CR Newsletter June: Dicker, Brett, Baldwin, Pääbo, Lazar and more

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The Compulsive Reader News
maggieball@compulsivereader.com
http://compulsivereader.com
Volume 15, Issue 6, 1 June 2014
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IN THIS ISSUE

New Reviews at Compulsive Reader
Literary News
Survey News
Competition New
Coming soon
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Hello readers. Here are the latest batch of reviews this month:

A Conversation with Joël Dicker

The author of The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair talks about his first American novel, about its New England setting, about the structure of the book, his inspirations, about the Nabakov connection, his characters, about the popularity of fiction about academics, his detour into law, the writers he admires and lots more. For the full interview visit: http://compulsivereader.com/2014/05/30/a-conversation-with-joel-dicker/

A review of The Twelfth Raven by Doris Brett

One ordinary evening when Doris Brett and her husband Martin went out dancing, the normally super-sharp Martin became confused. After struggling to put sentences together, an ambulance was called, and, in Doris’ own words, “so it begins.” Martin ends up having a massive stroke, suffering extensive damage to the left frontal lobe, which leaves him unable to talk, walk (never mind dance) and eat on his own. For the full review visit: http://compulsivereader.com/2014/05/27/a-review-of-the-twelfth-raven-by-doris-brett/

A review of Parent Plots, Teacher tales & Student Stories by Edward M Baldwin

Baldwin combines a breezy, easy to read writing style with years of classroom experiences to produce a well written work filled with short to a little longer sketches that offer a peek into the life of teachers and parents. While not every offering is meant to be humorous, the ones that are do bring a smile to the lips and giggles during the read. For the full review visit: http://compulsivereader.com/2014/05/27/a-review-of-parent-plots-teacher-tales-student-stories-by-edward-m-baldwin/

A review of Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes by Svante Pääbo

Svante Pääbo does a good job explaining difficult concepts to the average reader. I could not grasp in detail how he did his work, but he explained it well enough that I understood it and felt comfortable with it. His book is not only a scientific treatise on his work in developing the genome of Neanderthal Man, it is also an interesting autobiographical account of his experiences in his career in anthropology and with the many scientists he worked with. For the full review visit: http://compulsivereader.com/2014/05/27/a-review-of-neanderthal-man-in-search-of-lost-genomes-by-svante-paabo/

A review of The Seacrest by Aaron Paul Lazar

I think it’s probably fair to say that Aaron Paul Lazar is one of the most readable of authors. His books are engaging, warm, and moving in a way that, if it’s a tad old-fashioned, still retains a modern sensibility and drama that comes from the real issues the work tends to address. I’ve been reading his mysteries for a long time now, and as someone who doesn’t tend to like genre novels, have always been drawn in by the way the plot is shaped by a deep sense of character development. For the full review visit: http://compulsivereader.com/2014/05/21/4717/

A review of Personal Effects by Carmel Macdonald Grahame

Personal Effects is the story of a couple on the move –repeatedly changing country in search of work, exiled and migratory, homeless yet rooted through their sense of family; of consistency in their relationship. Beyond that the story explores what we lose, what we gain, throughout any ordinary life, it explores the shifting and cyclical perceptions of time passing, and it examines, in a deep, poetic way, the way we make meaning out of our lives. For the full review visit: http://compulsivereader.com/2014/05/15/a-review-of-personal-effects-by-carmel-macdonald-grahame/

A review of Writing Wild by Tina Welling

Tina Welling wrote Writing Wild: Forming a Creative Partnership with Nature, to share an insight she had while hiking near her home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a location which attracts visitors from all over because of its magnificent scenery and wildlife. While walking, she experienced “the interconnectedness between the earth’s creative energy and [her] own personal creative energy.” Since then, Welling takes “spirit walks” in nature to replenish her resources and let the earth’s energy provide insights and answers. For the full review visit: http://compulsivereader.com/2014/05/14/4702/

A review of Split by Cathy Linh Che

Split by Cathy Linh Che is an honest piece of literature. There is no need for Che to prove her talent as a poet. The poems in Split do this and more. Che uses the pen as a mirror. What she sees—including significant events that impact her personal and familial life—she puts on paper in ways that approach mastery of the art of poetry. For the full review visit: http://compulsivereader.com/2014/05/09/a-review-of-split-by-cathy-linh-che/

Geography of Mind: Dawn Upshaw and Maria Schneider’s Winter Morning Walks

A quiet, tender description of nature, of quiet growth, is found in “Perfectly, Still This Solstice Morning,” one of the poems by Ted Kooser that has been set to music by Maria Schneider and sung by Dawn Upshaw on Winter Morning Walks: the collection of songs is the kind of music that can easily become a part of one’s life, for both its sound and its thoughts, as it captures existence, movement in nature and world, illness, and recovery. For the full review visit: http://compulsivereader.com/2014/05/09/geography-of-mind-dawn-upshaw-and-maria-schneiders-winter-morning-walks/

A review of The End of the World by Maria Takolander

As the title implies, Maria Takolander’s The End of the World makes no pretence at sweetness or ease. While there is certainly a tenderness in the poems of childbirth and domesticity that open the collection, but despite the maternal softness that draws the reader in from the start of many of these poems, the collection has an underlying ferocity which takes the reader below the superficial, into the heart of meaning as revealed by the intensity of each moment it encounters. For the full review visit: http://compulsivereader.com/2014/05/06/a-review-of-the-end-of-the-world-by-maria-takolander/

All of the reviews listed above are on the front page. Older reviews are kept indefinitely in our extensive categorized archives, which can be browsed from the front page of the site.

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LITERARY NEWS

In the literary news this month, American author Ann Leckie won the £2,014 (US$3,400) Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction for her debut novel Ancillary Justice, the Guardian reported. Prize director Tom Hunter called it “a book whose major character and narrator is a space ship–you can’t be more science fictional than that. And it has broad space-opera themes–it’s been compared to the beginning of Iain M. Banks’s Culture series, and it could be as epic as that by the time she gets to parts two and three.” He also observed that Ancillary Justice contains “interesting ideas around language and gender politics–issues which are coming to the fore of science fiction conversation at the moment… it’s a great action read–one of those books which I’d give to people who say they don’t like science fiction.”

Finalists have been named for the £10,000 (US$ 16,890) RSL Ondaatje Prize, which honors “a book of the highest literary merit–fiction, nonfiction or poetry–evoking the spirit of a place.” The winner will be announced on May 19. This year’s shortlisted titles are The Blind Man’s Garden by Nadeem Aslam, Badgerlands by Patrick Barkham, Spirit House by Mark Dapin, This Boy by Alan Johnson, Field Notes From a Hidden City by Esther Johnson, and
Four Fields by Tim Dee

This is the first year that PEN is releasing the longlisted titles of its book awards while also celebrating the many distinugished awards judges who nominated them. This year, with the help of its partners and supporters, PEN will confer 18 distinct awards, fellowships, grants, and prizes, and confer nearly $150,000 to some of the most gifted writers and translators working today. There are so many awards that I can’t list them all here, but to see the full list visit: http://www.pen.org/blog/longlists-announced-2014-pen-literary-awards#sthash.uuxxeT7e.dpuf Winners for all 2014 PEN Literary Awards will be announced on July 30th.

The Poetry Foundation announced that Nathaniel Mackey won the $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, which honors a living U.S. poet for outstanding lifetime achievement. Don Share, editor of Poetry magazine, said Mackey “continues an American bardic line that unfolds from Whitman’s Leaves of Grass to H.D.’s Trilogy to Olson’s Maximus Poems, winds through the whole of Robert Duncan’s work and extends beyond all of these.” In addition, the foundation presented the first annual $7,500 Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism to University of California Press for two books in their Collected Writings of Robert Duncan series–Robert Duncan: The Collected Later Poems and Plays, edited by Peter Quartermain; and Robert Duncan: Collected Essays and Other Prose, edited by James Maynard. The winners will be honored during a ceremony at the Poetry Foundation on June 9.

WOMEN dominate the Miles Franklin Literary Award shortlist for the second year in a row, but will face strong competition for the $60,000 prize from two literary lions in Tim Winton and Richard Flanagan. Winton and indigenous writer Alexis Wright are the only previous winners on the list, announced in Sydney yesterday. The popular West Australian author will collect a record fifth Miles Franklin if he prevails for Eyrie. The shortlist includes Richard Flanagan – The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Fiona McFarlane – The Night Guest, Cory Taylor – My Beautiful Enemy, Tim Winton – Eyrie, Alexis Wright – The Swan Book, and Evie Wyld – All the Birds, Singing. The Award, which was created through the will of My Brilliant Career author Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin to support authors of Australian literature, was first presented in 1957. To encourage people to read all six shortlisted novels and support Australian literature, Perpetual has launched the Miles of Reading Challenge. Readers of the novels can take part in the challenge and share their book reviews at www.milesfranklin.com.au/challenge. The winner of the 2014 Miles Franklin Literary Award will be announced at an event in Sydney on Thursday 26 June 2014.

Edward St Aubyn has today, Monday 19 May 2014, been named the winner of the fifteenth Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for his brilliant satire on the world of literary prizes, Lost For Words (Picador). He joins a stellar list of previous winners including Ian McEwan, Marina Lewycka, DBC Pierre, Terry Pratchett and, most recently, double winner Howard Jacobson. Lost For Words has been described as a “a fizzing satire that neatly skewers all the contradictions of literary prize-giving’ (Mick Brown writing in the Daily Telegraph). Edward St Aubyn will be presented with a locally-bred Gloucestershire Old Spot pig at the Hay Festival on Saturday 24 May which will then be named after his winning novel. Lost for Words will join a long line of exotically-named pigs, including Snuff, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, and All Fun and Games until Somebody Loses an Eye. The winner is announced ahead of an event at this year’s Hay Festival, where Edward St Aubyn will be in conversation with William Sieghart on Saturday 24 May. Edward St Aubyn will also be presented with his prize: a jeroboam of Bollinger Special Cuvée, a case of Bollinger La Grande Année and a set of the Everyman’s Library PG Wodehouse collection.

The winners of the 2014 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards were announced at a presentation ceremony held at the State Library of NSW on Monday 19 May. Total prize money in 2014, including sponsored awards,was $275,000. Winner of the Christina Stead Prize for fiction was Questions of Travel by Michelle de Kretser (Allen & Unwin), the winner of the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing was The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane (Penguin Group (Australia)). Winner of the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry was Novelties by Fiona Hile (Hunter). For the full list of winners and shortlisted entries visit: http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/about/awards/premiers_awards/nsw_premiers_literary_awards/2014/2014_nsw_premier%27s_literary_awards_shortlist.html

Alan Johnson won the £10,000 (US$16,815) Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, which honors a work of fiction, nonfiction or poetry that evokes the “spirit of a place,” for This Boy: A Memoir of a Childhood, the Bookseller reported. Judge Jenny Uglow praised the book as “a scrupulous but moving memoir of a particular area of London, with its boundaries, streets, people and poverty–you can see, and almost smell every room–which also captures the elusive spirit of place that imprints itself on a child, and is never forgotten.”

English PEN has announced The Iraqi Christ by Hassan Blasim, as the recipient of the 2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. The Iraqi Christ is a unique collection of short stories that explore Iraq’s recent past, superbly and sensitively translated by Jonathan Wright. Each year, English PEN highlights global writing of exceptional literary merit and courage. With the support of Arts Council England and Bloomberg, the charity awards grants to fund both the promotion and translation costs of books from around the world to ensure they reach UK readers.A poet, filmmaker and short-story writer, Blasim is the first Arab author to receive the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. The Iraqi Christ is also the first short-story collection to win the award.

A shortlist of three books for the Desmond Elliott Prize for first time novelists has been announced. Robert Allison’s The Letter Bearer will compete with Eimear McBride’s A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing and Ballistics by DW Wilson. The winner will be named on 3 July and receive £10,000. The prize is named after the acclaimed publisher and literary agent. Last year’s winner was Ros Barber with her work The Marlowe Papers.

The 14th Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) were announced in Sydney tonight in front of Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Minister for the Arts George Brandis, with Graeme Simsion’s celebrated novel THE ROSIE PROJECT taking out the coveted Book of the Year award. Other big winners included the recipient of the 2013 Man Booker Prize, THE LUMINARIES by Eleanor Catton, for International Book of the Year and the multi-award-winning debut BURIAL RITES by Hannah Kent, who beat illustrious fellow contenders Richard Flanagan, Fiona McFarlane, Christos Tsiolkas and Tim Winton to scoop Literary Fiction Book of the Year.

Have a great month!

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