An end of week recap
“A bridge can still be built, while the bitter waters are flowing beneath.”
– Anthony Liccione
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.
* 150 Years of Lucy Maud Montgomery *
Nova Scotian writer and editor, Sarah Emsley is preparing to host a blog series dedicated to the acclaimed Canadian author L.M. Montgomery in honour of her 150th birthday. The event begins on 30th October with a guest post from Kate Scarth, Chair of L.M. Montgomery Studies at the University of Prince Edward Island, and ends on 30th November, the date on which the creator of the Anne Shirley stories was born in 1874. You can see the names of all the contributors at “A world of wonderful beauty”: L.M. Montgomery at 150.
* Lesen Sie Deutsche Literatur im November! *
German Literature Month XIV will begin next month, with hosts Lizzy Siddal of Lizzy’s Literary Life (Volume 2) and Caroline at Beauty is a Sleeping Cat very much hoping you will “dust off the German/Austrian/Swiss books on your [TBR] piles, rush to the book shop to get the latest German language publications or browse your local library to find some gems.” Among this year’s happenings will be “a Franz Kafka week to celebrate the centenary of the man of the moment” – along with suggested weekly topics for readalongs. To take part, please remember, “the one rule of GLM applies: reading material must have been originally written in German.” For full anweisungen, please see Announcing German Literature Month XIV.
* Celebrate the Life of Paul Auster *
Annabel Gaskell is hoping to host another Paul Auster reading challenge. The last one (see WUTW #94) took place in 2020 but sadly the American writer (best known for works like The New York Trilogy and 4 3 2 1) passed away earlier this year, so she felt it would be fitting to turn the event into a celebration of his birth (3rd February 1947). Paul Auster Reading Week II will commence on Monday 3rd February 2025 and run until 10th February, formerly launching at AnnaBookBel’s “in the new year with the tag #AusterRW25.” She would also like to “include books by his wife of 42 years, Siri Hustvedt, should you be so inclined”, as she “wrote so eloquently about him when he died.” Annabel has chosen Auster’s final novel, Baumgartner, as the official group read. Please head over to Paul Auster Reading Week II anyone? and share your thoughts with others intending to take part.
* Lit Crit Blogflash *
I am going to share with you one of my favourite 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 in the last week or so:
Interview with Lauren Soloy – Anna Iltnere, host of Sea Library Magazine (and creator of the remarkable Sea Library in Latvia), has written an engaging piece on the woman behind Tove and the Island with No Address – “an inspiring story of little Tove [Jansson] and her family spending their summers on an island in the Baltic Sea” – which she describes here as “a wondrous picture book for Tove Jansson fans [that] will see daylight thanks to Canadian author and illustrator Lauren Soloy”. Anna recently chatted to Lauren and was able to pose questions on a variety of topics, including the author’s main sources of inspiration, childhood memories, the sea, recommended books and what Tove means to her. A delightful feature, well worth reading.
* 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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Atlas Obscura: Who Is Baba Yaga? – “Trickster, mentor, probable goddess—Slavic folklore’s most famous villain is so much more than a witch”, says Kris Spisak in this excerpt from Becoming Baba Yaga: Trickster, Feminist, and Witch of the Woods.
NPR: Margaret Atwood was advised to just find a good man. Her response: ‘You’re an idiot’ – Canadian writer Margaret Atwood spoke to Rachel Martin for NPR’s new podcast Wild Card, where guests randomly pick questions from a deck of cards. The first one gave Atwood an opportunity to recall the university adviser who told her to forget about writing and get married.
Literary Hub: Footnotes All the Way Down: How Russian Poetry Mines the Past to Reveal the Present – “Forrest Gander remembers two innovative Moscow poets, Nina Iskrenko and Alexander Yeremenko”.
Heavy Feather Review: Fiction Review: Jacob M. Appel on Seth Rogoff’s New Novel The Castle – A century after the death of Kafka, Seth Rogoff – a modern-day “master of the Kafkaesque form” – delivers The Castle, a “deeply unsettling [and] insightful […] postmodern hermeneutic detective tale”.
Radio Prague International: The life of Edith Pargeter (alias Ellis Peters): Murder-mystery novelist and self-taught Czech translator – “Edith Pargeter was a writer who achieved fame in Britain for her historical murder mysteries. What is less well known is her career as a (self-taught) translator and promoter of Czech literature.”
Penguin: Introducing the Penguin Weird Fiction Series – “Blending horror, fantasy and science fiction, weird fiction is in a category of its own. This new collection”, says Katie Russell, “is a must-have for the subgenre’s fans and newcomers alike…”
The Millions: How Should Debut Novelists Measure Success? – K.E. Semmel asks, “what is the magic sales number an author needs to reach to prove their worth?” and “how do writers ensure the kind of sales that will position them for a second novel?”
The Japan Times: ‘Under the Eye of the Big Bird’: Hiromi Kawakami’s speculative future sets civilization adrift – In Under the Eye of the Big Bird, the author reimagines sexual reproduction, family ties and societal roles in a passionless world that is neither a dystopia nor an improvement on reality.
Hungarian Literature Online: Tibor Déry: Satire and Controversy – This portrait of Hungarian writer and poet Tibor Déry describes how and why his “satirical realism left an indelible mark on Hungarian culture and literature of the 20th century.”
Nepali Times: Finding a permanent home in poetry – “Nepali literature goes international with a recent win at the Donald Hall Prize for Poetry in the US”, says Pinki Sris Rana.
Full Stop: Mothersland – Shahzoda Samarqandi – “Mahtab has translated herself into her mother, and she has translated the past to make it her own”, writes Sarah Gear in her piece on the Uzbek novel, Mothersland.
ArtsHub: Book review: The Burrow, Melanie Cheng – In The Burrow, “a new pet rabbit becomes the focal point for a grieving family” living in Melbourne, finds Thuy On.
The Common Reader: “You can never be wise until you learn to love reading.” – Henry Oliver discusses his “love of Samuel Johnson.”
TC Jewfolk: New Work Of Historical Fiction Imagines An Affecting Look At Anne Frank – Shani R. Friedman reviews Alice Hoffman’s When We Flew Away, a novel exploring the period before Anne Frank and her family went into hiding.
The Korea Times: Nobel laureate Han Kang’s books fly off shelves with over 500,000 copies sold – Two major Korean booksellers have revealed that over 500,000 copies of Nobel Prize laureate Han Kang’s novels and short stories have flown off their shelves since her win.
The Scotsman: Why Ian Rankin went to prison for his new 25th Rebus book – “The best selling author has been writing about John Rebus for more than three decades but [as he tells Janet Christie,] this is the first time that the detective has found himself behind bars”.
The Conversation: Does our literature, with its “sleeping beauties”, glorify rape? – Researcher in French literature, Sandrine Aragon, writes: “Images of sleeping beauties embraced by heroes are legion in our literature. Isn’t it time to reread these texts by taking an interest in the female point of view?”
LARB: Russia’s Media-Ideological Complex – “Michael David-Fox reviews Mikhail Suslov’s Putinism—Post-Soviet Russian Regime Ideology” – the first comprehensive academic study of this set of beliefs.
History Today: What Makes Good Historical Fiction? – “The best historical novels infer aspects of lives of which no trace remains. George Garnett starts awarding grades.”
AP: Percival Everett’s ‘James’ wins $50,000 Kirkus Prize for fiction – Hillel Italie reports: “Percival Everett’s novel James, his acclaimed reworking of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, has won a $50,000 prize that continues Everett’s recent wave of literary honors.”
Winnipeg Free Press: Author Heather O’Neill’s latest shines light into darkness – Ben Sigurdson talks to the Montreal-based author about her new historical fantasy novel, The Capital of Dreams – a “dark fairytale of survival and betrayal.”
Air Mail: Malcolm XYZ – In an interview with Jim Kelly, Malcolm Gladwell discusses his new book, Revenge of the Tipping Point, which re-frames the subject of his first best-seller: how trends become social epidemics.
ARTnews: British Library Slowly Recovers Following Cyberattack – “Following a cyberattack on the British Library’s digital systems last October, officials there have reported that key services are slowly being restored”, says Francesca Aton.
Big Think: How suicide warped David Foster Wallace’s legacy – “The [American] writer’s tragic death at age 46 has led many to view him as a tortured artist.” Tim Brinkhof explains “why this label is reductive.”
Bomb: Renee Gladman’s My Lesbian Novel – In this review of My Lesbian Novel, Charles Theonia writes: “Alternating between narrative and craft interview, Renee Gladman’s annotated romance follows June, ‘a character within a character’ disoriented by a beautiful stranger.”
Il Messaggero: Chilean Writer Antonio Skármeta Passes Away at 83 – Chilean writer, scriptwriter and director Antonio Skármeta, a leading figure in Latin American literature, has died.
JSTOR Daily: Zelda Fitzgerald on F. Scott’s Writing – “Zelda’s satirical review of F. Scott’s second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned, revealed much more than her wit, says Emily Zarevich.”
Fast Company: How the Mama of ‘Star Wars’ revolutionized science fiction and fantasy books – “Over the course of her career, Judy-Lynn del Rey earned a reputation as a superstar editor among her authors.”
University of Warwick: Warwick Prize for Women in Translation Longlist 2024 – A total of fifteen books (including novels by Han Kang, Clarice Lispector and Jenny Erpenbeck) have been longlisted for the eighth annual Warwick Prize for Women in Translation.
Harvard Magazine: How the Mind Assigns Meaning to Words – Jonathan Shaw reports on “new research on how the brain uses sounds to form words and create meaning.”
Vol.1 Brooklyn: Books of the Month: October 2024 – “What does your October reading list look like? [This one,] it’s safe to say, covers a lot of ground. If you’re looking to see NYC through new eyes or revisit the work of an iconic filmmaker, [it has] you covered; if you’d prefer a trip into space or a jaunt into history, [there are] those angles [too].”
Caught by the River: Technological Encounters – “What happens when a novelist finds herself among programmers and technical engineers with only an idea to guide her? Melissa Harrison is finding out.”
ABC News: Miranda July’s All Fours is much more risky than a ‘menopause’ book. It threatens to shake up and change – According to Virginia Trioli, Miranda July’s All Fours “is blowing up on group chats for good reason. It might even leave Germaine Greer in shock”.
The Critic: Invasion literature – “It couldn’t happen here. Right?” David Scullion on the “long history” of the invasion novel “in the English-speaking world.”
Books Ireland: Let’s Dance—ever constricting circles in a masterful collection – Lucy Sweeney Byrne’s short story collection Let’s Dance is, says Ruby Eastwood, about women who “understand, dimly and with instinctive panic, that the lives they find themselves in are not the ones they have chosen, and [they] will continue to constrict around them as the years go by until there’s no room to breathe.”
The Literary Edit: Seven great books you probably haven’t read (but should) – “Featuring the memoir [containing Lucy Pearson’s] favourite last line in literature, and [The Rainbow Troops,] Indonesia’s best-selling book of all time”.
Cleveland Review of Books: Childhood and Its Antecedents: On Alejandro Zambra’s Childish Literature – Chilean writer Alejandro Zambra’s short story collection, Childish Literature, “ponders on the aesthetic ideal of childhood, offering glimpses and sharp insights into the everyday lives of parents”, finds Colm McKenna.
The Atlantic: The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books – “To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school”, says Rose Horowitch.
DW: German language body enshrines ‘idiot’s apostrophe’ – “The move is seen by grammar purists as a further encroachment of English into German. Traditionally, apostrophes have not been used to indicate possession in German-speaking countries”, says Elizabeth Schumacher.
Frankfurter Rundschau: “Damn wankers”: Author causes scandal at book award ceremony in Frankfurt – Leon Alisch reveals: “Author Clemens Meyer caused a stir with his outburst of anger at the German Book Prize ceremony. Now he has spoken to Der Spiegel about it. And sticks to his opinion.”
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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
LOL Those Germans are going to regret the apostrophe. Generations of English-speaking children have failed to master its use… and now some of them are adults working as journalists or in publishing!
Yes, they certainly appear in a few unexpected places! 🤣
Some lovely links, Paula – particularly interested in the Tove Jansson. And you’ve highlighted two events I’m very keen to join in with – I have several German books lined up, and also Auster’s New York Trilogy!
Thanks Kaggsy, that’s good to know. Hey, the #1970Club is going great guns! 😊👍
Thank you so much for mentioning GLM. And some other interesting German news. That apostrophe makes me despair.
It’s a pleasure, Caroline. Hope you have a great GLM! 😊👍
I think German grammar should keep on doing what it has always done very well – and if there has never been a need for apostrophes, why start now? It is difference that makes life interesting. Why should we always be identical? 🤷♀️
Thanks very much, Paula, for including my L.M. Montgomery celebration. Such a great list of links, as always. I’m glad Margaret Atwood didn’t listen to that university adviser.
You’re very welcome, Sarah. I always enjoy following your literary celebrations. Ahh, I do so admire Margaret Atwood. She is one feisty lady! 😊👍