Compulsive Reader

Compulsive Reader News
maggieball@compulsivereader.com
http://www.compulsivereader.com
Volume 27, Issue 4, 1 April 2025

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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 (bumper) batch of reviews and interviews:

A review of Shattered Motherhood by Donna F. Johnson

Not only does Donna F. Johnson bring her own years of experience to this, she also brings the vast knowledge and insight of so many others, both men and women. Written with authority and conviction and a profound understanding of the political and social implications of the situation, Shattered Motherhood is a vital contribution to the understanding of this all-too-often ignored crisis involving mothers of suicides. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/03/29/a-review-of-shattered-motherhood-by-donna-f-johnson/

An interview with novelist Jamey Gittings

The author of Jane talks about his latest book, his writing process, his influences and personal history, his themes, his new book in the works, and lots more. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/03/28/an-interview-with-novelist-jamey-gittings/

A review of How to Be Avant-Garde: Modern Artists and the Quest to End Art by Morgan Falconer

Falconer gives us a detail-rich survey of those movements, beginning with Futurism, announced in a 1909 manifesto on the front page of Paris’ Le Figaro, and running through Dadaism, Russian Constructivism, De Stijl, and the Bauhaus, and ending with the post-WWII movement Situationism. The story he tells is of artists willing to break with art’s past and to reinvent its formal language, its materials, and above all, its relationship to life. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/03/24/a-review-of-how-to-be-avant-garde-modern-artists-and-the-quest-to-end-art-by-morgan-falconer/

A review of Red Camaro: Poems by Dwaine Rieves

Rieves knots subjects together: moments of closeness, lack of friendship, learning to tie knots, rain, what the Bible says, pitching tents, sounds of rain. Thoughts do not happen in isolation; one leads on to others concerning a gesture, an action, a sight. In Rieves’ poetry, the reader’s mind travels with him. Is this “free association?” It is an exploration of a poetic mind, a mind that observes objects, places, people, and itself. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/03/22/a-review-of-red-camaro-poems-by-dwaine-rieves/

A review of Chronicle of Drifting by Yuki Tanaka

Tanaka, who teaches literature at Hosei University in Tokyo, teases out the etymologies of Japanese words throughout. “Two words for ‘heart.’ Kokoro means heart in a moral, spiritual sense,” he writes in one of the “Chronicles of Drifting” prose fragments, “it never refers to the organ. Shinzo, it always does.” Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/03/18/a-review-of-chronicle-of-drifting-by-yuki-tanaka/

A review of A Line You Have Traced by Roisin Dunnett

In a future where drones diagnose humans, parakeets freely soar, and bananas are a rare delicacy, the idea of altering past events and shaping a better future for everyone captivates the reader. Ess, a member of a network preparing for the end of human life on earth, is primed to travel into the past to help save the present, quietly battling the novel’s villain: the dark side of our collective humanity and the ghosts of what might have been. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/03/16/a-review-of-a-line-you-have-traced-by-roisin-dunnett/

A Conversation with Richard Martin

I’ve been fascinated by Martin’s work since we first met in the mid 1980s. His observations are probing without condescension, and his special brand of humor highlights the peculiarities of human nature as well as the mysteries of the world. He is prolific but never redundant. Given the particularly turbulent state of the world currently, I believe his work is extremely relevant, and readers can benefit greatly from his insights. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/03/15/a-conversation-with-richard-martin/

A review of Essence By Thuy On

The short poems throughout Essence work perfectly for the discrete subject matter and are easy to read, but the simplicity belies the depth of this work or the way it interrogates language and the impact it has. Readers will enjoy the many literary references and links throughout the book, and the way in which On collates external sources with a sensual framework. Essence is a pleasure to read, beautifully written, funny and often deeply moving. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/03/14/a-review-of-essence-by-thuy-on/

A review of Twelve Days from Transfer by Eleanor Kedney

Twelve Days of Transfer tells the story of Kedney’s own unsuccessful attempts at carrying a child, the complex emotional responses to the inability to conceive, the guilt, the grief, but also the relief. She writes about her experiences in grief support groups and with friends, as well as her own complex IVF experience. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/03/11/a-review-of-twelve-days-from-transfer-by-eleanor-kedney/

A review of Clarion by Jenny Pollak

This book is a poetic and visual artistry, it is also a love song shaped from nature’s elements — sand, salt and time. Pollak reminds us that sticks, though broken, remain strong, wild and full of untamed beauty, capable of profound acts of resilience and grace. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/03/10/a-review-of-clarion-by-jenny-pollak/

A review of So Thrilled For You by Holly Bourne

You immediately empathise with each of these characters as you turn the pages to their respective POVs, and that’s precisely the glitter of Bourne’s writing. Her character-driven templates are so watertight, and her characters so realistic that you can even imagine them as real people in your own life. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/03/09/a-review-of-so-thrilled-for-you-by-holly-bourne/

Of Loyalty to Father & Country: A review of At the Edge of Empire: A Family’s Reckoning with China Edward Wong

The reader is in the hands of a writer and scholar whose last twenty years have been dedicated, it would seem, to gathering and sorting material to offer the reader a powerful view into a highly complex culture and nation. Motivated, it would seem, by a profound interest of his own, Wong writes, as it has been noted elsewhere, almost as filial duty to a father whose loyalty to his country was betrayed by its leaders. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/03/05/of-loyalty-to-father-country-a-review-of-at-the-edge-of-empire-a-familys-reckoning-with-china-edward-wong/

A review of The Suspension Bridge by Anna Dowdall

The Suspension Bridge is a good, even excellent novel which unfolds logically and leaves the reader thinking about human nature, the supernatural, and the social changes that began in the 1960’s. I remember those days. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/03/03/a-review-of-the-suspension-bridge-by-anna-dowdall/

A review of Mycocosmic: Poems by Lesley Wheeler

Wheeler’s ideas synthesize unusual word groupings; from these combinations new qualities emerge, such as unpredictably jarring, sometimes funny internal and end rhymes, line breaks, and punctuation, not unlike the way speakers of a language are able to generate an infinite number of sentences from a finite set of syntactical rules.

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 3,524) which can be browsed or searched from the front page of the site.

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LITERARY NEWS

In the news this month, Novelist Sharon Lee won the Robert A. Heinlein Award, which honours “outstanding published works in science fiction and technical writings that inspire the human exploration of space.” Organisers cited Lee for her “body of work of over 38 novels and short stories. A majority of her space themed work is in the Liaden Universe, written with her late husband Steve Miller, and features merchant families trading across the galaxy.” The next Liaden Universe novel, Diviner’s Row, will be released in April. The award will be presented on May 23, during opening ceremonies for Balticon 59, the 59th Maryland Regional Science Fiction Convention. Balticon and the Robert A. Heinlein Award are both managed and sponsored by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society.

The longlist has been selected for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction, honouring “the best full-length novel of the year written in English and published in the U.K.” The winner receives £30,000 and the “Bessie,” a bronze statuette created by artist Grizel Niven. The shortlist will be announced April 2 and the winner June 12. To see the 16 longlisted titles click here: https://womensprize.com/prizes/womens-prize-for-fiction/

The longlist for the $60,000 Stella Prize for women and non-binary writers has been announced. The longlisted books are: A Language of Limbs (Dylin Hardcastle, Picador), Always Will Be (Mykaela Saunders, UQP), Black Convicts (Santilla Chingaipe, Scribner), Black Witness (Amy McQuire, UQP), The Burrow (Melanie Cheng, Text), Cactus Pear For My Beloved (Samah Sabawi, Penguin), Naag Mountain (Manisha Anjali, Giramondo), Peripathetic (Cher Tan, NewSouth), Rapture (Emily Maguire, A&U), Theory & Practice (Michelle de Kretser, Text), The Thinning (Inga Simpson, Hachette). and Translations (Jumaana Abdu, Vintage). Each of the authors with longlisted titles will receive $1000 in prize money. The longlist was chosen from a pool of 180 entries by judge chair Astrid Edwards and fellow judges Yassmin Abdel-Magied, Debra Dank, Leah Jing McIntosh and Rick Morton.

Winners of the 2025 Audie Awards, sponsored by the Audio Publishers Association, were celebrated last night in New York City at the APA’s annual gala. The Audiobook of the Year was My Name Is Barbra, written and narrated by Barbra Streisand (Penguin Random House Audio), which also won in the Autobiography/Memoir category. To see all 28 winners, click here: https://www.audiopub.org/2025audies-1

Finalists have been selected for the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. The winner, who will be named in early April, receives $15,000, while the remaining four finalists each get $5,000. All five authors–along with this year’s PEN/Faulkner Literary Champion–will be honoured on May 15 at the PEN/Faulkner Award Celebration in Washington, D.C. This year’s finalists are: Ghostroots by ‘Pemi Aguda (W.W. Norton), Behind You Is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj (HarperVia), James by Percival Everett (Doubleday), Small Rain by Garth Greenwell (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), and Colored Television by Danzy Senna (Riverhead).

The longlist has been chosen for the 2025 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, which honors works by women and non-binary writers published in the U.S. and Canada. The shortlist will be announced April 3 and the winner on May 1. The winner receives $150,000 and a five-night stay at Fogo Island Inn; the four finalists receive $12,500 each. See the 15-book longlist here: https://carolshieldsprizeforfiction.com/2025-longlist

A five-book shortlist has been released for the C$50,000 Lionel Gelber Prize, which recognises “the world’s best book on international affairs published in English.” The winner will be named March 19, and take part in a hybrid event hosted by the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy on April 9. This year’s Lionel Gelber finalists are: Dollars and Dominion: U.S. Bankers and the Making of a Superpower by Mary Bridges , The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq by Steve Coll, The Good Allies: How Canada and the United States Fought Together to Defeat Fascism during the Second World War by Tim Cook, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement by Benjamin Nathans, To Run the World: The Kremlin’s Cold War Bid for Global Power by Sergey Radchenko.

Manya Wilkinson won the £4,000 Wingate Literary Prize, which honours “the best book, fiction or nonfiction, to translate the idea of Jewishness to the general reader,” for Lublin. The award run in association with the Jewish Literary Foundation.

The New Literary Project has chosen a shortlist of five finalists for the $50,000 Joyce Carol Oates Prize, which “celebrates fiction writers of consequence–short stories and/or novels–at the relative midpoint of a burgeoning career.” The winner, to be named in April, will be in brief residence at the University of California, Berkeley, and in the Bay Area, including Saint Mary’s College of California, in October. The finalists and their most recent publications are:

Jennine Capó Crucet, Say Hello to My Little Friend (Simon & Schuster), Sarah Manguso, Liars (Hogarth), Julia Phillips, Bear (Hogarth), Morgan Talty, Fire Exit (Tin House), and Willy Vlautin, The Horse (Harper).

The shortlist has been chosen for the $35,000 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize, which is sponsored by Aspen Words, a program of the Aspen Institute and honours “a work of fiction that illuminates a vital contemporary issue and demonstrates the transformative power of literature on thought and culture.” The winner will be announced April 23. The shortlist: James by Percival Everett (Doubleday), Before the Mango Ripens by Afabwaje Kurian (Dzanc Books), Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange (Knopf), There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven by Ruben Reyes Jr. (Mariner Books), The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (Avid Reader Press).

Melvill by Rodrigo Fresán, translated from the Spanish by Will Vanderhyden (Open Letter) has won the third annual Republic of Consciousness Prize, U.S. and Canada, designed to celebrate “the commitment of independent presses to fiction of exceptional literary merit.” A total of $35,000 will be distributed to the 10 presses, authors, and translators named as finalists for the prize. Each press included in the longlist will receive $2,000. The five shortlisted books will be awarded an additional $3,000 each, split equally between the publisher and author, or publisher, author, and translator, where applicable. For more information visit: https://www.republicofconsciousnessprize-usa.com/

Finalists have been chosen for the 37th annual Publishing Triangle Awards, honouring the best LGBTQ+ books published in 2024. See the 41 finalists here: https://publishingtriangle.org/2025/03/2025-publishing-triangle-awards-finalists-announced/ Winners in the 10 categories will be announced on Thursday, April 17, at a ceremony at the New School in New York City. Brittany Rogers has won the $1,500 Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award, for an LGBTQ writer who has published at least one book but not more than two. Her debut poetry collection, Good Dress (Tin House), is a non-traditional coming of age that explores the audacity of Black Detroit, Black womanhood, class, materialism, and matrilineage. She is also the author of numerous poems, essays, reviews, and anthologized pieces. The Michele Karlsberg Leadership Award will be given to David Groff, poet, editor, educator, and one of the founders of the Publishing Triangle.

The winners of the 2025 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards have been named. Nukgal Wurra author-artist Wanda Gibson has been awarded the Victorian Prize for Literature, for her picture book Three Dresses. Gibson was also awarded the Children’s Prize for Literature – marking the first time the winner from this category has taken out the overall prize. The inaugural winner of the new John Clarke Prize for Humour Writing is Robert Skinner for I’d Rather Not. Along with Wanda Gibson’s top prize win, First Nations writers were recognised across multiple categories, including Jeanine Leane’s win for the Prize for Poetry with her collection, Gawimarra: Gathering, and Nathan Maynard’s awarding in the Prize for Drama category for his stage show, 37. The Prize for Indigenous Writing was given to Black Witness by Amy McQuire. Fiona McFarlane was awarded the Prize for Fiction for Highway 13; Susan Hampton’s memoir, anything can happen, was selected for the Prize for Non-Fiction; Emma Lord’s YA debut, Anomaly, was named winner of the Prize for Writing for Young Adults; and the winner for the Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript is Chris Ames for I Made This Just for You. Taking out the People’s Choice Award was I’d Rather Not by Robert Skinner. Voted for by the public, Skinner receives a further $2,000 in prize money, gifted by The Wheeler Centre.

A Place Called Yellowstone: The Epic History of the World’s First National Park by Randall K. Wilson (Counterpoint) has won the $50,000 Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize in American History, honouring “the best book of the year in the field of American history or biography” and sponsored by the New York Historical (formerly the New-York Historical Society).

Winners of the National Book Critics Circle awards were announced at a 50th anniversary celebration. NBCC president Heather Scott Partington declared, “Never has there been a more urgent need for criticism, for free speech, for writing that questions, talks back to, and interprets other writing… The NBCC affirms the right of every person to see themselves reflected in books. As the NBCC moves into our next chapter, we stand with the organizations fighting to protect our rights to write and read.” The winners include, for Autobiography: Patriot: A Memoir by Alexei Navalny, translated from the Russian by Arch Tait with Stephen Dalziel (Knopf). Biography: Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar by Cynthia Carr (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Criticism: There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib (Random House). Fiction: My Friends by Hisham Matar (Random House). Nonfiction: Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham (Avid Reader). Poetry: Wrong Norma by Anne Carson (New Directions). Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize: A Last Supper of Queer Apostles by Pedro Lemebel, translated from the Spanish by Gwendolyn Harper (Penguin Classics). , and John Leonard Prize: Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir by Tessa Hulls (MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

The 2025 Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award Notables have been announced. The annual Book of the Year Awards aim to promote quality literature for young Australians, support and encourage Australian writers and illustrators of children’s books and celebrate contributions to Australian children’s literature.There are 6 categories of Awards, 5 of which are included in the Notables list. You can watch the announcement and see the full list here: https://cbca.org.au/2025-notables/

Eight writers have been awarded Windham-Campbell Prizes in four categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama. Each will receive $175,000 “to support their work and allow them to focus on their creative practice independent of financial concerns.” The winners: Sigrid Nunez (U.S.) fiction, Anne Enright (Ireland) fiction, Patricia J. Williams (U.S.) nonfiction, Rana Dasgupta (U.K.) nonfiction, Roy Williams (U.K.) drama, Matilda Feyisayọ Ibini (U.K.) drama, Anthony V. Capildeo (Scotland/Trinidad and Tobago) poetry, and Tongo Eisen-Martin (U.S.) poetry.

Longlists have been released for the 2025 PEN America Literary Awards, which honour writers and translators with awards totaling more than $350,000. Including fiction, poetry, translation, and more. “These longlisted books are dynamic, diverse, and thought-provoking examples of literary excellence,” PEN America noted. Finalists for all book awards will be revealed before the 2025 Literary Awards ceremony, which will be held May 8. The longlisted titles may be viewed here: https://pen.org/announcing-the-2025-pen-america-literary-awards-longlists/

The Winners for the 2025 Indie Book Awards celebrating the best Australian books of 2024 are: Book of the Year, Dusk by Robbie Arnott (Picador Australia) – Dusk also won the Fiction category. For nonfiction, Three Wild Dogs and the Truth by Markus Zusak (Picador Australia). For Debut Fiction, All The Bees in the Hollows by Lauren Keegan (Affirm Press), for Illustrated Non-fiction, The Paintings of Criss Canning by Criss Canning (Thames & Hudson Australia), for Children’s,All the Beautiful Things by Katrina Nannestad (ABC Books, HarperCollins Australia), and for Young Adult,My Family and Other Suspects by Kate Emery (Allen & Unwin Children’s).

Sergey Radchenko won the C$50,000 (Lionel Gelber Prize, recognising “the best nonfiction book published in the English language on the subject of international affairs,” for To Run the World: The Kremlin’s Cold War Bid for Global Power (Cambridge University Press) .The prize is presented by the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy.

A longlist has been released for the 2025 Griffin Poetry Prize. Judges Nick Laird (Northern Ireland), Anne Michaels (Canada), and Tomasz Różycki (Poland) each read 578 books of poetry, including 47 translations from 20 languages, submitted by 219 publishers from 17 different countries. The shortlist will be revealed April 23 and a winner named June 4 at the Griffin Poetry Prize Readings in Toronto. The winner receives C$130,000 while the other shortlisted authors each get C$10,000. Check out this year’s longlisted titles here: https://griffinpoetryprize.com/press/2025-longlist-announcement/

Finally, the shortlist has been selected for the £20,000 Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize, which “recognides exceptional literary talent aged 39 or under, celebrating the international world of fiction in all its forms including poetry, novels, short stories and drama.” The British Library will host a shortlist celebratory event on May 14 (International Dylan Thomas Day), with the winner named during a ceremony in Swansea on May 15. The shortlisted titles are: Rapture’s Road by Seán Hewitt (U.K./Ireland), Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon (Ireland), The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (The Netherlands), I Will Crash by Rebecca Watson (U.K.), Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good by Eley Williams (U.K.), and The Coin by Yasmin Zaher (Palestine).

Have a great month.

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COMPETITION NEWS

Congratulations to Annette Estell, who won a copy of Alive by Gabriel Weston.

Congratulations also to Tony Loader, who won a copy of Water & Wave by Eugene Datta

Our new giveaway is for a copy of Wrongful by Lee Upton. To win, send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line “Wrongful” and your postal address in the body of the mail.

We also have a copy of The Dragon’s Many Claws by Graham Stull. To win, send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line “Dragon’s Many Claws” and your postal address in the body of the mail.

It’s a big month for giveaways and we have a third book on offer Bird Ornaments by Angel Dionne. To win, send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line “Bird Ornaments” and your postal address in the body of the mail.

Good luck!

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