Compulsive Reader

Compulsive Reader News
maggieball@compulsivereader.com
http://www.compulsivereader.com
Volume 24, Issue 12, 1 Dec 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. Happy last month of the year. Thanks for being with me through the chaos of 2022. Here is the latest batch of reviews and interviews:

A Cottonmouth with a Laptop: A review of Stay Gone Days by Steve Yarbrough

Some forty years ago, in Jackson, not far Loring, a similar bottle of Four Roses was opened. It’s a significant detail in this story of the Cole sisters, that ends where it began, that comes full circle, with many detours along the way. Individuals, with marked differences, both sisters are resilient, vulnerable, and passionate, characters so life-like a reader feels “the air making contact with their skin.” Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2022/11/30/a-cottonmouth-with-a-laptop-a-review-of-stay-gone-days-by-steve-yarbrough/

A review of Earshot by Sam Morley

Sam Morley is a brilliant storyteller, the stories in the poems are written in a language that is dynamic and stylistic as well as entertaining. The work evokes emotions, coupled with strong tension, but not in a heavy way. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2022/11/26/a-review-of-earshot-by-sam-morley/

A review of This Place That Place By Nandita Dinesh

With a novel this boldly experimental, it is hard to get very far in a discussion of influences without Beckett’s name coming up. But that is just one of the names in a diverse stew. Dinesh said that Beckett and others represent some of the less conscious influences here, and other visionaries more directly inspired the themes, tone, and style of This Place That Place. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2022/11/24/a-review-of-this-place-that-place-by-nandita-dinesh/

A review of Lady Director by Joyce Chopra

Only, how to break into the male-dominated world of film? Not that that was her explicit goal when she graduated, but one thing she did not want to do? “There weren’t many jobs available for a young woman of twenty-one with a degree in comparative literature,” she writes, but she didn’t want to become a secretary. If she did that, “I would irrevocably land on the slippery slope to nowhere.” Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2022/11/20/a-review-of-lady-director-by-joyce-chopra/

A review of The 99 Boyfriends of Micah Summers by Adam Sass

The 99 Boyfriends of Micah Summers is not exactly a story begging you to unravel it (the happily ever after is apparent early on) but it does make one thing clear – Adam Sass is just as capable a builder of romance as he is of mystery. And Micah Summers’ story benefits from Sass’s adept management of both genres. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2022/11/18/a-review-of-the-99-boyfriends-of-micah-summers-by-adam-sass/

Love of Language: an Affirmation: A Review of Tina Cane’s Year of the Murder Hornet

The title poem is a road map to the rest of the collection, both in content and in form. The poem begins with a “cloud of pollen” that chases the ‘I’ and encompasses a myriad of recent occurrences: being “overpowered” by magnolia petals, which the reader might consider positive, but which overwhelms the ‘I’; the “murder hornet” itself, that threatens on a literal level but also represents the consequences of human behavior, such as the increasing frequency of viruses like the coronavirus, weather and climate change, and the horrors in the daily news. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2022/11/16/love-of-language-an-affirmation-a-review-of-tina-canes-year-of-the-murder-hornet/

A review of The Night Divers by Melanie McCabe

As you move through the poetry in this collection, it may seem as if the writer is resolved to experience her pain in its most primordial form, without barrier, defense, or comfort. Such sentiments break the surface in “Martyr”: “I permit myself neither opiate nor anodyne. I poke my finger straight into the socket—press my tongue hard to the ice-slick chain link.” The atonement of a survivor is operative here, but there is more. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2022/11/14/a-review-of-the-night-divers-by-melanie-mccabe/

An interview with Julia Brewer Daily

The author of The Fifth Daughter of Thorn Ranch talks about her new book, research, personal connection to the work, the fact behind the fiction, women’s reproductive rights, and more. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2022/11/12/an-interview-with-julia-brewer-daily/

A review of V8 by PS Cottier and Sandra Renew

A book about cars, motorbikes, etc? How strange I said to myself and wondered what poems about vehicles would look like. With what enthusiasm would I be reviewing it if I have no attachment or love for any form of transport? I knew that both poets were excellent writers and award winners so that gave me hope. Anxiously, I opened the book and started to read…and was mesmerised from the first few poems. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2022/11/11/a-review-of-v8-by-ps-cottier-and-sandra-renew/

An Interview with Xu Xi, author of Monkey in Residence and Other Speculations

Xu Xi is an Indonesian-Chinese novelist, fiction writer, and essayist from Hong Kong who became a U.S. citizen at the age of 33. Author of fifteen books, including, most recently, Monkey in Residence and Other Speculations (Signal 8 Press, UK, November 1, 2022), This Fish is Fowl: Essays of Being (Nebraska 2019), Dear Hong Kong: An Elegy for A City (Penguin 207), That Man in Our Lives (C&R 2016), she also co-authored The Art and Craft of Asian Stories (Bloomsbury, 2021). In this interview she talks about her latest book, her inspiration, her typical writer’s day, and more. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2022/11/09/an-interview-with-xu-xi-author-of-monkey-in-residence-and-other-speculations/

A review of The Writer Laid Bare by Lee Kofman

One of the key tenets of The Writer Laid Bare is the importance of paying attention. This almost obsessive focus is the writers’ stock-in-trade. Kofman calls it voyeurism, but in our attention-starved culture, being able to lock onto the details contained within a moment is more than just a tool to make our work more interesting (though Kofman makes a good case for that), it’s revolutionary. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2022/11/07/a-review-of-the-writer-laid-bare-by-lee-kofman/

A review of Witches, Woman and Words by Beatriz Copello

Throughout this collection the poet argues strongly for the rights of women while foregrounding their innate strengths. She reflects on the way the social order, including the church has conspired to oppress the feminine but also finds solace in the natural world, which is seen as women’s true habitat where ‘Mother Earth embraces each and every one’. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2022/11/06/a-review-of-witches-woman-and-words-by-beatriz-copello/

A review of The Air in the Air Behind It by Brandon Rushton

In Rushton’s book, the theme of liminality sits squarely on the interface between the betwixt and between borders of human states and – for that reason – allows the reader to address some of the critical issues of our times, where the fluidity of identity is considered. In the decisive awareness to explore the possibilities that can emerge out of a willingness to stay with ambiguity, the author creates the opportunity to address some of these issues. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2022/11/05/a-review-of-the-air-in-the-air-behind-it-by-brandon-rushton/

A review of Torohill by Donna Reis

In her new book of poems, Torohill, Reis revisits her past in a very human way that is intensely reflective, sometimes brutally stark, and often quite humorous. If comedy is just the other face of tragedy, then our catharsis lies within the synthesis of both. Reis knows this instinctively and expertly weaves both through her poems. It renders them remarkably touching but not in a saccharin or intentional manner. She allows feelings to vacillate and often startle and surprise us organically and authentically. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2022/11/04/poetry/

In The Tradition of Dutch Masters: an interview with Ben Rikken

Rikken feels it’s difficult to pinpoint an exact moment one decides to make art their life, but there is still a traceable, cumulative trajectory and the necessity to reflect upon history and past traditions. To define one’s unique art and expression, there comes an inevitable absorption then rejection of established theories that allows the artist to express their unique voice. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2022/11/03/in-the-tradition-of-dutch-masters-an-interview-with-ben-rikken/

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 categorised archives (currently at 3,043) which can be browsed or searched from the front page of the site.

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LITERARY NEWS

Happy December! For our last newsletter of the year, The Whiting Foundation has named this year’s recipients of the Creative Nonfiction Grant, which is awarded to “writers in the process of completing a book of deeply researched and imaginatively composed nonfiction.” The $40,000 grant “encourages original and ambitious projects by giving recipients the additional means to do exacting research and devote time to composition.” This year’s winners are: Atossa Araxia Abrahamian for The Hidden Globe (Riverhead), Emily Dufton for Addiction, Inc. (University of Chicago Press), Wes Enzinna for Impossible Paradise (Penguin), Ekow Eshun for The Strangers (Hamish Hamilton), Patricia Evangelista for Some People Need Killing (Random House), Brooke Jarvis for Invisible Apocalypse (Crown), May Jeong for The Life (Atria), Mathelinda Nabugodi for The Trembling Hand (Knopf), and Alejandra Oliva for Rivermouth (Astra House).

Tom Keneally’s Corporal Hitler’s Pistol won the A$50,000 ARA Historical Novel Prize in the adult category, with Katrina Nannestad taking the A$30,000 children & YA award for Rabbit, Soldier, Angel, Thief. The two shortlisted authors in both categories receive A$5,000 each. Historical Novel Society Australasia, in partnership with Australia’s ARA Group, runs the ARA Historical Novel Prize, which honours Australian and New Zealand historical novels for, among other qualities, “depth of research, widespread reader appeal, with excellence in writing as the deciding factor.”

Winners have been announced for the 2022 Writers’ Trust of Canada awards, “presented for individual works and career achievement, and in recognition of accomplishments in the fields of fiction, nonfiction, short fiction, poetry and literature for young readers.” Dan Werb was awarded the C$60,000 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction for The Invisible Siege: The Rise of Coronaviruses and the Search for a Cure; Nicholas Herring received the C$60,000 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize for Some Hellish; and the C$10,000 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers went to francesca ekwuyasi for the debut novel Butter Honey Pig Bread. Four authors received C$25,000 awards for mid-career and lifetime achievements: Candace Savage (Matt Cohen Award: In Celebration of a Writing Life); Joseph Dandurand (Latner Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize); Elise Gravel (Vicky Metcalf Award for Literature for Young People); and Shani Mootoo (Writers’ Trust Engel/Findley Award).

Brigitte Giraud won the 2022 Prix Goncourt for her book Vivre Vite (Live Fast). France 24 reported that she is “the first female author to win the most prestigious French-language literary prize since Leïla Slimani’s Chanson douce in 2016, and the 13th woman to win since the Goncourt was created 120 years ago.” The award, which “guarantees hundreds of thousands of sales for the winning book,” also comes with a €10 check, “which the recipients prefer to frame rather than deposit in the bank,” France 24 wrote. This year’s Prix Goncourt jury voted 14 times before a winner was chosen, the Guardian noted, adding that “after a final vote ended in stalemate, the president of the Goncourt Academy cast a deciding vote, choosing Giraud over her closest rival, Giuliano da Empoli.”

Suzette Mayr won the C$100,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize, which recognizes the “author of the best Canadian novel, graphic novel or short story collection published in English,” for her novel The Sleeping Car Porter. Each of the remaining finalists receive C$10,000. Elana Rabinovitch, executive director of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, commented: “Suzette Mayr’s magnificent and powerful work of fiction inspired this year’s jury to select her as the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize winner and cements her reputation as a world-class writer. Heartiest congratulations to Suzette on her win tonight!” The winner will join the Guadalajara International Book Fair for a celebratory event on November 30 at the World Trade Center Guadalajara and will also be honored with an in-person interview as part of the 2023 San Miguel Writer’s Conference & Literary Festival on February 16.

Susannah Begbie won the 2022 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers, which aims “to unearth, support and nurture new Australian writing talent,” for her fiction manuscript When Trees Fall Without Warning. Founded in honor of the late Hachette Australia CEO Matt Richell, the award is sponsored by Hachette Australia and the Richell family, in partnership with the Emerging Writers’ Festival and Pedestrian TV. Begbie receives A$10,000, along with a 12-month mentorship with Hachette Australia. Fiona Hazard, Hachette Australia Group publishing director, noted that the writers on the shortlist “were all of a very high standard and this compelled the judges to award a Highly Commended” to The Little Ones by Anne Myers. “We hope that this recognition will encourage Anne to continue her writing journey.”

A six-book shortlist has been released for the Bookseller Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year. The award was conceived in 1978 by Trevor Bounford and Bruce Robertson, co-founders of publishing solutions firm the Diagram Group, as a way to avoid boredom at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The winning title will be chosen by members of the public via an online vote, and a winner announced December 2. This year’s shortlisted titles are: Frankenstein Was a Vegetarian: Essays on Food Choice, Identity and Symbolism by Michael Owen Jones, The Many Lives of Scary Clowns: Essays on Pennywise, Twisty, the Joker, Krusty and More by Ron Riekki, Jane Austen and the Buddha: Teachers of Enlightenment by Kathryn Duncan, RuPedagogies of Realness: Essays on Teaching and Learning With RuPaul’s Drag Race by Lindsay Bryde & Tommy Mayberry, Smuggling Jesus Back into the Church by Andrew Fellows, and What Nudism Exposes: An Unconventional History of Postwar Canada by Mary-Ann Shantz. There is no prize for the winning author or publisher, but traditionally a “passable bottle of claret” is given to the nominator of the winning entry.

Diego Garcia by Natasha Soobramanien and Luke Williams won the £10,000 Goldsmiths Prize, which celebrates “the spirit of creative daring” and rewards “fiction that breaks the mold and extends the possibilities of the novel form.” This is the first time in the prize’s 10-year history that a writing duo has won.

The American Library Association revealed the shortlist for the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction. The two medal winners, who each receive $5,000, will be named January 29 at the Reference and User Services Association’s Book and Media Awards event, which will take place online. Winners and finalists will be honoured in the summer of 2023 during a celebratory event at ALA’s annual conference. This year’s shortlisted titles are, for fiction: Greenland by David Santos Donaldson (Amistad), Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty (Tin House), and The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka (Knopf). For nonfiction: Constructing a Nervous System by Margo Jefferson (Pantheon), An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden World Around Us by Ed Yong (Random House), and Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage by Rachel E. Gross (Norton).

The 73rd National Book Awards returned in person for the first time since 2019 on November 16 at their usual location of Cipriani Wall Street in New York City’s financial district. Members of the HarperCollins union demonstrated outside the venue—and several NBA presenters, including Padma Lakshmi and Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, showed their support. Winners included, for fiction: The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty (Knopf/PRH), for nonfiction: South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation by Imani Perry (Ecco/HarperCollins), for Poetry: Punks: New and Selected Poems by John Keene, for Young People’s Literature: All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir (Razorbill/PRH), and for Translated Literature: Seven Empty Houses by Samanta Schweblin, trans. from the Spanish by Megan McDowell (Riverhead/PRH).

Shortlists have been announced for the American Library Association’s Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction. Winners will be announced on January 29 during LibLearnX. The shortlisted titles include, for fiction Greenland by David Santos Donaldson (Amistad), Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty (Tin House), and The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka (Knopf). For nonfiction, Constructing a Nervous System by Margo Jefferson (Pantheon Books), An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden World around Us by Ed Yong (Random House), and Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage by Rachel E. Gross (Norton)

The Library of Congress is awarding the $10,000 2022 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry to former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove for lifetime achievement and to Heid E. Erdrich for her poetry collection Little Big Bully (Penguin Books). The poets will receive their honours and read selections from their work on Thursday, December 8, at 7 p.m. at the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building.

Irish author Colm Tóibín will receive the Bodley Medal, which honors “individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the worlds of books and literature, libraries, media and communications, science, and philanthropy,” for his contribution to the world of literature. He will be presented with the award March 30 at the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival when he delivers the annual Bodley Lecture. Tóibín will give the 2023 Bodley Lecture in conversation with Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian and Head of Gardens, Libraries and Museums at Oxford University. Ovenden called Tóibín “one of the most thought-provoking writers of our times. His novels range from the treatment of contemporary themes in a nuanced and considered way, to dealing with timeless cultural issues with great sensitivity. His essay writing is as powerful as his fiction, and marked by profound and revealing honesty.”

Finally, Antigone Kefala has been announced as the winner of the 2022 Patrick White Literary Award.The award, set up by Patrick White with the proceeds of his Nobel Prize for Literature, is dedicated to Australian authors who ‘have made a significant but inadequately recognised contribution to Australian literature’. This is certainly true of Kefala’s distinctive and powerful achievements in poetry, fiction and non-fiction. She has published four works of fiction and five poetry collections, including Fragments, which won the 2017 Judith Wright Calanthe Award and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Award for Poetry. She has also published two collections of journals, Sydney Journals and most recently, Late Journals. The award was given to the poet Adam Aitken last year, and has previously been won by Giramondo authors Brian Castro (2014), Beverley Farmer (2009), Fay Zwicky (2005) and Gerald Murnane (1999).

Have a great month and happy holidays! See you in 23.

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COMPETITION NEWS

Congratulations to Laini Pearl, who won a copy of The Hunt for the Peggy C: A World War II Maritime Thriller by John Winn Miller.

Congratulations also to Debra Guyette, who won a copy of The Fifth Daughter of Thorn Ranch by Julia Brewer Daily

Our new site giveaway is for a copy of Jane’s Jam by Jane Enright. To win To win send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line: “Jane’s Jam” and your postal address in the body of the email.

We also have a copy of Dissection by Dr. Cristina LePort. To win end me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line: “Dissection” and your postal address in the body of the email.

To win, sign up for our Free Newsletter on the right-hand side of the site and enter via the newsletter. Winner will be chosen by the end of December from subscribers who enter.

Good luck and don’t forget to enter! I do occasionally choose subscribers at random, but you are much more likely to win if you send in an email (I don’t collect addresses so this makes it easier for everyone).

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