Compulsive Reader

Compulsive Reader News
maggieball@compulsivereader.com
http://www.compulsivereader.com
Volume 28, Issue 1, 1 Jan 2026

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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 new year! We’re now in our 28th year! Thank you to all of you who have been here for years and to those of you who have just joined. I appreciate the warm and supportive community of book lovers that has grown almost organically and especially your part in it. Here is the latest batch of reviews and interviews:

A review of A Blink of Time’s Eye by David Adés

Adés’ latest collection, A Blink of Time’s Eye, strikes me as his best yet, using the kinds of reflection and reminiscence that come with a mature perspective, to find meaning in the present. Like all good poetry it has a way of transcending time even as it is bound by it. A Blink of Times’ Eye is an introspective, lyrical collection that explores the many things that are lost, and what is held through time. The book is structured into four sections, each focused on time in one sense or another – future, past, present and an imagined, conjured past – let’s call it Anemoia – a longing mingling with nostalgia for an alternative pathway – something not bodily experienced. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/12/29/a-review-of-a-blink-of-times-eye-by-david-ades/

An interview with Tess Perko

Tess Perko talks to her daughter, Rachael Brandt about her debut novel, Learning to Whistle , on writing stories that empower women, her inspiration, her writing process, the hardest part of writing a novel for her, her new work-in-progress, and lots more. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/12/28/an-interview-with-tess-perko/

A review of After Prayer by Malcolm Guite

The appeal of the book as poetic material has its good points: Good poetic diction, deep thought, formal structure, well developed themes, knowledge of the subject matter, good organization. The weaker points are these; Malcolm Guite does not seem to be a gifted rhymer or one who can rhyme without any difficulty giving perfect rhymes. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/12/27/a-review-of-after-prayer-by-malcolm-guite/

A review of Obsolete Hill by Meg Eden Kuyatt

Working in the spirit of haikyo exploration culture, which emphasizes observation and documentation, Kuyatt builds poems that revel in specificity: a bowling alley with one hundred and eight unused lanes, a mostly shuttered mall in which a man tends aloe vera. Reading these poems through the lens of Kuyatt’s linked interests—meaning-making and ephemerality—we can appreciate why one might garden in a failing space. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/12/26/a-review-of-obsolete-hill-by-meg-eden-kuyatt/

A review of Three Walled World by Ellery Capshaw

Act one opens with scattered recollections of her family, well set in the preternatural twilight of childhood memories alongside the more straightforward development of her early acting. From a class where she may have been half the age of the second youngest to serious auditions, one travels with Capshaw through the tempest of a life lived too early. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/12/22/a-review-of-three-walled-world-by-ellery-capshaw/

A review of Slipstream by Kristyn J. Saunders

We are taken in with the story of the daughter who has been hurt and is in hospital, but the observations and comments are fully poetic, allowing the reader to experience the sensations of mother and child in the rhythms and sounds of the words. In some of the poems a very discreet sense of humour is hidden. It is interesting to encounter one poem with a bit of history about Psychiatry services and English law about Leucotomy (Lobotomy) and art therapy. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/12/21/a-review-of-slipstream-by-kristyn-j-saunders/

A review of A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern

In A Different Kind of Power Jacinta Ardern gives some space to the ad hominem criticism she received while trying to bring about a fairer and more humane society in which no one was left behind. After first becoming a Member of Parliament in New Zealand, in 2008, she rose to the Prime Ministership, serving from 2017 to 2023. Her reader-friendly book is humorous in places, frank about her experiences as a woman and a mother, and a good introduction to present-day New Zealand. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/12/19/a-review-of-a-different-kind-of-power-by-jacinda-ardern/

A review of Trash Truck 7:38 A.M. by Ed McManis

There aren’t many love poetry books written to celebrate the mundane. In his new chapbook, Ed McManis writes a series of odes to mature, long-lasting love, exploring the nature of ongoing compromise, of the joy of co-existing with difference and dissent, of lost dreams and the ongoing anxieties of parenting, aging, and loss. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/12/18/a-review-of-trash-truck-738-a-m-by-ed-mcmanis/

A review of Poems Talking to Poems edited by Jeffrey Levine and Kristina Marie Darling

Levine takes gems from his blogs and workshop material to create the frame for the book. “The Poetry Manuscript: Arts and Crafts” serves as an introduction to the granular exploration of what he calls “the art of transforming individual poems into a transcendent whole.” Every chapter Levine contributes requires poets to dive deeper into creative self-awareness. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/12/17/a-review-of-poems-talking-to-poems-edited-by-jeffrey-levine-and-kristina-marie-darling/

An interview with by Sahar Swidan and Matthew Bennett

The authors of Mastering Chronic Pain talk about their new book and why they wrote it, the importance of empowering readers, biggest misconceptions about pian, how they began collaborating and what makes for a succesful collaboration, what’s in the pipeline and more. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/12/15/an-interview-with-by-sahar-swidan-and-matthew-bennett/

A review of Aleph Bet by Sue Rose

But the main event is Rose’s wonderful poetry. Each of the poems is one long stanza, meditations on the meaning and appearance of each letter. In her Notes at the end of the sequence, Rose provides fascinating information about the background of each letter, including the numerical value of each, which ranges from 1for the aleph (א) to 400 for the tav (ת). The numerical values of the letters are key to gematria, Jewish numerology. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/12/12/a-review-of-aleph-bet-by-sue-rose/

Creative Imagination: Unruly Tree and Self-Portrait as Vanishing Act by Leslie Ullman

Striking for their sharp focus and mesmerizing for their rich vocabulary, these collections transport readers to imagined realms that are also vividly real. It has been a productive year for this acclaimed poet and writing teacher, who released two new poetry collections within eight months of each other. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/12/11/creative-imagination-unruly-tree-and-self-portrait-as-vanishing-act-by-leslie-ullman/

A review of The Old Man by the Sea by Domenico Starnone

If identity is to be found in reviewing “key moments” in life and not be trapped by “sentimental life . . . so full of hiding places,” then Starnone’s novel must be read like a detective novel that travels in time and space, all from the comfort of a beach chair in which an old man sits by the sea, waiting to catch the fish of a lifetime, gold and shimmering, one filled with promise and food for a tired soul. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/12/10/a-review-of-the-old-man-by-the-sea-by-domenico-starnone/

A review of Split Daughter of Eve by Catherine Gonick

Breaking open a double heritage, Christian and Jewish, Catherine Gonick creates a paradise where three sisters—the speaker, the younger sister, and the little sister—are all portrayed as daughters of Eve. Her full-length collection, Split Daughter of Eve, takes us on a deep dive where we find the speaker changing shape, changing perception, and even trying to reverse loss. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/12/07/a-review-of-split-daughter-of-eve-by-catherine-gonick/

A review of How to Write a Novel edited by Aaron Burch

The beauty of How to Write a Novel is two-fold. First, all of its readers will walk away having learned something about writing, even if they don’t mean to. Second, its readers will walk away wanting to write and revise something, which is the mark of a good teacher, good workshop, good craft book. Editor Aaron Burch and his friends challenge readers to consider their own hobbies and how the principles behind them relate to writing. After closing the book, I wondered, what does writing have in common with volleyball? Or Pokémon? Or singing? Or video editing? I knew I had to write in order to find out. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/12/05/a-review-of-how-to-write-a-novel-edited-by-aaron-burch/

A review of Sodomy’s Solicitations by Joseph J. Fischel

The book is erudite, playful at times, and well-argued. But whether these two relatively straight-forward propositions require so much theorizing and intricate prose is debatable, at least outside the groves of academe, where the author writes from a perch at Yale. One can imagine functionaries in the current White House looking at this book and immediately barking out orders to cut federal funding for New Haven. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/12/04/a-review-of-sodomys-solicitations-by-joseph-j-fischel/

A review of Ingenious: A Biography of Benjamin Franklin, Scientist by Richard Munson

Throughout this biography, Munson makes clear that Franklin’s scientific engagement with the world is a perpetual touchstone. No matter where he is on the planet—striving in his early life in the states, representing the states in England, working as a wartime ambassador in France, or traversing the ocean in between—Franklin is continuously scientifically inquisitive, continuously meeting and corresponding with other investigators, continuously inventing, and continuously devising and refining experiments. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2025/12/02/a-review-of-ingenious-a-biography-of-benjamin-franklin-scientist-by-richard-munson/

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 3,662) which can be browsed or searched from the front page of the site.

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LITERARY NEWS

In the literary news this month, Hannah Durkin won the £50,000 Wolfson History Prize for her book Survivors: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the Atlantic Slave Trade, published in the U.S. by Amistad as The Survivors of the Clotilda. The five shortlisted authors each took home £5,000.

The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip by Stephen Witt (Viking) has won the Financial Times and Schroders 2025 Business Book of the Year Award. Witt receives £30,000; the five runners-up each receive £10,000.

To celebrate its 25th anniversary, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction has been awarded to two winners. Rosanna Pike’s “dazzlingly witty” debut novel, A Little Trickerie, won the 2025 prize, while A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka took the Vintage Bollinger Prize, the “Winner of Winners” from 25 previous recipients of the award. Pike received a jeroboam and a case of Bollinger Special Cuvée, the complete set of the Everyman’s Library P.G. Wodehouse collection, and a pig named after her winning book. Lewycka’s family accepted the award on behalf of the author, who died the day after the judges reached their decision. They received a framed picture of the winning book jacket and a specially engraved jeroboam of Bollinger Special Cuvée.

28 authors have been selected for the longlist of the 2026 Joyce Carol Oates Prize by New Literary Project, which honours “a mid-career author of fiction in the midst of a burgeoning career, a distinguished writer who has emerged and is still emerging.” The winner receives $US50,000 and a residence at the University of California. Finalists will be named in March 2026, and the winner in April. See the longlist here: https://www.newliteraryproject.org/joyce-carol-oates-prize

Tom Paulin’s Namanlagh won the PEN Heaney Prize, which recognises a single volume of poetry by one author, published in the UK. or Ireland, “of outstanding literary merit that engages with the impact of cultural or political events on human conditions or relationships.” The award is presented by English PEN, together with Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann and the estate of Seamus Heaney.

Natch by Darrell Kinsey (University of Iowa Press) has won the US$15,000 Center for Fiction 2025 First Novel Prize. The Center said, “Set in the foothills of north Georgia, Natch tells the story of a tree cutter, nicknamed Natch, whose solitary lifestyle is upended when he meets–and falls in love with–Asha, an alluring woman who works the nightshift at a convenience store.”

Aaron Williams won the C$10,000 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Nonfiction for his book The Last Logging Show: A Forestry Family at the End of an Era (Harbour Publishing). Administered Wilfrid Laurier University, the annual prize “recognizes Canadian writers for a first or second work of creative nonfiction with a Canadian locale or significance”.

The longlist of 16 titles has been selected for the 2026 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre, at the Department of Culture and Tourism, Abu Dhabi. The six shortlisted titles will be announced in February 2026, and the winning novel on April 9. The winner receives $50,000, and each shortlisted finalist receives $10,000. To see the 16 longlisted titles, click here: https://en.arabicfiction.org/features-and-updates/international-prize-arabic-fiction-announces-2026-longlist-and-judges

A shortlist has been released for the inaugural Poetry in Translation Prize, a biennial award for an outstanding poetry collection translated into English. The prize is open to living, published poets from around the world, writing in any language. Poems from each collection can be read at Granta online. The winning poet and translator will receive an advance of $5,000, to be shared equally between them, followed by simultaneous publication in North America with New Directions, in the U.K. and Ireland with Fitzcarraldo Editions, and in Australia and New Zealand with Giramondo. The winner will be announced in January 2026. The shortlisted titles are: With the Remains of My Hands by Priya Bains, translated by Alex Mepham (Norwegian), A Beam of Light in the Winter from the Bowstring Played by a Crested Serpent Eagle by Bukun Ismahasan Islituan, translated by Hugu Sutej (Bunun, Isbukun dialect), The Dust Museum by Liu Ligan, translated by Dong Li (Chinese/Mainland), Water’s Edge and Other Poems by Hiyori Kojima, translated by James Garza (Japanese), Help Me Change My Bandages by Maniniwei, translated by Emily Lu (Chinese/Taiwan-Malaysia), Just Land by Jaku Mata, translated by Eric Abalajon (Filipino)
The Past Is a Lonesome Town by Osdany Morales, translated by Harry Bauld (Spanish), and Life on Three Wheels by E.M. Palitha Edirisooriya, translated by Samodh Porawagamage & Kasun Pathirage (Sinhala).

Hatchards and the Biographers’ Club have released a shortlist for the Hatchards First Biography Prize 2025, honouring the best first biography of the year. The winner, who will receive £2,500, will be named March 5, 2026, at Hatchards, Piccadilly. This year’s shortlisted titles are: Crick: A Mind in Motion–From DNA to the Brain by Matthew Cobb, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs by Ian Leslie, Operation Pimento by Adam Hart. Peacemaker: U Thant, The United Nations and the Untold Story of the 1960s by Thant Myint-U, and Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work by Sarah Wynn-Williams.

The shortlist has been selected for the £4,000 (about $5,350) 2026 Wingate Literary Prize, honouring “the best book, fiction or nonfiction, to convey the idea of Jewishness to the general reader.” The shortlist includes The Einstein of Sex by Daniel Brook, Chopping Onions on My Heart by Samantha Ellis, City of Laughter by Temim Fruchter, Berlin Atomized by Julia Kornberg, Letters by Oliver Sacks, edited by Kate Edgar, and The Gates of Gaza by Amir Tibon.

Longlists have been released for the 2026 PEN America Literary Awards, which honour writers and translators with awards totalling more than $350,000. Including fiction, poetry, translation, and more, the books “are dynamic, diverse, and thought-provoking examples of literary excellence,” PEN America noted. Finalists for all award categories will be named before the 2026 Literary Awards ceremony, which will be held in March. The longlisted titles may be viewed here: https://pen.org/announcing-the-2026-pen-america-literary-awards-longlists/

Finally, December was the time of year for 2025 roundups. I’m always a bit wary of “best of” lists and though I’ve been asked to contribute to these on occasion, I’m hesitant because what I enjoy reading is far from objective even just to to myself – coloured by how I’m feeling, my mood, my situation and all of the things I bring to the book as a reader. However, some books do really shine and it’s fun to read some of the roundups and looking at it through the lens of the various people making the lists at least makes it easier to engage with the subjectivity rather than pretend it doesn’t exist. Also there are a few books that seem to appear on nearly everyone’s list (Flashlight by Susan Choi and Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy come to mind)- that’s always a good indicator and to be honest I have been swayed to read a book this way particularly when I hear the author interviewed and listen to them read. Here are a few solid lists: The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/ng-interactive/2025/dec/06/the-best-books-of-2025, LitHub: https://lithub.com/lit-hubs-43-favorite-books-of-2025/, NY Public Library: https://www.nypl.org/books-more/recommendations/best-books/adults?year=2025, The Australian Book Review has its own roundup from critics: https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/current-issue/1026-december-2025-no-482/14705-books-of-the-year-2025, Vanity Fair: https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/story/the-17-best-books-of-2025-you-need-to-read, Pen America: https://pen.org/best-books-of-2025/, and the ABC, who has been doing a range of countdowns and you can listen to their excellent podcast for more detail on the books: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-13/best-books-2025-hannah-kent-arundhati-roy-charlotte-mcconaghy/106131106

Have a great month.

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COMPETITION NEWS

Congratulations to Tammy Basset who won a copy of Death of the First Idea by Rickey Laurentiis.

Congratulations to Mary Preston who won a copy of A Shapeshifter in Love – Marie de France’s Yonec and Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve’s the Beauty and the Beast, Parts One and Two translated by Katharine Margot Toohey

Our new giveaway is for a copy of Behind These Four Walls by Yasmin Angoe. To win, send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line “Beyond These Four Walls” and your postal address in the body of the mail.

We also have a copy of The Woman in the Ship by Sapphira Olson. To win, send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line “The Woman in the Ship” and your postal address in the body of the mail.

Good luck!

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