Compulsive Reader

Compulsive Reader News
maggieball@compulsivereader.com
http://www.compulsivereader.com
Volume 27, Issue 3, 1 March 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 batch of reviews and interviews:

A review of Bare Ana and Other Stories by Robert Shapard

A spectrum of characters populates the prismatic flash in Bare Ana. Every story sings a surprise or a change of perspective. A couple honeymoons in Wakiki, but the husband falls off a twelfth-floor balcony. A young girl in a leotard flips an impossible set in front of a judges’ panel. A weather forecaster flies off – not to another television station – but on a renegade weather balloon. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/02/28/a-review-of-bare-ana-and-other-stories-by-robert-shapard/

Unbuttoning Fish: An Interview with Robert Shapard about “Bare Ana and Other Stories”

Author and editor Diane Gottlieb speaks with Robert Shapard on Zoom about his fascinating life in the flash world, the importance of detail and image in very short fiction, and how stories come to him. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/02/28/unbuttoning-fish-an-interview-with-robert-shapard-about-bare-ana-and-other-stories/

A review of In Which by Denise Duhamel

Denise Duhamel has her serious side, too, if often couched in irony. In “Poem in Which I Have Doubts and Then Some Faith” she laments the demise of people reading books – people on the beach glued to their phones reading Instagram, texts, Whatever. And then she notes, “DeSantis wants to ban books,” referring to the autocratic governor of Florida, where she lives. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/02/26/a-review-of-in-which-by-denise-duhamel/

An Interview with Suzanne Mercury

Suzanne Mercury is a poet whose work lies in the interstices of the natural and metaphysical world. In this interview she talks about her latest book Hive, about Magic Squares, bees, writing exercises, ecology, and more. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/02/25/an-interview-with-suzanne-mercury/

A review of The Four Faces of Eve: A Tribute to Survival by Connie Boyle, Brooke Granville, Petra Perkins, and Gail Waldstein

I speak for Colorado when I say we see the weathering/ weathered faces on the cover of this book of poems because these poets have faced the sunshine, the rain and the freezing cold of life. We treasure this wall of women we may not know, yet we feel we do know them. They are our Eve, the source of all life, who eat the forbidden fruit, take God’s consequences and live to tell us about it. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/02/23/a-review-of-the-four-faces-of-eve-a-tribute-to-survival/

A review of The Buried Life by Andrea Goldsmith

Goldsmith writes with the perfect combination of intensity and restraint, balancing the forward motion of the novel’s rich plot, a linear arc of emotional awakening that picks up the book’s title, with philosophical reflection that leans into the poetic and unspoken qualities of music and poetry. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/02/19/a-review-of-the-buried-life-by-andrea-goldsmith/

A review of In The Thaw of Day by Cynthia Good

Good’s poems catch and return with these moments of praise and gratitude balancing the tension with hard-fought lessons and observations of resiliency from the natural world. Her poetry combines language that is intensifying and evocative, like a personal diary, with the immediacy of a scrapbook. And it’s this personal baring open and honesty that lingers on making In The Thaw of Day a dynamic collection. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/02/15/a-review-of-in-the-thaw-of-day-by-cynthia-good/

A review of Griffintown Sisters by J. Emile Turcotte

Griffintown Sisters is vividly written, with multi-faceted characters including strong, resourceful women. The sisters’ love for each other and their struggle for survival come across clearly. This book will provoke thought about whether or not things have changed much for people at the bottom of society’s ladder. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/02/13/a-review-of-griffintown-sisters-by-j-emile-turcotte/

A review of As If Scattered by Holaday Mason

Mason quickly shifts into an influx of embodied imagery and sensuous detail; absorbing love poems, lush and erotic, are further enlivened, countered by a more objective perspective as landscapes of the natural world magnify the intimacy of Mason’s poems. The meditative poetic interchange using briefer lines, airy lineation and informal erasure drew me in through breath and space, encouraging a contemplative atmosphere. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/02/08/a-review-of-as-if-scattered-by-holaday-mason/

A review of Exactly As I Am by Rae White

The imagery captures the tender and quasi-ritualistic act of leaving pieces of oneself on another person’s life. The metaphor of clothing as both physical and emotional markers is clever and poignant, conjuring connection, memory and the lingering presence of love and yearning. The rhythm flows naturally with conversational ease while opening up new ways of seeing. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/02/06/a-review-of-exactly-as-i-am-by-rae-white/

A review of on a date with disappointment by Najya Williams

Repetition is one of Najya Williams’ most important lyric strategies. Certain poignant lines are frequently repeated, giving them resonance, enriching and amplifying their meaning. Take “but the memories,” for instance, a poem about heartbreak and resilience. “But the memories have long scabbed over” is repeated five times in this 27-line poem, italicized in the final line. “The scars may never heal — fully at least” is repeated four times. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/02/04/a-review-of-on-a-date-with-disappointment-by-najya-williams/

A review of Magicholia by Jenny Grassl

These poems challenge our preconceived notions and prescribed roles with fascinating imagery and provocative language that introduces Grassl own invented syntax. This unique use of language takes on visually significant forms. The subject matter encompasses dangerous and threatening conditions such as betrayal, life-threatening mental illness, the rigors of treatment, incarceration, and the end of the world. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/02/02/a-review-of-magicholia-by-jenny-grassl/

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 3,479) which can be browsed or searched from the front page of the site.

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LITERARY NEWS

In the news this month, The winner of the 2025 Grammy award in the Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording category was Sunday Mornings in Plains: Bringing Peace to a Changing World, read by the late author, Jimmy Carter (Simon & Schuster Audio). This was the former president’s fourth Grammy win.

C.G. Esperanza won the 2025 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for his art in My Daddy Is a Cowboy, written by Stephanie Seales (Abrams Books for Young Readers).

Finalists have been selected for the $50,000 2025 Gotham Book Prize, honouring the author of “the best book set in or about New York City.” The award was created by Bradley Tusk, author and owner of the P&T Knitwear bookstore on the Lower East Side, and Howard Wolfson, who works for Bloomberg Philanthropies. To see the 14 finalists, click here: https://www.ptknitwear.com/browse/2024-gotham-book-prize-finalists

We Need Diverse Books announced the 2025 Walter Dean Myers Awards and Honor books for outstanding children’s literature in two categories: young readers (ages 9-12) and teen (ages 13-18). The award, also known as “The Walter,” is named for prolific children’s and young adult author Walter Dean Myers (1937-2014). Titles chosen for the 10th annual award “recognize diverse authors whose works feature diverse main characters and address diversity in a meaningful way.” The 2025 Walter Awards include: Younger Readers Winner: Shark Teeth by Sherri Winston (Bloomsbury Children’s Books), Younger Readers Honor: The Creepening of Dogwood House by Eden Royce (Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins). Teen Winner: Black Girl You Are Atlas by Renée Watson, illustrated by Ekua Holmes (Kokila/Penguin Random House) and Teen Honor: A Crane Among Wolves by June Hur (Feiwel & Friends).

Books from 17 regions and 13 languages are among the 19 winners of English PEN’s translation awards, which are selected “on the basis of outstanding literary quality, the strength of the publishing project, and their contribution to U.K. bibliodiversity.” The latest round of PEN Translates has awarded works spanning poetry, science fiction, non-fiction reportage, and mixed-genre collection, with themes ranging from environmentalism to migration, and – for the first time – a title from Somaliland. The full list can be found here: https://www.englishpen.org/posts/news/pen-translates-winners-announced-6/

A 12-title shortlist in three categories (illustrated, young readers, older readers) has been released for the 2025 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, chosen by Waterstones booksellers, the Bookseller reported. Category winners receive £2,000, then vie for the overall title of Waterstones Children’s Book of the Year and an extra £3,000. Winners will be announced March 27. Check out the complete shortlist here: https://www.waterstones.com/the-waterstones-childrens-book-prize

A longlist has been released for the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. The shortlist will be unveiled March 5 and the winners named on May 14 during the Auckland Writers Festival. Check out the complete NZ Book Awards longlist here: https://www.nzbookawards.nz/new-zealand-book-awards/2025-awards/longlist/. The winner of the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction will receive NZ$65,000, and each of the other main category winners will receive NZ$12,000. Each of The Mātātuhi Foundation Best First Book winners (for fiction, poetry, general nonfiction and illustrated nonfiction) will be awarded NZ$3,000,

The Women’s Prize Trust has released the longlist for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Nonfiction, sponsored by Findmypast. The award, which is “open to all women writers across the globe who are published in the U.K. and writing in English,” is a sister prize to the Women’s Prize for Fiction. The inaugural Women’s Prize for Nonfiction in 2024 was won by Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World. See the complete 2025 longlist here: https://womensprize.com/prizes/womens-prize-for-non-fiction/ This year’s shortlist will be unveiled March 26, with the winner named June 12 at the Women’s Prize Trust’s summer party in London. The winner will receive a cheque for £30,000 and a limited-edition artwork known as the “Charlotte,” both given by the Charlotte Aitken Trust.

Giada Scodellaro has won the 2024 Novel Prize for her novel Ruins, Child. The Novel Prize is a biennial award for a book-length work of literary fiction written in English by published and unpublished writers around the world. It offers US$10,000 to the winner and simultaneous publication in Australia and New Zealand by the Sydney-based publisher Giramondo, in North America by New York-based New Directions, and in the UK and Ireland by Fitzcarraldo Editions. Selected from 1,100 submissions, Giada Scodellaro’s novel will be published simultaneously by all three publishers in early 2026.

Ten literary translators and one editor were named winners of the Society of Authors Translation Prizes, sharing a prize fund of more than £30,000with the runners-up. Check out the complete list of SoA Translation winners here: https://societyofauthors.org/2025/02/12/ta-first-translation-prize-awarded-for-staggering-and-unforgettable-translation-from-eastern-armenian/ This year saw the first translation from Eastern Armenian to win a prize at the awards, with Deanna Cachoian-Schanz and editor Tatiana Ryckman taking the TA First Translation Prize for A Book, Untitled by Shushan Avagyan. Awards were also presented for translations into English from Italian, French, Spanish, German, Arabic, Japanese, and Dutch.

The winners of the 2025 Southern Book Prize, honouring “the best Southern books of the year” as nominated by Southern indie booksellers and voted on by their customers, have been announced by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. Winning authors receive a donation in their name to the charity or nonprofit of their choice. For Fiction, Rednecks by Taylor Brown (St. Martin’s Press). For Nonfiction, The Mango Tree: A Memoir of Fruit, Florida, and Felony by Annabelle Tometich (Little, Brown), and for Young Readers, Not Like Other Girls by Meredith Adamo.

Finalists have been named for the 45th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, which will be awarded April 25, on the eve of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. See the complete list of finalists here: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2025-02-19/la-times-book-prizes-finalists-2024. The Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement, which recognises a writer whose work focuses on the American West, will be presented to Pico Iyer. Poet Amanda Gorman will be honoured with the Innovator’s Award recognising her work to “bring books, publishing and storytelling into the future.” Emily Witt will receive the Christopher Isherwood Prize for autobiographical prose for her memoir Health and Safety: A Breakdown.

Jonathan Mingle’s book Gaslight: The Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Fight for America’s Energy Future (Island Press) was the book category winner of the 2025 Phillip D. Reed Environmental Writing Awards. Presented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, the awards honour “writers whose work demonstrates the power of writing to capture critical environmental issues facing Southern communities.”

The shortlist has been announced for the 2025 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre at the Department of Culture and Tourism–Abu Dhabi. Each finalist receives $10,000, and the winner receives another $50,000. The winner will be announced April 24. The shortlist:vDanshmand by Ahmed Fal Al Din (Mauritania), The Valley of the Butterflies by Azher Jirjees (Iraq), The Andalusian Messiah by Taissier Khalaf (Syria), The Prayer of Anxiety by Mohamed Samir Nada (Egypt),
The Touch of Light by Nadia Najar (UAE), and The Women’s Charter by Haneen Al-Sayegh (Lebanon).

The Abbotsford Trust has unveiled a longlist for the £25,000 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. A shortlist will be released April 15, and the winner named at the Borders Book Festival in Melrose, Scotland, between June 12 and 15. This year’s longlisted titles are: The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry The Catchers by Xan Brooks, Mother Naked by Glen James Brown, Clear by Carys Davies, The Mare by Angharad Hampshire, The Book of Days by Francesca Kay, The First Friend by Malcolm Knox, Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
A Sign of Her Own by Sarah Marsh, The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller, Munichs by David Peace, and The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden.

Giada Scodellaro won the $10,000 Novel Prize, which recognises works that “explore and expand the possibilities of the form, and are innovative and imaginative in style,” for her debut novel, Ruins, Child. The biennial award is for a book-length work of literary fiction written in English by published and unpublished writers from around the world. In addition to a cash prize, the winner receives simultaneous publication in North America by New Directions, in the U.K. and Ireland by Fitzcarraldo Editions, and in Australia and New Zealand by Giramondo.

Finally, The longlist has been released for the International Booker Prize. A shortlist will be unveiled April 8 and the winner named May 20. The winning author and translator share £50,000, while shortlisted titles are each awarded £5,000 to split between authors and translators. This year’s longlisted books were translated from Arabic, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Romanian and Spanish. Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp is the first book nominated for the IBP that was originally written in Kannada, the first language of some 38 million people, which is spoken predominantly in southern India. The longlisted titles are:A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre (French), translated by Mark Hutchinson, On a Woman’s Madness by Astrid Roemer (Dutch), translated by Lucy Scott, Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq (Kannada), translated by Deepa Bhasthi, Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico (Italian), translated by Sophie Hughes, Eurotrash by Christian Kracht (Swiss), translated by Daniel Bowles, Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami (Japanese), translated by Asa Yoneda, Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa (Japanese), translated by Polly Barton, Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix (French), translated by Helen Stevenson, Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda (Mexican), translated by Julia Sanches & Heather Cleary, Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu (Romanian), translated by Sean Cotter, There’s a Monster Behind the Door by Gaëlle Bélem (French), translated by Karen Fleetwood & Laëtitia Saint-Loubert, On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle (Danish), translated by Barbara J Haveland, and The Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem (Palestinian), translated by Sinan Antoon

Have a great month.

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COMPETITION NEWS

Congratulations to Debra Guyette who won a copy of All This Can Be True by Jen Michalski.

Congratulations also to Lisbeth Tang who won a copy of The Color of Noon by Eugene Datta

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

We also have a copy of Water and Wave by Eugene Datta. To win, send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line “Water and Wave” and your postal address in the body of the mail.

Good luck!

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