Compulsive Reader

Compulsive Reader News
maggieball@compulsivereader.com
http://www.compulsivereader.com
Volume 25, Issue 8, 1 August 2023

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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 Shadow Box by Jean Kent

I’ve liked every book of hers that I’ve read, and it’s possible that I’ve read them all, but I think that The Shadow Box, which was inspired by her maternal grandparents George and Jean Campbell and the letters they wrote to one another and which were miraculously kept, is my favourite so far. Red more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/07/30/a-review-of-the-shadow-box-by-jean-kent/

A review of Breakfast in Fur by Jessica Murray

This isn’t a book that makes decisions for the reader. Murray’s knowledge and reference to other forms of art, schools, and theories is broad enough that the reader can find their own stolen moments of either appreciation or critique. But there are consequences for not having an “intermediary structure” (Murray 51) as simple as a porch that potentially shelters a wild cat. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/07/30/a-review-of-breakfast-in-fur-by-jessica-murray/

A review of Called To Coddiwomple by Colleen Moyne

The narrative pieces are well defined and give an insight into human nature, which express an attitude towards life, a way of being in the world. Reading Called to Coddiwomple is an immersive experience which impacts on perception and empathy. The reader feels embraced by the author’s experiences, intimate as well as excited by the new life she embarks on. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/07/30/a-review-of-called-to-coddiwomple-by-colleen-moyne/

A review of Places We Left Behind by Jennifer Lang

The basic plot of Places We Left Behind can be read and understood quickly, which Lang acknowledges with her handy timeline at the beginning. However, more thoughtful readings and re-readings allow for an appreciation of the full depth and grace of her journey and what it conveys about the meaning of Jewish practice and human relationships in general. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/07/26/a-review-of-places-we-left-behind-by-jennifer-lang/

A review of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Graphic Literature edited by Kelcey Ervick and Tom Hart

Each essay follows the same format. The author writes about the problem or challenge that he or she wants to give insight into, whether it’s composing characters from found images (Oliver Baez Bendorf, “Released from Forms”), or how to write authentic dialogue (Mira Jacob, “”Dialogue”) or how to portray real-life characters in journalism (Josh Neufeld, “Drawing the News”). Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/07/25/a-review-of-the-rose-metal-press-field-guide-to-graphic-literature-edited-by-kelcey-ervick-and-tom-hart/

A review of His Majesty’s Airship: The Life and Tragic Death of the World’s Largest Flying Machine by S. C. Gwynne

The book is primarily a history of airships and national pride. Throughout its pages we encounter one or another obsessive character who has a glorious vision, who is great at self-promoting, and who – all evidence to the contrary– believes he can attain the impossible. A safe, powerful, fast-moving airship. But all, all, are either building their vision upon faulty information, bad and dangerous science, and airy visions. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/07/21/a-review-of-his-majestys-airship-the-life-and-tragic-death-of-the-worlds-largest-flying-machine-by-s-c-gwynne/

A review of Already Long Ago by David Giannini

David Giannini is a wonderful teacher. This is a partial list of the words he taught me: Tardis [sic] (acronym for Time and Relative Dimension in Space), withes (branches of an osier used for tying), gnomon (part of a sundial that casts a shadow), dittany (a bushy shrub), skift (something that is light), sposhy (slushy, dirty, and wet), rivulose (having irregular lines), garth (small yard or enclosure), tohubohu (a state of chaos; utter confusion), and my favorite, mondegreen (a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning.) Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/07/19/a-review-of-already-long-ago-by-david-giannini/

A review of The Year My Family Unravelled by Cynthia Dearborn

Dearborn writes with such clarity, and with so much good-natured acceptance and linguistic beauty, that the revelations which pepper this book are like rockets propelling the narrative. It’s a real skill, allowing the book to take on the rhythm and pacing of Russell’s slow decline while incorporating a modern perspective and synthesis. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/07/16/a-review-of-the-year-my-family-unravelled-by-cynthia-dearborn/

A review of Borrowed Words: Cut-up Poems by Peter Wortsman

This poet’s cut-up poems, generated mostly during the lockdown phase of the pandemic, when he felt “cut-off [like a] … modern day monk languishing in the solitude of my cell…” find their roots in Dada poet Tristan Tzara’s méthode découpé, and shares scissors with William S. Burroughs’ cut-up method by which the gunman-junkie-novelist made new poems from old material. Wortsman’s approach differs though from his forbears. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/07/14/a-review-of-borrowed-words-cut-up-poems-by-peter-wortsman/

A Conversation with Beth McDermott about Figure 1

Beth McDermott is the author of Figure 1 and a chapbook titled How to Leave a Farmhouse. Interviewer Tiffany Troy talks to Beth about her new book which is rooted in the ekphrastic tradition and features the mind at work framing and dismantling images and exploring what exists beneath the surfaces of our socially constructed selves. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/07/11/a-conversation-with-beth-mcdermott-about-figure-1/

A review of Laughing Matters: Poems with a Wink and a Smile by James A. Tweedie

James Tweedie is not only a first-rate poet, but is also a musician and composer, which is very refreshing to me, as I am also both a poet and a musician. You can hear the musicality exuding from his poetry. The meter is clean and precise, the rhymes are perfect, rarely slanted, so you get the full effect of the satisfactions inherent in perfectly-executed formal poetry. But it never upstages the humor and wit of Tweedie’s funny perspective, and the results are often quite unexpected! Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/07/10/a-review-of-laughing-matters-poems-with-a-wink-and-a-smile-by-james-a-tweedie/

A review of Standing in the Forest of Being Alive by Katie Farris

Over and over, Farris lightly dances between the doors of this world and beyond, between the possibility of dying, between the possibility of continuing to live, almost daring death, daring the doctor. She continues to give the reader a very candid view of how she copes with cancer, treatment, other people’s views of her, her own sense of loss, America, and her will to live.

A review of a brief letter to the sea about a couple of things by Ali Whitelock

Ali Whitelock’s voice is so distinctive. I don’t just mean her beautiful Scottish brogue, though if you’ve ever heard her read, the richness of that accent will remain with you when you read her work on the page. Whitelock’s voice is woven throughout the work. It’s an immediacy and an openness that makes you feel, when reading her poetry, that you have been friends your whole life and she is not only confiding in you but drawing out of you your own dark secrets so you can laugh at them together. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/07/05/a-review-of-a-brief-letter-to-the-sea-about-a-couple-of-things-by-ali-whitelock/

A Conversation with Mary Leader about The Distaff Side

Mary Leader is a poet-lawyer from Oklahoma. She served as the Assistant Attorney General and later as a Referee for the Oklahoma Supreme Court. The Distaff Side, a collection about matrimony at the meeting of just-barely-on-the-surface and just-barely-underneath-it is her fifth collection of poems, The extraordinary visual aspects of the poem serve as the poet’s means for pleasure and defiance. In this interview with Tiffany Troy, Mary talks about her new book and the process of writing it, major themes, and more. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/07/03/a-conversation-with-mary-leader-about-the-distaff-side/

A review of Chinese Fish by Grace Yee

The book contains lists, poems in two different styles, one style is always in italic and written in a way like if the person writing the piece doesn’t have full command of the English language, the others are normal poems, some of the poems as well as the narrated pieces include some words in Chinese characters. Furthermore, the reader will encounter short dialogues, archival fragments, old policies, lists, eight pages (eight is considered a lucky number in Chinese culture) containing the pictures of a Chinese doll and some political comments. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/07/02/a-review-of-chinese-fish-by-grace-yee/

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 3,176) 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, The Society of Authors distributed £100,000 to 30 writers during the 2023 SoA Awards ceremony, presented in London by the organization’s chair, Joanne Harris, with a keynote from Val McDermid. Among the honorees, Daniel Wiles took the £10,000 Betty Trask Prize for a first novel by a writer under 35 for Mercia’s Take; the £5,000 Queen’s Knickers Award, honouring an outstanding children’s original illustrated book for ages 0-7, went to Olaf Falafel for Blobfish; and the £1,250 ADCI (Authors with Disabilities and Chronic Illnesses) Literary Prize went to Nicola Griffith for Spear. The full list can be found here: https://www2.societyofauthors.org/2023/06/29/a-plethora-of-riches-announcing-the-winners-of-the-2023-society-of-authors-awards/

The Book of Grief and Hamburgers by Stuart Ross won the C$20,000 English-language fiction Trillium Book Award, which is given to “recognize excellence, support marketing and foster increased public awareness of the quality and diversity of Ontario writers and writing.” Sanna Wani took the C$10,000 prize in the poetry category for My Grief, the Sun. The winner of the C$20,000 French-language Trillium Book Award was Circé des hirondelles by Gilles Lacombe, and the C$10,000 French-language poetry prize went to Le secret de Paloma by Michèle Laframboise.

Finalists have been named for the Forward Prizes for Poetry, which include the £10,000 Forward Prize for Best Collection, the £5,000 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection, and the £1,000 (Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. This year, a new category has been added: Best Single Poem–Performed, which also carries a £1,000 award. The winners will be named October 16. This year’s book finalists are: Best collection – Self Portrait as Othello by Jason Allen-Paisant, Bright Fear by Mary Jean Chan, A Change in the Air by Jane Clarke, The Ink Cloud Reader by Kit Fan, and My Name Is Abilene by Elisabeth Sennitt Clough. For First collection – ISDAL by Susannah Dickey, A Method, A Path by Rowan Evans, Cane, Corn & Gully by Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa, Bad Diaspora Poems by Momtaza Mehri, and Cowboy by Kandace Siobhan Walker.

George Saunders is the winner of the 2023 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, which honors “an American literary writer whose body of work is distinguished not only for its mastery of the art but also for its originality of thought and imagination. Saunders is the author of 12 books, including Swim in a Pond in the Rain; Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the Man Booker Prize; Congratulations, by the Way; Tenth of December, a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the inaugural Folio Award; The Braindead Megaphone; and the story collections CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, Pastoralia, and In Persuasion Nation. He is also the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and Guggenheim Fellowship. Saunders is a professor of creative writing at Syracuse University.

The winners in a dozen categories of the Crime Writers’ Association 2023 Dagger Awards were announced July 6 and can be seen here: https://cdn.thecwa.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/07074750/Dagger-winners-2023.pdf Among them, the Gold Dagger went to George Dawes Green for The Kingdoms of Savannah and the Debut Dagger went to Jeff Marsick for Sideways. Walter Mosley received the Diamond Dagger, which honors authors whose “crime-writing careers have been marked by sustained excellence, and who have made a significant contribution to the genre. It is the most prestigious U.K. lifetime award awarded to a crime writer.”

The 81st World Science Fiction Convention, hosted in Chengdu, China, has announced the finalists for the 2023 Hugo Awards, Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book, and Astounding Award for Best New Writer. Members of the Chengdu Worldcon will vote and winners will be presented on October 21 during the Chengdu Worldcon. See the full list of finalists here: https://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2023-hugo-awards/

Waterstones has announced the shortlist for its 2023 Debut Fiction Prize, which is voted on by booksellers and honours “exceptional first novels.” The company described the six titles as representative of “the exciting scope of contemporary storytelling and takes us from the trenches of the First World War to Thatcher’s Britain, and from 1970s Southall to near-future America by way of contemporary Belfast and the dark underbelly of a picturesque village in Western Ireland.” The winner will be announced on August 24. The shortlist includes Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Fire Rush by Jacqueline Crooks, Close to Home by Michael Magee, Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin, Kala by Colin Walsh, and In Memoriam by Alice Winn.

A shortlist has been released for the $25,000 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, which is “intended to recognize those writers Ursula spoke of in her 2014 National Book Awards speech–realists of a larger reality, who can imagine real grounds for hope and see alternatives to how we live now.” The winner will be chosen by a panel of authors. This year’s shortlisted titles are: Wolfish by Christiane Andrews (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers), Arboreality by Rebecca Campbell (Stelliform Press), Spear by Nicola Griffith (Tordotcom Publishing), Ten Planets by Yuri Herrera, translated by Lisa Dillman (Graywolf), The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez (Del Rey), Brother Alive by Zain Khalid (Grove Atlantic), Meet Us by the Roaring Sea by Akil Kumarasamy (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux), Geometries of Belonging by R.B. Lemberg (Fairwood Press), and Drinking from Graveyard Wells by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu (University Press of Kentucky).

Caryl Lewis won the 2023 Wales Book of the Year Award for Drift, her debut novel in the English language. She also took the Rhys Davies Trust Fiction Award. Pridd by Llŷr Titus was named the Wales Book of the Year in Welsh. The awards celebrate books across four categories (poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and children & young people) in both English and Welsh. Each category winner receives £1,000, with the two overall winners getting an additional £3,000. Lewis has won the Welsh-language Wales Book of the Year Award twice in the past–for Martha, Jac, a Sianco in 2005 and Y Bwthyn in 2016–making her the first writer to have won the prize in both languages.

The State Library of New South Wales in Australia has released a shortlist for the A$25,000 National Biography Award, which celebrates excellence in biography, autobiography, and memoir writing. In addition, the A$5,000 (Michael Crouch AC Award will be presented for the best debut biography or memoir. This year’s National Biography Award finalists, who receive A$2,000, are: Unknown: A Refugee’s Story by Akuch Kuol Anyieth, The Ghost Tattoo: Discovering the Hidden Truth of my Father’s Holocaust by Tony Bernard, How to End a Story: Diaries 1995–1998 by Helen Garner, Bedtime Story by Chloe Hooper, Missing by Tom Patterson, and My Tongue Is My Own: A Life of Gwen Harwood by Ann-Marie Priest.

The Botanist by M.W. Craven has won the £3,000 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, presented by Harrogate International Festivals. Elly Griffiths was recognised as “highly commended” for the penultimate mystery in her Dr Ruth Galloway series, The Locked Room. In addition, Ann Cleeves received the Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award in recognition of her impressive writing career. Cleeves, the author of more than 35 novels, is the creator of detectives Vera Stanhope, Jimmy Perez, and Matthew Venn, who have been subjects of popular TV series.

Winners of the 2023 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards were presented at Comic-Con International. The full list can be seen here: https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards-current-info. Among the winners: Best Comics-Related Book: Charles M. Schulz: The Art and Life of the Peanuts Creator in 100 Objects by Benjamin L. Clark and Nat Gertler (Schulz Museum), Best Academic/Scholarly Work: The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader: Critical Openings, Future Directions edited by Alison Halsall and Jonathan Warren (University Press of Mississippi), Best Graphic Memoir: Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton (Drawn & Quarterly), Best Writer: James Tynion IV, and Best Writer/Artist: Kate Beaton.

Finally, Sisters in Crime Australia has released a shortlist for the 23rd Davitt Awards, recognizing the best crime and mystery books by Australian women. The awards are presented in six categories: adult novel, YA novel, children’s novel, nonfiction book, debut book (any category), and readers’ choice (as voted by the 600-plus members of Sisters in Crime Australia). The winner will be honoured September 2 in Melbourne. For the full shortlist visit: https://sistersincrime.org.au/crime-alert-davitt-awards-shortlist-nominations-announced/

Have a great month!

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COMPETITION NEWS

Congratulations to Sharon Berger who won a copy of But She Looks Fine: From Illness to Activism by Olivia Goodreau.

Congratulations to Debra Guyette who won a copy of What We Leave Behind by Christine Gallagher Kearney

Our new site giveaway is for a copy of Exits by Stephen C. Pollock. To win send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line: “Exits” and your postal address in the body of the email.

We also have a copy of Framing a Life: Building a Space to be Me by Roberta S. Kuriloff. To win send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line: “What We Leave Behind” and your postal address in the body of the email.

Good luck!

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