Compulsive Reader

Compulsive Reader News
maggieball@compulsivereader.com
http://compulsivereader.com
Volume 24, Issue 10, 1 Oct 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 How Beautiful People Are by Ayaz Pirani

A preternatural intelligence is required to understand the complexity of beauty and to hold beauty with reverence and respect for objectivity. Pirani gives depth to these contemplations as well as to the practice of observation. The poem investigates a balance between what is and what is observed. The reflection and mergence between the viewer and the viewed arrives at the crossroad of what may quickly be lost. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/09/27/a-review-of-how-beautiful-people-are-by-ayaz-pirani/

A review of The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty

But don’t read Hutch for the plot, read it for the language–seductive, entertaining and leading readers wonderfully astray. Insert your own line breaks and it can at times read like poetry, or a game of word pick up sticks. A throw away character is “a wonky Christian philanthropist—now a resident of Quebec.” The effect of Gunty’s linguistic pile ons are like a Wes Anderson movie. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/09/26/a-review-of-the-rabbit-hutch-by-tess-gunty/

A review of American Seoul by Helena Rho

A language constitutes a world; that idea is significant in Rho’s memoir. She goes into a Korean shop for lunch with her daughter, and a woman working there encourages her to speak Korean, as does a woman, a minister’s wife, with whom Rho talks on the phone about lessons in Korean for her daughter and son. Growing up, she didn’t speak Korean with her parents. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/09/23/a-review-of-american-seoul-by-helena-rho/

A review of Lyon Street by Marc Zegans

For our poet, each of the women who appear in this collection are more than characters. Each one is also an encounter to be reckoned with, an archetype, someone to be understood at a deeper level. The poem concludes with the poet wondering if this “carnival life” was “…a perfect faith that this was forever..” until he and company then “…ambled across Broadway down Columbus…climbed the secret stairs to Apple and Eve,// saw the dancing girl with the welts on her thighs,/ and realized, all this was not just play.” Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/09/18/a-review-of-lyon-street-by-marc-zegans/

A review of Women Winning Office by Peggy Nash

Should a woman run as an independent, or as a candidate for a recognized party? In Canadian municipal politics, everyone is an independent in theory. At the provincial and federal levels, most successful candidates have a party affiliation. Nash acknowledges that independent candidates are free of strong central control and vetting; adherence to policy and discipline, and the nomination process that a party requires Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/09/14/a-review-of-women-winning-office-by-peggy-nash/

An interview with Jeff Seitzer

The author of The Fun Master talks about his new book, about being a stay-at-home dad, how his own neurological experience both helped and hindered him in managing his son Ethan’s special needs, the best (and worst) parenting advice he received, what changed for him as a stay-at-home dad after Ethan passed away, how he came to write the book, and lots more. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/09/13/an-interview-with-jeff-seitzer/

A review of Enclave by Claire G Coleman

The book opens like a cracked mirror to our modern society, but it’s not quite a dystopia. The key twist in the book is so good I will resist the urge to signal it, but there are many twists in the book, moving across a terrain which takes on any number of possible futures displayed simultaneously, with humour, precision, and a poetic grace so smooth it’s easy to glide over its surface on a first reading. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/09/10/a-review-of-enclave-by-claire-g-coleman/

A review of The Circle That Fits by Kevin Lichty

In a vignette-based narrative that takes us from Daniel’s childhood through early adulthood, we find moments of surrealism amid vivid violence within a delicate, rhythmic language that supports the wonder and naivety of the narrator. Daniel’s first circle is drawn by his father, a literal circle in the soil his father says is “all the room you have now” and forms a boundary on his grief after his mother leaves the family. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/09/07/a-review-of-the-circle-that-fits-by-kevin-lichty/

A review of The Pit by Tara Borin

The Pit is vulnerable. Every character is one that you might know and put a face to. None are foreign or fantastical and in that way, friendly yet tragic in the same breath, quickly urging sympathy from the reader. Just as a pub is a collector of escapists and thrill-seekers, it is routinely a home for the broken and suffering. The manner in which Borin curates a motif of safety is endearing and compliments the beauty of The Pit. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/09/04/a-review-of-the-pit-by-tara-borin/

A review of Walking the Labyrinth by Pamela Wax

An ordained rabbi, Pamela Wax’s poems are steeped in ethical concerns and Jewish tradition and practice. “I keep getting books about character,” “Not Moses,” “Bad Girl” and others address her sense of coming up short, failing in her duties as a sister and a daughter, as a human being. One’s responses to grief are complex and often contradictory. Read more: http://compulsivereader.com/2022/09/02/a-review-of-walking-the-labyrinth-by-pamela-wax/

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) categorised archives (currently at 2,023 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, Jacqueline Auld won the £2,500 Lindisfarne Prize for Crime Fiction, which “celebrates the outstanding crime and thriller storytelling of those who are from, or whose work celebrates, north-east England,” for her story “The Children of Gaia,” the Bookseller reported. In addition to cash, the prize is designed “to support the completion of her work, and funding towards a year’s membership of the Society of Authors and the Alliance of Independent Authors.”

Six titles made the shortlist for this year’s Booker Prize for Fiction, one of the most prestigious prizes for English-language literature. This year’s finalists were chosen from 169 novels published in the U.K. or Ireland between October 1, 2021, and September 30, 2022. The 2022 winner, who will receive £50,000, will be announced on October 17 in an award ceremony held in partnership with the BBC. The 2022 shortlist is as follows: Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo (Viking), The Trees by Percival Everett (Graywolf), Treacle Walker by Alan Garner (HarperCollins), The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka (Sort of Books), Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Grove), and Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout (Random House). The six shortlisted authors represent five nationalities across four continents, with an even split of men and women. Bulawayo makes her second shortlist appearance, and Garner is the oldest author ever to be shortlisted. Small Things Like These is the shortest book by page numbers to be recognized in the prize’s history.

The 14-title longlist has been released for the C$100,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize, which “highlights the very best of Canadian fiction.” The shortlist will be unveiled September 27 and a winner named November 7. This year’s longlisted titles are: A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray Belcourt , In the City of Pigs by André Forget, Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu, Stray Dogs by Rawi Hage, Pure Colour by Sheila Heti, All the Quiet Places by Brian Thomas Isaac, Avenue of Champions by Conor Kerr, The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr, If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English by Noor Naga, Lucien & Olivia by André Narbonne, Hotline by Dimitri Nasrallah, What We Both Know by Fawn Parker, We Measure the Earth With Our Bodies by Tsering Yangzom Lama, and Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson.

The 2022 Liquid Amber Poetry Prize asked poets to respond to textual and visual prompts on the theme of ‘encounter’.The winners have been announced as: Second prize – Lindsay Tuggle for her poem ‘The Specimen Dream’ and First prize – Reneé Pettitt-Schipp for her poem ‘Nowanup’, The judges were Rose Lucas and Anne M. Carson.

The winners of the 2022 Hugo Awards, Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book, and Astounding Award for Best New Writer were announced on Sunday, September 4, 2022, during a formal ceremony at Chicon 8, the 80th World Science Fiction Convention, hosted by Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders. 2235 valid final ballots (2230 electronic and 5 paper) were received and counted from the members of Chicon 8. The winners are: Best Novel – A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady Martine (Tor), Best Novella – A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers (Tordotcom), Best Novelette – “Bots of the Lost Ark”, by Suzanne Palmer (Clarkesworld, Jun 2021). For the many other winners visit: https://www.thehugoawards.org

The 2022 NSW Premier’s History Awards were announced at the State Library on 2 September as part of the official launch of NSW History Week. Sharing $75,000aud in prize money the 2022 winners are: Australian History Prize ($15,000): French Connection: Australia’s Cosmopolitan Ambitions by Alexis Bergantz (NewSouth). General History Prize ($15,000): The Filipino Migration Experience: Global Agents of Change by Mina Roces (Cornell University Press). NSW Community and Regional History Prize ($15,000): The Winter Road: A Story of Legacy, Land, and a Killing at Croppa Creek by Kate Holden (Black Inc. Books). Young People’s History Prize ($15,000): The Dunggiirr Brothers and the Caring Song of the Whale by Aunty Shaa Smith, Neeyan Smith, Uncle Bud Marshall, with Yandaarra including Sarah Wright, Lara Daley and Paul Hodge (Allen & Unwin) and Digital History Prize ($15,000): The Last Outlaws by chief investigator Professor Katherine Biber and First Nations family and cultural advisor Aunty Loretta Parsley (Impact Studios, the University of Technology Sydney).

The National Book Foundation will honor Art Spiegelman with the 2022 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Spiegelman is the first comic artist to receive the DCAL medal, which will be presented to him by author Neil Gaiman at the National Book Awards Ceremony on November 16. Spiegelman is the 35th recipient of the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letter; previous recipients include Walter Mosley, Isabel Allende, Robert A. Caro, John Ashbery, Judy Blume, Don DeLillo, Joan Didion, E.L. Doctorow, Maxine Hong Kingston, Stephen King, Ursula K. Le Guin, Toni Morrison, Adrienne Rich, and most recently, Karen Tei Yamashita. Recipients receive $10,000 and a solid brass medal.

The Winner of the 2022 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature is Menachem Kaiser for Plunder. Finalists were Danny Adeno Abebe for From Africa to Zion and Ayala Fader for Hidden Heretics, as well as Eylon Levy for the translation finalist. As the premier award of its kind, the annual prize recognizes the unique role of contemporary writers in the examination and transmission of the Jewish experience. The $100,000 prize is presented to an emerging writer who demonstrates the potential for continued contribution to the world of Jewish literature. More details can be found here: https://www.samirohrprize.org

Finalists have been announced for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, which honours one fiction and one nonfiction author “whose work advances peace as a solution to conflict, and leads readers to a better understanding of other cultures, peoples, religions, and political points of view.” A winner and runner-up in both categories will be named September 22. Winners receive $10,000 and runners-up $2,500. Margaret Atwood will also be honoured with the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. The 2022 finalists are: for Fiction, Beasts of a Little Land by Juhea Kim (HarperCollins), Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr (Simon & Schuster), Infinite Country by Patricia Engel (S&S), North by Brad Kessler (Abrams), The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (HarperCollins), What Comes After by JoAnne Tompkins (Riverhead. For Nonfiction High Conflict by Amanda Ripley (S&S), How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith (Little, Brown), Invisible Child by Andrea Elliott (Random House), The Last Nomad by Shugri Said Sahl (Algonquin), The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee (One World), and Wildland by Evan Osnos (Macmillan).

The shortlist has been released for the C$60,000 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, which recognises the best novel or short story collection of the year by a Canadian citizen or permanent resident. This year’s finalists, who each receive C$5,000 are: Manam by Rima Elkouri, Some Hellish by Nicholas Herring, Querelle of Roberval by Kevin Lambert, Ezra’s Ghosts by Darcy Tamayose, and Her First Palestinian by Saeed Teebi.

Finally, the shortlist for the $75,000 2022 Cundill History Prize, administered by McGill University and recognising the book that most “embodies historical scholarship, originality, literary quality and broad appeal,” have been selected. Finalists will be announced in mid-October and the winner during the Cundill History Prize Festival November 30-December 1. The shortlist: In the Forest of No Joy: The Congo-Océan Railroad and the Tragedy of French Colonialism by J.P. Daughton (Norton), Cuba: An American History by Ada Ferrer (Scribner)
The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators Between Qing China and the British Empire by Henrietta Harrison (Princeton University Press), Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich by Harald Jähner, translated by Shaun Whiteside (Ebury, PRH)
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles (Random House), The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics by Mae Ngai (Norton), Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate by M.E. Sarotte (Yale University Press), and Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union by Vladislav M. Zubok (Yale University Press).

Have a great month!

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COMPETITION NEWS

Congratulations to Jean Patton, who won a copy of Valley of Shadows by Rudy Ruiz.

Congratulations to Nancy Wissel who won a copy of The Absurd Rules of Life by Raul Gallardo Flores.

Congratulations to Sharon Berger who won a copy of The Fun Master by Jeff Seitzer.

Our new site giveaway is for a copy of Moonstone Hero by David Sklar. To win send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line: “Moonstone Hero” and your postal address in the body of the email.

Good luck, everyone!

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