Winding Up the Week #404

An end of week recap

“One can never have enough socks. Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn’t get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.”
– J.K Rowling (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone)

I hope those of you who celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah have a wonderful time over the festive period. I wish you peace, pleasure and a great many presents in the form of books. I will see you next Saturday for the final wind up of 2024.

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 publications, see what folk have on their nightstands 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.

* Have Yourself a Bookish Little Christmas *

Are you struggling to find the perfect gift for your book reading buddies? Well, I may just have found the ideal literary stocking-filler for all you last-minute pressie pickers, namely: What Writers Read: 35 Writers on Their Favourite Book – a “love letter to reading” curated by Pandora Sykes (a former judge for Women’s Prize for Fiction). Published in aid of the National Literary Trust, it is a “selection box,” filled to bursting with contributions from familiar writers ranging from William Boyd and Sebastian Faulks to Ali Smith, Deborah Levy, Kit de Waal and oh so many others – all sharing their innermost thoughts on their favourite books. You can read two short interviews with Sykes at Bloomsbury (“My mum always encouraged my reading in the most generous, gentle way”) and Vogue Australia (Pandora Sykes on a lifelong love of literature and her “sanitised addiction” to reading), in both of which she discusses this book.

*  Open Page 18 of the Japanese Lit Challenge *

Meredith Smith of Dolce Bellezza is enthusiastically preparing for the next Japanese Literature Challenge, which is set to begin on 1^st January 2025.  Now in its 18^th year, she has posted several links to titles she herself intends to read at I’m beginning to think of Japanese literature again… (which includes “short stories, classic authors, and newly published works”), and she very much hopes you will “find something” there that encourages you to take part. The event will probably run into February (possibly to the end of the month), so please look out for Meredith’s official Review page, which is due to appear soon. In the meantime, you can select your preferred book or books for the challenge. Please remember to use the #japaneselitchallenge18 hashtag when sharing your progress on social media.

* Almost Overlooked *

In October, Peter Wild of Bookmunch gave an early plug to The Dead of Winter: Beware the Krampus and Other Wicked Christmas Creatures by British author Sarah Clegg. Described as “excellently researched” and “packed with […] anecdotes,” this “history of Christmas is full of masks, inverted hierarchies, chaos [and] danger,” as it traces “traditions, folk tales and myths as far back and as accurately as possible.” Peter was struck by the great many festive customs that are “dark and scary or have [their] origins in the supernatural or anarchic” – he was also impressed by the author’s ability to carry “the reader along with her.” Indeed, he felt at times as if he was “looking over her shoulder as she [travelled] in search of the unique history of the season.” All told, he felt Clegg’s work, bubbling as it is with “witches, demons, servants as masters, plays and performances,” is highly rewarding and, with its “attractive cover” would make a “lovely addition to any bookshelf.” You can read the full review at “Perhaps the ideal Christmas read” – The Dead of Winter by Sarah Clegg.

* Lit Crit Blogflash *

I am going to share with you a couple 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 two – both of which were published in the last week or so:

Here One Moment: Liane Moriarty – Over at His Futile Preoccupations, Guy Savage shares his thoughts on Australian author Liane Moriarty’s latest mystery novel, Here One Moment. In “the aftermath of a psychic’s predictions,” made while “on board a Hobart to Sydney domestic flight,” when she began “moving through the plane delivering predictions to the passengers” – some of them good, others highly disturbing – Moriarty explores the effects these emotionally shattering warnings have on those who continue to dwell on the incident. Or, as Guy puts it, on the people who find her words too “heavy [a] burden.” He describes the book as “light” and “easy,” if rather “wordy”, with a dominant theme of being “given a second chance at life.” Nevertheless, despite the narrative requiring some “chopping,” he feels it would be ideally suited to a TV adaption and his review overall is positive.

The horrors of being a woman… “Celia Fremlin seems to be having a moment just now,” says the host of FictionFan’s Book Reviews about the late English writer of mystery fiction in a review of Don’t Go to Sleep in the Dark. A “collection of thirteen short stories all written prior to 1970” – many “with a creepy edge, […] but mostly to do with the real-life horrors associated with being a woman.” The reviewer particularly enjoyed “those that had a touch of […] danger about them,” especially the ones with “a little twist at the end,” and found the book as a whole “entertaining, imaginative and very well-written.” All told, it was a “thoroughly enjoyable collection.”

* 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, here are a selection of interesting snippets: 

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The Critic: Murders of 2024 – “Jeremy Black reviews the best (and worst) murders from the last year.”

Nation Cymru: Under Milk Wood: 70-year anniversary special with Iwan Rheon – “Dylan Thomas’s beloved radio play, Under Milk Wood turned 70 this year – and to celebrate its anniversary, the timeless masterpiece has been brought to life in a new audiobook starring a host of Welsh talent including Iwan Rheon.”

Australian Book Review: Open Page with Susan Hawthorne – Australian writer, poet and political commentator Susan Hawthorne, author of Lesbian Politics, Culture, Existence and the novel Dark Matters, answers questions about her favourite author, most disliked word, idea of hell and more.

The Masters Review: Book Review: We’re Alone by Edwidge Danticat – “There are small experiences of hope that can happen while living in a divisive culture, and a new essay collection [We’re Alone] by [Haitian American novelist] Edwidge Danticat appearing on bookstore shelves is one of them,” says Mark Massaro.

The Smithsonian: The Discovery of a Jewish Teenager’s Holocaust Diary Reveals How Songs, Jokes and Stories Served as Cultural Resistance – “Yitskhok Rudashevski documented his life while hiding from Nazis, as well as folklore told in his community that ‘must be collected and preserved as a treasure for the future’” – James Deutsch on The Rudashevski Diary. 

The Point: Only Disconnect Desire and sensation in Oğuz Atay’s Turkey – Kaya Genç on “desire and sensation in Oğuz Atay’s Turkey.” 

Caught by the River: Dark Skies – In Dark Skies, “Anna Levin considers how we can learn from and nurture our relationship with the night sky, despite ever-decreasing access to darkness. Against institutional apathy, writes Karen Lloyd, the book is a call to arms; a way of reconnoitring our long evolutionary relationship with darkness, its essential benefits, and its rightful, life-giving place in our world.”

The Brooklyn Rail: Jeanette Winterson’s Night Side of the River – “Winterson is a master of the craft, and this collection is no exception,” says Yvonne C. Garrett of the British author’s collection of short ghost stories, Night Side of the River.

Read the Classics: The Heart of a Dog – First published in 1925, Mikhail Bulgakov’s “hilarious but chilling novella” The Heart of a Dog is, according to Henry Eliot, an “absurd and humorous but also a terrifying, subversive commentary on Stalinism.”

Historia: Christmas reading 2024 – top historical books to give or to treat yourself to – Frances Owen “asked eight much-loved authors to each recommend a couple of historical books for Christmas 2024 to give, receive, or treat yourself to — fiction and non-fiction.”

Arts Hub: Book review: Afro-Centered Futurisms in Our Speculative Fiction, Eugen Bacon (editor) – Essays on Black speculative fiction speak to “evolving discourses about identity” in Eugen M. Bacon’s Afro-Centered Futurisms in Our Speculative Fiction: Black Literary and Cultural Expressions, finds Dorcas Maphakela.

Defector: There’s No Shortcut To Publishing A Book – “Books take a long time. Writing, editing, and publishing one is slow, laborious work. So it makes sense that money-grubbing [innovators] have taken aim at book publishing, … and decided that the way to disrupt it is by using AI,” says Kelsey McKinney.

LARB: Decimated, Then Reassembled on Arrival: Lore Segal’s Legacy – “Na’amit Sturm Nagel pays tribute to the late Lore Segal, a novelist who wrote autobiographically.”

New Lines Magazine: One Hundred Years of Betrayal – “The Netflix adaptation of One Hundred Years of Solitude provides an opportunity to appreciate the novel’s artistry and the legacy of its author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez,” says Santiago Ospina Celis.

El País: 40 years of cyberpunk: A dystopian future that seems all too real today – “The novel Neuromancer launched a dark and pessimistic genre that envisions a world dominated by powerful corporations, oppressive technology, and stark social inequality — an almost prophetic portrait of modern society,” writes Sergio C. Fanjul.

The Japanese Times: Women are writing a new chapter in Japanese literature in the 2020s – From the deadly serious to the deeply weird, Mike Fu discovers that a bounty of Japanese fiction in translation has delighted readers and critics this decade.

Southwest Review: No hay tierras prometidas – Cory Oldweiler reviews Julia Kornberg’s debut novel Berlin Atomized – the story of “siblings struggling to find their places in a world that has burdened them” – beginning in Buenos Aires during the early 2000s and from there to Paris, Berlin, Jerusalem, Brussels and Tokyo.

N+1: Tired as a Mother – “In Kate Briggs’s The Long Form and Sofia Samatar and Kate Zambreno’s Tone — two works of autotheory that self-describe as fiction and nonfiction, respectively — exhaustion is both the ground for theorizing about reading and theory’s subject.” Nicholas Dames “on the exhausted reader.”

The Markaz Review: 30 Recommended Books on Syria – “TMR editors have compiled a list of 30 of their favourite titles on Syria, including novels, nonfiction, and memoir.”

The Newtown Review of Books: June Wright Mother Paul series. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm – “June Wright has faded from view, but in 1948 her novel Murder in the Telephone Exchange outstripped sales of Agatha Christie in Australia.”

CBC Books: 20 books to get you in the holiday spirit – “From romance to nonfiction, these festive Canadian and international titles make for perfect reading during the holiday season.”

Criminal Element: Book Review: Trial By Ambush: Murder, Injustice, and the Truth about the Case of Barbara Graham by Marcia Clark – Our very own Chris Wolak of Stay Curious reviews Marcia Clark’s Trial by Ambush, “the dramatic true account about the power of sensationalized crime, [in which] one woman’s case is exposed for its sexism, flagrant disregard for the truth, and, ultimately, the dangers posed by an unbridled prosecution.”

Wired: Good at Reading? Your Brain May Be Structured Differently – “Two regions in the left hemisphere of the brain, which are crucial for language, are different in people who are good at reading and are likely to be shaped by the habit.”

Asian Review of Books: “On The Other Side” by Rahman Abbas – First published in Urdu in 2011 – now newly translated into English – On the Other Side by contemporary Indian novelist Rahman Abbas “follows the notes and diaries” of a teacher and writer who details “his affairs and encounters with women.”

Mother Jones: Curl Up With the Best Books We Read This Year – The people at Mother Jones believe “everyone deserves a break from the news” – so here they name their favourite books of the year.

Washington Independent Review of Books: Cross – “A Northern Irish border town struggles to survive after 30 violent years of the Troubles”, says Anne Eliot Feldman in her review of Austin Duffy’s historical novel, Cross.

Book and Film Globe: Yukio Mishima and Donald Keene, Together Again – “A new exhibit, timed just before the centennial of Mishima’s birth, shines light on the controversial [Japanese] author’s life and work,” reports Michael Washburn.

Writers Are Superstars: Why are authors doing this? Kern Carter has spotted a “strange” new trend in modern novels. “Something,” he says, “in the way that current authors are writing that feels awkward to [him].” His question: “Why don’t authors trust readers anymore?”

South China Morning Post:  In death, romance novelist Chiung Yao strikes a chord for women’s freedom – “As Chinese women embrace feminism, the writer’s final celebration of her independence perhaps resonates more deeply than her love stories,” says Audrey Jiajia Li.

The Journal of African Youth Literature: Road to the Country Named Among the Best Books of 2024 by Boston Globe Critics – “Road To The Country, an African fiction authored by Chigozie Obioma was recently listed as one of the “75 best books of the year” by The Boston Globe Book Critics,” reports Oreoluwa Odusote. 

The Common Reader: The books I enjoyed most this year, 2024. – Henry Oliver describes his list of favourite reads this year as being “in no special order and not necessarily published recently.”

Architectural Digest: Book Clubs, Book Bars, and BookTok: Examining Why Everyone Suddenly Wants to Be Perceived As Well-Read – “From the sexy librarian aesthetic to bookshelf wealth, immersing in the literary world has never been more on trend,” observes Sydney Gore.

Reactor: Heartache and Horror in CG Drews’ Don’t Let the Forest In – Maya Gittelman reviews CG Drews’ atmospheric new YA horror novel, Don’t Let the Forest In.

The i Paper: I dress up as Jane Austen to escape the hell of modern society – “Each year [Emily Jupp is] one of thousands who don a bonnet and experience a taste of the author’s world first hand.”

Greater Good Magazine: Our Favorite Books of 2024 – “Greater Good’s editors pick the most thought-provoking, practical, and inspirational science books of the year.”

Boston Review: To Whom Does the World Belong? – Alexander Hartley on “the battle over copyright in the age of ChatGPT.”

Closelyreading: Becoming a close(r) reader – “Think of this guide as a personal demystification process to help you uncover some of your hitherto unrealized hopes and dreams for your reading life, so you can make them a reality.” Haley Larsen with “a new series for close readers who want to dig into their process.”

The Wall Street Journal: ‘Gobsmacked!’ Review: How British Words Reconquered America – “Confused about whether a newly popular word has made its way from the U.K.? Join the queue,” says Anne Curzan in her review of Ben Yagoda’s Gobsmacked!: The British Invasion of American English.

WWD: Alaïa Opens Café, Bookstore at London Flagship – “Shopping at Alaïa has just become more intellectual with a side of books and cake,” declares Hikmat Mohammed.

Fast Company: The surprisingly corporate retail origin story behind ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ – “A copywriter for the department store chain Montgomery Ward dreamed of writing the great American novel. During a moment of personal anguish, he ended up birthing an iconic Christmas character.” Shannon Cudd on Robert L. May’s 1939 children’s book, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. 

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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.