An end of week recap
“Green was the silence, wet was the light, the month of June trembled like a butterfly.”
– Pablo Neruda
Tomorrow is Father’s Day in many countries and National Beer Day in the UK, which without wishing to generalise, seem rather a good fit. Today, oddly enough, is World Gin Day, so I foresee a squiffy weekend ahead.
Writers and poets have quite a reputation for imbibing – just think Ernest Hemingway, Dylan Thomas and F. Scott Fitzgerald (Zelda, too) – and how about cocktail lover Dorothy Parker who once joked that she wasn’t a “writer with a drinking problem” but “a drinker with a writing problem!”
If you prefer reading to boozing but would still like to par(hic)ipate, may I suggest Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys or The Lost Weekend by Charles R. Jackson? – but be warned, they may turn you off having ‘a cold one’ or a sip of Mother’s Ruin for the rest of your naturals. Toxic or intoxicating? Fancy another? Umm… isn’t it your round?
As ever, this is a post in which I summarise books read, reviewed and currently on my TBR shelf. In addition to a variety of literary titbits, I look ahead to forthcoming publications, see what folk have on their nightstands and keep readers abreast of various book-related happenings.
CHATTERBOOKS >>
If you are planning a reading event, challenge, competition, or anything else likely to be of interest to the book blogging community and its followers, please let me know. I will happily share your news here with the fabulous array of bibliowonks who read this weekly wind up.
* One Thing and Another (and Another) *
Three Things… #7: This sporadic post covering all manner of things I’ve recently read, watched and done/thought (the latter varies from one TT to the next) is where I hold forth on matters both serious and silly. This time it’s mostly about letters, locomotives and Liverpool. You are invited along for the ride!
* Pick Apart a French Classic This Fall *
“Time for a Review-Along!” Or so say the hosts of a new (to me, but I’m completely out of the loop on this one. Where have I been?) reading event at FictionFan’s Book Reviews and Kelly’s Thoughts & Ramblings. Discussions have been taking place and a decision reached that the next challenge will take place “this autumn (or spring, if you’re one of the upside-down people [charming! 🙃]).” A book has been selected from Kelly’s Classics Club and the title (ta-da!) is none other than French literary realist Gustave Flaubert’s 1856 novel Madame Bovary. In case you were wondering what a Review-Along entails (though, you’ve probably done this before), you simply “read the book at a time and pace of your own choosing, and post your review on the chosen date, which is”: 20th October 2025. For those who don’t have a blog, you are invited to “leave your thoughts [about] the book in the comments section of [FictionFan’s] review on the day.” You can find all you need to know about taking part under the sub-heading, Volunteers, take one step forward!
* Almost Overlooked *
Last March, Srilagna Majumdar of TheDaak Review (“a place for receiving and sending letters […] written from one book lover to another”), shared her thoughts on The Unwomanly Face of War (translated by Larissa Volokhonsky) – a book in which dozens of Soviet women who fought in the Second World War recall the experience of being on “the front lines, on the home front and in the occupied territories [fighting] alongside [the] men”. They “saved lives in the no man’s land, took the lives of rivals in unimaginably difficult situations and spent the rest of their [days] reliving the harsh memories”, says Srilagna. The Nobel Prize-winning author, “investigative journalist, essayist and oral historian,” Svetlana Alexievich collected their stories in what is described here as a “humongous task”, involving “travelling thousands of miles […] and recording the experiences of these women”, leading to the publication of this “unprecedented analysis of war through a fine-gendered lens.” Please read the full review at The Unwomanly Face of War: Raw, Naked, Real.
* Lit Crit Blogflash *
I am going to share with you a couple of my favourite posts from around the blogosphere. There are a great many talented writers producing high-quality book features and reviews, which made it difficult to pick only these two – both published in the last week or so:
The Spring Begins by Katherine Dunning – Simon Thomas drew my attention to Caro’s Bookcase’s ‘wonderful review’ of Katherine Dunning’s 1934 novel, The Spring Begins – which has recently been republished as part of the British Library Women Writers’ series. A story about three women at different stages in their lives, this slim volume is actually “set in the heat of summer” as, apparently, the spring in the title alludes to “the awakening” of its protagonists (all of whom are in domestic service). “It is not a plot-y book,” but the characters’ different “perspectives kept [her] glued to the page.” The author “does a fantastic job of capturing the tension, unease, and vulnerability of being a woman, especially […] a woman in domestic service in the 1930s”, says Caro, and she concludes by declaring her admiration for Dunning’s story. She was, we discover, “swept away”.
Book Review: Hemlock Bay by Martin Edwards – a cosy mystery with plenty of Golden Age panache – British ‘writer, reviewer and all-round bookworm’, Judith McKinnon “was in the mood for a cosy mystery” when she picked up Hemlock Bay by crime writer Martin Edwards (real-life President of the Detection Club) – the fifth in his series of Rachel Savernake investigations. This “pleasurable read” begins with Basil Palmer, who is planning a murder in the North of England seaside resort of the title”, which involves pushing the victim off a cliff. Meanwhile, “amateur sleuth, Rachel, has just bought a painting, also of Hemlock Bay” and it appears to show a body on the beach. An image she cannot get out of her mind. “The story is peppered with many interesting characters”, says Judith, and the whole thing “comes together with a twisty plot and a barrel of surprises at the end”. Despite everything, there is “plenty of warmth and humour”, not to mention “smart writing” in this book and she has rated it “a four-star read”.
* Irresistible Items *
Umpteen fascinating articles appeared on my bookdar last week. I generally make a point of tweeting/x-ing (not to mention tooting and bsky-ing) a few favourite finds (or adding them to my Facebook group page), but in case you missed anything, here are a selection of interesting snippets:
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Wardrobe Door: Inspiration Behind Unpublished Tolkien Villain – Founder of Morris Motors Limited and fascist-sympathiser William Morris is thought to have been the basis for the industrialist in The Bovadium Fragments – “possibly the last of J.R.R. Tolkien’s unpublished works to be published,” says Aaron Earls. It will be published on 9th October 2025.
EL PAÍS: The Spanish literature of New York City – “The 2025 Madrid Book Fair is dedicated to the American city. Juan Ramón Jiménez and Federico García Lorca made it a key muse of Spanish poetry in the 20th century. Since then, successive generations of writers have continued to nourish New York’s inexhaustible narrative” says Andrea Aguilar.
The Nation.: Antigone Kefala and the Art of Exile – Madeleine Watts finds “the Australian writer’s 1984 novel, The Island, is a hypnotic work of fiction about the border between life and art.”
Metropolis: Why Are There So Many Cats in Japanese Fiction? – “Literary symbol or cultural cliche?” deliberates Jessie Carbutt.
4Columns: Lili Is Crying – “Beauty and brutality, repression and rage: Hélène Bessette’s 1953 roman poétique [Lili Is Crying] is a work in defiance of novelistic time”, writes Jennifer Kabat of a French novel freshly translated by Kate Briggs.
The Metropolitan Review: The Thinking Machine – “What do we mean when we call a novel ‘urgent?’” Violinist and writer Robbie Herbst on “Dean Kissick, Paul Lynch, Claire Keegan, Leon Trotsky” and political art.
Scroll.in: ‘The Wanderer’: The opportunity and oppression, romance and violence of train travel in India – V Shinilal’s The Wanderer “is a novel of ideas”, says Saloni Sharma. “It studies human behaviour, contextualising it within socio-cultural politics.”
The New Statesman: The epic of James Joyce – “How Richard Ellmann’s capacious 1959 biography shaped modern life writing.” Lyndall Gordon reviews Ellmann’s Joyce: The Biography of a Masterpiece and Its Maker.
Library Journal: LJ Talks with Anthropologist Kendra Coulter, Author of ‘The Tortoise’s Tale’ – Anthropologist Kendra Coulter, author of The Tortoise’s Tale, is “a leading voice in animal ethics and sustainability”. She answers questions about her “inspiration to write […] historical fiction”, creating her tortoise novel and her current projects.
The New York Times: These Fantasy Novels Breathe New Life Into Old Myths – “Drawing on folklore traditions from around the world, these thrilling and entertaining books put fresh spins on classic tales.”
The Malahat Review: From Short Story to Book: Sarah Kilian interviews Sara Power – Sarah Kilian talks with Sara Power, a storyteller from Labrador and a former artillery officer in the Canadian Forces, about “the benefits of writing partners, […] how endings are the true signature of the short form” and her debut short fiction collection, Art of Camouflage.
Miller’s Book Review: A Brief Argument for Short Books – Joel J Miller offers “7 reasons to love short books—plus 16 slender specimens to try on for size.”
Artnet: The Moomins Changed Children’s Literature Forever. Now They’re Getting a Major U.S. Show – “Hosted at the Brooklyn Public Library, the exhibition takes a deep dive into the Moomin universe and the work of creator Tove Jansson”, reveals Annikka Olsen.
Full Stop: A Fictional Inquiry – Daniele Del Giudice – “In A Fictional Inquiry [translated from the Italian into English for the first time by Anne Milano Appel], representation is a matter of collecting loose ends and leaving them loose”, says Noah Slaughter of a novel first published in 1983 and championed by Italo Calvino.
Reactor: The Theater Kids at the End of the World – “What kind of art thrives after the end of (or drastic change to) the world”? wonders Molly Templeton. She attempts here to answer that question.
The Broken Compass: The writer’s bookshelf: Ann Kennedy Smith – In the latest in his series of “quick Q&As”, Mathew Lyons has a conversation with Irish writer, researcher and literary critic Ann Kennedy Smith, author of Painted Poetry: Colour in Baudelaire’s Art Criticism, about her favourite childhood book, the last great book she read, a literary guilty pleasure and much more.
Africa is a Country: Return the gods – Chinenye Egbuna Ikwuemesi, a British Nigerian writer, cultural mythographer and founder of The Afrodeities Codex, a mytho-literary archive of African mythology, explains the motivation behind the creation of her digital archive of African deities.
The Wire: Translating Korea: The Importance of Anton Hur – Soumashree Sarkar writes: “The translator is among the five judges who have selected Banu Mushtaq and Deepa Bhasthi’s Heart Lamp for the International Booker Prize. The time is ripe to observe how his public persona contributes to our understanding of Korea.”
Washington Independent Review of Books: Slither: How Nature’s Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate Our World – Mariko Hewer poses the question: “If not Satan, why Satan-shaped?” in a review of Stephen S. Hall’s Slither: How Nature’s Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate Our World – a scientific and cultural study of snakes.
Global Voices: A niche publisher is using Asian literature to bring Taiwan and Japan closer to Ukraine – “During the Stalinist purges in the 1930s, Ukrainians were forbidden to study or research East Asia”, writes Filip Noubel.
Galley Beggar – Pressing Issues: Wildly into Woking – “How HG Wells changed literature and history, invented the future, and killed his neighbours. All from a semi-detached house in suburbia, which a friend and I failed to visit”, says Sam Jordison in this piece on science fiction classic The War of the Worlds.
Daphne du Maurier: Reading Group Notes on the Works of Daphne du Maurier by Dr Serena Trowbridge – Serena Trowbridge, a Reader in Victorian Literature at the School of English (Birmingham City University) who teaches a module on Gothic Literature to final-year students, has made her Reading Group notes available to the official Daphne du Maurier website. They can be downloaded in pdf format.
BBC Culture: Frederick Forsyth: Life as a thriller writer, fighter pilot, journalist and spy – “Frederick Forsyth, who has died at the age of 86, wrote meticulously researched thrillers which sold in their millions.”
California Review of Books: After Lives: On Biography and the Mysteries of the Human Heart by Megan Marshall – David Starkey reviews After Lives: On Biography and the Mysteries of the Human Heart by award-winning American biographer of women writers, Megan Marshall.
Nation Cymru: Book review: Curious Travellers, Writing the Welsh Tour, 1760- 1820 by Mary-Ann Constantine – Curious Travellers by Mary-Ann Constantine is the first extensive literary study of British tours of Wales in the Romantic period (c.1760-1820), reviewed by Julie Brominicks.
Publishers Weekly: Peter Orner’s Healthy Obsession – “In his latest novel [The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter], the author uses a real-life unsolved murder from the 1960s to explore the nature of storytelling.”
Sydney Review of Books: Woman Alone – “Drawing on her experiences bushwalking through Western Sydney and her reading of Marlen Haushofer’s The Wall, Jumaana Abdu reflects on ‘abject freedom’, a concept that points to the paradoxical and precarious nature of women’s freedom in solitude.”
Ancillary Review of Books: An Elegy for Retail Capitalism: Review of Sarah Maria Griffin’s Eat the Ones You Love – Irish writer, Sarah Maria Griffin’s fantasy/horror novel, Eat the Ones You Love, “is an ambivalent elegy for late-twentieth-century retail capitalism. An inventive mashup of dark romance, Little Shop of Horrors, and the disillusioned millennial art novel [which] takes place in [a] working-class suburb of Dublin.”
The Markaz Review: The Evin Prison Bakers’ Club — Review – Iranian author and activist Sepideh Gholian’s The Evin Prison Bakers’ Club: Surviving Iran’s Most Notorious Prisons in 16 Recipes “is no ordinary prison memoir [but] a literary act of bearing witness, reminding us that freedom is not always a place — it is a state of mind, carried even through the thickest walls of confinement”, says Hannah Kaviani.
History Today: The Hidden Diary of Samuel Pepys – “When Samuel Pepys’ diary was first published 200 years ago it was an instant hit, but rumours soon spread about what had been cut and why”, says Kate Loveman, author of The Strange History of Samuel Pepys’s Diary.
The Irish Times: Aunts fictional and real matter more to us than they may know – Hazel Gaynor, author of Before Dorothy, writes “in praise of our aunts and women who don’t hold the title, but who have always been there for us.”
Point of Departure: 6 Bookstores in Lisbon Worth Visiting – “Another installment of [what EJ Johnson describes as her] most self-indulgent series”.
Beshara Magazine: K. Ramesh: Haiku Poet And Ecological Activist in South India – “The India poet K. Ramesh has gained an international reputation with three highly-regarded books of haikus and tankas”. Here “Robert Hirschfield presents the work of a dedicated lover of nature”.
The Observer: In the footsteps of Mrs Dalloway: taking to the street to celebrate Virginia Woolf – “Dublin marks Joyce’s Ulysses with Bloomsday every summer. So, on the centenary of the publication of Woolf’s treasured book, isn’t it time for an annual Dallowayday in London?” asks Vanessa Thorpe.
Dirt: Slow life Narratives for the overworked. – “Kyle Tam on the popularity of Japanese isekai stories as an escape from your crappy job.”
Literary Review of Canada: His Cohort – Enos Montour’s Brown Tom’s Schooldays tells the story of a young boy’s life at residential school. “A survivor’s account is finally published”, says David Venn.
Caught by the River: The Postal Paths – “Connecting the landscape, its people and its stories, Alan Cleaver’s The Postal Paths offers an engrossing, thoroughly researched and timely insight into a [part of British] history that is just about still within living memory, writes Kevin Boniface.”
The New York Times (via DNYUZ): A Thrilling Lesbian Vampire Novel You’ll Want to Sink Your Teeth Into – “In V.E. Schwab’s Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, three women turned into vampires are thrown into a centuries-long drama of love, power and hunger”, writes Everdeen Mason.
The Kyiv Independent: Controversial Russian literature prize sparks debate on separating culture from war crimes – “Launched to promote Russian literature on the global stage during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the new Dar (‘Gift’) literary prize is already mired in controversy — and not just for its troubling timing”, reports Kate Tsurkan.
BBC Wales: National Library of Wales missing 2,200 items – “About 2,200 items are missing at the National Library of Wales – an increase of 84% in two years”, reports Alun Jones.
Plough: The Explosive Imagination of Dickens – “Peter Conrad’s Dickens the Enchanter paints a portrait of the great storyteller in all his bizarre glory”, says Gina Dalfonzo.
Volumes.: Notes on a Reading Life: Taking Books Seriously – Matthew Morgan discusses “the reader’s responsibility, the writer’s paradox, and a master of metaphor.”
The Yale Review: The Talented Ms. Highsmith – “I worked for the novelist in her final months. I thought she wanted to kill me”, says Elena Gosalvez Blanco.
The Arts Desk: Samuel Arbesman: The Magic of Code review – the spark ages – Jon Turney describes The Magic of Code: How Digital Language Created and Connects Our World—and Shapes Our Future as a “wide-eyed take on our digital world [that] can’t quite dispel the dangers.”
Northern Virginia Magazine: Find a New Dog-Themed Bookstore in Downtown Fredericksburg – “Tales & Tails combines [readers] love of books, coffee, and dogs in one place”, finds Michele Kettner.
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FINALLY >>
If there is something you would particularly like to see on Winding Up the Week or if you have any suggestions, questions or comments for Book Jotter in general, please drop me a line or comment below. I would be delighted to hear from you.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I wish you a week bountiful in books and rich in reading.
NB In this feature, ‘winding up’ refers to the act of concluding something and should not be confused with the British expression: ‘wind-up’ – an age-old pastime of ‘winding-up’ friends and family by teasing or playing pranks on them. If you would like to know more about this expression, there is an excellent description on Urban Dictionary.
Categories: Winding Up the Week
