An end of week recap

“Love is like the sea. It’s a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.”
– Zora Neale Hurston

There will be no wind up next Saturday because I’m getting married. Thank you so much everybody for your kind good wishes. I will see you on the other side (of the broom, that is).

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 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.

* A Short Paws to Ponder Moomin Week *

We forlornly bid Moomin Week farewell last Sunday, but not before many splendid features had been posted – a small selection of which I highlighted in WUTW #390.

My own piece, TOVE TROVE: Tales from Moominvalley by Tove Jansson, was released into the wild at the tail end of the event (on the first day of September) but there was a positive mountain of contributions from members of our bookish community. I only wish I could mention them all here, but time is simply not on my side. Happily, Mallika has gathered all the contributions in one place at Literary Potpourri. I therefore suggest you peruse Moomin Week 2024 at leisure with a steamy cuppa and a sizeable slab of cake.

It remains only for me to express my gratitude to Mallika and Chris (two incredibly busy book people) for hosting this marvellous event in honour of my fast-approaching wedding – I feel immensely touched by their wonderful gesture. I would also like to thank everyone who took part. I shall paws moomintarily during the day to think of you all.

* Irresistible Items *

Umpteen fascinating articles appeared on my bookdar last week. I generally make a point of tweeting/x-ing (not to mention tooting and 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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Publishing Perspectives: UK: The £50,000 Baillie Gifford Prize’s 2024 Longlist – “The Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction has released its 12-title 2024 longlist, with its shortlist expected from the jury on October 31,” reports Porter Anderson. 

Literary Review: Handbags & Handcuffs – Until the 1920s, only men could be sworn as police constables in Britain. Nevertheless, in Victorian times an army of women performed detective roles unofficially and largely out of sight. Claire Harman investigates The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective, Sara Lodge’s new history of the women who brought Victorian criminals to account, and how they became a public sensation.

ABC News: The best new books released in August, as selected by avid readers and critics – A near-future debut novel about defiant young women boxers stood out to the ABC critics last month, plus seven other books they simply could not put down.

Galley Beggar Press: The Galley Beggar Q&A: Mark Bowles – Described by its publisher as a “savagely funny novel that disdains literary and moral conventions,” Mark Bowles’ forthcoming novel All My Precious Madness is being touted as “one of the most electric debuts of the last decade.” 

The Walrus: Moleskine Mania: How a Notebook Conquered the Digital Era – “Do you know there’s a section of our customer base that buys a fresh Moleskine every time they come into a store? We have no idea what they do with them.” Roland Allen on the adored Moleskine notebook.

The Paris Review: Against Rereading – “It makes no sense to luxuriate in Flaubert’s physiognomic details over and over again, unless you think you’re going to live forever,” argues Australian writer Oscar Schwartz.

Historia: Female sexuality in historical fiction – “Lesley McDowell wanted to show all the consequences of women’s sexuality in her novel, Clairmont — the tragic and the happy. There was plenty of both in the Shelley-Godwin-Byron circle that shaped her protagonist Claire Clairmont’s life. And female sexual desire needs to be reflected in historical fiction, Lesley says.”

Image: Working It In: Moral Authority in Russian Fiction – Phil Klay looks closely at Andrei Platonov’s series of satirical scenes from Soviet life in Chevengur and Ludmila Ulitskaya’s short story collection, The Body of the Soul.

Independent: Dogs don’t block creativity like Karl Ove Knausgaard says – every writer needs one – “Knausgaard once said that having a pet pooch gave him writer’s block but Nick Duerden has found his border terrier Missy to be a balm. He talks to other authors about the literary appeal of all creatures great and small.”

Plough: The Word within the World – “Poetry, the oldest and most universal of arts, is increasingly underappreciated.” Four poets explain to James Matthew Wilson how they “hope to reverse that.”

The Berliner: Why author Yoko Tawada’s Berlin is so much more than its stereotypes – Alexander Wells on “Berlin-based author Yoko Tawada, whose masterful multilingual novellas [including her latest, Spontaneous Acts] embody the city’s spirit like few others.”

Kyiv Independent: Ukrainians find solace, identity in books amid Russia’s war – “Despite Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine, the country’s publishing houses report increased sales, while dozens of new bookstores have opened in Ukrainian cities,” says Dinara Khalilova.

Prospect: On the eighth day... – “Marilynne Robinson is a very great novelist, whose works repay serious and sustained attention. The same cannot be said of her foray into biblical criticism,” are the cutting words from Rhodri Lewis in this piece on the American author’s Reading Genesis.

Big Think: Tolkien’s Middle-Earth wasn’t a place. It was a time in (English) history. – “The fellowship’s journey through Middle-Earth mirrors the modernization of the English countryside,” suggests Tim Brinkhof.

Public Books: What’s a Theory to Do? – “Given the scope of the crisis before us, we will need theory of all stripes to find our way forward,” writes Brendan Chambers about the present state of studying literature.

BookTrib: Tracking the Sharp Turn of the Campus Novel Over 30 Years – “The campus novel is that rare form of literature defined not by plot, tone, or pacing, but by setting…” says Savannah Cordova.

Full Stop: The Book Censor’s Library – Bothayna Al-Essa – In this world, the internet no longer exists, religion has been reconstituted into state-approved mush, the buildings are all grey slabs, and everyone wears khaki – for the good of the people, of course. Alana Mohamed reviews The Book Censor’s Library, a dystopian book about books by Kuwaiti author Bothayna Al-Essa.

The Hedgehog Review: I Sing the Electric Body – “To begin a sentence is to launch into the void and syntax plays a large role in how you will land.” Brian Patrick Eha discusses word order.

Hungarian Literature Online: Magda Szabó: Abigail – “Hanna Zelma Horányi recounts the thrill of reading Magda Szabó’s beloved young adult novel, Abigail, set in a girls’ boarding school during wartime.”

Independent Book Review: Book Review: The Legend of Atlantis & the Science of Geology – “A thought-provoking book on how the existence of the mythical Atlantis might not be as far-fetched as we’ve been led to believe.The Legend of Atlantis & the Science of Geology reviewed by Erica Ball.”

Air Mail: Editor’s Picks – “This week, don’t miss a chronicle of rebuilding the World Trade Center, an ode to the Bronx, a look at Venice’s foremost geographer, and a Tchaikovsky biography.”

EL PAÍS: ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ sweeps Japan after a 50-year delay – “The 1967 novel by Gabriel García Márquez has become the publishing phenomenon of the summer in Japan, largely due to the upcoming release of the Netflix series based on the book.”

Al Jazeera: WhatsApp novelists use messaging app to write and sell books in Zimbabwe – “Emerging authors and eager readers are finding more accessible and affordable ways to get their literary fix,” finds Chris Muronzi.

The Collidescope: Earthly Time: A Rare Interview with Thomas McGonigle – George Salis enjoys a rare chat with the Irish American author.

Hindustan Times: Daisy Rockwell – “Do whatever you need to do, but do not remain silent” – Our City That Year, Daisy Rockwell’s “translation of Geetanjali Shree’s novel, Hamara Shahar Us Baras, based on the rioting that followed the demolition of the Babri Masjid, on why writers must speak up, on her current project, and on mentoring young translators.”

Hazlitt: The Agitator – “The activist-academic Silvia Federici [author of Caliban and the Witch] has never muted her message to get ahead. What’s the cost of refusing to sell out?” wonders Kelli Korducki.

CBC Books: 25 movies for book lovers to see at TIFF 2024 – Here are some of the movies showing at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival inspired by books.

Fine Books & Collections: Tolkien Poems, Medieval Queens and Temptresses, and American Book History: September Books Roundup – FB&C’s regular look at the new books that have recently caught the eye of their print and online editors this month.

Grazia: Grazia Book Club’s Latest Read: The List Of Suspicious Things By Jennie Godfrey – “Maria Lally shares her thoughts on The List Of Suspicious Things, a “coming-of-age tale in a time of fear.”

Open: An Unknown Indian – Lhendup G Bhutia describes Neha Dixit’s The Many Lives of Syeda X as “a portrait of India through the life of a migrant woman.”

Women’s Prize Trust: Emma van Straaten on the Discoveries community – “Emma van Straaten won the inaugural Discoveries Award in 2021 […]. Now, almost four years later [she] is about to publish her debut novel, This Immaculate Body. Here she reflects on her publishing process, achieving her dreams as she navigated early motherhood, and the community she found through the Discoveries programme.”

Quillette: Monstrous Things – “Dostoevsky, Alice Munro, and the nature of fiction— [Allan Stratton asks] what does our inability to forgive do to our ability to confess?”

FIL 2024: Mia Couto is the winner of the 2024 FIL Prize for Literature – “Author of a remarkable literary work that invites ‘us to recognize and approach the history and nature of the planet in a different way,’ the Portuguese-speaking Mozambican writer will receive the award on November 30 at the FIL Guadalajara.”

South China Morning Post: Hong Kong book fair organised by Tai Kwun pulls essay collection by ex-opposition politician – “Cultural hub says it removed Margaret Ng’s latest book to abide with law, while publisher’s earlier online post lamented lack of reasons given,” reports Natalie Wong.

Discourse: In Praise of Reference Books – “Reference volumes should be valued as least as much as fiction and other nonfiction books,” argues Daniel M. Rothschild.

The Cundill History Prize: The 2024 Cundill History Prize Shortlist – Administered by McGill University in Montreal and awarded by a distinguished jury, the Cundill History Prize has announced its 2024 shortlist, reports Cassandra Drudi.

Works in Progress: Doom scrolling – “We may be close to rediscovering thousands of texts that had been lost for millennia. Their contents may reshape how we understand the Ancient World,” reveals Justin Germain.

ASB Zeitung: Regrettably, renowned Czech author Daniela Hodrova passed away. – Max Becker writes: “In her literary endeavours, Daniela Hodrova repeatedly sought inspiration from the mysterious nooks and locales of her hometown, Prague. Regrettably, this daring writer has now departed from us.”

Variety: Disney Pauses ‘The Graveyard Book’ Film Following Assault Allegations Against Neil Gaiman – Disney has put the brakes on the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book following allegations of sexual assault against the author.

Fortune: Turkish penpal duo publish one of the nation’s best-selling novels through prison bars – “A jailed Kurdish leader and a Turkish writer on the other side of the bars have used their penpal exchanges to write one of Turkey’s highest-selling books.”

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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: #ToveTrove, Emma Van Straaten, Moomin, Moomin Week, Rachel Clarke, Simon Morrison, Tove Jansson, Tove Trove, Yoko Tawada, Zora Neale Hurston