An end of week recap

“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”
– Albert Camus

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.

* Witch Way Next? *

Following one of the most memorable and enjoyable Witch Weeks to date, in which the centenary of Joan Aiken’s birth was celebrated, Chris Lovegrove and Lizzie Ross decided to pack away their broomsticks for the final time. The event, originally conceived by Lory Widmer Hess (now of Entering the Enchanted Castle), has provided literary entertainment with a dark twist throughout the Hallowe’en and Guy Fawkes festivals for the past eleven years – seven of which have been overseen by the current hosts (who, incidentally, deserve massive thanks for all their hard work and creativity). However, Chris tells us he and Lizzie would “be happy to pass on the torch to another blogger (or consortium of bloggers!) prepared to host the event in the spirit Lory brought to it from the very start.” So, there remains hope Witch Week might be saved should a novice sorcerer or sorceress among you fancy donning a pointy hosting hat next year. To read Chris’s final post, please cast an evil-ish eye over #WitchWeek2024 wrap-up.

* 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 this week:

Books that Break You: Han Kang’s Human Acts – Marina Sofia of findingtimetowrite describes Human Acts – the 2014 historical novel by South Korean writer and Nobel Prize winner Han Kang – as being “about the student uprising in May 1980 in the southern city of Gwangju”. And while she found its “dark subject matter” brought back distressing personal memories of the 1989 Romanian Revolution, this story of a young boy killed in the massacre is also “remarkably well-written” with “chapters [built] upon each other in a crescendo of emotion.” It is, she feels, an “important book” in which the author finds “the words to describe universal experiences of mass protests and their consequences”. Ultimately, Maria says, it’s a “memorable” work, which reveals “just what long shadows such brutal events can cast.”

* 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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Publishers Weekly: What Is Gothic Fiction? – Elaine Aradillas with a selection of “forthcoming books” exploring this question while guiding readers “into the unknown”. 

The Irish Times: ‘We are living through the sixth extinction’: How contemporary Irish writers are pointedly addressing the climate crisis – “Poetry cannot change the world, Seamus Heaney once said. But he also went on to clarify that what poetry could do is allow the world to be viewed afresh”, writes Malcolm Sen.

London Review of Books: La Chasse au Pinard – Julian Barnes on A Thirst for Wine and War: The Intoxication of French Soldiers on the Western Front, in which Adam D. Zientek’s explores wine as a symbol of French patriotism and its continuous supply to soldiers in the First World War.

NBC News: Rushdie’s ‘Satanic Verses’ can be imported in India after court is told 1988 ban order can’t be found – “Viewed as blasphemous by some Muslims, Salman Rushdie’s novel [Satanic Verses] was banned in India decades ago, but officials challenged in court were unable to find the original order.”

Literary Hub: “A Chubby-Cheeked, Shabby-Blazered Colossus.” How Dylan Thomas Influenced Generations of Poets – In this excerpt from How to Think Like a Poet: The Poets That Made Our World and Why We Need Them, “Dai George remembers the inventive wordplay and freewheeling life of a Welsh literary giant”.

Guardian Australia: Alexis Wright wins $60,000 Melbourne literature prize – “The Waanyi writer, who won the Miles Franklin award and Stella prize this year for her novel Praiseworthy, has been recognised for her body of work and contribution to Australian culture”, says Dee Jefferson.

Africa is a Country: Museum of memory – Idris Olakunle Ajao shares his doubts about an “eye-opening documentary on African literary titan Wole Soyinka [that] wants us to laud his ‘politics’ without ever having Soyinka himself talk about them.”

The Booker Prizes: Everything you need to know about Orbital by Samantha Harvey, winner of the Booker Prize 2024 – “As Samantha Harvey becomes the first woman since 2019 to win the Booker Prize, here’s the lowdown on her winning novel, Orbital”.

New Eastern Europe: Depicting natural wonders, the rich cultural heritage and the mentalité of Bulgaria all while baring the bones of taboo topics – “It is rare to find […] Bulgarian [books] in the English language”, especially “works of fiction with a historical twist which are set in Bulgaria.” Radosveta Vassileva talks about Ellis Shuman’s Rakiya: Stories of Bulgaria, a collection that “shines a light on the idiosyncrasies of Bulgarian life and rich historical heritage”.

Writing.ie: What Will People Think? by Vedashree Khambete-Sharma – Indian writer Vedashree Khambete-Sharma, author of What Will People Think? explains “how Jane Austen saved [her] from the pandemic.”

Washington Independent Review of Books: An Interview with Sarah Seltzer – “The debut novelist [of the historical novel The Singer Sisters] talks [with Martha Anne Toll about] literary classics, messy first drafts, and crushing on Jakob Dylan.”

The Berliner: Is there value in turning the great works of literature into graphic novels? – “Proust, Joyce, Musli, Bernhard. Graphic novel adaptations of great literary classics are hugely popular these days. But do they really manage to capture the feeling of those original works?”

Irish Central: IrishCentral Book of the Month: “The Coast Road” by Alan Murrin – “Join [members of] the IrishCentral Book Club this November as [they] read The Coast Road by Irish author Alan Murrin” – a debut historical novel about two women, set in a small town in 1994 when divorce was still not legal in Ireland.

JSTOR Daily: Becoming Beatrice – “Dante adored her so much that he cast her as his guide in the Divine Comedy. But who was Beatrice Portinari?” asks Emily Zarevich.

CBC Arts: ‘Politeness constrains us’: Massey lecturer Ian Williams on developing our own opinions amid cancel culture – “The Canadian writer has chosen to speak on the topic of conversations for his cross-country lecture series”.

The Conversation: Vanitas and the life of the author: in Chinese Postman, Brian Castro transforms fiction into a mechanism of truth – The books of Australian novelist and essayist Brian Castro are, according to Tony Hughes-d’Aeth, “postmodern pantomimes that mug the dictates of genre, without ever quite escaping them.”

The Hudson Review: At Lady Violet’s – Violet Pakenham – wife of Anthony Powell, the English novelist best known for his 12-volume work A Dance to the Music of Time – made notable contributions to his magnum opus, recalls Hilary Spurling.

Fine Books & Collections: Tim Youd’s Quest to Read Closely by Retyping 100 Novels – “Artist Tim Youd’s intention to become a better reader goes to extremes, and typewriters are key to this endeavor, called The 100 Novels Project.”

minor literature[s]: “I wanted to create a world that wasn’t quite dystopian: not ending, but on the edge.”: An Interview with Vanessa Saunders—Cristina Politano – Vanessa Saunders’ debut novel, The Flat Woman, “is set in a not-too-distant future where a swiftly escalating climate crisis upends the life of a young woman struggling with a unique set of issues that threaten to collapse the distinction between herself and the outside world.”

On the Seawall: On The Talnikov Family, a novel by Avdotya Panaeva, translated from the Russian by Fiona Bell – “Panaeva was 27 when she penned the manuscript in 1847. It was slated to be published – under a male pseudonym – in Sovremennik, one of Russia’s most prestigious literary journals of the era … The future was not to be”, says Olga Zilberbourg in this piece on The Talnikov Family.

LRB: All Nerves – “The story of 10 Rillington Place is a story that will not settle, because we will never know the full truth of what happened inside that house during its decade of murders between 1943 and 1953.” Ysenda Maxtone Graham reviews The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place by Kate Summerscale.

Words Without Borders: 9 Contemporary Mexican Women Writers to Read Now – “Lia Galván Lisker recommends 9 of the decade’s best books by Mexican women writers, all translated by women.”

UnHerd: Thomas Mann predicted the New World Order – Boyd Tonkin argues that the German author prophesied Davos in his 1924 novel The Magic Mountain.

Woman of Letters: How to write a book that ‘transcends’ commercial fiction – Naomi Kanakia discusses “literary books that draw heavily from commercial fiction, but are seen, by critics, as elevating or transcending the commercial elements they supposedly embody”.

BBC Culture: ‘Weird things can happen in the countryside’: Britain’s creepiest new horror stories – “Beginning with his acclaimed 2018 debut novel The Loney, the English writer Andrew Michael Hurley has spooked readers with his tales of strange rural communities – and now they’re moving to film and TV”, finds Neil Armstrong.

Spike Art: Against Autofiction: Two Paths for the Internet Novel – “The digital era is synonymous with flat, persona-driven fiction”, says Conor Truax. He asks if it is possible for literature to “transcend celebrified Tweets and respond innovatively to the web’s decentred form?”

The Minnesota Star Tribune: Review: Love animals? You’ll love them even more after reading about their wonders in ‘Vanishing Treasures.’ – Malcolm Forbes describes Katherine Rundell’s Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures as a “delightful collection of essays on some of the world’s most endangered animals.”

The Gay & Lesbian Review: D. H. Lawrence’s White Peacock – “‘Fetch a towel,’ he called, ‘and come on!’ So begins Cyril and George’s steamy swim in D. H. Lawrence’s first all-male erotic scene, which is found in his debut novel, The White Peacock,” writes Andrew White.

Metropolis: Fresh Ink: The Ramen of Thanatos – Or, Puckering Flavor – Eric Margolis on the “English-language debut of [Japanese writer and] philosopher Masaya Chiba”.

The Public Domain: “Here I Gather All the Friends” Machiavelli and the Emergence of the Private Study – “Reading is a form of necromancy, a way to summon and commune once again with the dead, but in what ersatz temple should such a ritual take place? Andrew Hui tracks the rise of the private study by revisiting the bibliographic imaginations of Machiavelli, Montaigne, and W. E. B. Du Bois, and finds a space where words mediate the world and the self.”

Chytomo: ‘Ukrainian Sunrise’ by Kateryna Zarembo: On the destructive power of Soviet myths and Russian propaganda – Anastasia Herasymova shares her thoughts on Kateryna Zarembo’s Ukrainian Sunrise, an exploration of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions (collectively known as Donbas) prior to the 2014 Russian invasion.

Full Stop: Ordinary Devotion – Kristen Holt-Browning – Dana Delibovi describes Ordinary Devotion as “an original work on the ancient and current theme of women’s desire for respect in a society that often devalues them.”

Book Post: Guest Notebook: Roland Allen on the Birth of the Notebook – “How the humble notebook greased the wheels of learning and literature”.

Caught by the River: Nightshade Mother – “Interrogating a fraught relationship with an abusive parent, Nightshade Mother: A Disentangling — the recently published memoir of Wales’ first National Poet Gwyneth Lewis — is beautiful, fierce, and wise, writes Pamela Petro.”

AUC Press: “A Stranger in Baghdad” by Elizabeth Loudon has won the 2024 International Fiction Book Award at the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) – Elizabeth Loudon was presented with the 2024 International Fiction Book Award for her novel A Stranger in Baghdad at the Sharjah Book Fair.

The Literary Edit: Five of my favourite hotel libraries (and three at the top of my bucket list) – “Featuring an Ibizan finca, and a family-owned boutique hotel in the heart of Europe’s prettiest city…”

BBC Australia: Jamie Oliver pulls ‘offensive’ children’s book from sale – “Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has pulled his new children’s book from the shelves after complaints it stereotyped Indigenous Australians”, reports Tiffanie Turnbull.

Dividual: Maximizing Time for Reading – Blake Butler explains why he believes “reading—and reading widely—is more important than ever, and how to go about creating habits and practices to allow yourself the space and time”.

The Bookseller: Uni presses make clean sweep of Oddest Book Title shortlist – Horace Bent reveals the six finalists in the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year.

Vulture: Robert Smith Is a Big Ol’ Book Nerd – Chris Stanton delves into the literary references on The Cure’s new album. 

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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: Albert Camus, Cynthia Pelayo, Han Kang, Joan Aiken, Kate Summerscale, Kateryna Zarembo, Sarah Seltzer, South Korean Fiction, Witch Week