An end of week recap
“If you can’t write freely and if you can’t speak freely in your country, you can be sure that you are living in a very primitive country.”
– Mehmet Murat ildan
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 and its followers, please let me know. I will happily share your news here with the fabulous array of bibliowonks who read this weekly wind up.
* Club Opening Times *
I hope you have a colossal stack of carefully selected reading materials on-hand because it’s that time of year again… I need hardly remind you; we are on the cusp of one of Karen Langley’s and Simon Thomas’s sensational literary happenings – and the word on the aisles is that from 15th to 21st April it will be the hottest ticket in the library. Please prepare to reserve your favourite armchair and join the bookish in-crowd at the 1937 Club. Topping the bill will be famous favourites such as Steinbeck, Woolf, Hemingway, Orwell and Christie, along with Tolkien, Seuss and Blyton. Also appearing will be Szerb, Fallada and Schulz with new faces Zissu and Gombrowicz making their debuts. So, please hurry over to Kaggsy’s March reading and April plans – including the #1937Club! for the latest insider information on the books everyone will be reading for the 1,937th year of the Common Era!
* Staging A Literary Event *
Throughout April, to coincide with Shakespeare’s birthday, Lory of Entering the Enchanted Castle will once again host Reading the Theatre – a month-long celebration of all things theatrical during which you are encouraged to indulge in a variety of “theatre-and-music-related fiction and nonfiction, along with reading plays and watching films.” In a continuation of her “Ozathon readalong project [she intends] to reread Gregory Maguire’s novel [Wicked] as well as a book about the production” of the hit musical. “Other than that,” says Lory, she will “let serendipity be [her] guide, as it usually leads […] to some wonderful surprises.” For further information and an opportunity to make recommendations, please see: April is almost here, and Reading the Theatre will be back!
* 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 Millions: Most Anticipated: The Great Spring 2024 Preview – Over 90 of the most exciting books coming out this spring, including titles by Rachel Khong, Iman Mersal, Rachel Cusk, Elias Canetti, Elwin Cotman and many others.
The Guardian: ‘You can see it as a revenge fantasy’: The new book arguing that enslaved people co-authored the Bible – “God’s Ghostwriters by Candida Moss aims to shine a light on the contributions to Christianity by imprisoned workers.”
JSTOR Daily: A Garden of Verses – “As commonplace books evolved into anthologies, they developed reputations as canonical works, their editors curating tomes as vibrant as the loveliest bouquets,” writes Ed Simon.
49th Shelf: The Chat with Christine Higdon – “Toronto-based author Christine Higdon has a special place in her heart for the ocean,” says Trevor Corkum. “Perhaps that’s why she’s set her second novel—the exquisite Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue (ECW Press)—firmly on the West Coast, in the heyday of 1920s Vancouver. The book follows the trials and tribulations of the strong-hearted and strong-willed McKenzie sisters.”
Air Mail: Love and Let Die – “Behind the shaken-not-stirred-martini-drinking James Bond, there was Ian Fleming, whose real life was marked by glamour and tragedy in equal measure,” notes Pico Iyer in his review of Nicholas Shakespeare’s Ian Fleming: The Complete Man.
Variety: ‘Long Live the Tyrant,’ About Publisher Giancarlo DiTrapano, the ‘Basquiat of the New York Literary Scene,’ Eyes Spring Shoot – “‘Long Live the Tyrant: Life and Times of Giancarlo DiTrapano’, a feature documentary about the independent book publisher, is being developed as an Italy-U.S. coproduction,” reveals Leo Barraclough.
The Critic: He’s not the messiah, he’s a transwoman – “Transsexual Apostate is a disturbing book, written for disturbing times,” says Victoria Smith.
ABC News: The Stella Prize 2024: A reading guide to the six shortlisted books – A provocative debut, a revealing memoir of an open marriage and the latest novel from an Australian literary giant are among the six books shortlisted for the 2024 Stella Prize.
The Asian Age: Book Review | Nature the teacher in land of renunciation – “The book is many-layered as it moves between the past and the present. Memory and its sister recollection imbue the lives of the characters,” says Malati Mathur of Never Never Land by Namita Gokhale.
The Rumpus: Seeing What You Can’t Hear: Eliza Barry Callahan’s The Hearing Test – “One of the more intriguing if under-explored relationships in literature is that of the senses,” observes Nina Moses in her review of The Hearing Test by Eliza Barry Callahan.
Literary Hub: Julia Alvarez! Maggie Nelson! Wrestlemania! 26 new books – Gabrielle Bellot with a selection of “different, dynamic, daring, devastating, or deviously funny” books published in the first week of April.
Open Culture: Gertrude Stein Gets a Snarky Rejection Letter from a Publisher (1912) – Experimental novelist, poet, playwright and art collector Gertrude Stein received a rejection letter from publisher Alfred C. Fifield “mocking her prose.”
Vox: A very bad year for press freedom – “Russia’s year-long detention of Evan Gershkovich is one part of a very grim picture for journalism,” reports Caroline Houck.
AP: Book Review: ‘Glorious Exploits’ turns classical history into an endearing comedy about tragedy – Glorious Exploits “is a celebration of stories and storytelling lavishing in the emotional power of the arts, and one that’s especially apt in dealing with the fallout of the Peloponnesian War at a time when […] fighting has left cities in rubble and millions of people facing starvation,” writes Donna Edwards.
AnOther: Johnny Flynn on Ripley: “We Leaned Into This Yearning Between Them” – “As a new Netflix adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley is released, Johnny Flynn talks [to Cici Peng] about acting alongside Andrew Scott, and why their show is ‘doing something quite different’ to the famous Jude Law-Matt Damon iteration.”
Asharq Al-Awsat: Maryse Condé, Prolific ‘Grande Dame’ of Caribbean Literature, Dies at Age 90 – “Maryse Condé, an acclaimed French-language novelist from Guadeloupe […] has died at age 90.”
Caught by the River: Where Are the Fellows Who Cut the Hay? – “Inspired by George Ewart Evans’s Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay, Robert Ashton’s Where Are the Fellows Who Cut the Hay? is an ode to rural life — charting traditions of the past, how they were lost and why we need to reconnect.
The Scotsman: Edinburgh’s new book festival director on why it is keeping Baillie Gifford on board despite boycott threat – Brian Ferguson finds “Jenny Niven is overseeing event’s move to a new home.”
Her Campus: Feline Figures: Exploring the Enduring Presence of Cats in Japanese Literature – According to Erin Kelley: “If you were to look back at the literary fiction novels written by Japanese authors, there is a prevalent usage of cats.”
Nature: Wild women and restoring public trust: Books in brief – “Andrew Robinson reviews five of the best science picks.”
Reactor: A Dazzling Collection of Classic Tales: The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury – “In this brilliant follow-up to The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury expanded his scope and cemented his reputation as a master storyteller” with The Illustrated Man, recalls science fiction fan Alan Brown.
The Washington Post: Want to finish more books? Super readers share their tips. – “Some people finish hundreds of books a year, and they have wisdom to share,” finds Sophia Nguyen.
Carnegie Politika: Why Contemporary Russian Literature Is Thriving – Galina Yuzefovich observes that “Russia’s new generation of writers are predominantly female, more regional than imperial in their outlook, and embrace diversity of form.”
LARB: “A Passage to India” on Its 100th Birthday – Author Sameer Pandya traces the path of E. M. Forster’s classic novel in his own passage to India.
InReview: Book review: Always Will Be – Courtney Jaye writes: “Author Mykaela Saunders – winner of the 2022 David Unaipon Award – has created an immersive collection of speculative short stories [in Always Will Be: Stories of Goori Sovereignty from the Futures of the Tweed] that will resonate across generations.”
BBC Scotland: JK Rowling hate law posts not criminal, police say – Megan Bonar and Katy Scott report: “Social media comments made by JK Rowling challenging Scotland’s new hate crime law are not being treated as criminal, Police Scotland has said.”
Fast Company: HarperCollins made a tiny tweak to its book design—and has saved thousands of trees as a result – “The publisher is reducing the number of pages in its books by tweaking their fonts and layout,” says Elizabeth Segran.
The Korea Times: ‘Korean history is being banned in America!‘ – Banned Book Club, Kim Hyun-sook’s graphic novel about a dictator banning books in 1980s Korea, faces restrictions in 2020s America, reports Jon Dunbar.
The Jewish Review of Northern California: How Jessica Cohen became the go-to English translator of Israeli literature – “If you’ve read any books or essays by contemporary Israeli writers, you’ve probably encountered the words of Jessica Cohen.”
Quillette: Sex and Smashed Steel – Benjamin Kerstein takes “a look back at J.G. Ballard’s Crash—one of the 20th century’s greatest and most disturbingly prophetic novels.”
Slate: That Place Right Before You Dream – Nicholas Cannariato seeks help for his insomnia from Lewis Carroll’s Guide for Insomniacs, which has just been republished with a fresh introduction by Gyles Brandreth.
Electric Literature: A Trip to the Underworld is a Rite of Passage for Young Women – “Rachel Lyon, author of Fruit of the Dead, discusses adapting the Persephone myth for the 21st century.”
Hub: John Barth, towering literary figure and revered mentor, dies at 93 – John Barth, the author whose darkly comic and complicated novels revolved around the art of literature and who launched countless debates over the art of fiction, has passed away.
Asymptote: Palestinian Poetry is Poetry for All Time: An Interview with Huda J. Fakhreddine – “Palestinian poetry is not only poetry for times of crisis. It is not breaking news or soundbites for the media. It is poetry for all time …” Sebastián Sánchez in conversation with Huda J. Fakhreddine about translating the work of Samer Abu Hawwash.
Open: The Mythic Meets the Mundane – A Sri Lankan novel [The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera] is a top contender for the world’s leading science-fiction prize.
Literary Review: Lady Stardust – In her review of Me and Mr Jones: My Life with David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars by Suzi Ronson, “Deborah Levy recalls David Bowie’s metamorphosis into Ziggy Stardust, tracing this transformation back to a hair salon on Beckenham High Street, where an unsuspecting young colourist invented his signature red mullet.”
Publishers Weekly: OCLC Acquires CloudLibrary Digital Content Platform – John Maher picks up on the story that the company behind WorldCat has acquired digital lending service platform CloudLibrary from library e-book vendor Bibliotheca.
The Hedgehog Review: America’s Great Poet of Darkness – Ed Simon with “a reconsideration of Robert Frost at 150.”
Frontline: The war that never was – “Nimbly, and often wittily, Mukund Padmanabhan’s The Great Flap of 1942 recounts the mad exodus from Madras during the Second World War.”
BBC Culture: Harvard University removes human skin binding from book – “Harvard University has removed the binding of human skin from a 19th Century book kept in its library,” reports Noor Nanji.
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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
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