Compulsive Reader

Compulsive Reader News
maggieball@compulsivereader.com
http://www.compulsivereader.com
Volume 27, Issue 5, 1 May 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 The Ones by Kathleen Latham

Pick up this collection if you’re looking for catharsis in looking back on a history of love won and love lost. It is definitely keyed toward a more mature audience, but then might have good advice for the young and inexperienced: it will be painful, but in enduring we find something so much greater. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/04/27/a-review-of-the-ones-by-kathleen-latham/

A review of A Life in Frames by by Leonora Ross

A Life in Frames, Leonora Ross’s third novel, is the coming-of-age story of a gifted young artist and the journeys he embarks on in his quest for self-discovery and the pursuit of his dreams. The story opens with ten year old Lejf Busher lying on a blanket under the African night sky in his parents’ backyard in Otijwarongo, Namibia—exhausted, but eyes filled with dreams. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/04/25/a-review-of-a-life-in-frames-by-by-leonora-ross/

A review of Jehovah Jukebox by Joan Jobe Smith

By the time they became acquainted, Smith had quit dancing to pursue poetry. Bukowski would call her late at night and howl at her tales of being a go-go girl for seven years (“the bad luck time for / breaking a mirror, minimum sentence for a felony / conviction”). Bukowski, in his cheap L.A. apartment forty miles away “listened intently to my go-go girl tales.” Finally, one night, Bukowski told her: “You gotta write about all that madness, kid. So I did.” Jehovah Jukebox was conceived and born. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/04/22/a-review-of-jehovah-jukebox-by-joan-jobe-smith/

A review of City Nature by Martha Retallick

The best moments come from the struggle against solitude; with Retallick, it’s the trials-and-errors of learning to “think like water” with her co-op in a drought-filled era, of upcycling a gifted chandelier into a vine climbing gym and a sun-shaking pendant collage. Not the “much more” of products, but the “much more” of the lived-in; we are nature too. The struggle against solitude is the discovery of home, and it glints like pendants. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/04/21/a-review-of-city-nature-by-martha-retallick/

A review of Age Like a Yogi by Victoria Moran

Passionate about her subjects, her inspired writing makes for inspiring and effortless reading. In her radio shows, podcasts, and videos about other subjects, you get the feeling that she’s speaking directly to you. Similarly, her conversational writing style can make you feel like she’s writing directly to you. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/04/17/a-review-of-age-like-a-yogi-by-victoria-moran/

A review of Mother’s Day In the Empire State Or, An Answer to the Arraignment of Women by Constantia Munda

This book is a serious rippler. And readers, dare I say, will be left holding a naked baby higher and higher above their heads as they step deeper and deeper onto the rocky bottom of a raging waterway. Footing will inevitably grow faulty. Vision impaired. And eventually they’ll be submerged, needing to come up for air. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/04/16/a-review-of-mothers-day-in-the-empire-state-or-an-answer-to-the-arraignment-of-women-by-constantia-munda/

A Review of Little Book of Versace by Laia Farran Graves

Donatella has left behind a 28-year legacy steeped in high-octane glamour, audacious sensuality, and cultural dominance. It’s fitting, then, that Laia Farran Graves’s Little Book of Versace serves as a compact yet striking celebration of the brand’s evolution—from its origins under Gianni Versace to its current stature as a global fashion powerhouse shaped under Donatella’s reign. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/04/16/a-review-of-the-little-book-of-versace-by-laia-farran-graves/

A review of Barefoot Poetess by Paris Rosemont

Words play across the pages, often moving in non-linear ways and encouraging different breath patterns in the reader. Play is joyful but it can also be a euphemism for abuse, as well as a kind of theatre that reclaims power to the disenfranchised. Some of the poems, most notably the title poem, have a purple quality: the language is elevated and even Shakespearean at times, but against this backdrop of play, the richness works, giving the work a performative and even, at times, fun quality. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/04/13/a-review-of-barefoot-poetess-by-paris-rosemont/

A review of That Galloping Horse By Petra White

But, as I began to read more conventionally, from the beginning, turning page after page, pausing to reflect — to make a coffee, to gaze out of the window at the clouds lazily assembling themselves and then dissipating — I came to realise that this lightsome, low-risk morsel was an anomaly. The cumulative effect of this collection is more chilling. There is an ominous accretion of menace, of lurking dread. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/04/12/a-review-of-that-galloping-horse-by-petra-white/

A review of The Nothing by Lauren Davis

Set against the misty isolation of the Pacific Northwest, these stories hum with a quiet unease, exploring themes of solitude, loss, and the strange ways reality can shift when you least expect it. The characters find themselves in unsettling situations where the ordinary turns uncanny, and the familiar feels just out of reach. Davis resists easy categorization, blending elements of the fantastic with grounded, emotional storytelling. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/04/10/a-review-of-the-nothing-by-lauren-davis/

A review of Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley

The novel’s emotional depth matches its cultural resonance. The book is a cultural time capsule: Percy’s career choices scream the early 2000s, each chapter title is a nostalgic nod, and the deep dives into music cement the era’s atmosphere. There’s lots of nostalgia for the music of the noughties: Beach Boys, Green Day, Bowie, Neutral Milk Hotel…you get the drift. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/04/07/a-review-of-deep-cuts-by-holly-brickley/

A review of I Want to Take You Everywhere by Cassandra Manzolillo

As the title suggests, I Want to Take You Everywhere is a collection of poems that reckon with the need to love, the imprisonment of love, and the act of negotiating the distance between the body and emotional needs in the relationship. This young poet, lays out her psychology, not unlike the confessional poets of the 1970s. The process of saying acts as a performative device whose action includes the reader as a participant, while the poet posits a second and primary listener, real or imagined, her therapist. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/04/06/a-review-of-i-want-to-take-you-everywhere-by-cassandra-manzolillo/

A review of Finding Theodore and Brina by Terri-Ann White

Terri-Ann White leans into this paradox in Finding Theodore and Brina, allowing herself full creative license in the almost impossible attempt to uncover stories that have been buried, obfuscated, or are just missing, to create an engagement rather than a re-telling. The result is a multi-layered, complex memoir that plays with the notion of what we can and cannot know while creating something as true as any memoir. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/04/04/a-review-of-finding-theodore-and-brina-by-terri-ann-white/

A review of Self Geofferential by Geoffrey Gatza

Gatza’s book is continually cooking up new experiences, exotic taste treats, and sensual liaisons in celebration of living life from top to bottom and back again. Somehow his America is always there front and center, in the big city wilderness, the desert expanse, or sleepy small towns leaning under the shade of trees. He has developed a keen eye and ear for using the right word at the right time in the right way. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/04/02/a-review-of-self-geofferential-by-geoffrey-gatza/

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 3,512) 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 Café at the Edge of the Woods, written and illustrated by Mikey Please, won the overall 2025 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, as well as the illustrated books category. The awards are voted for by booksellers, with category winners receiving £2,000 and the overall winner getting an additional £3,000. The other category winners were Rune: The Tale of a Thousand Faces by Carlos Sánchez (younger readers) and King of Nothing by Nathanael Lessore (older readers).

The shortlist has been released for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction. The winner, who will be named June 12, receives £30,000 and a limited edition bronze statuette known as the “Bessie,” created and donated by artist Grizel Niven. This year’s shortlisted titles are: Good Girl by Aria Aber, All Fours by Miranda July, The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji, Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout, The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden, Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis.

The shortlist has been selected for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, which aims to “recognize novels, short story collections, and graphic novels written by women and non-binary authors and published in the U.S. and Canada.” The winner receives $150,000 and a five-night stay at Fogo Island Inn, while the four finalists each receive $12,500. The winner and other finalists will be invited to participate in a group retreat residency in the Leighton Artist Studios, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. The shortlist: Pale Shadows by Dominique Fotier, translated by Rhonda Mullins, All Fours by Miranda July, Code Noir by Canisia Lubrin, Liars by Sarah Manguso, and River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure.

Irish publisher Bullaun Press won the Republic of Consciousness Prize for small presses in the U.K. and Ireland for Gaëlle Bélem’s There’s a Monster Behind the Door, translated from French by Karen Fleetwood and Laëtitia Saint-Loubert, the Guardian reported. Bélem’s “tragi-comedy novel disrupts the tired trope of the trauma novel and is equally brutal in its critique of postcolonial narratives,” said judge Alice Jolly. “The writing is lively, supple and vigorous. The work of the translators who have brought this book to English-speaking audiences must also be celebrated.” All longlisted presses received £500 each. The shortlisted presses were awarded an additional £1,000 each, with 70% going to the press and 30% to the writer and translator.

The Association of American Publishers has announced the Excellence winners of its annual PROSE Awards–recognizing “outstanding scholarly publications”–as well as the R.R. Hawkins Award, the overall prize.The winner of the Hawkins Award–and winner of the Excellence in Social Sciences Award–is Exit Wounds: How America’s Guns Fuel Violence across the Border by Ieva Jusionyte (University of California Press). The other three Excellence winners are: Biological & Life Sciences: The Mindful Health Care Professional: A Path to Provider Wellness and Patient-Centered Care by Dr. Carmelina D’Arro (Elsevier), Humanities: Blacksound: Making Race and Popular Music in the United States by Matthew D. Morrison (University of California Press), and Physical Sciences & Mathematics: The Importance of Being Educable: A New Theory of Human Uniqueness by Leslie Valiant (Princeton University Press)

The Writers’ Trust of Canada has named the five finalists for the C$25,000 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, which recognises “a book of literary nonfiction that captures a political subject of relevance to Canadian readers and has the potential to shape or influence thinking on Canadian political life.” Each finalist receives C$2,500.The winner will be announced September 24 at the Politics and the Pen ceremony. This year’s shortlisted titles are: Canada’s Prime Ministers and the Shaping of a National Identity by Raymond B. Blake , The Prince: The Turbulent Reign of Justin Trudeau by Stephen Maher, Health for All: A Doctor’s Prescription for a Healthier Canada by Jane Philpott, The Adaptable Country: How The shortlist for the 2025 International Booker Prize, worth £50,000 has been announced. Chosen from a longlist of 16, the shortlisted titles include: On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle, translated from Danish by Barbara J. Haveland, Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix, translated from French by Helen Stevenson, Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Asa Yoneda, Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated from Italian by Sophie Hughes, Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi, and A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre, translated from French by Mark Hutchinson. For all the details including what’s notable about these books, visit: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/everything-to-know-about-international-booker-prize-2025-shortlist

Garth Greenwell won the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for Small Rain (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). He will receive $15,000, with the other shortlisted writers each getting $5,000. All five will be honoured May 15 at the annual PEN/Faulkner Award Celebration in Washington, D.C., featuring an appearance by the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Literary Champion, Dr. Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress, along with other special guests, including book critic Ron Charles.

The 5 million Swedish Kronor2025 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award has gone to French author Marion Brunet, who “spotlights burning social issues and draws insightful portraits of vulnerable groups and young people in revolt. She is timely in her choice of topics, timeless in her linkages to folklore and myth,” the organisers noted.

Winners have been announced for the Sheikh Zayed Book Awards, organised by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre under the auspices of the Department of Culture and Tourism–Abu Dhabi and honoring Arab literature and culture. The winners will be recognized on April 28 at an award ceremony during the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. Each receives 750,000 UAE dirhams while the Cultural Personality of the Year receives 1 million UAE dirhams. The Cultural Personality of the Year is Haruki Murakami, the “much-celebrated Japanese author who stands as one of the most influential and widely read contemporary novelists, including a significant following in the Arab world, where his novels are available in Arabic translation. The winners in the book categories were: Literature: Hind, or the Most Beautiful Woman in the World by Hoda Barakat (Dar al Adab, 2024), Children’s Literature: The Phantom of Sabiba by Latifa Labsir (Markaz Kitab, 2024), Arab Culture in Other Languages: Arab Literature in Southeast Asia in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries by Prof. Andrew Peacock (Brill, 2024), Translation: Orosius (Pisa University Press, 2024), an English translation by Italian scholar Marco di Branco of Kitāb Hurūshiyūsh, the Arabic version of Paulus Orosius’s Seven Books of Histories Against the Pagans Editing of Arabic Manuscripts: News of Women by Rasheed Alkhayoun (King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies, 2024), a study of a manuscript attributed to Usama ibn Munqidh (1100-1188 A.D.), Contribution to the Development of Nations: The Right to Strive: Perspectives on Muslim Women’s Rights by Prof. Dr. Mohamed Bashari (Nahdet Misr Publishing, 2024), and Literary and Art Criticism: Food and Language: Cultural Excavations in Arabic Heritage by Dr. Said Laouadi (Afrique Orient, 2023).

The winners of the $50,000 Whiting Awards, sponsored by the Whiting Foundation and given to 10 emerging writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama, are: Liza Birkenmeier (drama), Elwin Cotman (fiction), Emil Ferris (fiction), Samuel Kọ́láwọlé (fiction), Claire Luchette (fiction), Karisma Price (poetry), Aisha Sabatini Sloan (nonfiction), Shubha Sunder (fiction), Sofi Thanhauser (nonfiction), and Annie Wenstrup (poetry).

The shortlist has been selected for the 2025 Stella Prize, awarded to “the most excellent, original and outstanding book written by an Australian woman or non-binary writer.” The winner will be announced May 23. The shortlist includes: The Burrow by Melanie Cheng, Cactus Pear for My Beloved by Samah Sabawi, Black Convicts: How Slavery Shaped Australia by Santilla Chingaipe, Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser, Black Witness: The Power of Indigenous Media by Amy McQuire, and Translations by Jumaana Abdu.

Commonwealth Foundation Creatives has released a shortlist for the 2025 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. This year’s shortlist of 25 writers, representing 18 Commonwealth countries, was chosen by the international judging panel from a record-breaking 8,000 submissions. Writers from Antigua & Barbuda, and Saint Lucia are included for the first time. See the complete list of finalists here: https://commonwealthfoundation.com/short-story-prize/ Regional winners, who each receive £2,500 will be revealed May 14, with the overall £5,000 winner named June 25. If the winning short story is a translation into English, the translator receives £750). The winning stories are published online by Granta and in a special print collection by Paper + Ink. The shortlisted stories are published in adda, the online literary magazine of the Commonwealth Foundation.

Time’s Agent by Brenda Peynado (Tordotcom) is the winner of the 2025 Philip K. Dick Award, honouring the best “original science fiction paperback published for the first time during 2024 in the U.S.” and given with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust, sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, with the award ceremony sponsored by Norwescon. A special citation was given to Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Orbit).

Susie Taylor is the winner of the BMO Winterset Award for her short story collection, Vigil. In celebration of the prize’s 25th anniversary, a one-time nonfiction prize was introduced and awarded to co-authors Lisa Moore and Jack Whalen for their book, Invisible Prisons. Celebrating excellence in Newfoundland and Labrador writing, the BMO Winterset Award presented C$12,500 for each of the winning books. The two finalists were given C$3,000 each: Sara Power for fiction (Art of Camouflage) and Ashleigh Matthews for nonfiction (Otherwise Grossly Unremarkable).

The Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, has decided to designate Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) as World Book Capital for 2025. his is the first time that a Portuguese-speaking city has been designated World Book Capital. In line with priorities expressed in the World Book Capital Charter, Rio de Janeiro conceives its project as having the ability to affect social change – through, for example, literacy, education and poverty eradication – and bring sustainable economic benefit linked to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Finally, Shortlists have been announced for the 2025 NSW Literary Awards. The richest and longest running state-based literary awards in Australia, these shortlists cover all genres of writing and reflect distinguished achievements by Australian writers. The full list of shortlisted authors (and, if you’re in Australia, the chance to vote for the People’s Choice award), can be found here: https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/awards/nsw-literary-awards

Have a great month.

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COMPETITION NEWS

Congratulations to Cat Parnell who won a copy of Wrongful by Lee Upton.

Congratulations to Mrs J Paul who won a copy of The Dragon’s Many Claws by Graham Stull.

Congratulations to Carol Brown won a copy of Bird Ornaments by Angel Dionne.

Our new giveaway is for a copy of It All Felt Impossible: 42 Years in 42 Essays by Tom McAllister. To win, send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line “It All Felt Impossible” and your postal address in the body of the mail.

We also have a copy of WW III: New Poems by Jennifer Maiden. To win, send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line “WW III” and your postal address in the body of the mail.

Good luck!

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