An end of week recap

“Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”
– Rachel Carson

I chose the quotation this week in recognition of Earth Hour – the annual sixty minutes when people are encouraged to turn off non-essential electric lights. Taking place tonight between 8:30 and to 9:30 p.m., this event is a global endeavour dreamt up by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) as a symbol of commitment to the planet and an opportunity to raise awareness about the crisis facing nature.

Speaking of nature, spring has arrived in Wales, though it could at any moment be cold shouldered by a flurry of snow (the surrounding mountain peaks are still vaguely white). There is a chilly wind, but the sun is shining, and the local sparrow population is feverishly gathering nest building materials in our back garden. This is my favourite time of year and, for me, the season to read alfresco. At least it will be when the weather warms up a little.

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.

* Almost Overlooked * 

I have two late but still great posts to share with you this week: (1) Last November, Simon Thomas, host of Stuck in a Book and the excellent literary podcast Tea or Books? shared his thoughts on Helen Garner’s short 1984 novel, The Children’s Bach. Purchased in Caper, “Oxford’s newest bookshop,” he was delighted to pick up a “W&N Essentials reprint” with a “beautiful” cover. It tells the tale of old university friends, Dexter and Elizabeth, meeting “after years apart” – and the “coming together of [their] families” triggering “a crisis.” However, “the main star,” we are told, is the Australian author’s writing. “She is exceptionally good on small domestic moments,” says Simon, and her “impressionistic [style] is stunning to read.” As a matter of fact, he thinks “there’s a strong chance that this is a brilliant novel.” To discover why it was “such a beautiful reading experience,” you can see the full review at The Children’s Bach by Helen Garner. (2) In October, Diana of Thoughts on Papyrus shared her reflections on Stefan Zweig’s (now newly translated) Burning Secret, a “psychologically astute novella” first published in 1911. Set in an Austrian mountain resort where a Baron – portrayed here as a “dashing dandy […] ready for his next romantic conquest” – counters the tedium of being alone by pursuing a “beautiful woman [staying there] with her twelve year-old boy.” Regretably, Diana feels “the beginning [of this book] promises more depth and complexity than Zweig’s rather simple ending ultimately delivers.” Find out why she thought this at Review: Burning Secret by Stefan Zweig. 

* 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 producing high-quality book features and reviews, it was difficult to pick only these two – both of which were published in recent weeks:

Music of the Mind, Language of the Body: Clarice Lispector’s “Água viva,” translated from Portuguese by Stefan Tobler – In this tantalising piece on Clarice Lispector’s Água Viva, translator Max Schiewe-Weliky tells us that the acclaimed Brazilian writer’s 1973 classic went “through several iterations [of] varying length[s],” the “final product” maturing into “a novel that trades plot and setting for a meditation on the ineffable nature of time and existence.” In this work, “Lispector’s preoccupation with the sensual, primal side of [her nameless characters] is conveyed extensively” and she “shares a closeness [with the] text,” offering “a glimpse into how her ideas manifest.” In summation, Max describes it as an “astounding exploration of language’s limitations,” which “skirts rational comprehension, instead welcoming readers to engage with [her] entire being.” You can see his full post at Reading in Translation.

Books out this spring – The moment Julia Rice felt “a change [of season] in the air,” she took a break from the always “challenging task” of spring cleaning her bookshelves to consider the future of her extensive collection – deciding there were certain titles she “might want to re-read,” while others were destined for pastures new, thereby freeing-up space for fresh acquisitions. Having read and enjoyed many non-fictional works of late and finding herself far “more excited by this genre” right now, she shares at Julia’s Books three that “caught [her] eye,” including Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green and Story of a Murder by Hallie Rubenhold. In fiction, she has selected, amongst others, Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and The House of Barbary by Isabelle Schuler. This assortment, she hopes, should keep her “occupied for a little while!”

* 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 is a selection of interesting snippets: 

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nb: The Other Valley, Scott Alexander Howard – Gannah Elsoul delves into Canadian author Scott Alexander Howard’s thought-provoking speculative fiction novel, The Other Valley, set in an isolated town nestled between two valleys – one mirroring the past and the other the future. You can also read an interview with Scott in nb right here.

A Reading Life: Issue 112: Technical brilliance vs. emotional connection – Petya K. Grady asks: “Have you ever admired a book’s technical brilliance while feeling emotionally unmoved by it?” Here she discusses her response to the first book in Danish author Solvej Balle’s seven-volume sci-fi series, On the Calculation of Volume I.

BBC Dorset: First statue of a non-royal woman planned for town – “A life-sized statue of writer Sylvia Townsend Warner sitting on a bench is being proposed for Dorchester’s main shopping street,” reveals Trevor Bevins.

Liberties: Evelyn Waugh’s Decadent Redemption – A long essay about Brideshead Revisted by Henry Oliver in which he explains how loving the whole novel, i.e. the Catholicism, the Oxford scenes, the hedonism and so on, allows an appreciation of Waugh’s grand design.

Los Angeles Times: Neither history nor language are neutral in this time-travel mystery – In The Expert of Subtle Revisions, her sci-fi/historical/mystery novel about a quest for the power to transcend time, Kirsten Menger-Anderson “superbly demonstrates how a writer needn’t shy away from the political tensions of a historical period but can use them to heighten and contextualize setting, character and plot.”

The London Magazine: Textures of Ambivalence: Harriet Baker on Woolf, Warner and Lehmann – An interview with Harriet Baker, winner of the Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award.

Platform: The Flux of Calcutta in ‘Great Eastern Hotel’ – “Ruchir Joshi takes history by its nape and transforms it into Great Eastern Hotel,” his historical novel set in imperial Calcutta during World War Two, which, says Paridhi Badgotri, captures “the essence of a city in flux.”

Book of Titans: Bibliomania and the Backup Book Closet – “A confession”: Erik Rostad admits his home “library setup [is suffering] from split personality disorder.” He’s “rather attached” to all his books but realises “things have gotten out of hand” – not that this stops from acquiring more of the same.

The Conversation: From pulpits to protest, the surprising history of the phrase ‘pride and prejudice’ – According to Margie Burns, author of new book, Jane Austen, Abolitionist: The Loaded History of the Phrase “Pride and Prejudice”, the phrase appeared on thousands of pages unrelated to Jane Austen before and during her life – and was a favourite phrase of the abolitionists.

Literaria: Knowledge and independence make people suspicious of her… – “Continuing [her] recommendations of books written by women to celebrate Women’s History Month,” Nicole Raimondi has “compiled […] a selection of non-fiction books on various topics, such as art, history, mental health, memoirs, and more.”

Writer Beware: Are Writers Uniquely Vulnerable to Scams? – Victoria Strauss looks at the ways in which authors are particularly susceptible to fraud.

CBC Books: How Frida Kahlo and Sylvia Plath inspired a novel about chronic pain – “Australian author Katherine Brabon discussed Body Friend on Bookends with Mattea Roach.”

The MIT Press Reader: Flagellomania and Fatherhood: Roald Dahl, My Father, and Me – “I smacked my daughter once. The guilt still haunts me,” admits Jonathan Taylor in this adaption from his memoir slash lit crit slash philosophical book, A Physical Education: On Bullying, Discipline and Other Lessons.

Brittle Paper: Ainehi Edoro-Glines Interviewed in Imprint Africa: Conversations with African Women Publishers – Jagravi Dave writes: “The world of African publishing has been shaped by the work of women, and a new book, Imprint Africa: Conversations with African Women Publishers, examines their transformative role over the past two decades.”

The Montréal Review: Kafka Teaches Me How to Teach Kafka – This essay is part of the Teaching… series edited by Stephen Haven and Laura Ann Reed, “interpreting the work, ideas, and lives of prominent authors, philosophers, artists, and political figures.” Here James Martel discusses the German-language writer of visionary fiction, Franz Kafka.

Sweden Herald: Norwegian author Dag Solstad has died – Norwegian author Dag Solstad, fêted for his profound impact on contemporary literature, passed away on 14^th March at the age of 83.

The Paris Review: Dreams from the Third Reich – “Charlotte Beradt began having strange dreams after Hitler took power in Germany in 1933. She was a Jewish journalist based in Berlin and, while banned from working, she began asking people about their dreams. After fleeing the country in 1939 […] she [went on to publish] some of these dreams in a book in 1966. [Here], in [The Third Reich of Dreams: The Nightmares of a Nation] a new translation from Damion Searls, are some of the dreams that she recorded.”

JSTOR Daily: He Spoke for the Trees (and Also the Soil) – “A champion of agroforestry, J. Russell Smith argued for the restoration of forests as key to sustainable agriculture in his seminal work Tree Crops,” finds Ben Seal.

The Seattle Times: Get ready for spring with these 5 nature-centric books – Heidi Daniel considers spring the ideal time to refresh your reading list and immerse yourself in stories that celebrate the beauty and power of nature.

Jaylit: Featured Post: For the Love of Stories – An essay on her reading life and the importance of books to young people in Africa by Ayo Deforge, a Nigerian writer who now resides in the South of France.

South China Morning Post: Reflections | Book bans, burnings in ancient China were a loss for all. Is history repeating itself? – “When Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang banned, then burned books it caused a loss of knowledge for all of humanity. Now book bans are back,” says Wee Kek Koon.

DNYUZ: Felice Picano, Champion of Gay Literature, Is Dead at 81 – “Felice Picano, who in the 1970s and ’80s helped usher in a golden age of gay literature as the author of groundbreaking novels and memoirs and as the publisher of dozens of books by gay writers, died on Wednesday in Los Angeles.”

Solitaire’s Storytelling: Why The Lord Of The Rings Is My Ultimate Climate Fiction – The “soon-to-be cli-fi novelist” Solitaire Townsend asks: “What do you think of when I say ‘climate fiction’? For me, The Lord of the Rings, uplifts and fuels my climate work.”

On the Seawall: Alexandrian Delights: Rereading Cavafy – Greek poet and journalist Constantine Cavafy (“a half-closeted gay man”) and Christoph Irmscher’s great-grandmother Ida von Pechmann, “a matronly housewife from Bavaria […] had little in common except for the fact that they lived and wrote in the same place.”

Books and Lilies: Who Do You Find in the Dreamtime? – “I love a feisty old woman as a main character, and none is feistier than Granny Eddie in Edenglassie by Aboriginal Australian author Melissa Lucashenko,” writes Lilian Nattel.

Dirt: Marketing difficulty: The fantasy of the serious novel – “Greta Rainbow on what makes a book ‘difficult’ and the way seriousness is marketed in publishing.”

The Japan Times: Grief ebbs and flows between two tragedies in ‘The Place of Shells’ – Mai Ishizawa’s “elegiac” debut novel, The Place of Shells, which won one of the three Akutagawa Prizes awarded in 2021, is also her first to be released in English, translated by Polly Barton.

Literary Hub: Ten Essential Novels That Showcase the Rich Literary Culture of the Middle East – Nussaibah Younis, author of the lesbian novel Fundamentally, “recommends [works by] Nawal el-Saadawi, Kanan Makiya, Saleem Haddad” and others.

A Good Hard Stare: Slight Rebellion off Madison – “Combing through the work of J.D. Salinger, Henry Begler reconsiders The Catcher in the Rye—flawed, but better than its reputation—before spending time with the true standout of Salinger’s oeuvre: his short stories.”

Smithsonian Magazine: Newly Discovered Letters Illuminate the Life of a Female Printer Who Published Revolutionary Texts and Pushed the Colonies Toward Independence – “As Virginia’s first female newspaper publisher, Clementina Rind emphasized women’s viewpoints and collaborated with prominent politicians like Thomas Jefferson,” says Alexandra Cox.

BBC Beds, Herts & Bucks: ‘I was lucky to be Sir Terry Pratchett’s agent’ – “Ten years ago, Sir Terry Pratchett died aged 66, eight years after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. His friend and lifelong agent Colin Smythe recalls his memories of the renowned fantasy author.”

Beyond the Bookshelf: The Literary Obsessive – An Interview with Eleanor Anstruther – Matthew Long talks to Eleanor Anstruther, founder of The Literary Obsessive and author of A Perfect Explanation (longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Not the Booker Prize), about her writing life and reading preferences.

Swissinfo.ch: Obituary: Peter Bichsel, the master of short prose – “The popular Swiss writer Peter Bichsel, who passed away on March 15 aged 89, was best known for his short stories, which showcased his distinctive simple writing style and use of language,” reports Michael Luisier.

Faber: Reading List: Irish Writing and Literature – “Since the Irish Times has published “its verdict on the 100 best Irish books of the 21st century, [the Faber Members’ editor has picked] out the twenty-one Faber titles on the paper’s list and suggest[s] more great Irish writing you could discover.”

Southwest Review: Variations on a Ghost Ship – María José Navia reviews Argentinian author Rodrigo Fresán’s historical novel, Melvill – “a book about ghost letters” and “a son not understanding his father” but trying to reinvent him through fiction.

Words on Words: Are divorced women having a moment? – Kolina Cicero remarks: “It might be my age, but I’m noticing an influx of books about divorcées and co-parents.”

Slanted: Jacques Devaulx. Nautical Works – An intriguing insight into 16th-century seafaring and exploration, Nautical Works contains Jacques Devaulx’s splendid 1583 manuscript and encyclopaedic reference for sailors, reviewed here by Julia Kahl.

BookPage: “If that’s our future, it’s already here.” – “Silvia Park’s debut novel, Luminous, takes place in a near-future, reunified Korea where robots bear the weight of human emotions.

The Sunday Times: My new print is in a noble tradition of hero worship – James Marriott “took possession of a framed caricature of the Australian art critic and historian Robert Hughes.” In his Notebook column, he writes (among other matters) about why he thinks we should fill our houses with portraits of our heroes.

Fast Company: This startup romantasy publisher has the book industry swooning – “Entangled Publishing, behind Rebecca Yarros’s hit Empyrean series, is writing a new formula for success in the book world.”

Deccan Herald: Discovery of lost pages brings to light ‘the Last Great Yiddish Novel’ – “In the small world of Yiddish literature, the discovery of the pages [of Sons and Daughters by Chaim Grade] had the startling impact of a lost Hemingway manuscript suddenly turning up.”

The Atlantic: The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem – “Meta pirated millions of books to train its AI,” reveals Alex Reisner. He suggests you “search through them here.”

The Point: The Soul Should Not Be Handled – B.D. McClay on “trash and speculative fiction.” Part one of a four-part series on speculative fiction.

The Wall Street Journal: The Last Decision by the World’s Leading Thinker on Decisions – “Shortly before Daniel Kahneman died last March, he emailed friends a message: He was choosing to end his own life in Switzerland. Some are still struggling with his choice,” says Jason Zweig in this piece on the Israeli-American psychologist, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Washington Independent Review of Books: Mornings Without Mii – The much-loved Japanese classic, Mornings Without Mii, “is a memoir of Mayumi Inaba’s “20-year relationship with her cat.” First published in 1999, it “now appears posthumously in English translation by Ginny Tapley Takemori.” It is reviewed here by Ellen Prentiss Campbell. 

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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: Clarice Lispector, David Szalay, Earth Hour, Helen Garner, Jacques Devaulx, Nature, Nora Ephron, Nussaibah Younis, Rachel Carson, Scott Alexander Howard, Spring Reading, Stefan Zweig, Zoe Schlanger