Compulsive Reader

Compulsive Reader News
maggieball@compulsivereader.com
http://www.compulsivereader.com
Volume 26, Issue 12, 1 December 2024

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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 Golden Land by Elizabeth Shick

Shick expertly pulls us into Yangon life and culture through glimpses of people, streets, food vendors, colorful gardens, and ancient temples. As Etta strolls through a working-class neighborhood, she notes how “makeshift shacks are stacked one upon the other like the slipper seashells I used to collect at the beach as a child,” then passes a man who “stands in front of his shack, his longyi hiked up to his groin as he lathers soap over his bare chest and legs.” Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/11/29/a-review-of-the-golden-land-by-elizabeth-shick/

A review of The Bone Picker by Devon Mihesuah

While this book is a clear indication that Choctaws also like to tell each other scary stories, the implication of that line is that Choctaws have many stories. But when these narratives diverge from Anglo-European expectations, settlers and their descendants almost immediately force them into gothic or horror storytelling structures. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/11/24/a-review-of-the-bone-picker-by-devon-mihesuah/

A review of Foreign Attachments by Roslyn McFarland

Foreign Attachments is beautifully written, with a great attention to detail and obvious research that brings the characters to life. Jean Rhys is a particularly interesting and tragic character in this rendition with plenty of intrigue left to the reader’s imagination, though I dare anyone to read Foreign Attachments and not give into the temptation to not only begin looking closer at Stella Bowen’s paintings but also exploring Rhys’ story and the work, not so well read these days, of Ford Madox Ford. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/11/22/a-review-of-foreign-attachments-by-roslyn-mcfarland/

A review of Zeke Borshellac by James Damis

The book is a lurid purple-prosed comic masterpiece. I have not had as much pleasure reading a deep dense novel like this since The Sot-Weed Factor, A Confederacy of Dunces, Tristam Shandy, Quixote, Auto-da-fé, Joy Williams. The lietmotif of the book is wretched comic human excess. And ambition. And language! Borshellac begins his self-transformation as a stowaway on a fishing vessel, where he ineffectually disguises himself as a man-sized perch, lolling among the mountainous heaps of fresh-caught fish. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/11/20/a-review-of-zeke-borshellac-by-james-damis/

An Interview with Steve Rasnic Tem, King of the Horror Short Story

Tem lives alone in a modest house just south of Denver. Most striking when you walk in are the two walls—living room and adjoining dining room—covered with family portraits: his kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids. One senses the warmth and richness of his family that’s he’s surrounded himself with which makes his forays into darkness and horror all the more frightening and intriguing. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/11/17/an-interview-with-steve-rasnic-tem-king-of-the-horror-short-story/

A review of Fall and Recovery by Joanne de Simone

The narrative also encapsulates what it’s like to feel excluded from the community at large, calling out the societal structures in place that demean people with disabilities. Reflecting on various schools and playgrounds, De Simone observes, “We had every right to be there, but I didn’t feel like we belonged.” Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/11/15/a-review-of-fall-and-recovery-by-joanne-de-simone/

A review of Rural Ecologies by Michael J. Leach

Leach’s Haiku varies from three lines to two and sometimes four lines. Like all good haikus the insight and the images come from observations of the natural world. In most of this collection the haiku present an observation followed by a contrast or interpretation of the observation. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/11/13/a-review-of-rural-ecologies-by-michael-j-leach/

A review of The Third Gilmore Girl by Kelly Bishop

As her memoir shows, Kelly Bishop (formerly “Carole”) brought years of experience to the role of Emily. Those of us who were entertained by this determined fictional character will find Kelly as resolute in real life as she was in that role. Her lifelong pursuit of her dream is inspiring. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/11/11/a-review-of-the-third-gilmore-girl-by-kelly-bishop/

A Review of Anemone Morning and other poems by Gopal Lahiri

The book is a dreamer’s search for peace and silence in the mind’s quest for spiritual enlightenment. Lahiri explores transcendence while being compassionate and appreciative of his natural surroundings and daily responsibilities. Silence loses its blind opacity as he delves into its depths and finds a summing up of an entire life. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/11/10/a-review-of-anemone-morning-and-other-poems-by-gopal-lahiri/

An interview with Shari Caplan

The author of the poetry book Exhibitionist talks about her book, her collage artwork, about being a shapeshifter, the book’s sexual undertone, the “female gaze”, the magic of art, and lots more. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/11/09/an-interview-with-shari-caplan/

A review of Beware the Tall Grass by Ellen Birkett Morris

Beware the Tall Grass reads like poetic, creative nonfiction, creating a beautiful and believable story that leaves the reader satisfied yet in wonder about what we know and don’t know about the mysteries of life and death. This novel is a compelling read. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/11/07/a-review-of-beware-the-tall-grass-by-ellen-birkett-morris/

An Interview with Zoje Stage

The author of My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast talks about her inspiration, the illustrations, process, and more. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/11/05/an-interview-with-zoje-stage/

A review of Invisible Wasp by Stephanie Powell

There is a surprise in every poem in Invisible Wasp. The poems could be idealistic or pragmatic, or about desires or disappointments, or personal or about the natural world or even imaginary events, but they are always a delight to read. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/11/03/a-review-of-invisible-wasp-by-stephanie-powell/

A review of The Thirty-One Legs of Vladimir Putin by PS Cottier and NG Hartland

Each lookalike has his own particular story which is partly informed by location and partly by circumstance. The pieces appear quite distinct but they begin to overlap as the book progresses, forming a coherent whole that twists back on itself in uncomfortable ways. The end result is an overarcing pattern that creates a bigger story, linked not just by the missing character of Putin but also by the way the characters, their settings, and the story’s time progression intersect. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/11/02/a-review-of-the-thirty-one-legs-of-vladimir-putin/

A review of The Under Hum by Simone Muench & Jackie K. White

The poems found within this volume are seamlessly assembled, so much so that the reader cannot detect where Muench and White’s writing both begins and ends. Their style is intermeshed one unto the other, as well as with the inclusion of other writers’ borrowed lines. The outside writers’ lines are italicized for attribution sake, but their syntax and style mirror Muench and White’s dual voices.

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 3,439) which can be browsed or searched from the front page of the site.

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LITERARY NEWS

In the news this month, Native Nations: A Millennium in North America by Kathleen DuVal (Random House) has won the $75,000 Cundill History Prize, administered by McGill University.

Waterstones has selected a shortlist for its Book of the Year: Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton
James by Percival Everett, The Reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson, Easy Wins: 12 Flavour Hits, 125 Delicious Recipes, 365 Days of Good Eating by Anna Jones, The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise by Olivia Laing, Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon, Eighteen: A History of Britain in 18 Young Lives by Alice Loxton, The Siege by Ben Macintyre, Blue Sisters: From the Author of Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors, I Am Rebel by Ross Montgomery, Cloudspotting for Beginners by Gavin Pretor-Pinney and William Grill, Intermezzo by Sally Rooney, Shakespeare’s First Folio: All the Plays, A Children’s Edition, Long Island by Colm Tóibín, and Butter by Asako Yuzuki, translated by Polly Barton.

The Canadian Children’s Book Centre has named the winners of its eight English‐language children’s book awards for outstanding literary achievement. Skating Wild on an Inland Sea by Jean E. Pendziwol, illustrated by Todd Stewart, won the C$50,000 TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, with winning publisher Groundwood Books receiving C$2,500 for promotional purposes. An additional C$10,000 will be shared among the four remaining finalists for their contributions to Canadian children’s literature. CCBC also announced the establishment of the C$10,000 Sharon Fitzhenry Award for Canadian Children’s Nonfiction, designed to recognise and raise the profile of exceptional nonfiction for young readers. Last year marked the 25th anniversary of the Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Nonfiction, and the final year the prize was given. See the complete list of winners here: https://bookcentre.ca/news/2024-ccbc-book-awards-winners

The shortlist has been released for the inaugural PEN Heaney Prize, which recognises a single volume of poetry by one author, published in the U.K. or Ireland, “of outstanding literary merit that engages with the impact of cultural or political events on human conditions or relationships.” The award is a partnership between English PEN, Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann, and the estate of Seamus Heaney. The winner will be named December 2. This year’s shortlisted titles are: ISDAL by Susannah Dickey, The Coming Thing by Martina Evans, Hyena! by Fran Lock, Blood Feather by Patrick McGuinness, We Play Here by Dawn Watson, and A Tower Built Downwards by Yang Lian, translated by Brian Holton.

Suad Aldarra won the £8,340 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, which celebrates an outstanding body of work by an emerging Irish writer under 40 years of age. The award is administered by the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre for Creative Writing in the School of English, Trinity College Dublin. Aldarra is a Syrian-Irish writer and engineer living in Dublin whose memoir, I Don’t Want to Talk About Home, was shortlisted for An Post Irish Book Awards Biography of the Year in 2022. In 2021, Aldarra was selected as the Common Currency writer in residence for the Cúirt International Festival and English/Irish PEN. In the same year, she was awarded the Art Councils of Ireland English literature bursary.

A Stranger in Baghdad by Elizabeth Loudon (Hoopoe/the American University in Cairo Press) has won the 2024 International Fiction Book Award at the Sharjah International Book Fair. The press describes the novel as “an intergenerational drama rendered in beautiful prose featuring the struggles of a mother and daughter to navigate as outsiders in Baghdad and London.”

Nominations have been announced for the Grammys, which will be broadcast on Sunday, February 2. In the Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording category, nominees are: All You Need Is Love: The Beatles in Their Own Words by various artists (Audible ),…And Your Ass Will Follow, read by the author, George Clinton (Audible), Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones, read by the author, Dolly Parton (Penguin Random House Audio), Sunday Mornings in Plains: Bringing Peace to a Changing World, read by the author, Jimmy Carter (Simon & Schuster Audio), and My Name Is Barbra, read by the author, Barbra Streisand (Penguin Random House Audio).

The Library of Congress has named Arthur Sze as the recipient of this year’s $10,000 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, which honours the lifetime achievement of an American poet, based on the recommendation of an internal committee. Sze will receive his award on December 5, during an event in the Mumford Room of the Library’s Madison Building.

The longlist has been selected for the $35,000 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize, a program of the Aspen Institute that honors a work of fiction that illuminates a vital contemporary issue. The shortlist list will be announced March 12, 2025, and the winner on April 23. The longlist: Madwoman by Chelsea Bieker (Little, Brown), Sky Full of Elephants  by Cebo Campbell (Simon & Schuster), James  by Percival Everett (Doubleday), Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez (Flatiron Books), A Great Country by Shilpi Somaya Gowda (Mariner Books), Kingdom of No Tomorrow by Fabienne Josaphat (Algonquin), The Road to the Salt Sea by Samuel Kolawole (Amistad/HarperCollins), Before the Mango Ripens by Afabwaje Kurian (Dzanc Books), Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange (Knopf) Lilith by Eric Rickstad (Blackstone Publishing), There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven by Ruben Reyes Jr. (Mariner Books), Fire Exit by Morgan Talty (Tin House), Devil Is Fine  by John Vercher (Celadon Books), and The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (Avid Reader Press).

The finalists have been selected for the $5,000 2025 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, part of the Pitt Poetry Series at the University of Pittsburgh Press. The winner will be announced December 11 and will be published by the press. Selected by Nate Marshall, the finalists are: Asa Drake, Maybe the Body, Bobby Elliott, The Same Man, Luke Patterson, Medic Alafia Sessions, Nine Drops of Turpentine, and Rob Shapiro, Human Nature.

Alexis Wright has been named the winner of the 2024 Melbourne Prize for Literature, worth $60,000. Awarded triennially, and now in its twentieth year, the prize aims to recognise a Victorian writer whose ‘body of published work has made an outstanding contribution to Australian literature and to cultural and intellectual life’. In addition to the Melbourne Prize, Alexis Wright has this year won awards including the Miles Franklin Literary Award, Stella Prize and the UK’s James Tait Black Prize for her epic novel, Praiseworthy. Other books by Alexis Wright are Carpentaria, The Swan Book, and Tracker, with each winning major literary awards.

The Canada Council for the Arts revealed the 2024 winners of the Governor General’s Literary Awards, which celebrate remarkable literary works published in Canada, in both official languages, across seven categories. Each winner receives C$25,000 with the publisher getting C$3,000 to promote the winning book; finalists receive C$1,000 each. This year’s winning titles for English and French language can be seen here: https://canadacouncil.ca/press/2024/11/the-2024-ggbooks-winners-have-been-revealed

Five books were named finalists for the 2024 BookLife Prize Fiction Contest in the categories of General Fiction, Mystery/Thriller, Romance/Erotica, Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror, and Young Adult/Middle Grade. These were: General Fiction: Helen Bonaparte by Sarah D’Stair, Mystery/Thriller: Death of the Ice Angel by J.C. Ceron, Romance/Erotica: Flipping the Birdie by S.L. Woeppel, Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror: Harriet’s Escape by N.D.Jones, and Young Adult/Middle Grade: Eat and Get Gas by J.A. Wright.

In the UK, Question 7 by Australian author Richard Flanagan (Knopf) has won the 2024 Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction, worth £50,000, becoming the first author to win both this prize and the Booker. In his acceptance speech, Flanagan said he would not accept the prize money until the fund manager shared a plan to reduce its investment in fossil fuel extraction and increase investments in renewables. Question 7 was also longlisted for the 2024 Prix Médicis and named a finalist in the 2024 Prix Fémina étranger.

The winners of the 75th National Book Awards include Fiction: James by Percival Everett (Doubleday), Nonfiction: Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling by Jason De León (Viking Books), Poetry: Something About Living by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha (University of Akron Press), Translated Literature: Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated from the Mandarin Chinese by Lin King (Graywolf Press), and Young People’s Literature: Kareem Between by Shifa Saltagi Safadi (Putnam Books for Young Readers). In addition, Barbara Kingsolver was presented with the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and W. Paul Coates was presented with the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community.

Patrick Chamoiseau will receive the Center for Fiction’s 2024 Lifetime of Excellence in Fiction Award on December 10 at the Center’s annual awards benefit. The Center said that Chamoiseau, “a luminary of Caribbean literature born in Fort de France, Martinique,” is “world-renowned for his novels, poetry, and essays” and was awarded the Prix Goncourt for his novel Texaco. He is co-author of the influential Caribbean cultural manifesto In Praise of Creoleness; other works include the novels Chronicle of the Seven Sorrows, Solibo Magnificent, Slave Old Man, and the memoir Childhood.

Have a great month and happy end of the year holiday season. I hope you get some pleasurable downtime with family and friends.

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COMPETITION NEWS

Congratulations to Marcela Nader who won a copy of The Nutcracker Chronicles by Janine Kovac.

Congratulations also to Julie-Anne Hamling who won a copy of Fine by John Patrick Higgins.

Our new site giveaway this month is for a copy Hannah: The Soldier Diaries audiobook by Zoe Wright. To win, send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line “Hannah” and your postal address in the body of the mail.

We also have a copy of White World by Saad T. Farooqi. To win, send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line “White World” and your postal address in the body of the mail.

Good luck!

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