Compulsive Reader

Compulsive Reader News
maggieball@compulsivereader.com
http://www.compulsivereader.com
Volume 26, Issue 8, 1 August 2024

==============================================

IN THIS ISSUE

New Reviews at Compulsive Reader
Literary News
Competition News
Sponsored By
Coming soon

==============================================

Hello readers. Happy August. Here is the latest batch of reviews and interviews:

A review of Spellbook of Ordinary Mistakes by Jane LeCroy

That is to say, we may get a glimpse of the Jane LeCroy who grew up in Nyack, New York, in the shadow of the Tappan Zee Bridge looming in the distance, but the real Jane LeCroy is as elusive as the butterfly we think we’ve captured when we pin it to a board. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/07/29/a-review-of-spellbook-of-ordinary-mistakes-by-jane-lecroy/

I am secretly trying to light a wick: A Conversation between Matt Mauch and Tiffany Troy about their new books

I tell my students to fall in love with the process—the process of writing, of doing it every day, of making it a habit, a job that doesn’t pay you but matters more than the jobs that do—and that the product will come. I try to teach them to take the long view. Saying “the product will come” is my assent to our economic system, to capitalism, to ego. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/07/23/i-am-secretly-trying-to-light-a-wick-a-conversation-between-matt-mauch-and-tiffany-troy-about-their-new-books/

A review of Long Island by Colm Tóibín

Tóibín excels at novels from a woman’s point of view. Here he gives a sympathetic portrait of two women shaken by events and hoping for a second chance. The main male characters, Tony and Jim, lack the determination and character of Eilis and Nancy. Unthinking, they grab onto the first thing that comes along. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/07/20/a-review-of-long-island-by-colm-toibin/

A review of Tiger Cage by Max Brooks

Brooks is still the master of creating a convincing if fantastical world through the eyes of a minor participant. In broad strokes, he paints a compelling picture of a war-torn Los Angeles, particularly Hollywood, an area he has extensive knowledge of as the child of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/07/18/a-review-of-tiger-cage-by-max-brooks/

Where the Time Goes, a review of Knowing by Mark Cox

Perhaps all of the aforementioned influenced the distinct voice in Knowing, a voice that probes and wonders, laments and celebrates. Three central ideas are: The past is good, the present is better; fate coexists with human will; and time is unstoppable, art stops time. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/07/15/where-the-time-goes-a-review-of-knowing-by-mark-cox/

Queer Bodies and Youthful Exuberance in Rainbow Rainbow by Lydia Conklin

Through sparse prose, a keen eye for detail, and sharp social critique, the stories in Rainbow Rainbow create a sense of fluidity both in scope and philosophy grounded only by the limitations of the body and the identities we associate with it. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/07/14/queer-bodies-and-youthful-exuberance-in-rainbow-rainbow-by-lydia-conklin/

A review of Opus: A life With Music by Pip Griffin

Griffin is a poet of philosophical refinement and linguistic delicacy, the poems in this collection are also compelling and wise, each poem a seed planted in a garden of beauty. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/07/11/a-review-of-opus-a-life-with-music-by-pip-griffin/

A review of Finish What We Started: The MAGA Movement’s Ground War to End Democracy by Isaac Arnsdorf

The fanaticism of the MAGA conservatives rests on cynicism and conspiracy, a fundamental belief that the world (the Republican party, Democrats, Hollywood elites, paper shredding trucks) is out to get them, to squeeze their voice—and their vote—from existence. In their view, the only way to fight this grand conspiracy is through a ferocious commitment to ideology and an organized grassroots movement, sponsored by MyPillow. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/07/11/a-review-of-finish-what-we-started-the-maga-movements-ground-war-to-end-democracy-by-isaac-arnsdorf/

A review of Shocking the Dark by Robert Lowes

Scant need to explain the theme. Here we have a wistful reflection, one of the attendants of faith. The question of evil is difficult enough; here we touch upon the divine conscience. And it’s even in an almost 10-9 meter, save for the final line. Almost. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/07/10/a-review-of-shocking-the-dark-by-robert-lowes/

Samuel in the Quantum Field: How One Boy’s Holocaust Story Can Help Us Bridge Space, Time, and Everything In Between – An interview with author Elyn Joy

The author of Samuel in the Quantum Field talks about the inspiration for her book, her research and transcription process, her unique, physics approach, the book’s relationship a Sioux City railroad memorial exhibit called Desperate Passages, and lots more. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/07/09/samuel-in-the-quantum-field-how-one-boys-holocaust-story-can-help-us-bridge-space-time-and-everything-in-between-an-interview-with-author-elyn-joy/

A review of Owning the Not So Distant World by Grace Cavalieri

Grace Cavalieri is by turns as sagacious and oblique as a Zen koan, her verses brimming with aphoristic wisdom, and also charmingly chatty, like your best friend in the world, oscillating between aloof and intimate but always appealing. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/07/08/a-review-of-owning-the-not-so-distant-world-by-grace-cavalieri/

A review of Little River of Amazement by Mary Kay Rummel

Mary Kay Rummel’s universe is vast, but as “Ars Poetica” spells out, she focuses on the world around her with a keen attention to detail. The title, indeed, says it all.Little River of Amazement comes from one of the new poems, “December Bodies,” in the first of her two-part suite of new work, For the Speechless World. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/07/06/a-review-of-little-river-of-amazement-by-mary-kay-rummel/

Revenge Follows Function: A review of The Inhabitants by Beth Castrodale

In this entertaining and creative novel, Castrodale smartly weaves together modern and classical literary takes on potions and tonics, nature and nurture, motherhood and friendship, grieving and healing, and the perils of trusting the wrong people while distrusting one’s own instincts. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/07/04/revenge-follows-function-a-review-of-the-inhabitants-by-beth-castrodale/

A review of Zero at the Bone by Christian Wiman

Poetry gives suffering form, and giving suffering form is an antidote to despair. Yet content matters, too. For Wiman, much confessionalism is “an idolatry of suffering…an outrage that no person (or group) has suffered as we have, or simply a solipsistic withdrawal that leaves us maniacally describing every detail of our cells. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/07/02/a-review-of-zero-at-the-bone-by-christian-wiman/

Mary Pacifico Curtis and Sybil Baker In Conversation

The authors of Understanding Moonseed and Apparitions chat about their books, inspirations, their settings and the importance of place, process, spirituality, ghosts, magic realism, the impact of covid, and much more. Read more: https://compulsivereader.com/2024/07/01/mary-pacifico-curtis-and-sybil-baker-in-conversation/

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 3,372) which can be browsed or searched from the front page of the site.

==============================================

LITERARY NEWS

In the literary news this month, The 2024 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction was awarded to Hisham Matar for his novel My Friends (published in the US by Random House). The Orwell Prize for Political Writing went to Matthew Longo for The Picnic: An Escape to Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain (published in the US by W.W. Norton). Both winners receive £3,000.

The shortlist has been selected for the 2024 Miles Franklin Award, which honours “the novel of the highest literary merit which presents Australian life in any of its phases.” All the shortlisted authors receive A$5,000 each, and the winner, to be announced August 1, receives A$60,000. The shortlist: Only Sound Remains by Hossein Asgari, Wall by Jen Craig, Anam by André Dao, The Bell of the World by Gregory Day, Hospital by Sanya Rushdi, translated by Arunava Sinha, Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright. Good luck to anyone beating the extraordinary Praiseworthy, but I’m very proud that my own small publisher, Puncher & Wattmann, have two titles on the shortlist. A review of Wall is forthcoming.

The winners in a dozen categories of the Crime Writers’ Association 2024 Dagger Awards were announced July 4 and can be seen here: https://thecwa.co.uk/awards-and-competitions/the-daggers/ Among them, the Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year went to Una Mannion for Tell Me What I Am and the ILP John Creasey New Blood Dagger was won by Jo Callaghan for In the Blink of an Eye. Lynda LaPlante and James Lee Burke received the Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement in Crime Writing.

L’età fragile (The Brittle Age) by Donatella Di Pietrantonio has won the 2024 Strega Prize, Italy’s most prestigious literary award, given to the best work of prose fiction written in Italian by an author of any nationality.

Nathanael Lessore and his editors, Ella Whiddett and Ruth Bennett of Hot Key Books, won the 2024 Branford Boase Award for Steady For This. The award honours the author and editor(s) of a debut novel for young people. The author gets £1,000 for the win, and he and the editors receive engraved trophies.

James McBride will receive the 2024 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, which honours “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…. The award seeks to commend strong, unique, enduring voices that–throughout consistently accomplished careers–have told us something essential about the American experience.” McBride will be presented with the award at the National Book Festival on August 24 before a conversation about his body of work. McBride is also a musician, a composer and a current distinguished writer-in-residence at New York University.

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, chosen by a panel of authors, will be named on October 21. This year’s shortlisted titles are: The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom Publishing), The Skin and Its Girl by Sarah Cypher (Ballantine Books), It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne de Marcken (New Directions), Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Grove Press), Sift by Alissa Hattman (The 3rd Thing), The Library of Broken Worlds by Alaya Dawn Johnson (Scholastic Press), Those Beyond the Wall by Micaiah Johnson (Del Rey), The Siege of Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed (Solaris), Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh (Tordotcom Publishing), and Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo (Tordotcom Publishing).

Chidi Ebere won the £10,000 (Royal Society of Literature Christopher Bland Prize for Now I Am Here. The award honours the best debut by an author over 50 years old.

Books from 11 regions and 10 languages were among the 16 winners of English PEN’s translation awards, which are selected “on the basis of outstanding literary quality, the strength of the publishing project, and their contribution to U.K. bibliodiversity.” The winners include–for the first time–titles from Cameroon and Singapore, as well as titles translated from Greenlandic and Kannada. Two titles translated from Vietnamese appear in the same list for the first time, as does a book featuring translation from Mixe. Check out the complete list of PEN Translates winners here: https://www.englishpen.org/posts/news/pen-translates-winners-announced-5/

Sarn Helen: A Journey Through Wales, Past, Present and Future by Tom Bullough and Sut i Ddofi Corryn by Mari George are this year’s winners of the Wales Book of the Year, which was created to “celebrate and platform talented Welsh writers who excel in their fields in both English and Welsh.” Category awards were presented in both languages for poetry, creative nonfiction, fiction, children & young people, and people’s choice. One of the category winners in each language went on to win the overall prize. See the complete list of winners here: https://www.literaturewales.org/lw-news/tom-bullough-and-mari-george-are-the-2024-wales-book-of-the-year-winners-2024/

Oswald Egger has won the €50,000 Georg Büchner Prize, awarded annually by the German Academy for Language and Literature to authors “writing in the German language whose work is considered especially meritorious and who have made a significant contribution to contemporary German cultural life.” One of Germany’s most prestigious literary awards, the prize is named in honor of the author of the influential German play, Woyzeck.

Author and judge Ali Smith chose Astraea by Kate Kruimink and Aerth by Deborah Tomkins as the inaugural winners of the Weatherglass Novella Prize, which was launched “to celebrate the vitality and relevance of the novella form.” Both winners will be published by Weatherglass Books.

The longlist for the 2024 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel has been released and includes a mix of past winners and finalists, some first-time entrants and new voices, and several authors who have won a variety of other major awards. The longlist is currently being considered by crime and thriller writing experts from the U.S., U.K., Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand. Finalists for best novel, best first novel, and best kids/YA will be named in early August, with finalists celebrated and winners announced during WORD Christchurch Festival in late August. Check out the longlisted titles here: https://www.facebook.com/NgaioMarshAward/posts/pfbid02JUY8i6LQwjfdCH1LK9FNtYEGKHryxGQArhJjGciuvGBUMikeS88fdVg3F3SZvfXol

Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon has won the £5,000 2024 Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize. The company wrote, “From the start, our booksellers fell in love with the immense humanity and humour of Lennon’s unique, profound and ferociously funny work that transports readers to the Sicily of 412 BCE and stages an extraordinary story of friendship, art and ambition against the backdrop of the Peloponnesian War.

Lamisse Hamouda’s “powerfully told” and “accomplished” debut memoir, The Shape of Dust, has won this year’s $25,000 National Biography Award, announced by the State Library of NSW. The shortlisted works, selected from a record 107 entries, each receive $2000. They include: Donald Horne: A Life in the Lucky Country by Ryan Cropp (La Trobe University Press/Black Inc.) — debut biography, Bee Miles: Australia’s famous bohemian rebel, and the untold story behind the legend by Rose Ellis (Allen & Unwin) — debut biography, Frank Moorhouse: A life by Catharine Lumby (Allen & Unwin), and Shirley Hazzard: A Writing Life by Brigitta Olubas (Hachette Australia) — debut. The judges for this year’s National Biography Award were Dr Melinda Harvey, Eda Gunaydin and Jason Om.

Finally, the 13 books shortlist for the £50,000 Booker prize are: Creation Lake (Rachel Kushner, Jonathan Cape), Enlightenment (Sarah Perry, Jonathan Cape), Headshot (Rita Bullwinkel, Daunt Books), Held (Anne Michaels, Bloomsbury), James (Percival Everett, Mantle), My Friends (Hisham Matar, Viking), Orbital (Samantha Harvey, Vintage), Playground (Richard Powers, Hutchinson Heinemann), The Safekeep (Yael van der Wouden, Viking), Stone Yard Devotional (Charlotte Wood, A&U), This Strange Eventful History (Claire Messud, Fleet), Wandering Stars (Tommy Orange, Harvill Secker), and Wild Houses (Colin Barrett, Jonathan Cape). Wood is the first Australian writer to be longlisted since South African-born Australian author J M Coetzee was longlisted in 2016 for The Schooldays of Jesus (Text). The longlist of 13 books was chosen from 156 books by a panel chaired by artist and author Edmund de Waal, with judges including novelist Sara Collins, Guardian UK fiction editor Justine Jordan, writer and professor Yiyun Li, and musician and producer Nitin Sawhney.

Have a great month.

==============================================

COMPETITION NEWS

Congratulations to Stephen Weinstock who won a copy of Civilisation Française by Mary Fleming.

Our new site giveaway this month is for a copy of Farhang Book One by Patrick Woodcock. To win, send me an email at maggieball@compulsivereader.com with the subject line “Farhang” and your postal address in the body of the mail.

Good luck!

==================================================