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Compulsive Reader News
maggieball@compulsivereader.com
http://compulsivereader.com
Volume 24, Issue 5, 1 May 2022
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IN THIS ISSUE
New Reviews at Compulsive Reader
Literary News
Competition News
Sponsored By
Coming soon
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Hello readers. Here is the latest batch of reviews and interviews:
A review of The Age of Fibs by Beth Spencer
However true to fact and corroborated by photos and drawings, memoir is always subject to recreation, to one-sided perception, rewriting, and recasting. It is always both true and fictive, and like dreams, pieced together from a grab-bag of images and turned into stories that reflect the themes being explored. The Age of Fibs picks up on this uncertainty beautifully and works with it, allowing for openness, complexity, and fragmentation, while still keeping the coherency of the story intact. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/04/29/a-review-of-the-age-of-fibs-by-beth-spencer/
A review of The Pink Book by Henry Von Doussa
The book is a series of personal essays and collages bound in an exquisite coffee-table book; it bursts with colour and nuance yet simplicity and dedication to the characters and stories that lie within. Interwoven with touchingly personal stories of childhood and young adulthood and philosophies on life, it is a challenge to put The Pink Book down. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/04/28/a-review-of-the-pink-book-by-henry-von-doussa/
A review of Masks: Stories from a Pandemic by Peter Cherches
Set in New York City, the epicenter of the Coronavirus pandemic when it first came to the United States in 2020, these stories all involve masks – cloth masks, surgical masks, N95s, KN95s, you name it; wearing them on the subway, at the grocery, in the post office, outdoors, standing in line, at home. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/04/27/a-review-of-masks-stories-from-a-pandemic-by-peter-cherches/
A review of Resistance Is a Blue Spanish Guitar by George Wallace
Wallace’s voice is compelling and instructive. Parenthetical asides abound, as if he is telling us, in an aside, crucial information to elucidate and amplify his lessons. He can also be funny. “The Real Dookie” is a whimsical poem about the rise and fall of a Beat Poet (“the real dookie”). “Goodbye Angelina” is in the aw-shucks voice of a Texas cowpoke who has been sleeping with the wife of an absent husband. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/04/20/a-review-of-resistance-is-a-blue-spanish-guitar-by-george-wallace/
A review of The Necessity of Wildfire by Caitlin Scarano
It is from gifts of intellectual and creative awareness that a poet can make subtle assertions, even if the gifts have been painfully wrought. Poems in this collection examine emotions of anger, grief, rage, shame and regret, often within careful nature-based metaphors. The poems are rich in description of place and nature that are nonjudgmental and move the collection forward. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/04/20/a-review-of-the-necessity-of-wildfire-by-caitlin-scarano/
A Blight on the Record of a Dead Man: My Interview with Author Bob Freville
I wouldn’t call Bob Freville a hero of mine, but after our exchange, I feel comfortable encouraging others to interface with those whose work they appreciate. The experience has taught me that good artists can be objective about their own work and inviting of alternate opinions. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/04/17/a-blight-on-the-record-of-a-dead-man-my-interview-with-author-bob-freville/
A Disgusting Fate Befalls Deplorables: A Review of The Filthy Marauders by Bob Freville
This isn’t to say that the characters in The Filthy Marauders aren’t memorable. If anything the opposite is true; Freville’s gift seems to lie in his ability to craft flesh-and-blood eccentrics with voices that are all their own. It is only too disappointing that he has more enthusiasm for their suffering than he does for their redemption. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/04/17/a-disgusting-fate-befalls-deplorables-a-review-of-the-filthy-marauders/
A review of RBG A to Z by Jo Stewart
Some tidbits are amusing: that serious-faced woman was a high school baton twirler! Her family called her Kiki. She loved a good poppy seed bagel. Ginsburg also stockpiled Notorious RBG shirts, and enjoyed giving them as gifts. One wonders if the Queen of England does the same with tea towels. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/04/13/a-review-of-rbg-a-to-z-by-jo-stewart/
A review of The Blue Butterfly by Leslie Johansen Nack
Did W.R. ruin Marion’s life and career? I would say “No.”. She enjoyed a period of stardom like many actors, though her forty-eight films in twenty years were uneven in quality. She married unhappily and drank too much, but she appears to have been a well-functioning alcoholic noted for her philanthropy, especially to children’s charities. At the time of her death she was the richest woman in Hollywood. The title, The Blue Butterfly, suggests sadness, but my view is that she was a rosebud who became a rose. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/04/11/a-review-of-the-blue-butterfly-by-leslie-johansen-nack/
A review of Masquerade by Carolyne Wright
The writing in Masquerade is erudite, with frequent literary allusions that enrich the poems. From the moment young Wright meets the handsome neighbor to her writing studio, the pheromones are on high alert. In “At First Sight,” she writes of “Kismet’s / metabolic blow-dart” but signals premonition with the final question, “Cupid’s curse / or Caliban’s Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/04/10/a-review-of-masquerade-by-carolyne-wright/
Clarity That Could Cut Through Bone: A Review of Listen Mama
Listen Mama is less a traditional memoir and more a compilation of the author’s journal entries, many of which were written at the tender but precocious age of 14. These entries stretch over more than 19 years, covering in real time the heartaches, health problems, and general misfortunes that were thrown at this unfortunate person. What Williams brings to the memoir is a clarity that could cut through bone and a sober reconciliation with the past that can only come with age and knowing. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/04/08/clarity-that-could-cut-through-bone-a-review-of-listen-mama/
A review of Scale Model of a Country at Dawn by John Sibley Williams.
Scale Model of a Country at Dawn is an incantation of fluctuating tides and currents, it is an alchemy of stars, horses, ghosts, salt, dreams, and especially prayers. It is an ebb and flow of beautiful lyric poems that carry us over the shifting ground upon which we build our lives, sustaining by its music, but never pretending to a security that no one can promise. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/04/06/a-review-of-scale-model-of-a-country-at-dawn-by-john-sibley-williams/
A review of The Alphabet of Women edited by Miriam Hechtman
The richness and variety of topics and styles is impressive. Many of the stories in the poems tell us about the strength of women and their struggle to survive in a male dominated world. Reading page by page we go through women’s lives, from the quotidian to the extraordinary, from the intimate to the distant, from the general to the particular. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/04/04/a-review-of-the-alphabet-of-women-edited-by-miriam-hechtman/
A review of American Daguerreotypes: Ekphrastic Poems by James Penha
The poems are uniformly crisp, accessible, and well-written, and tuned to each illustration. All in all, a fascinating and well-done presentation of graphic, history, and poetry in a lovely and unique format. From the intriguing concept to the full-realized poems, this chapbook is a delight to view and read. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/04/03/a-review-of-american-daguerreotypes-ekphrastic-poems-by-james-penha/
All of the reviews and interviews listed above are available at The Compulsive Reader on the front page. Older reviews and interviews are kept indefinitely in our extensive (and growing) categorized archives (currently at 2,944 which can be browsed or searched from the front page of the site.
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LITERARY NEWS
In the literary news this month, the shortlist for the 2022 Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize, honouring “the best published literary work in the English language written by an author aged 39 or under,” has been selected. The winner of the £20,000 prize will be announced May 12. The shortlisted titles are: A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam (Sri Lanka, novel), Auguries of a Minor God by Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe (India, poetry debut), The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris (U.S., debut novel), No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood (U.S., novel), Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson (Britain-Ghana, debut novel), and Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor (U.S., short story collection)
The 2022 Grammy Awards have announced their winners including Don Cheadle, in the Best Spoken Word Album category (including poetry, audiobooks & storytelling), for his narration of Carry On: Reflections for a New Generation from John Lewis (Hachette Audio). The full list of winners is here: https://www.grammy.com/news/2022-grammys-complete-winners-nominees-nominations-list
The winners of the 2022 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, sponsored by the Cleveland Foundation and honoring “literature that confronts racism and explores diversity,” are: Fiction: The Trees by Percival Everett, Poetry: The Renunciations by Donika Kelly
Nonfiction (co-winners): Of Fear and Strangers: A History of Xenophobia by George Makari
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles, and Lifetime Achievement: Ishmael Reed “This round of Anisfield-Wolf winners brings us important insights on race and diversity,” said Henry Louis Gates Jr., who chairs the jury. “This year, we honor a satiric novel about lynching disguised as a detective story, a poetry collection that remakes the meanings of childhood abuse, an innovative look at the idea of xenophobia, and a story of recovered history based on an embroidered sack. All is capped by the lifetime achievement of Ishmael Reed, a genre-bending and genre-transcending colossus of literature.”
Rabih Alameddine won the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for The Wrong End of the Telescope (Grove Atlantic). He will receive $15,000, with the other shortlisted writers each getting $5,000. All five will be honored May 2 at the annual PEN/Faulkner Award Celebration, a live virtual event featuring an appearance by the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Literary Champion, Oprah Winfrey. “This year’s judges have done the seemingly impossible,” said Louis Bayard, PEN/Faulkner Awards committee chair. “They have found a ‘first among equals’ in a diverse slate of five extraordinary titles. We look forward to celebrating Rabih Allameddine’s exquisite novel, as well as the enduring work of his fellow finalists.”
The NSW Premier’s Literary Awards shortlists have been announced. These include, for The Christina Stead prize for fiction, Tony Birch, Dark as Last Night (University of Queensland Press), Merlinda Bobis, The Kindness Of Birds (Spinifex Press), Katherine Brabon, The Shut Ins (Allen & Unwin), John Hughes, The Dogs (Upswell Publishing), John Kinsella, Pushing Back (Transit Lounge), and Claire Thomas, The Performance (Hachette Australia). For the Kenneth Slessor Prize for poetry, Eunice Andrada, TAKE CARE (Giramondo Publishing), Evelyn Araluen, Dropbear (University of Queensland Press), Eileen Chong, A Thousand Crimson Blooms (University of Queensland Press), Dan Disney, accelerations & inertias (Vagabond Press), John Kinsella Supervivid Depastoralism (Vagabond Press), and Bella Li, Theory of Colours (Vagabond Press). For the full suite including highly commended, visit: https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/awards/nsw-premiers-literary-awards
The 10 winners of the 37th Whiting Awards, each of which comes with a $50,000 prize, were announced on April 5 in an in-person ceremony at the New-York Historical Society. The event featured a keynote by MacArthur Fellow and National Book Critics Circle Award winner Maggie Nelson, and readings by each of the winners will take place at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn on April 7. The winners are: Claire Boyles, Megha Majumdar, Nana Nkweti and Rita Bullwinkel, for fiction, Ina Cariño, Claire Schwartz and Anthony Cody for poetry, Anaïs Duplan, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and Jesse McCarthy for nonfiction. The Whiting Awards are given annually to writers of drama, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. A total of $9 million has been awarded to 370 fiction and nonfiction writers, poets, and playwrights to date.
Recipients of the 2022 Guggenheim Fellowships have been announced. This year’s Fellows include 180 scientists, writers, scholars, and artists honoured across 51 fields. A full list can be seen here: https://www.gf.org/announcements/ The shortlist for the International Booker Prize, honouring a book “written in another language and translated into English,” has been released. The winning book will be announced May 26, with the £50,000 prize money divided equally between the author and translator. In addition, the shortlisted authors and translators each receive £2,500 (about $3,270), increased from £1,000 (about $1,305) in previous years. This year’s shortlisted titles are: Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Sam Bett & David Boyd, Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro, translated from Spanish by Frances Riddle, A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse, translated from Norwegian by Damion Searls, Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell, The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from Polish by Jennifer Croft, and Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated from Korean by Anton Hur.
The shortlist has been chosen for the 2022 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. The winner of the £25,000 (about $32,515) prize will be announced on June 17 during the Borders Book Festival. The shortlist: Rose Nicolson by Andrew Greig, News of the Dead by James Robertson, Fortune by Amanda Smyth, and The Magician by Colm Tóibín.
Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor (Riverhead Books) has won the $20,000 Story Prize, which honours the author of an outstanding collection of short fiction and is underwritten by the Chisholm Foundation. The other finalists were Five Tuesdays in Winter by Lily King (Grove Press) and Think of Me by J. Robert Lennon (Graywolf Press), whose authors receive $5,000 each.
Gail McConnell won the €10,000 John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize, which recognises an outstanding debut collection of poetry in the English language, for The Sun Is Open. The award is sponsored by the John Pollard Foundation and administered by the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre in the School of English at Trinity College Dublin.
The Griffin Trust has released this year’s international and Canadian shortlists for the Griffin Poetry Prize. Two winners will be named June 15, each receiving C$65,000 while the other finalists will each be awarded C$10,000. The shortlisted Griffin titles are: International: Late to the House of Words by Sharon Dolin, translated from the Catalan by Gemma Gorga
Sho by Douglas Kearney, Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow by Ali Kinsella and Dzvinia Orlowsky, translated from the Ukrainian by Natalka Bilotserkivets, and Asked What Has Changed by Ed Roberson and Canadian: Dream of No One But Myself by David Bradford. Letters in a Bruised Cosmos by Liz Howard, and The Junta of Happenstance by Tolu Oloruntoba.
The shortlist of the 2022 Women’s Prize for fiction has been announced. This year’s shortlist incorporates a range of themes including belonging and identity; the power of nature; the burden of history; personal freedom; sisterhood; mental illness; ghosts; gender violence; and the opportunity for renewal. The novels also offer globe-spanning settings, from Antarctica to Montana, Cyprus to Trinidad. The six shortlisted books include: Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead, Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason, The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki, The Bread the Devil Knead by Lisa Allen-Agostini, The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak, and The Sentence by Louise Erdrich.
Debut writer Evelyn Araluen has won the Stella prize, Australia’s literary award for women and non-binary writers, for her collection Dropbear – making her the first poet to win the $60,000 award in the first year poetry was allowed to enter. Of winning this year’s prize (worth $60,000), Araluen says: ’I’m deeply interested in the lives, histories, and dreams of women and gender diverse writers in Australian publishing, and it’s an honour to be recognised by a prize designed to champion those stories.’ Born and raised on Dharug country, Araluen is a descendant of the Bundjalung Nation. Dropbear was shortlisted for the 2021 Judith Wright Calanthe Award for a Poetry Collection.
Finally, the overall winner and five special mentions have been announced by the European Union Prize for Literature, which recognises “emerging fiction writers from the European Union and beyond.” The winner is Iva Pezuashvili, for A Garbage Chute (Intelekti), Georgia
Special mentions are: Gaea Schoeters, for Trophy (Uitgeverij Querido), Belgium. Slađana Nina Perković, for In the Ditch (Imprimatur), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin, for Madame Lazare (Barzaz), Ireland, Jacobo Bergareche, for Perfect Days (Libros del Asteroide), Spain, and Eugenia Kuznetsova, for Ask Miyechka (Old Lion Publishing House), Ukraine
Have a great month!
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COMPETITION NEWS
Congratulations to T C Houghtby who won a copy of Pesticide by Kim Hays.
Congratulations to Anita Yancey who won an personalised autographed copy of a copy of
Congratulations to Susan Benedict, who won a copy of A Stream to Follow by Jess Wright.
Our new site giveaway is for a copy of Gods of Deception by David Adams Cleveland. To win send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line: “Gods of Deception” and your postal address in the body of the email.
We also have a copy of Suburban Death Project by Aimee Parkison to giveaway. To win send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line: “Suburban Death Project” and your postal address in the body of the email.
Good luck, everyone!
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COMING SOON
We will shortly be featuring interviews with Piller of Salt’s Anna Salton Eisen and A Disturbing Nature’s Brian Lebeau, reviews of Daisy and Woolf by Michelle Cahill, Revenants by Adam Aitken, A Spell For Living by Keisha-Gaye Anderson, and lots more reviews and interviews.
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Drop by The Compulsive Reader talks (see the widget on right-hand side of the site) to listen to our latest episode which features Lorna Munro. You can also listen directly here: https://anchor.fm/compulsivereader/episodes/Talking-poetry-with-YilinhiLorna-Munro-e1h49p2
Subscribe to the show via iTunes and get updates automatically, straight to your favourite listening device. Find us under podcasts by searching for Compulsive Reader Talks. Then just click subscribe.
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(c) 2022 Magdalena Ball. Nothing in this newsletter may be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher, however, reprint rights are readily available. Please feel free to forward this newsletter in its entirety.
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