Compulsive Reader

Compulsive Reader News
maggieball@compulsivereader.com
http://www.compulsivereader.com
Volume 26, Issue 7, 1 July 2024

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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 Lucky by Jane Smiley

Smiley’s underlying theme, however, is the precariousness of this immortality. While presenting Jodie’s maturation as a woman and artist, she quietly notes some major historic events of the passing era. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/06/23/a-review-of-lucky-by-jane-smiley/

A review of Therapon by Dan Beachy-Quick and Bruce Bond

Throughout this masterful book of collaborative poetry, the theme of Otherness is explored, whether through naming the nameless or gathering and disseminating the knowledge that the naming gives us. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/06/22/a-review-of-therapon-by-dan-beachy-quick-and-bruce-bond/

A review of The Homesick Mortician by Peter Mladinic

There is an urgency to this breaking down of line structure, often bridged by run-on thoughts strung together by comma fasteners. It is a compelling style, one that makes the collection very readable at a quick clip. In some cases, as with the first poem, structure reasserts itself at the end with a strong strike upon the bell of reality: “They brought him home.” Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/06/19/a-review-of-the-homesick-mortician-by-peter-mladinic/

An Interview with Angélica Lopes

The author of The Curse of the Flores Women talks about her new book and its inspiration, its Brazilian setting of rural Pernambuco, lacemaking, historical fiction, feminism, the differences between writing scripts for movies and TVs and writing novels, research, writing YA and lots more. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/06/18/an-interview-with-angelica-lopes/

A review of Writing True Stories (2nd ed) by Patti Miller

Throughout Writing True Stories Miller uses the perfect tone – clear and simple but never patronising or dumbed-down. The book always makes the assumption that everyone is the best expert on their own story and we are all beginners when facing the blank page. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/06/16/a-review-of-writing-true-stories-2nd-ed-by-patti-miller/

An Interview with Jolene Gutierrez

Now fifty—looks 30—Gutiérrez feels like she’s just hitting her stride as an author. I had the chance to sit down in her inviting library, surrounded by books and stained glass, to talk about writing, kids, libraries, and the power and joy of books. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/06/15/an-interview-with-jolene-gutierrez/

A review of The Girl From Moscow by Julia Levitina

Levitina draws on her own experiences growing up in Moscow in the 1980s and the book is rich with verisimilitude, following the trajectory of Ella as her dreams of playing the role of Natasha Rostova from Tolstoy’s War and Peace dissolve into fear and a desperation to leave Moscow to escape the KGB and protect her unborn child. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/06/14/a-review-of-the-girl-from-moscow-by-julia-levitina/

A review of The Djin Hunters by Nadia Niaz

Nature makes her presence felt in many pages, particularly birds. There is a beautiful poem titled “A Time of Birds” in which we read about the hoopoe with its black-tipped orange crest bobbing against misted grass. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/06/13/a-review-of-the-djin-hunters-by-nadia-niaz/

Poetic History-Telling with Humor and Wit: A Review of Legends of Liberty Volume II by Andrew Benson Brown

Benson Brown makes history humorous and interesting, and the retelling of the story is never dry or pedantic. At times it hardly feels like what is normally considered formal poetry—it is very story-like and moves with a brisk and expectant pace. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/06/11/poetic-history-telling-with-humor-and-wit-a-review-of-legends-of-liberty-volume-ii-by-andrew-benson-brown/

A review of On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

The story begins as a huge flight of monarch butterflies starts their yearly migration to the south. This is a metaphor for Vuong’s migration to America from Vietnam. When the book reaches its final pages, the flight of the monarch butterflies is resumed, and we can see and hear them beating their wings in unison as they continue their journey, many dropping to their deaths en-route. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/06/10/a-review-of-on-earth-we-are-briefly-gorgeous-by-ocean-vuong/

The Magnum Opus of a Master Poetess: A Review of What Was and Is: Formal Poetry and Free Verse by Theresa Werba

Theresa is considered one of the living masters of the sonnet (a fact which another reviewer has pointed out). I would point out, in addition, that she joins the likes of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Edna St. Vincent Millay as one of a handful of women in history to have become expert in this form. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/06/09/the-magnum-opus-of-a-master-poetess-a-review-of-what-was-and-is-formal-poetry-and-free-verse-by-theresa-werba/

The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise by Olivia Laing

Throughout The Garden Against Time, Laing returns to the concepts of gates and walls: while she sees the need for secrecy, or at least privacy, as having been crucial for the formation of what she calls a queer “counter-state” (213) in the face of oppression, she is well aware that borders and barriers to access are tools of oppression as well. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/06/07/the-garden-against-time-in-search-of-a-common-paradise-by-olivia-laing/

But I Knew: A Conversation with Charles Rammelkamp about See What I Mean?

See What I Mean? is a collection of persona poems and flash pieces that traverse American history, politics, and society through a matter-of-fact diction characteristic of the poetry of witness by Charles Reznikoff. Like Reznikoff’s poetry, Rammelkamp’s poems look at and document the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of race, gender, and class. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/06/05/but-i-knew-a-conversation-with-charles-rammelkamp-about-see-what-i-mean/

The Embodiment of Language in Carolina Hotchandani’s The Book Eaters

Just as her father grapples with the loss of language, the author’s children are in the process of acquiring it. Both experiences raise complex questions about the self: its definition, its boundaries, and how it is shaped by the words we inherit or create. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/06/04/the-embodiment-of-language-in-carolina-hotchandanis-the-book-eaters/

A review of membery by Preet Kaur Rajpal

It is a book that truly only she could write. Reading it makes you feel like you are getting a lens into her inner world, growing up as a young girl in an immigrant family, during 9/11 and the following years. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/06/03/a-review-of-membery-by-preet-kaur-rajpal/

A review of How We Became Post-Liberal by Russell Blackford

Blackford’s knowledge is wide-reaching and he constructs his arguments carefully, with evidence that encompasses history, law, and philosophy, making it clear that the first step in combating intolerance is to understand how and why it arises. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/06/01/a-review-of-how-we-became-post-liberal-by-russell-blackford/

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 3,355) 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, Maggie Burton has won the C$10,000 Canadian First Book Prize, awarded annually by the Griffin Poetry Prize, for her debut collection Chores. The prize also includes a six-week residency in Italy in partnership with the Civitella Ranieri Foundation.

The Writers’ Trust of Canada announced that Faith Paré (poetry) and Nayani Jensen (short fiction) are winners of this year’s RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers, which was established in memory of poet and short story writer Bronwen Wallace and “has a proven track record of helping talented developing authors secure their first book deal.” Each winning author receives C$10,000. Paré won for her poetry collection Selections from “A fine African head” and Jensen won for her short story collection Like Rabbits. The other finalists for the poetry prize were Balcony buffalo by Ashleigh A. Allen and Hiraeth by Sneha Subramanian Kanta. The other short fiction prize finalists were Our Rez Anomaly by Henry Heavyshield and ON VENLAFAXINE AND GHOSTS by Reid Kerr Keller. Each writer receives C$2,500.

Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday) has won the $50,000 Gotham Book Prize, awarded to the author of “the best book set in or about New York City” and founded in 2020 by Bradley Tusk, founder P&T Knitwear bookstore in Manhattan, and Howard Wolfson, who heads the education program for Bloomberg Philanthropies and runs former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Super PAC.

Finalists have been named for the 2024 Bloody Scotland Debut Prize. On September 13, opening day of the Bloody Scotland festival in Stirling, the shortlisted authors will appear on a panel at Central Library. The prize presentation will take place in the ballroom of the Golden Lion Hotel and winners will be interviewed, after which they will join a procession led by the Stirling Schools Pipe Band to the first event of the evening at the Albert Halls. This year’s finalists are: Crow Moon by Suzy Aspley, Dark Island by Daniel Aubrey, The Silent House of Sleep by Allan Gaw, Blood Runs Deep by Doug Sinclair, and Double Proof by Martin Stewart.

George McWhirter won the 2024 Griffin Poetry Prize, which is designed to “encourage and celebrate excellence in poetry,” for his translation from the Spanish of Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence by Mexican poet Homero Aridjis. The international prize of C$130,000 is shared 60% to the translator, 40% to the original author. Each of the other finalists receives C$10,000. Don McKay won the C$25,000 Lifetime Recognition Award, nominated by the trustees of the international Griffin Poetry Prize. Maggie Burton took the C$10,000 Canadian First Book Prize for Chores.

Ted Chiang won the 2024 PEN/Bernard and Ann Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, which recognises writers “who have demonstrated exceptional achievement in the short story form.” He will be honoured at the annual PEN/Malamud Award Ceremony, held in partnership with American University, on December 6.

The Women’s Prize for Fiction was won by American author, V. V. Ganeshananthan, for her deeply moving, powerful second novel, Brotherless Night, which depicts a family fractured by the Sri Lankan civil war.

The Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction was awarded to Canadian bestselling writer, global activist and film-maker, Naomi Klein, for Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World; her urgent, illuminating examination of our polarised society. Both winners were announced at a ceremony in Bedford Square Gardens, central London, hosted by novelist, playwright and Women’s Prizes Founder Director Kate Mosse CBE. As the winner of the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction, sponsored by Audible and Baileys, V. V. Ganeshananthan will receive a prize fund of £30,000, anonymously endowed, along with a limited-edition bronze statuette known as the ‘Bessie’, created and donated by the artist Grizel Niven. Winning the inaugural Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, sponsored by Findmypast, Naomi Klein will receive £30,000 and a limited-edition artwork known as the ‘Charlotte’, both gifted by the Charlotte Aitken Trust.

The winner of the €25,000 German Nonfiction Book Prize is Tausend Aufbrüche. Die Deutschen und ihre Demokratie seit den 1980er Jahren (A Thousand New Beginnings. Germans and Their Democracy Since the 1980s) by Christina Morina. More details here: https://kommunikasjon.ntb.no/pressemelding/18136729/press-release-of-the-german-publishers-and-booksellers-association-christina-morina-receives-the-german-non-fiction-prize-2024-for-her-work-tausend-aufbruche?publisherId=17819585&lang=en

A shortlist has been released for the 2024 Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, which recognises “exceptional first novels” and is voted for by the company’s booksellers. The winner will be named July 25. This year’s shortlisted titles are: Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar, The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, The Silence in Between by Josie Ferguson, Mongrel by Hanako Footman, Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon, and Greta and Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly.

Joseph Coelho won the YOTO Carnegie Medal for Writing for his novel in verse The Boy Lost in the Maze, illustrated by Kate Milner. Aaron Becker took the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Illustration for his wordless picture book The Tree and the River. The winners will each receive a specially commissioned golden medal and a £5,000 Colin Mears Award cash prize. Becker also won the Yoto Carnegie Shadowers’ Choice Medal for Illustration, while Yoto Carnegie Shadowers’ Choice Medal for Writing went to Tia Fisher for Crossing the Line, her debut novel told in verse. The two winners receive a golden medal and, for the first time this year, £500 worth of books to donate to a library of their choice.

Author and journalist Anne Applebaum has been named the recipient of the 2024 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, which has a €25,000 award and will be presented on October 20 in the Church of St. Paul in Frankfurt am Main during the Frankfurt Book Fair. Applebaum has consistently garnered considerable international attention for her work, in particular for Gulag (2003), Iron Curtain (2012), Red Famine (2019), and Twilight of Democracy (2021), each of which traces the mechanisms of authoritarian power. She has also received several prominent awards, including the Pulitzer Prize in 2004 and most recently the Carl von Ossietzky Prize in 2024.

The shortlist for the 2024 Royal Society of Literature Christopher Bland Prize has been released. The £10,000 award honours “outstanding achievements for a debut novelist or nonfiction writer first published aged 50 or over.” The winner will be named July 10. This year’s shortlisted titles are: Now I Am Here by Chidi Ebere, The Silence Project by Carole Hailey, The Box with the Sunflower Clasp by Rachel Meller, High Caucasus by Tom Parfitt, and Ashes & Stones: A Scottish Journey in Search of Witches and Witness by Allyson Shaw.

Arundhati Roy won the PEN Pinter Prize, which is awarded annually to a writer residing in the UK, the Republic of Ireland, the Commonwealth, or the former Commonwealth who, in the words of Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize in Literature speech, casts an “unflinching, unswerving” gaze upon the world and shows a “fierce intellectual determination… to define the real truth of our lives and our societies.” Roy will be honoured October 10 in a ceremony co-hosted by the British Library, where she will deliver an address. The prize will be shared with a Writer of Courage, “who is active in defense of freedom of expression, often at great risk to their own safety and liberty.” The co-winner, selected by Roy from a shortlist of international cases supported by English PEN, will be announced at the ceremony.

Finally, Sanjana Thakur was named overall winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and will receive £5,000 for her unpublished work “Aishwarya Rai,” which takes its name from the famed Bollywood actress and reimagines the traditional adoption story. Granta magazine has published all the regional winning stories, which will also be available in a special print collection from Paper + Ink.

Have a great month.

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COMPETITION NEWS

Congratulations to Anita Yancey who won a copy of Sweet & Savory Life by Yecinia Currie.

Congratulations also to Carol De Brikasaan who won a copy of For You I Would Make An Exception by Steven Belletto.

Our new site giveaway this month is for a copy of Civilisation Française by Mary Fleming. To win, send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line “Civilisation Francaise” and your postal address in the body of the mail.

Good luck!

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