An end of week fortnight recap

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally.”
–  Flannery O’Connor

Is anything special happening today? Well, according to Google it is the 102^nd day of the year, the first day of Passover, the 39^th day of Lent and is apparently National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day in the USA. More relevantly to this post, however, it will be the first wind up following my lovely wee holiday in Oban and has proved something of a catchup exercise.

Arriving home, I hit the ground running (though my trip involved trains not planes) and did some serious link truffling to make up for lost time. I hope you find a little something of interest among this week’s bonus book offerings.

As ever, 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.

* Don’t be a Kook – Pick up a Book! *

I have a little quiz for you: What am I? I am abrim with baby boomers and beatniks attending a literary bash. I will be at Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap when it opens at the New Ambassadors Theatre in London. I see quite clearly The Invisible Man, regularly scan the horizon for The Old Man and the Sea and converse daily with Excellent Women. I am eagerly awaited by the book blogging fraternity. I begin on 21^st and end on 27^th of this month. I am, of course, the 1952 Club (though I suspect the image may have given the game away). Yes, it is time to scan those shelves in your pad for titles first published in the 952^nd year of the 2^nd millennium by the likes of Han Suyin, Victor Canning, Patricia Highsmith, Anthony Powell, Rumer Godden, C. L. Moore – not to mention Gladys Mitchell, Kurt Vonnegut, Ana Maria Matute, C. S. Lewis and many others. Should you get your kicks from radioactive reading, Karen Langley and Simon Thomas are your hosts for this (and every other) club reading week. You dig? If so, please scroll down the page of March madness – and thoughts about April! for further information and possibly a few worms (bookworms mainly).

* Almost Overlooked * 

I have a pentad of previously overlooked posts for your perusal: (1) “Seven novels on, and Hollinghurst’s prose is as captivating as ever,” says Valerie O’Riordan in her review of Booker Prize winner Alan Hollinghurst’s latest historical gay novel. Contributed to Bookmunch in November 2024, we learn that when central character David Win, a “theatre actor, half-Burmese, son of a single mother” and an old schoolmate of a Boris Johnson-type character named Giles Hadlow (apparently their “paths cross” in life with a discomforting frequency), wins a scholarship to a top boarding school, exciting career opportunities open up to him. Our Evenings is “in many respects” a “classic Hollinghurst” in that David is a “working class gay kid of a reflective bent [who] finds himself unexpectedly in the orbit of wealthy Tories,” experiencing a “myriad fleeting and revelatory sexual encounters.” Valerie shares her thoughts on the “beauty of the prose” and the “intricate lucidity of the writer’s sinuous phrases” in “Sharp in intent” – Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst. (2) “Who knew the artisanal sauna stove business could be so cutthroat?” muses Julie from A Little Book Problem in her review last October of Antii Tuomainen’s crime novel, The Burning Stones. When a callous murder takes place of the boss at Steam Devil, a Finnish sauna-heater company, the question of whodunnit becomes all-consuming for chief suspect and next in line for his job, Anni Korpinen. This Nordic mystery’s “blend of dark humour […], intrigue and insightful commentary” is “a delight,” says Julie, but the “isolated setting against the backdrop of lakes and forests lends [an] air of darkness to the story.” She feels devotees of Tuomainen – crowned ‘The King of Helsinki Noir’ – “won’t be disappointed” with this book, “and those new to his work will surely be hooked.” Discover why at Book Review: The Burning Stones by Antti Tuomainen; Translated by David Hackston. Also well worth a gander: (3) For last year’s Novellas in November, Mme B shared her thoughts on Empar Moliner’s Beloved in “I’ve always looked at myself from above, as pleased as an omniscient narrator.” (Empar Moliner, Beloved) on her splendid blog, Madame Bibi Lophile Recommends. Her post is also a must for the charming pusscat paw in the picture! (4) Claire Eustance’s Life and Legacy of Edward Carpenter for Writing Lives: Narratives of Defiance and (5) Victoria Best’s review of Gabriel Josipovici’s Everything Passes in her piece, A Novella for November at Tales From the Reading Room.

 * 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 added in recent weeks:

Red Side Story by Jasper Fforde, 2024 – In his “sequel to the wonderfully imaginative Shades of Grey,” the English author of comically alternative fantasy books, Jasper Fforde, has created a civilization rebuilt following an undeclared ‘Something that Happened’ five hundred years earlier – which, says David of The Reading Bug, “can be read as a standalone novel,” although, he would “recommend” starting with book one. Set in “a version of the UK (more specifically, Wales)” where “every aspect” of a person’s rank in society depends upon their “ability to perceive parts of the colour spectrum,” Red Side Story is a “brutal” and “bizarre,” if “recognisable world.” The “novel’s parables aren’t hard to unlock,” – nor are they “meant to be.” However, the book “is at no point preachy” and is a “great story.” Might there be a “third novel in the series”? David certainly hopes so.

14 noteworthy debut books you should read this April – Every month at Debutiful, as part of his ongoing endeavour to promote newly published and emerging writers, Denverite book critic Adam Vitcavage alerts his readers to “noteworthy” debuts. He has selected fourteen promising titles for April ranging from Molly Olguín’s fantasy short fiction collection, The Sea Gives Up the Dead and Andy Anderegg’s tale of girlhood trauma, Plum, to Sarah Aziza’s “genre-bending memoir,” The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders, which follows “three generations of diasporic Palestinians from Gaza to the Midwest to New York City–and back.” It is an ideal medley of genres to suit all tastes, incorporating biography, thriller, indigenous, historical fiction, coming of age and more.

* 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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Slate: He’s Best Known for The Fault in Our Stars. That His Latest Book Is About the World’s Deadliest Disease Actually Makes Perfect Sense. – “John Green’s Everything Is Tuberculosis is urgent—and heartbreaking,” says Tony Ho Tran.

Full Stop: Lost Objects – Marian Womack – This short speculative fiction collection, Lost Objects from bilingual Andalusian author Marian Womack, “shows us humanity at its most atomized, out of control, hoping and fearing and going mad,” writes Rachel Robinson.

A Narrative Of Their Own: Virginia & Leonard – Kate Jones’ latest essay on the lives and literature of 20^th century women looks back at the “marriage of literary modernist Virginia Stephen [to British political theorist, author, publisher and civil servant,] Leonard Woolf.”

Miller’s Book Review: Why Read and Write While the World Burns? – Suzanne Smith with some thoughts on “what George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, and C.S. Lewis teach us today.”

The British Columbia Review: Talking hyenas and beanstalks – Canadian author “Amanda Leduc’s Wild Life may be appreciated for its intrinsic craft and beauty; it may be read also as meeting our historical moment, amplifying Mary Oliver’s newly resonant question: ‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do/with your one wild and precious life?’” writes Dana McFarland of this new fantasy novel.

The Bookseller: Penguin Classics to launch ‘Penguin Archive’ series with publication of 90 short books – “Penguin Classics is set to launch a ‘Penguin Archive’ series with the publication of 90 short books to celebrate 90 years of the publisher,” says Maia Snow. “Each slim volume has a beautiful red-and-white cover inspired by a historic Penguin jacket design.”

Scroll.in: Jane Austen at 250: Shashi Deshpande on the ‘perfect artist’ who reinvented the novel – “But, after her death, strangely enough, her family, even with the best intentions, wronged her,” says Indian novelist, short story writer and essayist Shashi Deshpande.

ABC News: The ‘wildly passionate’ work of bestselling Australian poet Dorothy Porter celebrated in memoir – “The late Australian poet Dorothy Porter could take a mere handful of words and do extraordinary things with them. Her sister, Josie McSkimming, celebrates her and her art, in a complicated family memoir,” finds Nicola Heath.

The Joy of Old Books: A Life of One’s Own – Harriet discusses Sylvia Townsend Warner’s 1926 feminist fantasy, “Lolly Willowes and the tyranny of usefulness.”

ZYZZYVA: Yearning at Its Highest Levels: Q&A with Iheoma Nwachukwu – Hugh Sheehy sits down to talk with fiction writer and poet Iheoma Nwachukwu, author of Japa and Other Stories – a collection of “linked stories about Nigerians in the diaspora, often caught in the liminal space between leaving […] and arrival.” 

The Miramichi Reader: Devouring Tomorrow: Fiction from the Future of Food – Devouring Tomorrow, edited by Jeff Dupuis and A.G. Pasquell, “is an eclectic collection of imagined food futures, speculative and dystopian, by some established and creative Canadian writers,” says Laurie Burns.

Books and Lilies: Austria: My Father had Dinner with a Nazi – “The victim theory” – Lilian Nattel considers Darkenbloom, Eva Menasse’s historical novel “about Austrian denial, set in 1989, months before the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

The Asian Age: Book Review l Life of the mind, Ajita and Ajivikas – Sucheta Dasgupta describes Indian physicist-novelist K. Sridhar’s latest book, Ajita as “a skilful reconstruction of the lost legacy of the fifth century atheist thinker.” 

Faber: Book Cover Design: Jonny Pelham on Beckett – “Jonny Pelham outlines his process for redesigning three of Beckett’s most important novels” from brief to final versions – Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable.

The Collector: Snorri Sturluson: Our Most Important Source for Norse Myth? – “The 13th-century Icelandic author Snorri Sturluson is our most important source for Norse mythology. But who was he and why did he write his books?” asks Jessica Suess.

Books and Bits: 2 Girls 1 Book: Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – In their “monthly cross-post,” Pandora Sykes and Ochuko Akpovbovbo “chat” about Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s recent novel Dream Count, which follows “the lives of four women […] during the recent pandemic.” 

The Dial: Rural Fictions – Bartolomeo Sala on the ways in which “farming the earth” are depicted on page and screen.

Literary Hub: Gatsby, Bluebeard, and the Roys Walk Into a TBR: April’s Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books – Natalie Zutter suggests “new sagas and standalones from Olivie Blake, Nghi Vo, Isaac Fellman” and others.

The Arts Desk: Howard Amos: Russia Starts Here review – East meets West, via the Pskov region – Journalist, Howard Amos “looks beyond borders in this searching account of the Russian mind” in Russia Starts Here: Real Lives in the Ruins of Empire.

POW! Showbiz: Agatha Christie’s private letters expose secret clash over key book details – Unveiled letters between Agatha Christie and her publisher reveal a dynamic blend of camaraderie and creative clashes.

Counter Craft: What We Write About When We Write About Writers – Lincoln Michel, author of the forthcoming sci-fi novel Metallic Realms, looks at novels involving “writing groups, literary movements, and secret artistic societies.”

University of Georgia Press: UGA Press Announces African Language Literatures in Translation Series – “New series is devoted to making remarkable writing from Africa available to Anglophone audiences around the world.”

The New York Times: Classic Private-Eye Detective Novels: A Starter Pack – Crime columnist, “Sarah Weinman “recommends books starring hard-boiled investigators who are ready to travel down the meanest streets to root out the darkest truths.”

JSTOR Daily: Leigh Hunt, the Unstoppable Critic – “Convicted and imprisoned for libelling the Prince Regent, Hunt capitalized on his incarceration by turning his prison cell into a newsroom and grand salon,” reveals Emily Zarevich.

Hyperallergic: Six Art Books to Read This April – “The role of dreams in Latin American art, Gertrude Abercrombie’s homegrown surrealism, essays on Celia Paul, new catalogs and monographs, and more.”

Literary Ladies Guide: How Harriet Beecher Stowe came to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Nava Atlas tells us that Uncle Tom’s Cabin “was the most ‘cussed and discussed’ book of the 1850s, and the first international bestseller.”

Publishers Weekly: Picador to Reissue More than 100 Novels by Georges Simenon – The paperback arm of Farrar, Straus and Giroux will reissue all 75 novels in Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret series, published between 1931 and 1972, as well as 30 of his standalone psychological novels, reports Sophia Stewart.

The Japan Times: Osaka: Yuki Tejima’s metamorphosis from bookworm to literary translator – An Instagram ‘bookfluencer’ and professional translator for over 10 years, Tejima’s love of books was, strangely enough, a hurdle to working in literary translation. Here she discusses translating Mizuki Tsujimura’s Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon and other Japanese women writers.

Washington Independent Review of Books: Nevertheless, It Persisted – Ellen Prentiss Campbell says her “father’s favorite reading chair endured across the generations.”

The Critic: A writer unsure who he wanted to be – “Who was the real Émile Zola?” asks Alexander Lee in this double review of forthcoming biographies, Émile Zola: A Determined Life by Robert Lethbridge and Émile Zola: Writing Modern Life by Rachel Bowlby.

LARB: Toward an Aesthetic of Post-Boomer Fiction – In New Sincerity: American Fiction in the Neoliberal Age, Adam Kelly makes a “careful examination of how the post-boomer generation developed postmodern means to meet neoliberal challenges.”

Historia: The magic and science of 18th-century Wales – “Wales in the 18th century was a land where old magical beliefs and new science met, clashed, mixed and evolved, says Susan Stokes-Chapman, author of The Shadow Key. Her book explores the possibilities of this tension – and is also a ‘love letter to Wales and the Gothic’.”

Point of Departure: I Hate Audiobooks – EJ Johnson “can’t stand audiobooks.” She is aware “some of you are going to be big mad but [she is compelled] to speak [her] truth.”

China Books Review: Emily Feng on Identity in Xi Jinping’s China – “The award-winning NPR correspondent talks about her new book [Let Only Red Flowers Bloom], the challenges of reporting in China, and what it means to be Chinese when the state cracks down on diversity.

The Red Hook Star Review: Quinn on Books: “Lost in Love” – Michael Quinn reexamines Horse Crazy, the late Gary Indiana’s 1989 gay novel of obsessive love and longing.

Darcy Moore: Jonathan Swift and Newspeak – Darcy Moore tells us: “Gulliver’s Travels meant more to George Orwell ‘than any other book ever written’ and was an important literary antecedent in the development of Newspeak.”

The Irish Times: Hitchhiker’s Guide offered glimpse of a future where technology would mediate almost every interaction – “Sci-fi author Douglas Adams didn’t live long enough to see the technological future he foretold become reality, or how his vision influenced his most famous fan,” says Ed Power.

The Atlantic: The Curse of Ayn Rand’s Heir – “Leonard Peikoff dedicated his life to promoting the author’s vision of freedom and self-determination. But at what cost?” asks Christopher Beam.

City Journal: Herald of Modernism – Brian Patrick Eha on “Gustave Flaubert’s consuming pursuit of literary perfection.”

The Metropolitan Review: The Devil and Mary Gaitskill – “Reading Mary Gaitskill, I’ve come to suspect some souls are best locked in the house,” says Pete Tosiello in his essay on “sex (and hopelessness) in fiction.”

The Hindu: In the shadow of history | Review of Sanam Mahloudji’s The Persians, longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2025 – The Persians, Sanam Mahloudji’s “debut novel tells the story of three generations of Iranian women, existing between America and Iran,” says Pranavi Sharma.

9News: Australian author Kerry Greenwood dies aged 70, as publisher announces new Phryne Fisher novel – The partner of prolific author, criminal lawyer and playwright Kerry Greenwood has confirmed she died in Melbourne following an undisclosed illness.

The Jakarta Post: Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s encyclopaedia website officially launched – “The platform, which includes photographs, archives and a list of Pramoedya’s works, marks the centennial commemoration of his life and legacy,” reports Nur Janti.

Literary Review: Tinker, Tailor, Sleeper, Troll – Piers Brendon examines the ways in which the culture of Soviet spycraft have shaped his thinking in a piece on Shaun Walker’s new history, The Illegals: Russia’s Most Audacious Spies and the Plot to Infiltrate the West.

LitReactor: More Than Sheep: An Account of Kiwi Horror with Lee Murray – “Lee Murray is arguably Aotearoa’s most successful contemporary horror writer,” says Lindy Ryan.

Jane Friedman: The Silent Bestseller: How Some Self-Published Books Thrive Without Viral Marketing – Janee’ Butterfield looks at books that don’t “take off overnight.” The ones “that quietly gain traction, slowly building an audience over time.”

The Paris Review: William and Henry James – In his review of biography Henry James Comes Home: Rediscovering America in the Gilded Age, Peter Brooks writes: “When Henry James decided to come to America in 1904 and 1905, his elder brother, William James, was not immediately pleased.”

The Chronicle of Higher Education: Everyone Hates Academic Writing. They’re Wrong. – Brian Connolly writes “in praise of scholarly prose.”

TechCrunch: Amazon Kindle’s new feature uses AI to generate recaps for books in a series – Aisha Malik reports that Amazon’s “new ‘Recaps’ feature for Kindle users [will] help them recall plot points and character arcs before picking up the latest book in a series.”

InStyle: Booking for Love? Today’s Singles Bar Has an Unexpected Literary Twist – Christina Perrier discovers that “intellectuals are eschewing dating apps in favor of finding romance in book bars and at literary meetups.” 

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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: #1952Club, 1952 Club, A.G. Pasquella, Adam Kelly, Alan Hollinghurst, Antii Tuomainen, Emily Everett, Empar Moliner, Flannery O’Connor, Jasper Fforde, Jeff Dupuis, John Green, Julia Bartz, Sanam Mahloudji