statesman: The dictator’s best friend – “From Mussolini to Mao, autocrats have often turned to writers to tighten their grip on power,” writes Lucy Hughes-Hallett in her review of Simon Ings’ Engineers of Human Souls: Four Writers Who Changed Twentieth-Century Minds.

PopPoetry: Update: Yes, Netflix Steamrolled Mary Oliver’s Estate, and Here’s the Proof – “In an exclusive statement to PopPoetry, Oliver’s literary executor responds to Netflix’s unauthorized use of The Summer Day.”

Dawn Images: Looking For a Good Read? We Compiled a List of Five Must-Read Books by Asian Authors – “There is something for everyone and authors from all over Asia, from China to Pakistan.”

Hungarian Literature Online: Translator Paul Olchváry Has Passed Away – “At age 58, literary translator, editor and publisher Paul Olchváry passed away unexpectedly on 14 February.”

Nordic Co-Operation: Here are the nominees for the 2024 Nordic Council Literature Prize – “Thirteen novels, poetry collections, and short stories have been nominated for the 2024 Nordic Council Literature Prize.”

Pop Matters: Personal Canons: Peter Coviello on Prince, Pavement, and Parenthood – Christopher J. Lee writes: “Blending personal experience with popular culture, Peter Coviello seeks to democratize how criticism is understood and practiced in Is There God after Prince?

My Kolkata: I’m chasing the Nobel Prize in Literature… and immortality: Jerry Pinto – “The Mumbai-based author on Kolkata, his writing process and why he wants to be read 300 years from now.”

Aeon: The best stories smell – “When scents are used to intensify a narrative, they heighten young readers’ emotions and enrich their memory banks,” says Natalia Kucirkova.

LARB: Hunger for the Whole: On Jacob Emery’s “The Vortex That Unites Us” – Caryl Emerson reviews Jacob Emery’s The Vortex That Unites Us: Versions of Totality in Russian Literature.”

The Millions: Leslie Jamison Serves the ‘God of Complexity’ – Leslie Jamison’s memoir Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story is, says Lilly Dancyger, “a deeply, entirely personal story of [the author] falling deeply in love with her daughter while her marriage crumbles around them.”

Noema: A Country Shaped By Poetry – “Somaliland’s poets have toppled governments and ushered in peace,” writes Nina Strochlic.

Jeanette Schocken Prize: The Jeanette Schocken Prize 2024 was awarded to Tanja Maljartschuk – This year’s Jeanette Schocken Prize has gone to the Ukrainian-born author Tanja Maljartschuk for her historical novel Forgottenness.

The Guardian: Dylan Thomas: The BBC Radio Collection audiobook review – a spellbinding homage – “Richard Burton’s reading of Under Milk Wood is the centrepiece of a collection of works written about and by the ‘rock star author’,” says Fiona Sturges.

The Globe and Mail: The answer to book bans? Read banned books – Kit Dobson – professor in the Department of English at the University of Calgary and author of We are Already Ghosts – says many “attempts to ban books are being carried out in bad faith” by people who have never read them.

Alta: Missing Joe Wood – “Over two decades ago, one of the most promising writers of his generation went for a walk on Mount Rainier and was never seen again,” recalls Tricia Romano.

Virago Books: Where to start with Elizabeth Taylor – The folk at Virago suggest: “If you are in search of an author with a wealth of novels to immerse yourself in, whose writing is poetic, funny and full of class politics and deeply felt emotions, it is time to pick-up the ‘other’ Elizabeth Taylor.”

SWI: Grand Prix Literature 2024 goes to author from canton Aargau – “Writer Klaus Merz from canton Aargau is the 2024 winner of the Grand Prix for Swiss Literature.”

Literary Hub: Bring Back the Big, Comfortable Bookstore Reading Chair – “Casey Johnston makes a strong case for a small but essential comfort.”

Penguin: ‘The day that Peter Sutcliffe was caught is etched on my memory’: How I wrote The List of Suspicious Things – “From her dad’s realisation he knew the Yorkshire Ripper to a passion for true crime podcasts, Jennie Godfrey shares the inspiration behind her debut novel,” The List of Suspicious Things.

Atlas Obscura: The Most Romantic Poems of the Renaissance Weren’t Always for Lovers – “Declaring your love in a sonnet was not a couples-only endeavor,” writes Shannon McHugh.

Air Mail: The Swan Who Was Spared – Joseph Rodota reveals “the real reason Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, Truman Capote’s guest of honor at the Black and White Ball, was the only “swan” he didn’t betray.”

People: The Biggest Bombshells from Philip Gefter’s New Book About the Making of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – “The new book [Cocktails with George and Martha: Movies, Marriage, and the Making of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?] shares revelations about which Hollywood stars were almost cast in the movie and what went on behind-the-scenes.

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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, Cynthia Zarin, Dylan Thomas, Flannery O’Connor, Hari Krishna Kaul, Italy, Kerri Andrews, Reading