An end of week recap

“Darwin may have been quite correct in his theory that man descended from the apes of the forest, but surely woman rose from the frothy sea, as resplendent as Aphrodite on her scalloped chariot.”
– Margot Datz
A Survival Guide for Landlocked Mermaids

Thank you so much to everyone who wished my wife’s mum well. Sadly, she passed away last Sunday.

It is Europe Day today, an occasion when cultural organisations promote literature in translation, multilingual reading and EU‑funded literary programmes (in addition, of course, to much else), while around the world people are observing Read in the Bathtub Day. We’re into the final two days of Children’s Book Week in the United States this weekend and, while not a literary celebration but one close to my heart is Mother Ocean Day on Sunday. ⛵

Our literary births of the day include Hungarian poet János Batsányi (1763), Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie (1860), English novelist Richard Adams (1920), American science fiction writer and sailor Richard McKenna (1913), English playwright, author, actor and screenwriter Alan Bennett (1934) and Serbian-American poet and poetry co-editor of The Paris Review Charles Simić (1938). Among tomorrow’s celebrants are the Slovene writer and initiator of modernism in Slovene literature Ivan Cankar (1876), Ukrainian-born American writer and researcher Ariel Durant (1898), American author Bel Kaufman (1911), British-American best-selling novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford (1933) and British-American author and journalist Jon Ronson (1967).

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.

* Digging Deep for a Thing with Teeth *

The return of – Three Things +, my sporadic post covering all manner of things I’ve recently read, watched and done, is where I hold forth on matters both serious and silly. This early‑spring edition lingers over slow reads, examines two contrasting Sapphic tales and recalls a short but immensely enjoyable stay in Belfast. You are, as ever, invited along for the ride. >> Read: – Three Things + #11: A Long March into April >>

* The Summer I Turned Pretty the Page *

The best news this side of summer (or winter, depending on where you do your reading) is that Annabel Gaskell of AnnaBookBel has confirmed she will soon be returning with the 20 Books of Summer challenge. Running from 1^st June to 31^st August, the event invites you to read your way through 20, 15 or 10 TBR titles of your choice and share your thoughts on your blog and via your social media sites. Simply create a list of your intended books, “enjoy a summer of great reading”, write up your reviews and hopefully “make a bit of space on your shelves” into the bargain. Everyone is welcome to get involved – and, as Annabel reassures us, there’s no need to panic about missing your target. It isn’t a competition or a race, merely a season of pleasure and relaxation (ideally while sitting outside in a deckchair). Finally, “if you’re planning to join in”, she asks that you “add your blog / planning post [URL] to the Mr Linky” at Announcing 20 Books of Summer – #20BOS26. 

* Seek Meowt for Fun Feline Reading * 

The cat challenge returns! Mallika Ramachandran, our resident felinophile book buff over at Literary Potpourri, has announced Reading the Meow, her annual week‑long celebration of cats in world literature, which will take place from 15^th to 21^st June 2026 – and will, as ever, be catterly pusstastic. Once again, participants are encouraged to pick up books of any genre in which cats play a central role (or roll over for a belly rub – but mind the claws) and to share reviews and general reading reflections on blogs and social media platforms between those dates. Mallika will add a dedicated page for the challenge nearer the time. What could be furrier… um, I mean easier? Please pawruse Announcing #ReadingtheMeow2026: 15–21 June 2026 for all the gen.

* A Day with Dalloway, Woolfing Cupcakes * 

There is much happening in London this Dalloway Day – an annual celebration of Virginia Woolf’s 1925 masterpiece Mrs Dalloway – according to Paula Maggio, founder of Blogging Woolf. She suggests you highlight 13^th June on your calendars so as not to miss a variety of events, including A Bloomsbury Walk with Clara Jones, author of Virginia Woolf: Ambivalent Activist; a conversation about Virginia Woolf as reader and writer “in relation to her work as publisher alongside Leonard Woolf and as a regular critic and reviewer”, between Maggie Humm, Nicola Wilson and editors from the Times Literary Supplement; an “informal meet-the-author” book signing with refreshments (cupcakes, apparently 🧁); and a discussion about Woolf’s good friend, the “pioneering curator and artist” Roger Fry. Please see Much planned for June 13 Dalloway Day in London for in‑depth information about all the above and more.

* 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 this one – posted in the last couple of weeks:

Maximum Shelf: The Wild Beneath by Kelly Anderson – Over at pagesofjulia, Julia Kastner writes in admiration of Kelly Anderson’s “haunting and unforgettable” magical‑realism novel The Wild Beneath – a story she describes as “firmly rooted in the physical world of a small coastal village and in the ocean itself.” The novel follows 19‑year‑old Annie MacLeod who, after a tsunami devastates her Canadian homeland, finds herself stranded, possibly bereaved, and inexplicably drawn toward a mysterious young man who is “washed up on the shore, stark naked”. Anderson’s book is “quietly astounding, beautiful even [in the way] it conveys profound pain” and “asks wise, subtle questions about the line between science and magic”. It is, says Julia, a place where the “ocean is never far from the consciousness” and a tale told “with lyricism and a quiet sense of awe”. Be sure to read her review to discover the identity of “the strange newcomer, […] who beckons her to return to the ocean”. 

* 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:

If you’d like to stay up to date with the latest Tove Jansson and Moomin news, views and events, please head over to the Tove Telegraph. 🎩👜

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Brittle Paper: “A Kind of Spiritual Collaboration”: ‘Pemi Aguda on Her Creative Intimacy with the Cover Artists of Debut Novel One Leg on Earth – ‘Pemi Aguda discusses her eagerly awaited debut novel, described by her publishers as “a vivid, mesmerising story about modern Lagos – and the darkness that swirls beneath it”, and reflects in particular on the striking covers of One Leg on Earth, which are “almost as talked-about as the book itself.”

The Arts Fuse: Book Review: The Stillness Before Silence — Robert Seethaler’s “The Last Movement” – “A brief, haunting meditation homing in on the final weeks—and thoughts—of the ailing Gustav Mahler [a Vienna-born composer living in Berlin] during his voyage back to Europe.” Joan Frank reflects on Robert Seethaler’s The Last Movement (translated from the German by Charlotte Collins).

The Culturist: 🧙🍻 The Books That Inspired Tolkien – “J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings has inspired millions. Both the original work and the movie adaptations have influenced hearts, minds, and — as the innumerable quantity of derivative fantasy worlds reveals — many a modern writer as well.” Here they “look at five of the tales that inspired [Tolkien’s masterwork].”

Smithsonian Magazine: After a Poet’s Love Story Was Cut Short, His Letters Mysteriously Disappeared—Until Rare Book Dealers Acted on a Hunch – “Eight letters that John Keats penned to his fiancée before his untimely death are “the literary find of a lifetime”, says Mary Randolph. 

Necessary Fiction: Three Stories of Forgetting – “What becomes of awful people? The Angolan-Portuguese writer Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’s Three Stories of Forgetting, sensitively translated from the Portuguese by Alison Entrekin, offers one answer […]”, writes Diane Josefowicz.

AnOther: Siri Hustvedt’s Heartbreaking Memoir Is a Study of Love and Loss – Following the death of her husband, Paul Auster, Siri Hustvedt chronicled her first year without him into a heartbreaking book, Ghost Stories, published by Sceptre and out now”. Here, Hustvedt speaks to Laura Allsop about “writing while grieving, intercorporeality, and Sabine Lidl’s documentary, titled Siri Hustvedt – Dance Around the Self, in which the late Auster also features.”

Chytomo: 🏆 House of Europe Award recognises the best translated publication of the year – “The Melancholy of Resistance by Hungarian author, novelist, screenwriter, and Nobel Prize laureate László Krasznahorkai has won the Best Translated Publication category at the House of Europe Award.” 

Longreads: The Secret Door – “When we read, we make believe. We aren’t duped or ensorcelled. Deep down we decide. We make ourselves believe” – an excerpt from Make Believe: On Telling Stories to Children by Mac Barnett.

Books Worth Reading: 16 books to read in Paris (A Literary Guide) – “I have always felt that reading, along with eating and drinking, is the best way to access that hidden city”, says the host of BWR. He also thinks the “right book” is of utmost importance. “With this in mind, [he’s] put together a list of [his] favorite books about Paris”, spanning “a variety of genres: history, novels, memoirs, and travelogues”, forming “a kaleidoscope of impressions that have enriched [his] travels in the most beautiful city in the world.”

NewScientist (via Archive Today): ✍️ A lost ancient script reveals how writing as we know it really began – “A long-overlooked writing system from 5000 years ago is still largely undeciphered but could mark the moment humans first represented their speech with written words”, reveals Colin Barras. 

The Saturday Paper: 🦘 Writer Robbie Arnott’s rebellious path to real stories – The Australian novelist Robbie Arnott “writes about the realities of the non-human world in ways that grant them meanings separate from the human.” James Bradley speaks with the author, most recently of the “antipodean Western” Dusk, about writing, reading, and the challenge of beginning a new book.

The Gem Review: 📖 Reading without an algorithm – G.M. thoroughly “enjoyed every moment [she] spent” with Elisa Gabbert’s essays “across the two and a half weeks it took [her] to read” Any Person Is the Only Self – a contemporary collection on reading, art and the life of the mind. 

Trinity College Dublin: New copy of earliest poem in English language discovered by Trinity researchers in Rome – “Old fashioned sleuthing and the help of modern technology leads to discovery of manuscript with [Caedmon’s Hymn, a] poem composed by a farm labourer 1,300 years ago”.

Commonweal: ✍️ Humanity on the Page – “How much future can there be for a writer-critic doing […] time-intensive work when a bot-critic can whip up something [impressive] in seconds?” Rand Richards Cooper with yet another piece on “writing in the Age of AI”.

BBC Culture: ‘A remarkable time capsule’: The enchanting history of Oxford University’s 750-year-old medieval library – “Predating the Aztec Empire, Merton College Library in Oxford has been used by everyone from celebrated 14th-Century mathematicians to JRR Tolkien. In an exclusive interview with the BBC for its 750th birthday, its librarian describes what makes it so special.”

From My Bookshelf: Loving the Daily Current of Existence – Peter C. Meilaender recently read an essay collection by the Italian novelist Natalia Ginzburg. He describes The Little Virtues (translated by Dick Davis) as “simply outstanding” and urges readers to seek it out, confident we “won’t regret it.”

Vol. 1 Brooklyn: Adrian Nathan West on Translating Mario Vargas Llosa – Tobias Carroll interviews Adrian Nathan West about translating two of Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa’s novels, Harsh Times and I Give You My Silence and asks him, “what he learned along the way.”

Anthony Burgess News: Sparks and Embers – The Anthony Burgess Foundation introduces a piece in which Anthony Burgess celebrates Muriel Spark. 

Literary Hub: Fellow Travelers: On Reimagining Chaucer in Post-Soviet Ukraine – In The Days of Miracle and Wonder, an American woman travels to Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union, boards a bus and sets out on a pilgrimage. Here, “Irene Zabytko recounts the process of creating her own version on The Canterbury Tale.”

The Metropolitan Review:  Melancholy Is a Duty We Ignore – In this enjoyable piece, Nate West shares his memories of the late American novelist, memoirist, playwright, biographer, essayist and pioneer of gay literature Edmund White – “someone with whom [he] could air [his] worst thoughts without worry.” 

4Columns: Fortress Besieged – “Qian Zhongshu’s epic picaresque from 1947 presents a world in which fraudulence and opportunism cast a shadow across all levels of society.” Newly reissued in English translation, Fortress Besieged is, according to Andrew Chan, “considered one of the great works of modern Chinese [parodic] fiction.”

Plough: 🚫 When Kierkegaard Got Cancelled – “Mocked by [The Corsair,] Copenhagen’s most notorious scandal sheet, [Søren] Kierkegaard endured months of deeply personal attacks and the silence of friends and allies.” Daniel Goodman recalls a “confrontation” that “would ignite one of the most notorious clashes in Danish literary history.” 

The Asahi Shimbun: Best-selling novelist punishes publisher of bigoted column – “Author Asako Yuzuki has pulled the publishing rights for her international best-selling novel Butter from Shinchosha Publishing Co., protesting the company’s handling of a discriminatory magazine column that targeted [Ushio Fukazawa,] an ethnic Korean writer.”

A Narrative Of Their Own: Short Story Salon – In the latest essay in her Short Story Salon feature, Kate Jones introduces her readers to the little‑known American writer Lucia Berlin (1936–2004), whose work, she tells us, is “comparable to [that of] Raymond Carver.” She warmly recommends Berlin’s best‑known collection, A Manual for Cleaning Women (published posthumously), and intends to read a selection of her stories herself this month.

The Collector: Faust’s Devil’s Bargain That Haunted Writers From Goethe to Mann – Dr. Victoria C. Roskams explores “how Faust’s pact with the Devil for infinite knowledge turned into a literary cornerstone, influencing major authors like Goethe, Wilde, and Mann” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust in particular.

I Recommend Books: 🫣 People don’t really pay attention to literature and I am not important – The Argentine journalist, novelist and short‑story writer Mariana Enriquez, author of Our Share of Night, “has argued that there is no tradition of horror in Latin American fiction.” As Ashley Honeysett notes, she claims that “Catholicism destroyed local beliefs,” and that “monster traditions” have disappeared “because of class prejudices against ‘superstitious beliefs of the illiterate.’” It is time, Enriquez believes, to create “a new tradition”.

49^th Shelf: 🍁 The Spring 2026 Booksellers’ List is Bursting with Canadian Reads – Kerry Clare dips into The Booksellers’ List for Spring 2026, a seasonal selection chosen by indie booksellers across the country and showcasing the latest books Canadians are most eager to read and recommend. “This time,” she notes, “more than half of the titles on the list are by Canadian authors, and five of these are by Canadian publishers,” among them Liz Johnston’s novel The Fall-Down Effect, a story that explores “protest, climate change, and fractured family relationships.”

The Paris Review: Wolfgang Koeppen’s Structural Musicality – German novelist Wolfgang Koeppen was one of the best‑known German authors of the postwar period. What follows is an excerpt from Joshua Cohen’s introduction to Koeppen’s 1954 historical novel Death in Rome (newly translated from the German by Michael Hofmann).

Scroll.in: ‘Bibhutibhushan’s writings are a commentary on our ideas of civilisation inherited from colonisers’ – “Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay’s grandson Trinankur Banerjee recently curated an exhibition on the legendary writer’s life and works in Kolkata”, says Debotri Ghosh.

Dr. Andrew Higgins Elvish Musings: 🛸 Exploring Invented Languages – Director of Development at Imperial War Museums and Tolkien scholar Dr. Andrew Higgins explores language invention in early science fiction, highlighting Edward Bulwer‑Lytton’s 1871 “cultural phenomenon,” Vril: The Coming Race – which “inspired a range of occult movements” and “generated what may have been the first systematically described invented language in the history of science fiction.”

The British Columbia Review: 🍁🛸 Before and after the flood – “Homebound by [former UVic student] Portia Elan manages to be many things: nostalgic, futuristic, tragic, tender, and above all, a startlingly moving debut”, says Zoe McKenna in her review of this sci‑fi‑adventure/historical novel.

Islington Tribune: My days as a spy and other stories – “It’s the way she tells them. Dan Carrier talks to Xandra Bingley about what lies behind her razor-sharp observations of everyday human life” in her first collection of short stories Ways of Telling (with a foreword by Margaret Atwood).

Jane Austen’s Niece: Caroline Jane Knight: The Other Bennet Sister: We Need to Talk About Mrs Bennet – When Caroline, Jane Austen’s fifth great‑niece and the last of the family to grow up at Chawton House, recently appraised Janice Hadlow’s The Other Bennet Sister for her readers, she was taken aback by the “passionate” response to her piece – particularly regarding the portrayal of Mrs Bennet. In this follow‑up, she reflects on why she has always “cared for” and been deeply “fascinated” by this character.

The Irish Times (via Archive Today): Corpses are everywhere in Irish literature – “This proliferation of dead bodies in Irish writing is more than a sign of a morbid fascination: it is an effort to make sense of Irish life.” Taking its cue from that observation, The Corpse in Modern Irish Literature [edited by Christopher Cusack, Bridget English and Matthew Reznicek], out now from Liverpool University Press, poses the question: what do Irish literature’s dead bodies reveal about Irish society and culture?”

Feasts and Festivals: 📖 Travel Reading – “Putting together a pile of reading material to take on holiday is for me one of the great pleasures of going away.” Liz Gwedhan recalls “what [she’s] read when on the go…”

Guernica: 📖 Three Pages of Don Quixote – “Here was a woman who had lived through a dictatorship, been through three marriages, and built a brilliant career in a relentlessly male-dominated field. And she was happy.” Daniela Gutiérrez Flores recalls reading Don Quixote with Alexandra Ionescu‑Tulcea.

ARC: 🐉 Listening to Ghosts – Stephanie Burt finds Rachel Hartman’s latest fantasy novel, Among Ghosts, “imagines a world of plague, dragons, and holy ruins in order to rethink Western religion, moral progress, and the lives modernity leaves behind”.

Two Woolfs in one:
Knowledge Lust: 📖✍️ How to Read a Book Like Virginia Woolf – So “inspiring and unique” does Sam Rinko find Virginia Woolf’s reading life that he “felt compelled to learn more about it” and share it with others. Here he highlights five techniques she used to “read, reflect upon, and review books.”
Edinburgh University Press: Interview with Maggie Humm – Maggie Humm, Emeritus Professor and Vice‑Chair of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain and author of the newly published Snapshots: Autobiography, Virginia Woolf, Writing and the Visual (currently garnering much praise), reflects on feminist criticism, life‑writing, and Virginia Woolf’s influence. There is also information at Blogging Woolf about obtaining a 30% discount on this title in the post Woolf scholars in the news.

The Artifice: Light Novels: The Quiet Conquest of Western Fiction – “In 1988, a Japanese publishing house called Kadokawa Shoten launched a new imprint called Sneaker Bunko.” Small and brightly illustrated, the format grew “into one of the largest categories of fiction sold in Japan”, says Daria. “The books would eventually acquire a name that has become familiar to readers all over the world” – Light Novels.

Guardian Australia: 🦘 Best Australian books out in May: Robert Forster’s crime caper, a ‘superb’ new novel and Periodic Bitch – “Each month Guardian Australia editors and critics pick the upcoming titles they have devoured – or can’t wait to get their hands on” – here is their latest selection.

Irish Examiner: Book review: A quiet story of personal crisis that swells into tumultuous tide of history – Hugo Hamilton’s Conversation with the Sea is a “profound meditation on how the [tumult] of our contemporary world is inescapably shaped within the continuum of history,” says Eoghan Smith. A “precise, masterly novel, [it] encompasses themes of trauma, displacement, war, history, love, hope, and hopelessness.”

Noted: Re-Noted: ✍️ Jack Kerouac’s Introspective Notes – The American beat novelist and poet, Jack Kerouac transferred his thoughts into a great many notebooks over the years. “They remain”, says Jillian Hess, “a testament to his creative mix of discipline and rebellion”, in which he “wrote doggedly, but loosely”, in his endeavour to become “a great writer” – though, he was determined to “do it his way.”

Aotearoa New Zealand Review of Books: The End and the Beginning by K. J. Holdom – “The End and the Beginning is the debut novel by former journalist K.J. Holdom – born in Taranaki, now living in Auckland, with extended periods spent in France. The story is based on a real family and true events, set largely during the second World War.” John Prins describes it as a “charged debut about young boys sent to fight in the last days of [the war]”.

Literaria: a curated tour of my medieval book collection. – In ephemera #14, Nicole Raimondi takes a “journey through the medieval gems that shaped [her] vision, from ancient Latin treatises to a childhood treasure”.

Noglesque: 🫣 Rhiannon Grist on Rage, Weird Fiction, and Home Sick – The fourth instalment in Christi Nogle’s ‘Women in Horror’ series sees her interview the “award-winning Welsh writer” Rhiannon Grist. Described by her publisher as “a new voice in British horror fiction”, Grist’s debut Home Sick is said to be a “liminal fever dream of a novel”, “masterful” and “a love letter to female rage.”

Morocco World News: 🦘 SIEL 2026: Moroccan-Australian Author Brings a Story of Dual Identity Home – “Writing in English is increasingly enabling Moroccan authors to position their stories within global conversations, making them more accessible to audiences who might otherwise remain distant from Moroccan cultural production,” reports Asmae Daoudi. At this year’s International Publishing and Book Fair, the Moroccan‑Australian author Nadia Mahjouri – in an event organized by the Australian Embassy in Morocco – took centre stage to discuss “identity, language, and belonging.”

Miller’s Book Review: 🛸 Who Really Wrote Philip K. Dick’s Best Novel? – In 1963 Philip K. Dick “won Sci-Fi’s highest accolade, the Hugo, for his alternative history, The Man in the High Castle.” In this piece, Joel J. Miller examines a “3,000-year-old algorithm,” a classic dystopian novel and “the knobby question that won’t go away”.

Below the Fray: ✍️ Are Book Reviews Gaslighting Us? – “There are currently twice as many humans in space as there are full-time book critics in America”, says Blake Lefray. What’s more, he adds, “the traditional book review stinks. And it always has” – filled as they are with “soul-killing” clichés and “constant gooey positivity”. He issues a call for “honesty without malice” and pleads with critics to stop treating “authors with kid gloves”.

A double Monroe:
Bookforum: Blond Ambition – Moira Donegan reflects on “one hundred years of [the ‘actually quite smart’] Marilyn Monroe” in her review of Marilyn Monroe 100: The Official Centenary Book from ACC Art Books Ltd.
The Guardian: Arthur Miller opens up about marriage to Marilyn Monroe in newly unearthed recordings – In this exclusive, Donna Ferguson reveals parts of taped conversations with Arthur Miller that “also cover playwright’s relationship with fame, self-doubt and communism”. The material is excerpted from the newly published The Arthur Miller Tapes: A Life in His Own Words by Christopher Bigsby. 

Homes & Gardens: Designers Are Obsessed With ‘Book Drenching’ – The 2026 Trend That Wraps Your Entire Room in Color and Character – “If you’ve got a book collection, you’ve got decor, this is how designers are making the ‘library wrap’ the star of their projects”, reveals Eleanor Richardson.

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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 term, 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: #20booksofsummer26, 20 Books of Summer, ‘Pemi Aguda, Cat Literature, Children’s Book Week, Chinese Literature, Dalloway Day 2026, Europe Day, Hugo Hamilton, Irish Literature, Kelly Anderson, Magical Realism, Margot Datz, Modernism, Portia Elan, Qian Zhongshu, Read in the Bathtub Day, Reading the Meow, Reading the Meow 2026, Robbie Arnott, Science Fiction, Three Things, Virginia Woolf