An end of week recap

“Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.”
– Voltaire

I’m afraid I have rather paltry birthday pickings to share with you this week – literary types, it seems, tend not to be born on these dates. However, all is not lost: today is Peculiar People Day, which gives us the perfect excuse to celebrate individuality and nonconformity! 🙃

We can doff our fancy French berets to ethnic Slovak poet and activist, Janko Matuska (1821), American novelist and poet, Olive Higgins Prouty (1882), American poet, Robinson Jeffers (1887) and the Algerian author now living in France, Yasmina Khadra (1955). Then tomorrow, it is the turn of South African writer and anti-apartheid activist, Alan Paton (1903), American fantasy novelist, John Myers Myers (1906) and English novelist, Jasper Fforde (1961).

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.

* Now is the Winter of our Discontent Fresh Content *

As part of my ongoing Tove Trove project, I shared a few reflections on Tove Jansson’s A Winter Book: Selected Stories, “a collection of some of [the author’s] best loved and most famous stories”, first published in 2006, which brings together works from several collections across a number of years – “drawn from youth and older age.” >> Read: A Short Winter Snap >>

I’ve also created a dedicated index page for the project, making it easier to find all the posts in one place. You can now access it from the main menu at the top of every Book Jotter page. >> Tove Trove Main Index >>

* A Legion of Literary Challenges *

There are innumerable reading events currently running or about to begin – so many, in fact, that I can barely keep up with them all. The list this week includes 1. Davida Chazan of (the scrumptiously named 😋) The Chocolate Lady’s Book Review Blog with The New Release Reading Challenge, 2. the 2026 Audiobook Challenge, which is capably bi-hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer and That’s What I’m Talking About and 3. Tony’s Reading List, Tony Malone’s annual January in Japan event. You can be quite sure there will be more to follow in future wind ups.

* Blogs from the Basement * 

A thoughtful review of A Tale for the Time Being from the Reading Nook’s Justine Castellon in April 2024 drew my attention. This magical realism tale by Japanese-American author Ruth Ozeki, which moves between Tokyo and British Columbia is, she says, “a curious blend of introspection, cultural exploration, and a meditation on the nature of time.” A “Japanese teenager facing life’s harsh realities” writes a diary and, in the wake of the 2011 tsunami, a “writer living on a secluded Canadian island” discovers it washed up in a lunchbox on the beach. “Their lives intersect […] setting off a narrative that is as much about finding oneself as it is about understanding the ephemeral quality of existence.” The “story occasionally loses its focus” but is nevertheless “a thought-provoking exploration of human connectedness” with “emotional depth”. You can find out exactly what Justine thought of this 2013 novel in her post, Book Review: “A Tale for the Time Being” by Ruth Ozeki.

* 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 earlier this week:

The Plot: Jean Hanff Korelitz – Being “a sucker for campus novels”, Guy Savage of His Futile Preoccupations found American novelist, Jean Hanff Korelitz’s tale of a gifted young writer dying before completing his first novel, enabling his tutor – a briefly successful “creative writing professor at [a] third rate private university” – to appropriate it. Crib becomes hugely successful and “a movie version is in the works” when “anonymous emails begin to emerge accusing him of stealing” the story, leaving him, at the “height of his success,” in the midst “of a full-blown scandal.” The “tension, pace and mystery” of this thriller “are intense”, says Guy, and he found himself in “Highsmith territory.” Indeed, not only is The Plot a “great mystery” but it “raises questions regarding plagiarism.”

* 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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Volumes: Lost in the Library – “I plan therefore I am.” As Matthew Morgan re-reads Susan Hill’s Howards End Is on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home, he reflects on reading, remembering and his failed book resolutions.

The Irish Times (via Archive Today): Rónán Hession on January’s best fiction in translation: ‘Chinese writing is the most interesting literature being produced today’ – Irish author and musician, Rónán Hession recommends “works by Solvej Balle, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Ágota Kristóf, Rene Karabas and Ning Ken.”

Cha Asian Literary Review: [ESSAY] “Aesthetic Experiences: A Study of Anri Yasuda’s Beauty Matters – Luca Griseri examines Anri Yasuda’s Beauty Matters: Modern Japanese Literature and the Question of Aesthetics, 1890–1930, “an account of how ideas on aesthetics and art informed the work of a number of intellectuals who became part of the canon of Japanese literature: Natsume Sōseki, Mori Ōgai, the writers of the Shirakaba magazine, and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke.”

Contingent Magazine: Can the Archive Make a Monster of a Historian? – “A historian who pays full attention to their sources can’t help but be transformed into a monster…”, says British historian of science, Surekha Davies, author of Humans: A Monstrous History, in a fascinating article looking at “how and why European mapmakers populated maps with monstrous peoples”.

The New York Times: 🔓 Joan Didion and Kurt Vonnegut Had Something to Say. We Have It on Tape. – “Rare recordings of E.E. Cummings, Mary Oliver and more offer a tour through literary history led by authors in their own words — and voices. Take a listen”, suggest Elizabeth A. Harris and Aliza Aufrichtig.

Options: Australian-Sabahan poet Omar Musa’s latest novel ‘Fierceland’ powerfully exemplifies the ‘struggle of making’ – “Inspired by an old dissertation about his ancestors, the writer has crafted a family saga in which siblings return to Sabah in search of origins.” Eddin Khoo on Omar Musa’s latest novel, Fierceland.

The Gem: Thinking Like a Writer with Atwood – “On reading Margaret Atwood like a method and reflections on [her] own writing journey…” G.M. dedicates her latest newsletter to a re-reading and analysis of Margaret Atwood’s On Writers and Writing.

Archaeology News: A new study suggests the mysterious Voynich Manuscript may be a medieval cipher – One of history’s most mysterious texts could be a type of encrypted message created in the 1400s, reveals Dario Radley.

The Atlantic: 🔓 What the Palisades Fire Took, and What It Left – Kenneth Turan’s entire collection of “4,000 volumes, acquired one by one over [the] decades, had turned to smoke and ash in the Palisades Fire. The question before [him] was not just about this particular book, but about whether it made sense, in [his] late 70s, to begin collecting all over again.”

The Arts Fuse: Translation Spotlight: Haunted and Haunting – Tess Lewis, a writer and translator from French and German, shares her “appreciations of three remarkable translated works that have preoccupied [her] for months.” Namely: The Place of Shells by Mai Ishizawa, translated from Japanese by Polly Barton (cover featured here), Darkenbloom by Eva Menasse, translated from German by Charlotte Collins and Motherhood and its Ghosts by Iman Mersal, translated from Arabic by Robin Moger. “In different and unusual ways,” she says, “they plumb the shadows that history casts on the present and tease out the tangle of its after-effects, both tangible and intangible.”

The Providence Eye: Local Translator Brings Pacheco’s “Pandora” to English Readers – “Written by the award-winning Brazilian fabulist Ana Paula Pacheco [and] energetically translated from the Portuguese by Julia Sanches, Pandora is a strange and unsettling novel”, says Diane Josefowicz of this story about “the surreal nature of life under lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Japan Nakama: Dostoevsky’s Influence on Modern Japan: From Meiji to Today – “Noise, fracture, and moral tension collide as a nineteenth-century Russian novel resurfaces inside Japan’s long, uneasy conversation with modernity”, finds Santiago Campodonico.

A Narrative Of Their Own: Short Story Salon – In the first essay in her new Short Story Salon feature, Kate Jones looks at the life and short fiction of the New Zealand writer and critic, Katherine Mansfield – “The Modernist Outsider”.

Publishers Weekly: Spring 2026 Writers to Watch: Woody Brown – “The nonspeaking author’s debut novel, Upward Bound […] is set in a cash-strapped adult daycare center for autistic and disabled adults”, says Matt Seidel of Woody Brown’s portrait of interlocking lives at an adult day care centre in Southern California.

Monocle: South American literature is having a moment – and women are at the forefront – “Latin American literature in translation is continuing to find success, especially works by women writers. Charco Press is leading the charge. [Rory Jones] speaks with Carolina Orloff, its founder, about the phenomenon.”

Kyiv Post: Book Review: Cities on the Edge: How Ukrainian Modernism Anticipated a Century of Upheaval – “The early years of the USSR were tumultuous. For Ukrainian culture and literature, they were both hopeful and tragic. Two newly translated classics bring that world to English-language readers”, writes poet and assistant professor of Ukrainian Literature and Culture, Alex Averbuch of The City by Valerian Pidmohylny (translated by Maxim Tarnawsky) and On Shaky Ground by V. Domontovych (translated by Oksana Rosenblum).

The Tearoom: Beatrix Potter: Simplicity and the Spirit of Childhood – “As we grow older and the years slip by, we lose sight of simple nuggets of wisdom that made childhood simple”, says Mariella Hunt. Here she explores “what children’s literature reminds us about truth and creativity”.

The Lagos Review: Literature, Society & the Penumbra of Failure: A review of “Moonbeam Anthology” — Kẹ̀hìndé Fọlọ́runshọ́ – “Moonbeam: An Anthology of Short Stories by Nigeria’s Foremost Culture Journalists as an intriguing read that underscores not just a popular derivative of socio-cultural failures but personal experiences of their impact.”

China Books Review: Chinese Horror with Xueting C. Ni – “Horror writing has an unsavoury reputation in China but comes with a long history and is full of biting social commentary. The translator of a recent collection explains what lurks beneath”, writes Alec Ash. The book featured here is the anthology, Sinophagia: A Celebration of Chinese Horror, edited by Xueting Christine Ni.

Unmapped Storylands: The Slow Death of The Love of Learning – “In this essay [Turkish-British novelist, essayist, public speaker, political scientist and activist, Elif Shafak shares] with you a historical incident that [she] cannot help thinking about [and] how it might have changed the course of everything that followed if only it had occurred in another manner.” This question”, she says, “is related to Johannes Gutenberg’s invention and the printing of books…”

Two Part Mailer Piece:
Airmail: The Oddest Couple in American Literature: Part I – David Margolick on “how the unlikely, tumultuous partnership of Norman Mailer and Lawrence Schiller produced the true-crime masterpiece The Executioner’s Song.”
Airmail: The Oddest Couple in American Literature: Part II – “Norman Mailer and Lawrence Schiller’s Marilyn: A Biography sold more copies than anything Mailer ever wrote. He also believed it cost him a Nobel Prize.”

Wondercabinet: January 1, 2026: Wondercab Mini (103A) – “In the wake of Rachel Aviv’s recent piece [Mind Over Matter] in the NYer, [Lawrence Weschler, author of And How Are You, Dr. Sacks? revisits] the question of Oliver Sacks’s narrative reliability.”

BBC Hereford & Worcester: Book shop to host Charles Dickens festival – “A festival celebrating Charles Dickens will be held in Worcestershire, nearly 170 years since the novelist visited the county during a national tour”, reports Elliot Ball.

Aeon: The erotic poems of Bilitis – “A lush translation of this late-discovered lesbian poet added to the legacy of Sappho, but there was a trickster at work”, says professor of Classics, Cat Lambert.

Remezcla: 9 Books to Read If You Want to Understand What’s Happening in Venezuela – Lissete Lanuza Sáenz suggests “10 books you can read to understand what’s happening in Venezuela now and how it affects Latin America as a whole”.

The Stories Behind the Story: The mysteries of Cobham Hall – Author of 1920s murder mysteries, Anna Sayburn Lane, on Cobham Hall and the research she did while writing Unlawful Things, her first crime novel featuring literary historian Helen Oddfellow.

Toronto Star: With Paul McCartney set to take the AGO and a new book on the Beatles in Canada, the Fab Four are still going strong – Toronto Beatles historian, Piers Hemmingsen’s recently published The Beatles in Canada: The Evolution 1964-1970, – “an exhaustive 638-page book 10 years in the making”, says Nick Krewen.

TNR: Anne Lamott’s Battle Against Writer’s Block – “Bird by Bird encouraged would-be writers to blast past their hang-ups and embrace ‘shitty first drafts.’” But according to Briallen Hopper, “there’s more to the creative process.”

Electric Literature: 12 Must-Read Feminist Books by Icelandic Women Writers – “These writers invoke the incongruence of living in a country that leads in gender equity but persists in misogynistic disregard” says Kristen Millares Young.

Counter Craft: Books as Art Projects – Lincoln Michel has “long been waiting for publishing to focus on the physical object aspect of books” until, last month, when he received “two pieces of mail that [took] completely different approaches to making books as art objects.” Here he looks at “books you want to hold in your hand or slip in your pocket”.

The New Yorker (via Archive Today): Joan Lowell and the Birth of the Modern Literary Fraud – “A century ago, an aspiring actress published [Cradle of the Deep,] a remarkable autobiography”, says Michael Waters. “She made up most of it.”

Country Life: ‘I first read this as a teenager and was open-mouthed at the sharp satire and the normalising of deep eccentricity’: The books that the Country Life team return to again and again and again – “Have you made a resolution to read more in 2026?” asks Rosie Paterson. “Members of the Country Life team reveal the fiction novels they’ve turned to time and time again.”

Asterisk: The Dream of the Universal Library – “The Internet promised easy access to every book ever written. Why can’t we have nice things?” asks writer, librarian and open access advocate, Monica Westin.

Time Out: This North African city will become UNESCO’s World Book Capital in 2026 – “2026 is the perfect time to discover [Rabat, the] historic African capital [of Morocco], with an exciting literary programme planned throughout the year”, suggests Annie McNamee.

Edu24News: Exciting Australian Literature Set to Captivate Readers in 2026 – “The Australian literary scene is preparing for an exhilarating year in 2026, with an array of innovative works ranging from memoirs to fiction that delves into fantastical themes. With authors tackling everything from alien abductions to climate change, the diversity promises to engage readers across the globe.”

The Washington Post: What fictional worlds can teach us about the reality of climate change – “Scientists and other experts share their favorite fictional stories about climate change and how they can transform the real world.”

Advocating for the Ignorant: One Fine Day – One Fine Day “is a glorious celebration of how it felt to be English in 1946, even though people had died, rationing persisted, and the long-established class structures of British society were being shaken as never before.” Sarah Harkness sings a “hymn of thanks [to] Mollie Panter-Downes”. The featured book is the edition published last year by Virago Press with an introduction by British biographer, journalist and founder of Persephone Books, Nicola Beauman.

EL PAÍS: Literature that crosses the line: Cocaine in books – “Since the mid-19th century, the drug has been a cultural constant, and today, reveals ego addiction in a world under the influence”, writes Nadal Suau.

The Korea Times: K-LIT REVIEW Juhea Kim’s short story collection reminds us what we hadn’t known we’d forgotten – “What would you get if you combined climate fiction with dystopian sci-fi, threw in a dash of feminist and Indigenous literature, then added semi-autobiographical writing to the mix?” asks Faye Leung. The answer is the short story collection, A Love Story From the End of the World by Juhea Kim.

Leseratte: Reading seven books in seven days – In the run-up to New Year, while recovering from illness, Cecilia gave herself “a little challenge […] with some (literary) sparks”, which involved reading seven books in seven days. Discovered on the Internet, Ways of Seeing by John Berger (based on the 1972 BBC series of the same name), saw her read some exciting titles. And yes, she succeeded with “pages to spare.”

The Critic: Murders for January – Jeremy Black with a selection of “crime fiction for cold months” along with “some quotes to fuel what [he] hopes will be a fine year in detective fiction…”

The Banipal Trust for Arab Literature: The 2025 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation – Marilyn Booth has been revealed as winner of the 2025 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for her translation of the novel Honey Hunger by Omani writer and poet Zahran Alqasmi.

Notes from the Neogene: The Westerns of Alice Munro – MH Rowe would very much like everyone to subscribe to the Literary Imagination journal and read James Tussing’s The Mysteries of Love: On Alice Munro, which was apparently the “second-most read article on the entire Project Muse database” before being locked to non-subscribers. You may recall in WUTW #449 that I linked to another excellent piece Tussing wrote about the Canadian short story writer, How to Read Alice Munro. This is still freely available at the time of writing. 🔓

The Atlantic (via MSN): Trump Books Aren’t Selling Anymore – “A decade into the Trump era, readers who were once hungry to learn about the man seem to have had their fill”, says Paul Farhi.

1000 Libraries Magazine: A Guide to Creating Your Cozy Home Library – Erica Sarah writes: “Turn your book collection into a sanctuary. Explore aesthetic tips on lighting, plant decor, and shelving styles to craft a cozy, personalized home library.”

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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: #ToveTrove, Anne Lamott, Audiobook Challenge, Chinese Horror, January in Japan, Jean Hanff Korelitz, Mai Ishizawa, Mollie Panter-Downes, Polly Barton, Reading Challenges, Ruth Ozeki, Susan Hill, The New Release Reading Challenge, Tove Trove, Voltaire, Xueting Christine Ni