Winding Up the Week #375

An end of week recap

“Simplicity and sincerity generally go hand in hand, as both proceed from a love of truth.”
– Mary Wollstonecraft (born 27^th April 1759)

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.

Earlier this month, Persephone Books celebrated its 25^th anniversary with three days of events at its famous bookstore and several other venues across the English city of Bath. If you get your skates on, you can listen to The Persephone Festival talks and discussions for free until 22^nd May. Simply head over to the official page and click ‘play’ on any of the recordings listed there. Apparently, a handful of happenings haven’t been included “due to copyright issues” – but you will still find a wealth of entertaining chatter on topics ranging from a celebration of endpapers and the rise of heritage publishing to single women and the works of Dorothy Whipple. I know these books are highly regarded by many WUTW readers, so please don’t miss out on this splendid opportunity to immerse yourself in these unique broadcasts.

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.

* From Lovecraft to Lovesey – But What Was the Year? *

Following an incredibly successful 1937 Club event, Karen Langley and Simon Thomas have revealed the year of their next reading challenge. Please ready yourselves for the twelve-month period in which The Beatles disbanded, the Aswan High Dam in Egypt was completed, the Miss World beauty pageant was disrupted by Women’s Liberation protesters, Bertrand Russell passed away and flamboyant fashions were all the rage. It was also the start of a decade known for the rapid pace of societal change. If you haven’t guessed by now, the chosen year is 1970 – when a plethora of newly published books came hot off the press. Among them were titles by Muriel Spark, Yukio Mishima, Toni Morrison, Gore Vidal, Hannah Arendt, Melvyn Bragg, Germaine Greer, Roald Dahl, Anne Hébert, Patrick White, Nuruddin Farah, Susan Hill, Ted Hughes and, of course, Agatha Christie. To see what Karen and Simon have to say about the 1970 Club, head over to Some thoughts on our #1937club reading – and where next?? and The next club will be…. You have until 14^th October to prepare! 

* 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 Hedgehog Review: Waking From the Dream of Total Knowledge: Searching for the origins of a better posthumanism – Daniel Kraft considers how relationships of cooperation and perhaps even solidarity might be forged between human beings and animals in his review of two recently published books.

The Believer: The Radiant Force of the Incline – Meara Sharma writes “in praise of the briefly famous Caribbean author Eric Walrond and other writers who skirt great expectations.”

Pop Matters: Jules Verne’s ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ Goes Deeper Than You May Realize – “Like its vast ocean setting, Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea goes deeper into pop culture – its tentacles reaching farther than its creature’s – than you may realize,” writes Sam Weller.

The Common Reader: How Penelope Fitzgerald became a late blooming novelist. – Henry Oliver, author of Second Act: What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life, discusses one of his “favourite writers,” the late Booker Prize-winning novelist Penelope Fitzgerald.

N+1: Not Writing – “The problem is I’ve chosen words, which can’t seem to be about nothing,” says Danielle Dutton in an excerpt from her cycle of surreal stories set in the quickly disappearing prairieland of the American Midwest, Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other.

The Millions: “You Can Almost Hear the Ghosts”: Valeria Luiselli on Juan Rulfo – Mexican writer Valeria Luiselli […] explores the new translation of Juan Rulfo’s landmark text Pedro Páramo.

Hungarian Literature Online: Mosaic Women’s Fates – Petra Baluja reviews Panni Puskás’s 2024 EUPL-nominated Megmenteni bárkit (That Any Might Be Saved), a novel focusing on “the fates of women who are searching for meaning in their lives.”

Art in America: Eight Essential Books About Surrealism – “These eight books make the history, reach, and lasting impact of Surrealism—a movement celebrating its 100th anniversary this year—abundantly clear,” says Ara H. Merjian.

Nation Cymru: Book review: How Black Was My Valley by Brad Evans – “The Truth about the Rhondda? Author and documentary-maker John Geraint reviews How Black Was My Valley,” a people’s history of the former mining communities of South Wales.

Minor Literature[s]: The Critic and Their Readers — Michel Butor (tr. Mathilde Merouani) – In this extract from Selected Essays by the French poet, novelist, teacher, essayist, art critic and translator Michel Butor (1926-2016), he argues: “One always writes with a view to being read. This word I am writing is intended for a gaze, even if it is my own. The very act of writing implies an audience.”

Australian Book Review: Small doses – Debra Adelaide reviews “three recent short story collections.” 

The Walrus: Forget That Stuff about Mounties, Hockey, and Corny Beer Commercials – “As Canada changes, the people writing its books—and the stories they tell—are changing too,” finds M. G. Vassanj. 

Air Mail: From Anthem to Elegy – Upon the release of his new book, Muse of Fire, the author and former Simon & Schuster editor Michael Korda reflects on a tragic, talented group of WWI soldier-poets.

Literary Hub: Sasha Vasilyuk on the Price of Secrecy in Russia and Ukraine – “Jane Ciabattari talks to the author of Your Presence Is Mandatory” – a novel based on real events about a Ukrainian World War II veteran with a secret that could land him in the Gulag.

The Critic: Putting a gloss on big ideas – Daniel Johnson on “the outsize influence of small magazines.”

Rubryka: Polish scholar honored with prestigious 2023 Drahomán Prize for Ukrainian language translation – “On World Book and Copyright Day, the ‘Sense’ bookstore in the capital received the 2023 Drahomán Prize for translating from Ukrainian to various languages. The award went to Polish scholar Katarzyna Kotynska” for her translation of Oksana Zabuzhko’s The Longest Journey.

The Boston Globe: Helen Vendler, a towering presence in poetry criticism, has died – Bryan Marquard reports: “Harvard professor emerita was considered [America’s] ‘leading poetry critic’.”

The Moscow Times: Russia Creates Book Censorship Body – Vedomosti – A major publisher has already stopped selling books by James Baldwin and Michael Cunningham, as well as Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin, for alleged “LGBT propaganda.”

Big Think: 6 books that shaped Japanese philosophy – “Japanese thought can’t be easily characterized by just a few books” — nevertheless, says B.V.E. Hyde, “this essential guide is a great place to start.”

The Daily Star: The stories we want to tell: In conversation with Gemini Wahhaj – “If I wrote a hundred immigrant stories, they would all be stuck. They would all share this common sentiment of being stuck.” Usraat Fahmidah interviews Gemini Wahhaj, author of The Children of This Madness – a complex tale of modern Bengalis.

That’s: Aube Rey Lescure on Her Debut Shanghai-Based Novel, River East, River West – Sophie Steiner talks to Aube Rey Lescure about the “expat package” lifestyle of Shanghai in the early 2000s, as depicted in the author’s 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlisted novel, River East, River West.

The Age: Why won’t Melbourne Writers Festival allow live questions any more? – In an unusual move, the Melbourne Writers Festival won’t allow the audience to stand up and ask questions at its sessions – and some festivalgoers are breathing a sigh of relief, finds Jane Sullivan.

The Paris Review: Prescribing Creativity: The Meta-Diaries of Marion Milner – The British writer and psychoanalyst Marion Milner (more widely remembered by her pseudonym, Joanna Field, a pioneer of introspective journaling) “found psychoanalytic writing familiar with painful inhibition. She wanted to make room in it for creative exultation too—what she called ‘the yell of joy,” says David Russell.

Brittle Paper: Ethiopia Unbound, First English Novel by African Writer, Gets a Reboot 110 Years Later – “The 1911 novel Ethiopia Unbound by Ghanaian writer J. E. Casely Hayford is widely considered the first English-language novel published by an African writer. 110 years later, the novel is getting a reboot through a new edition published by Michigan State University Press.”

Chicago Review of Books: Travel the World with these Books from Around the Globe – Leah Rachel von Essen shows how you can “travel the world through books” without leaving your home.

The Elysian: No one buys books – Elle Griffin shares “everything [she] learned about the publishing industry from [the 2002] Penguin vs. DOJ” trial.

Big Issue: Prospect Cottage: See inside artist Derek Jarman’s seaside home for the first time – Gilbert McCarragher, author of the recently published Prospect Cottage: Derek Jarman’s House, says the “artefacts that populate the late artist’s home speak of an aesthetic life well lived.”

History Today: ‘Bluestockings’ by Susannah Gibson review – “Bluestockings: The First Women’s Movement by Susannah Gibson makes a case for 18th-century proto-feminism. Do the Bluestockings fit?” asks Sophie Coulombeau.

The Yale Review: When Metaphor Gets Literal – Jennifer Grotz on “what [her] mother’s coma taught [her] about reading poems.”

Morning Star: Lenin, up close and intimate – “Andrew Murray recommends two titles that popularise Lenin as a person and revolutionary theoretician and practitioner.”

AP News: Book Review: Jen Silverman’s gripping second novel explores the long afterlife of political violence – Ann Levin describes Jen Silverman’s historical novel, There’s Going to Be Trouble, as “beautifully written” with “an intricate, clever plot that braids together two separate stories connected by the main characters.”

The Indian Express: Author and pioneering Indian psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar passes away – “Kakar’s work continues to influence scholars, therapists, and anyone interested in understanding the complexities of the human mind across diverse cultures,” reports Rishika Singh.

Reactor: Nordic Visions Provides a Unique Overview of Contemporary Nordic SF, Fantasy, and Horror – Rowdy Geirsson introduces readers to Nordic Visions: The Best of Nordic Speculative Fiction, a “recent anthology [celebrating] a broad range of short stories, from ghost stories to fairy tales to alien planets.”

Humanities: Gay Geographer – Robert W. Fieseler discovers that in the men’s travel guide, Address Book 1968, pioneering American businessman, Bob Damron, “mapped a [gay] underground” scene.

Esquire: Inside the Literary Travel Boom – “Book butlers! Curated libraries! Custom cruises! Literary-themed vacations are the hot new trend in tourism,” declares Adrienne Westenfeld.

Creative Review: Nadia Lee Cohen creates a dupe of her own book – “The artist’s new book, a ‘pirated’ edition of her hugely popular debut monograph, embraces the visual language of Japanese books geared towards movie fans in the 90s.”

The Province: Novel follows teen fleeing Mormon fundamentalist community in 1960s – The Celestial Wife by Canadian author Leslie Howard, “tells the story of a 15-year-old who escapes marriage to a man 40 years her senior,” says Dana Gee. 

The Japan Times: The story isn’t over for Japan’s bookstores – Shops without staff, shelves for rent, cafes and meetups are some of the ways the country’s dwindling bookstores are trying to survive.

Literary Review: Apocalypse Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow – “The end of the world is in the air” but “should we be surprised?” asks Mark Blacklock in his review of Dorian Lynskey’s account of our interminable obsession with ‘end times,’ Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World.

Sherwood: Fan Fic Book Boom: Publishers are scouring the world of fan fiction to find the next hit author – According to Allegra Rosenberg: “There’s been an uptick in authors whose origin stories as fan-fiction writers are publicized as part of their appeal.”

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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.