Compulsive Reader

Compulsive Reader News
maggieball@compulsivereader.com
http://www.compulsivereader.com
Volume 25, Issue 9, 1 Sept 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 Swift Dark Tide by Katia Ariel

There is a clear narrative arc that drives the reading forward quickly, but the writing is so sensual and languid that it creates a resistance to that progression. So much transformation happens in the gaps between the action – looking at the ocean, in the silent space of memory, in a moment after birth while looking into a newborn’s face, or even small moments of mindfulness such as noticing the pure green of a paediatrician’s jumper, or a seaweed crown “mossy garlands the circumference of an adult head” floating on the surface of the water. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/08/27/a-review-of-the-swift-dark-tide-by-katia-ariel/

A review of Ivan and Phoebe by Oksana Lutsyshyna

The language of the novel is captivating and Lutsyshyna creates deep characters and vivid storyline twists while unlocking her talent as a perceptive poet. Lutsyshyna’s depictions of nature landscapes are truly prose poetry. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/08/24/a-review-of-ivan-and-phoebe-by-oksana-lutsyshyna/

A review of One Day We’re All Going to Die by Elise Esther Hearst

Deceptively easy to read, One day we’re all going to die is a rich, complex book that encompasses family and connection, friendships, privilege, survival in the face of inherited trauma, Judaism, culture, modern life, and the healing power of creativity. If that seems like a lot, it doesn’t feel like it. Hearst handles it all with ease, and the book is a light-hearted joy. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/08/23/a-review-of-one-day-were-all-going-to-die-by-elise-esther-hearst/

Exhortation: A Review of Live in Suspense by David Groff

The title, Live in Suspense, is an exhortation, a demand that we live in suspense as he attempts to do. He explores suspense as an artefact, quoting Emily Dickinson and Oscar Wilde, Dickinson emphasizing the unending nature of suspense and the contrast of “annihilation” and “immortality,” Wilde calling suspense “terrible,” then saying, “I hope it will last.” Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/08/20/exhortation-a-review-of-live-in-suspense-by-david-groff/

An interview with Joe Hutchison

The erstwhile Poet Laureate of Colorado talks about the life of a Poet Laureate & that monster paycheck, Marked Men and the Sand Creek Massacre, A nightmare with Colonel Chivington, William Carlos Williams and Ted Kooser, “Buy local” *What’s a good poem?* Creepy metaphors, Wergle Flomp, University teaching; graduate poets, when bad poetry hits big and much more. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/08/16/an-interview-with-joe-hutchison/

A review of Trouble For Sale by Maina Wahome

As the fast-paced story unfolds in a movie-like style in a fictitious country that Kimindero calls “Mother Nyeka”, the reader is presented with an opportunity to question and smell the crudeness, controversies and dishonesties of some of the characters. For instance, Watoro mockingly refers to Kimendero as “Minister of Fairness”, a former government official who happens to have been jailed at one time for misappropriating public funds. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/08/15/a-review-of-trouble-for-sale-by-maina-wahome/

Singing From the Jugular: Review of The Book of Redacted Paintings by Arthur Kayzakian

The collection gives us a cohesive, quiet voice of a narrator who seems at times to not necessarily want to talk to us. We’re faced with an internal negotiation, and perhaps finally reconciliation, with one’s own version of truth. The loops of memory – there is repetition in many of the poems – tease us with the fact that history is only ever a partial account of events. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/08/12/singing-from-the-jugular-review-of-the-book-of-redacted-paintings-by-arthur-kayzakian/

A review of Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville

Restless Dolly Maunder is an easy and fast-paced read. It may be labelled as fiction, and certainly Grenville uses all of her narrative capabilities to create such a compelling character, but the book is as much a story of Australia’s history as it is the tale of a strong, intelligent and thwarted woman whose struggles helped transform the lives of generations to follow. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/08/11/a-review-of-restless-dolly-maunder-by-kate-grenville/

An Interview with Kathryn K. Abdul-Baki

The author of Dancing Into the Light: An Arab-American Girlhood in the Middle East talks about her new book, what it was like growing up with parents who had two very different cultural backgrounds and other childhood memories, dispelling stereotypes, grief and families, dancing, and lots more. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/08/10/an-interview-with-kathryn-k-abdul-baki/

Rest, Unrest, and Redefining Humanity: A review of A Northern Spring by Matt Mauch

In braiding his ruminative nonfiction with his soaring lyrical poetry, Mauch paints his 2020 in beautiful lines, hard truths, and the dual mundanity and terror of being stranded internationally as the world shut down. In writing from two Northern settings, Mauch explores what a time of rest and unrest can reveal about the human experience. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/08/08/rest-unrest-and-redefining-humanity-a-review-of-a-northern-spring-by-matt-mauch/

A review of The Best Minds by Jonathan Rosen

Jonathan Rosen became best friends with Michael Lauder at age ten. His outstanding new book, The Best Minds, offers an assiduously researched and compelling portrait of the man. It also raises questions about the responsibilities of friendship, and the human capacity for denial. Twenty-five years have elapsed since Lauder’s criminal unravelling, a span that has given Rosen space and time not only to research the people and ideas of this story, but to sift through his own complex feelings about Lauder and the path his life took. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/08/06/a-review-of-the-best-minds-by-jonathan-rosen/

A review of The Man, the Boy and the Tamarisk Tree by Tess Driver

The poet observes the world around her, creating poems from ‘moments in time’. She could be in Bali, the Serengeti or Argentina. With vivid descriptions she tells sad stories like the one about a bear in the Albanian border who was abused and starved or the elephants who will die for the ivory in their tasks. Obviously, the poet is an animal lover. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/08/04/a-review-of-the-man-the-boy-and-the-tamarisk-tree-by-tess-driver/

A review of Diving At The Lip of The Water by Karen Poppy

Karen Poppy doesn’t spare the reader of discomfort and grimaces when exploring her identity. She courageously uncovers the secrets of the women in her family, like one who skins the animals in the collection. However, in the last two parts, the poet shows what the healing process looks like and presents us a strong voice protected by the elegance of language, and those extraordinary Voltas at the end of poems. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2023/08/02/a-review-of-diving-at-the-lip-of-the-water-by-karen-poppy/

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 3,192) 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 13-title longlist for the £50,000 2023 Booker Prize has been announced and includes The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng, The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, Western Lane by Chetna Maroo, In Ascension by Martin MacInnes, Prophet Song by Paul Lynch, All the Little Bird-Hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow, Pearl by Siân Hughes, This Other Eden by Paul Harding, How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney, If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery, Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein, Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry, and A Spell of Good Things by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀. The shortlist will be announced September 21 and the winner on November 26.

A longlist has been released for the 2023 Toronto Book Awards, which honor “books of literary merit that are inspired by Toronto.” The shortlist will be announced later this summer and a winner named at a ceremony in October. The winner receives CA$15,000 and each shortlisted author gets C$1,000. This year’s longlisted titles are: Nomenclature by Dionne Brand, Half-Bads in White Regalia by Cody Caetano , Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey, The Story of Us by Catherine Hernandez , Denison Avenue by Daniel Innes & Christina Wong, Wild Fires by Sophie Jai, On the Ravine by Vincent Lam, Moving the Museum by Wanda Nanibush & Georgiana Uhlyarik, The Melancholy of Summer by Louisa Onomé, Finding Edward by Sheila Murray, Quality Time by Suzannah Showler, The Fake by Zoe Whittall, and Clara at the Door with a Revolver by Carolyn Whitzman.

A longlist has been released for the 2023 Cundill History Prize, which honors “the book that embodies historical scholarship, originality, literary quality and broad appeal” and is administered by McGill University in Montreal, Canada. The shortlist will be announced September 27 and a winner named November 8. The winner receives $75,000 and the two runners up $10,000 each. Check out this year’s longlisted titles here: https://www.cundillprize.com/news/2023longlist

The winner of the $25,000 Australian National Biography Award 2023 is Ann-Marie Priest for My Tongue Is My Own: A Life of Gwen Harwood (La Trobe University Press/Black Inc.).

The judges praised Priest’s ‘scholarship and analysis’, ‘perceptive understanding of an elusive subject’ and ‘creative approach’. The winner of the $5,000 Michael Crouch Award for a Debut Work is Tom Patterson for Missing, a gripping story about a brilliant misfit and former law student who lives for decades in the wilderness of northern NSW.

Shortlists in the four categories of the 2023 Ned Kelly Awards have been announced and can be seen here: https://www.austcrimewriters.com/2023-ned-kelly-shortlists Sponsored by the Australian Crime Writers Association, the awards honour published works in the categories of best crime fiction, debut crime fiction, true crime and international crime fiction. Winners will be named in about four weeks.

Shortlists in three categories (nature writing; writing on conservation; children’s nature & conservation writing) have been released for the 2023 James Cropper Wainwright Prize for U.K. Nature Writing, which “celebrates the finest nature, travel and environmental writing; in particular, works that encourage exploration of the great outdoors and nurture respect for the natural world.” The winners will be named September 14, with the £10,500 prize fund shared among and presented to the authors of the three winning books. The announcement will come at the James Cropper Wainwright Prize 10th Anniversary celebration, held in partnership with the Kendal Mountain Festival. View the full shortlist here: https://wainwrightprize.com/news/10th-anniversary-shortlists-for-james-cropper-wainwright-prize-announced/

Finalists have been unveiled for the 2023 Ngaio Marsh Awards, honouring the best in New Zealand crime writing, Books+Publishing reported. The winners will be announced at the WORD Christchurch Festival in late October. This year’s shortlisted titles for the novel are: Better the Blood by Michael Bennett, The Slow Roll by Simon Lendrum, Remember Me by Charity Norman, Blood Matters by Renée, Exit .45 by Ben Sanders, The Doctor’s Wife by Fiona Sussman, and Blue Hotel by Chad Taylor. For all of the shortlisted titles and categories visit: https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2023/08/10/235600/ngaio-marsh-awards-2023-shortlists-announced/

A longlist has been released for the Laurel Prize, honouring the best collection of “environmental or nature poetry published that year,” the Bookseller reported. Funded by U.K. poet laureate Simon Armitage from the honorarium he receives annually from the King, the award is run by the Poetry School. A prize ceremony and day of poetry readings and workshops will be a part of this year’s BBC Contains Strong Language festival in Leeds on September 22. Check out the complete Laurel Prize longlist here: https://www.thebookseller.com/news/wide-ranging-chorus-of-voices-longlisted-for-the-laurel-prize The winner, who will be named September 9, receives £5,000, with £2,000 going to the second place finisher and £1,000 for third. There is also a £500 award each for best first collection U.K. and best international first collection. In addition, each of the winners will receive a commission from the AONB (Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty) to create a poem based on their favourite landscape.

Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman has won the £2,023 Arthur C. Clarke Award for the best science fiction novel published in the U.K. last year. According to the Guardian, the winning novel “is set in the 2030s and follows the search for a surviving colony of a hyper-intelligent species of fish.” Chair of the judges Andrew M. Butler called Venomous Lumpsucker a “biting satire, twisted, dark and radical, but remarkably accessible, endlessly inventive and hilarious.”

The 20-title longlist for the 2023 German Book Prize has been announced. The shortlist will be revealed September 19. The German Book Prize is worth a total of 37,500 euros. The winner receives 25,000 euros, the other five shortlisted authors receive 2,500 euros each. The German Book Prize 2023 will be presented in the Kaisersaal at Frankfurt’s Römer on the evening of October 16th – a first event marking the start of the Frankfurt Book Fair. The six authors will not find out which of them is to receive the German Book Prize until the evening of the official presentation. The full 20 titles can be seen here: https://www.new-books-in-german.com/german-book-prize-2022-the-longlist/

In Memoriam by Alice Winn has won the 2023 Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize. Waterstones wrote: “In Memoriam is an enthralling story of forbidden love that blooms in the shadow of the First World War, as best friends Gaunt and Ellwood leave their idyllic Wiltshire boarding school for the trenches. Cinematic and heartbreakingly tender, Winn’s narrative combines an unforgettable tale of human connection with the harrowing realities of military conflict, celebrating the tenacity of hope in the darkest of times.

Shortlists have been selected for the Readings Children’s and Young Adult prizes. Winners in both categories as well as New Australian Fiction, each of whom receives A$3,000 will be announced in late October. For children’s books the shortlist is The Bookseller’s Apprentice by Amelia Mellor, The Eerie Excavation (An Alice England Mystery) by Ash Harrier, Evie and Rhino by Neridah McMullin, illustrated by Astred Hicks, No Words by Maryam Masters, Sea Glass by Rebecca Fraser, and The Wintrish Girl (Talismans of Fate, Book 1) by Melanie La’Brooy. For YA: Completely Normal (and Other Lies) by Biffy James, Dancing Barefoot by Alice Boyle, If You Could See the Sun by Ann Liang, Spice Road by Maiya Ibrahim, The Upwelling by Lystra Rose, and Where You Left Us by Rhiannon Wilde.

When Our Worlds Collided by Danielle Jawando won the £2,000 (about $2,515) YA Book Prize, which is run by the Bookseller, in association with the Edinburgh International Book Festival, “to celebrate great books for teenagers and young adults from the U.K. and Ireland.”

The shortlist has been announced for the £3,000 2023 Ackerley Prize, formerly known as the PEN Ackerley Prize, honoring memoir and autobiography. The winner will be announced September 28 during an event at the London Review Bookshop. The shortlist includes Thunderstone by Nancy Campbell, A Waiter in Paris by Edward Chisholm, and Dandelions by Thea Lenarduzzi.

Finally, the shortlist for the 2023 Readings New Australian Fiction Prize has been announced. The winner in this category–as well as in young adult and children’s categories–will be announced in October. The shortlist for the Readings New Australian Fiction Prize include All That’s Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien, A Country of Eternal Light by Paul Dalgarno, Funny Ethnics by Shirley Le, Hydra by Adriane Howell, Search History by Amy Taylor, and Time and Tide in Sarajevo by Bronwyn Birdsall.

Have a great month!

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COMPETITION NEWS

Congratulations to Anita Yancey who won a copy of Exits by Stephen C. Pollock.

Congratulations also to LuAnn Morgan who won a copy of Framing a Life: Building a Space to be Me by Roberta S. Kuriloff

Our new site giveaway is for a copy of The Wings of Poppy Pendleton by Melanie Dobson. To win send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line: “Wings” and your postal address in the body of the email.

We also have a copy of These Things Happen by Michael Eon. To win send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line: “These Things Happen” and your postal address in the body of the email.

Good luck!

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