A brand new year, end of week recap

“The thing about Tolkien, about The Lord of the Rings, is that it’s perfect. It’s this whole world, this whole process of immersion, this journey. It’s not, I’m pretty sure, actually true, but that makes it more amazing, that someone could make it all up. Reading it changes everything.”
– Jo Walton (Among Others)

Happy New Year! 🥂🍾

As you may know, today is JRR Tolkien Day, a celebration that has been observed for about 20 years and is supported by The Tolkien Society. It is also International Brainteaser Month and, in the USA, National Braille Literacy Month. Furthermore, it is World Braille Day for all of us on Sunday.

Our first batch of 2026 birthday celebrants (sadly, we missed E.M. Forster, Gina Berriault, J.D. Salinger, Mary Ann Shaffer, Isaac Asimov and quite a few others born on the first two days of January) includes Roman statesman, writer and all round clever-clogs, Cicero (106 BCE), Italian poet and librettist, Pietro Metastasio (1698), little-known English writer and philologist, J.R.R. Tolkien (1892), American poet, Anne Stevenson (1933), Australian writer, Blanche Dalpuget (1944), German author, Rainer M. Schröder (1951) and Irish hardboiled and noir crime fiction writer, Ken Bruen (1951). Tomorrow we can raise a glass (or three) to English polymath (author being one of his many fields of expertise), Isaac Newton (1643), German author and folklorist, Jacob Grimm (1785), Belgian writer, Frans De Potter (1834), Chinese émigré-French naturalised novelist, playwright and critic, Gao Xingjian (1940), American feminist author, Michele Wallace (1952) and American writer of mystery novels and thrillers, Harlan Coben (1962).

As ever, this is a post in which I summarise books read, reviewed and currently on the 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 opinions and 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.

* Book Birthdays and Author Anniversaries *

We always know a new book reading year is underway when Mallika Ramachandran posts her annual round-up of forthcoming literary dates for the diary – and she hasn’t let us down in 2026. In Book and Author Anniversaries 2026 she highlights all the major 50^th, 100^th, 150^th, 200^th, 250^th and 300^th-year “birthdays” taking place over the coming months; including (but certainly not limited to) works by Richard Dawkins, Judith Kerr, G. K. Chesterton, Franz Kafka, Dorothy L. Sayers, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Thomas Hardy, Mark Twain, George Eliot, Lewis Carroll, Jonathan Swift and of course, Agatha Christie. “In addition to book/author anniversaries,” Mallika says, “this year [she has included] a few interesting literary events”, which are “sprinkled across the post.” Please head over to Literary Potpourri to peruse the full rundown and start planning your reading year.

* A Legion of Literary Challenges *

There follows a mere handful of happenings around the book blogosphere – some already taking place, others still to come. Over at Beat the Backlist, Austine has posted guidelines for this year’s event; The Intrepid Reader & Baker is back with the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2026 and Carla Loves to Read and Blue Mood Café return with the 2026 Finishing the Series Challenge! There will be more in next Saturday’s wind up.

Additionally, I should like to point you in the direction of Things Beyond: January 2026, a recent post about the 100^th anniversary of the Amazing Stories fanzine at Brian Collins’ excellent Science Fiction & Fantasy Remembrance blog. The intention is to “celebrate” this “professional magazine” in a series of “short-story marathons” and by “covering a serial, novella, or short story from [its] pages.” Others are invited to join in and read along. “This should be interesting”, says Brian. I agree!

* Blogs from the Basement *

Last May, Marina Sofia of findingtimetowrite turned her attention to “two books by Korean women authors,” which she very much enjoyed. Translated by Amber HJ Kim, Lee Yuri’s short story collection, Broccoli Punch, begins in a “realistic fashion” before veering off in a “surreal, whimsical and fantastical” direction. “Told largely in [the] first person by female narrators […], in a deadpan sort of way,” she was initially a little confused with what was happening but soon became “quite matter-of-fact” about their various predicaments since these “stories [made] the absurd seem almost mundane”. The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre by Cho Yeeun (translated by Yewon Jung) is, on the other hand, “an odd rollercoaster ride” of “interconnected” stories set in a theme park, in the company of a “little girl whose parents are constantly quarrelling”. Despite her mother “desperately trying to make the day fun”, the three of them “end up in a messy puddle of jelly, like all the other visitors to the park.” To find out more about the ways in which both these “crazy” and “grotesque” books explore “aspects of Korean (and not just Korean) society”, head over to Two Surreal Korean Books: Broccoli Punch and The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre where Marina will attempt to enlighten you.

* Lit Crit Blogflash * 

This is where I share my favourite pieces of writing from around the blogosphere. There are a great many talented people producing high-quality book features and reviews, which makes it difficult to pick only one – in this instance, posted in the dying days of December:

Book Review: Joyride: A Memoir by Susan Orlean – Well-travelled American writer (and Seattle dweller) John Walters pens a thoroughly tempting review of Susan Orlean’s recently published memoir, Joyride – describing it as “a celebration of Orlean’s lifelong love of writing.” The book is something of a jaunt through the life and storytelling career of this successful US television writer and bestselling author of The Orchid Thief and The Library Book, in which “the details of her personal life comprise a sort of scaffolding set up to support [her] writing adventures.” Susan apparently does what she does because she considers her work important and firmly believes “writing in all its forms is the essence of human interaction.” Indeed, as John discovers, she has “spent her career digging deep into the lives of others, diminishing her own presence [thus permitting them to] shine”. Nevertheless, her narrative is “exhilarating” and her recollections “kept [him] enthralled throughout”. Fellow writers, he says, will “recognize a kindred spirit.”

* 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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A triple helping for Tolkienites:
The New York Times: 🔓 Opinion: Why I Keep Returning to Middle-Earth 🧙‍♂️🍻 – Michael D.C. Drout, author of The Tower and the Ruin: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Creation, looks at “how providence and loss helped shape The Lord of the Rings.
Society of Rock: Robert Plant on How J. R. R. Tolkien Shaped His Imagination and Lyrics – “Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant has opened up about the lasting influence of J.R.R. Tolkien on his songwriting, crediting both the author and the landscapes of Wales and the West Midlands for shaping his creative vision.”
Artnet: First-Edition ‘Lord of the Rings’ Trilogy Sets New Tolkien Auction Record – Vittoria Benzine writes: “The set fetched $250,000, becoming the most expensive unsigned Tolkien books ever sold at auction.”

The Arts Fuse: Arts Feature: Recommended Books, 2025 – “An eclectic round-up” of the favourite books of the year from TAF critics, compiled by Bill Marx.

The Gay & Lesbian Review: May Swenson’s ‘Devastating Passion’ – “Swenson’s lesbianism is at the heart of Margaret A. Brucia’s new biography, The Key to Everything: May Swenson, A Writer’s Life”, says Philip Gambone. “Making use of the poet’s extensive diaries, correspondence, autobiographical pieces, and interviews, Brucia has written what is, according to Paul Crumbley and David Hoak, two Swenson scholars who contributed a foreword to the book, ‘the most intimate study of the poet’s life to date.’”

Desk by the Ocean: The 10 best sentences I’ve read this year – An elegantly phrased explanation of the reasons why Claire Daverley, author of Talking at Night, has decided against ranking her “best reads of the year.” Instead, she shares her favourite sentences of 2025 and enlightens us as to why prose “makes a book stand out” for her.

The University of Western Australia: A.D. Hope called a Patrick White novel ‘verbal sludge’. New books celebrate these literary rivals – In his review of new books about the two “towering figures of 20th-century Australian culture”, A.D. Hope and Patrick White, Tony Hughes-d’Aeth, Professor, Chair of Australian Literature at The University of Western Australia writes: “David Brooks, winner of the 2024 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry, recalls his friendship with AD Hope and recounts falling in love with Patrick White.”

Overidentification: Reindeer, romance, the unbearable weight of modernity – This is one from last August that I simply couldn’t resist, especially as it relates to the present. Irina Sadovina, the translator of White Moss by Anna Nerkagi – an author Blackwell’s describes as belonging to and writing about “the Nenets community: an ethnic group native to Russia, numbering around 50,000, living near the Arctic circle where temperatures can reach minus fifty degrees” – discusses how the novel “found” her and (in a more recent post) announces its English language publication this month by Pushkin Press.

Virago: A Preview of 2026 with Virago – “Virago Publisher Sarah shares a sneak preview of the best fiction, non-fiction and modern classics coming your way, including bold new novels, life-changing memoirs and the next chapter for iconic voices.”

Full Stop: Arcticologies – Lowell Duckert – Reading Lowell Duckert’s Arcticologies: Early Modern Actions for Our Warmer World “feels like scooping wet snow with a large shovel on an unseasonably warm winter morning”, writes Eamonn Gallagher who, as a self-described “non-academic reader”, felt his “engagement with the text somewhat strange”. It is, he says, a book that “does not hide its academic-ness”. On the other hand, Steven Casement at H-Environment declared it in his review, Casement on Duckert, ‘Arcticologies: Early Modern Actions for Our Warmer World’, a powerfully written “and thought-provoking study that adds immensely not only to cold studies but to the environmental humanities more widely.”

The Spinoff: Why is everyone suddenly obsessed with The Artist’s Way? – “Alex Casey delves into the enduring success of [Julia Cameron’s] The Artist’s Way, a self-help book beloved by everyone from retirees to famous rappers.” 

The Telegraph Online: From the tale trail – “Amitav Ghosh’s newest novel Ghost-Eye’s ingredient list runs somewhat like this — Calcutta, the Sundarbans, climate change, lots and lots of fish, cooking and a taut reincarnation story,” says Paromita Sen in an introduction to her interview with the acclaimed Indian novelist and essayist. There is also a review of his novel at Scroll.in: ‘Ghost-Eye’: Amitav Ghosh’s new novel of the ‘environmental uncanny’ seeks to reinvent the form.

The British Columbia Review: The gains from the misadventure – Theo Dombrowski reviews Unorganized Territory: A Boy’s Own Memoir, the spy thriller writer David Gurr’s recollections of his “misadventures” growing up, first in England and then British Columbia.

Air Mail: Dancing with the Devil – In Hitler and My Mother-in-Law: A Memoir, Terese Svoboda tells the story of Patricia Lochridge, a female war correspondent who allegedly verified Hitler’s death.

Jonathan Crain: The Architects of Outcome: Women in Dorothy Dunnett’s “Lymond Chronicles” – “Few historical series are as persistently associated with their male protagonists while being fundamentally shaped by their female characters as The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett”, says Jonathan in his thoughtful piece on the Scottish writer’s sequence of six novels set during the 16^th century (“published between 1961 and 1975”), concerning the fictitious adventurer Francis Crawford of Lymond.

Nippon.com: Historical Fiction and Social Issues: Japanese Books from 1965 to 1974 – Book critic, Takino Yūsaku, introduces the “fourth selection of popular books from Japan’s Shōwa era (1926–89) [including] historical fiction from writers like Endō Shūsaku and Shiba Ryōtarō, alongside novels tackling social issues.”

The Week: ‘Agatha Christie is bigger now than she has ever been’: James Prichard – In an interview with Anjuly Mathai, “James Prichard, CEO at Agatha Christie Ltd and her great-grandson, offers personal insights into her private life as a grandmother, her genius for storytelling, and the work he does to manage her enduring legacy.”

The Common Reader: Ten reasons to read great literature in 2026 – Henry Oliver begins the year with a “reading manifesto” for those “thinking about reading more great literature in 2026.”

3 Quarks Daily: The Year of the Whale: Re-Reading Moby Dick – “Maybe this is something that happens when you reach a certain age?” muses Leanne Ogasawara. “But lately, [she’s] found [herself] yearning to revisit things like paintings and books.” Last year, her chosen re-read was Herman Melville’s classic seafaring adventure, Moby-Dick.

The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal: How Postmodernism Killed Great Literature – “What is in vogue in the literary-fiction world today are books that deliberately refuse closure,” argues writer and educator Liza Libes. “University English departments”, she says, “have made books that don’t matter.”

WSJ (via MSN): ‘Icons of the Fantastic’ Review: From Paris to the Pulps – Michael Saler reviews Icons of the Fantastic: Illustrations of Imaginative Literature from The Korshak Collection, a stunningly illustrated book, edited by Amanda Zehnder and David Brinley (with a foreword by Guillermo del Toro), which displays art from ground-breaking sci-fi and fantasy artists, taken from over 160 years of published works that graced the covers of novels and pulp magazines from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Matt Pearce: The limits of giving it all away – Lewis Hyde’s 1979 “cult classic”, The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, “speaks to that pervasive feeling among creatives that modern life is hostile to our existence.” Matt shares a few thoughts on this “Das Kapital for artists” and “the limits of sharing in the 21st century.”

Works in Progress: The Renaissance book that heralded growth – “Long before modern science, Europeans learned to see their own time as an age of invention rather than decline.” Virginia Postrel on Nova Reperta (or ‘new discoveries’) – a book created by Johannes Stradanus in collaboration with Philips Galle in 1591. It was one of the earliest works to highlight significant inventions and make the “argument for progress by showing rather than telling.”

The Washington Post: 3 utterly brilliant science fiction novels – Charlie Jane Anders says these “new books by William Alexander, Claire North and qntm examine new technologies and unexplored worlds with verve.”

The Hollywood Reporter: ‘The Testaments’ Reveals First Look at ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Sequel Series Coming in 2026 – Jackie Strause reports: “Hulu revealed that the follow up and next Margaret Atwood adaptation will premiere April 2026 and released a first look at the Gilead daughter of Elisabeth Moss’ June, played by Chase Infiniti.”

Realnoe Vremya: «Kant» by Jon Fosse: it’s okay not to understand Source – “At the International non/fiction Book Fair, they discussed how the prose of Nobel Prize winner Jon Fosse is structured.”

Jansplaining: George Eliot’s New Year’s wish for herself – “A quote from her diary has some of her best lines that you won’t find in Middlemarch”, says Jan Harayda.

The New York Times (via DNYUZ): A Peek into the Mind of One of History’s Great Thinkers – “The notebooks of Albert Camus, the French philosopher and novelist, have been collected in a single volume for the first time.” Dwight Garner reviews The Complete Notebooks, presented in a single-volume format for the first time in English and translated by Ryan Bloom.

The Atlantic: 🔓 Aphoristic Intelligence Beats Artificial Intelligence – “It’s not just okay for some things in life to be hard—it’s essential”, says James Geary, author of The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism, Second Edition – a celebration of short, witty, philosophical phrases.

Brittle Paper: Announcing the 100 Notable African Books of 2025 – Ainehi Edoro announces the books selected for inclusion in Brittle Paper’s 100 Notable African Books of the Year List, offering readers an opportunity “to step back from the constant motion of publicity and release cycles to see what African literary culture looked like this year.” The book featured here is Bento Baloi’s novel Beneath The Scar (translated by Sandra Tamele), which follows Bernardo, a man unjustly labelled ‘unproductive’ and torn from his pregnant lover during a dark chapter of Mozambican history: the ‘Operation Production’ re-education camps.

Nabeel S. Qureshi: On Reading Proust’s In Search of Lost Time – Nabeel “finished [reading Marcel Proust’s 3000-page classic,] In Search of Lost Time a few weeks ago, and [he] can’t stop thinking about it.” He describes the undertaking as “an act of faith” and found the experience tiring but one that “marked [his] soul deeply.”

Grimdark Magazine: REVIEW: Eldritch Prisoners ed. by David Hambling – Edited by the Australian science fiction author David Conyers, Eldritch Prisoners: A Cthulhu Mythos Anthology contains works from John DeLaughter, Matthew Davenport and David Hambling, all of whom, according to CT Phipps, “contribute [tales] of various horrifying situations where [the] protagonists are imprisoned by forces of cosmic horror.”

The Wire: Longread | The Untold Story of Rahi Masoom Reza and the Making of the Canon of Modern Hindi Fiction – “Much research is needed for the life of a writer who, like the great Premchand, migrated from Urdu and may rightly be regarded as second only to him in shaping the contours of the modern Hindi novel and canon.” Ather Farouqui with a lengthy piece on the Indian Urdu and Hindi poet and writer, Rahi Masoom Raza (1927-1992).

Japan Forward: Japan’s Iconic Book Covers Find Fans in Taiwan – “As more readers in Taiwan go digital, one of the region’s biggest bookstore chains is turning to Japan’s creative covers to give printed books new appeal”, reports Hiroko Kitamura.

Women of Letters: “‘I was going to do whatever I wanted’: Stephanie Wambugu on her career as a writer and editor – The author of Lonely Crowds, a “Ferrante-like study on the complexities of female friendship”, talks with Jana M. Perkins about her “celebrated debut novel, becoming a writer in New York, the importance of having a routine, and what she’s working on now.”

The Korean Herald: Year-end look at K-literature, from overseas recognition in translation to signs of renewal at home – “A year after Han Kang’s historic Nobel Prize win”, Hwang Dong-hee scrutinises South Korean literature over the past twelve months.

Chicago Review of Books: Coming Home is no Longer Recognizable in “The Ballad of the Last Guest” – Joe Stanek with a “review of [the Austrian Nobel laureate] Peter Handke’s new novel, The Ballad of the Last Guest, translated from the German by Krishna Winston.

Spectrum Culture: Ginster: by Siegfried Kracauer – “Even through the layers of time and culture that have dulled its barbs and clouded its sharpness, Ginster remains a convincing and idiosyncratic portrayal of a world coming apart at the seams”, says Reed Jackson of the new English translation of Siegfried Kracauer’s classic German First World War novel.

Paper Republic: 2025 Roll Call of Chinese Prose in English Translation – Andrew Rule with a “year-end roll [call]” of “all the fiction and nonfiction for adults translated from Chinese into English in 2025.” The featured book is Dead Souls, Han Song’s final installment in Yang Wei’s journey through a dystopian hospital system (translated by Michael Berry).

AL DÍA: Love and fantasy mix in Laura Restrepo’s new novel – Colombian author Laura Restrepo’s latest novel, Song of Ancient Lovers (a retelling of the tale of the Queen of Sheba and King Soloman, translated by Carolina De Robertis) weaves contemporary themes and ancient myth in this story of star-crossed lovers in a world on the brink of collapse. It was inspired, says Andrea Rodés, “by the time she spent in Africa with the NGO Doctors Without Borders.”

The Seaboard Review of Books: Still by Joann Cockerline – “Joanna Cockerline’s Giller Prize-long listed novel, Still, tells the harrowing story of 19-year-old Kayla, living on the streets of Kelowna after fleeing an abusive and dangerous situation in her hometown of Guelph, Ontario”, writes Ian Colford.

Penguin: Where to start reading Virginia Woolf – “If you’re new to Woolf’s work, it can be a little overwhelming knowing where to start, as she has such an extensive oeuvre. That’s where [this Penguin article hopes to] help [with a] Virginia Woolf reading order for beginners, starting with her most accessible book and moving onto her more experimental work.”

Los Angeles Times: Forget Spotify Wrapped, your book stack knows exactly who you are – “Is your Spotify Wrapped a bluff?” asks Zachary Bernstein, because while digital algorithms track our listening, an analogue ‘book stack’ “offers a deeper look at our intentions. From Timothy Snyder to Hans Fallada, [this feature is about the way] one writer used a year of books to navigate a year of political and environmental upheaval in L.A.”

this user is an Angel: “let these women scream — which female authors will I be reading in 2026? – This year, chicgirlmoment intends “to focus a bit more on literature by female authors, showing women’s experiences, their problems, dilemmas, relationships, lives, views, and stories.” She shares her list and invites you to make suggestions.

Strange Horizons: A Granite Silence by Nina Allan – Fellow book blogger, David Hebblethwaite of David’s Book World, reviewed Nina Allan’s historical crime novel, A Granite Silence, in which the author “turns her attention to a historical murder case” from 1934 when eight-year-old Helen Priestly disappeared from her Aberdonian neighbourhood while running an errand for her mother. “Helen’s body”, says David, “was found the next day, inside a bag placed in the lobby of her family’s tenement.”

The Raunch Review: Is It OK to Buy Books by These Problematic Authors? – “‘Problematic’ is such a subjective word, isn’t it?” says Joseph Rauch. “If you’re liberal, you might find a conservative author problematic, and vice versa.” So, rather than cancelling authors with whom he disagrees, Joseph has created a “list [of] living authors who have allegedly and/or admittedly harmed [others] with their actions, books or words.” You may recall that I briefly touched on this issue in TT #5: The Mashup.

Reactor: 6 Seriously Funny Speculative Short Stories – “From time-traveling wizards to annoying aliens, here are six hilarious stories to brighten your day” – Ratika Deshpande with “a selection of stories to keep in mind when you need a bit of joy and humour in your day”.

Spiked: Now students are being ‘triggered’ by Harry Potter – “JK Rowling’s children’s fantasy has been slapped with a content warning [along with works by Lewis Carroll, Enid Blyton and others,] for its supposedly ‘outdated’ attitudes.”

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FINALLY >>

If there is something you would particularly like to see in 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.

>> See my monthly digest at the Book Jotter Journal on Substack. >>

Categories: Winding Up the Week

Tags: 2026 Finishing the Series Challenge!, Amanda Zehnder, Amitav Ghosh, Beat the Backlist, Bento Baloi, Book and Author Anniversaries 2026, Cho Yeeun, David Brinley, Guillermo del Toro, Han Song, Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2026, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jo Walton, JRR Tolkien Day, Lee Yuri, Reading Challenges, South Korean Fiction, Susan Orlean, World Braille Day