New & Used: Book Talk Episode 14

In this episode, Tim talks with Marta Balcewicz about her impressive first novel Big Shadow. Also, check out her superb playlisted posted below. 
Janet tries to do justice to Catherine Lacey's richly layered, compelling new book The Biography of X.
Tony explains the late  Mark Fisher's Ghosts of My Life:  Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures by letting us know what he liked and what he didn't like. 

https://bookhugpress.ca/big-shadow-the-playlist/
https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/reviews/2023/05/16/sex-and-love-and-cloud-gazing-marta-balcewicz-debut-novel-big-shadow.html

https://www.catherinelacey.com/
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/mar/29/biography-of-x-by-catherine-lacey-review-who-is-this-mysterious-artist

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jul/25/ghosts-of-my-life-by-mark-fisher-ferociously-intelligent-cultural-insights

In Episode 14, Tim and Janet take a well earned break leaving Tony, the regular guest from Australia, in charge. Tony reviews Jacqueline Crooks’ Fire Rush, a wonderful new novel set partly in London. Then Tony visits the generally untouristed London neighbourhood of Somers Town to discover its rich literary history. For the ‘used’ section of the show, he talks about three books about London that go well beyond the standard travel guide model. Notice the trend? Yes, this is an episode all about London. However, despite the recent big event in that city, this is NOT the coronation special that Tony first suggested! It just happens to coincide with that event…

 Books mentioned, or books by authors mentioned:

 Fire Rush by Jacqueline Crooks (2023)

 Saturday by Ian McEwan (2005)

 Thoughts on the Education of Daughters by Mary Wollstonecraft (1787) 

 A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft (1792)

 The Adventures of Caleb Williams by William Godwin (1794) 

 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)

 Walking in the Shade by Doris Lessing (1997)

 The London Compendium by Ed Glinert (2003, 2012)

 Nairn’s London by Ian Nairn (1966)

 The Lost Rivers of London by Nicholas Barton (1962)

 
Thomas Hardy’s poem about St Pancras Old Churchyard:

The Levelled Churchyard

'O Passenger, pray list and catch
             Our sighs and piteous groans,
 Half stifled in this jumbled patch
             Of wrenched memorial stones!
 
 'We late-lamented, resting here,
             Are mixed to human jam,
 And each to each exclaims in fear,
             "I know not which I am!"
 
 'The wicked people have annexed
             The verses on the good;
 A roaring drunkard sports the text
             Teetotal Tommy should!
 
 'Where we are huddled none can trace,
             And if our names remain,
 They pave some path or porch or place
             Where we have never lain!
 
 'Here's not a modest maiden elf
             But dreads the final Trumpet,
 Lest half of her should rise herself,
             And half some sturdy strumpet!
 
 'From restorations of Thy fane,
             From smoothings of thy sward,
 From zealous Churchmen's pick and plane
             Deliver us O Lord! Amen!'

In Episode 13, Tony talks with Stephen Marche about his new book On Writing and Failure: Or, On the Peculiar Perseverance Required to Endure the Life of a Writer. Tim tells us all about the  genius of  poet's EVA H.D. and her new release The Natural Hustle. Janet talks about The End of Mr. Y  by Scarlett Thomas and how it changed her reading ways. 

Stephen Marche - The Call of the Loon
https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/the-call-of-the-loon/

Biblioasis Field Notes Series Link
https://www.biblioasis.com/product-category/field-notes/

The New Puritan Manifesto
1. Primarily storytellers, we are dedicated to the narrative form. 2. We are prose writers and recognise that prose is the dominant form of expression. For this reason we shun poetry and poetic licence in all its forms. 3. While acknowledging the value of genre fiction, whether classical or modern, we will always move towards new openings, rupturing existing genre expectations. 4. We believe in textual simplicity and vow to avoid all devices of voice: rhetoric, authorial asides. 5. In the name of clarity, we recognise the importance of temporal linearity and eschew flashbacks, dual temporal narratives and foreshadowing. 6. We believe in grammatical purity and avoid any elaborate punctuation. 7. We recognise that published works are also historical documents. As fragments of our time, all our texts are dated and set in the present day. 8. As faithful representations of the present, our texts will avoid all improbable or unknowable speculation about the past or the future. 9. We are moralists, so all texts feature a recognisable ethical reality. 10. Nevertheless, our aim is integrity of expression, above and beyond any commitment to form. (vii)

In Episode 12 of New & Used: Book Talk, Tim and author Liz Harmer talk about the meaning of ecstasy while discussing her new book Strange Loops. Janet’s pick for a new book is Jessica John’s Bad Cree and looks at the importance of working together as a family and the creepiness of being followed by crows. Tony’s pick for used is Iain Sinclair’s Lud Heat: A Book of Dead Hamlets and tell us all about psychogeography, laylines, and almost running into  him in London!

Strange Loops review – Quill & Quire

https://quillandquire.com/review/strange-loops/

Bad Cree review – Globe & Mail

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/reviews/article-with-its-chills-and-thrills-bad-cree-goes-beyond-the-trauma-porn-trope/#:~:text=Bad%20Cree%20is%20an%20excellent,impact%20on%20our%20lives%20today.

Bad Cree interview – Shondaland

https://www.shondaland.com/inspire/books/a42539093/bad-cree-jessica-johns/

It's our year end episode! This episode, Tim, Tony, & Janet discuss some of their favourite books of the year. Some diversions include The Ice Capades, what's with Canadians and body horror, and what happens when rock stars aren't rock stars anymore. Music & horror books seem to be a big theme this year. 

Episode 10. We have hit double digits!!!
In this episode we are joined by Erica McKeen published by Invisible Publishing who discusses her new book Tear that just made the top Globe & Mail top 100 books of 2022!
Tim has decided that his book The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell by Brian Evenson published by Coffee House Press  might be too smart for him. It also creeped him out a little too.
Tony sings! But it was necessary in discussing the literary thriller The Forgiven by Lawrence Osborne published by Random House.

Erica McKeen's photo taken by Macy Mirka.

In Episode 9 Tim talks to writer Michael Hingston about his new book Try Not To Be Strange: The Curious History of The Kingdom of Redonda. Janet raves about how much she loves Night of The Living Rez a collection of short stories by Morgan Talty. Michael Hingston explains why Nicholson Baker's U & I is such an important book to him.

In case you want to listen to the Morgan Talty interview mentioned in the episode here are is link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgP2zIsW6_g&ab_channel=TheCenterforFiction

The podcast interview is from Between the Covers Morgan Talty: Night of the Living Rez.

In episode 8 of New & Used: Book Talk, Tim, Tony, and Janet talk to Damian Rogers about her beautiful and devasting memoir An Alphabet for Joanna. Damian also fills us in on her project If It’s Alive, Feed It (writing through the TAROT deck one card at a time) and how tarot has shaped her life and how this project has shaped her past year. 

Tony discusses Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan that has been shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize and examines how big a little novel can be.

Damian tells us about one of her favourite poets Hoa Nguyen and her book A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure that was a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry 2021. 

Janet discusses Helen Oyeyemi’s first book The Icarus Girl and poses the question, is the main character has the worst imaginary friend ever, possessed, or having mental health issues or both. 

Here is some more information regarding the books discussed.

An Alphabet for Joanna - A gripping memoir from acclaimed poet Damian Rogers about being raised by a loving but erratic single mother who is today diagnosed with a rare form of frontal-lobe dementia. In the vein of Plum Johnson's They Left Us Everything, Leanne Shapton's Swimming Studies, Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle and Susannah Cahalan's Brain on Fire.

Small Things Like These - Small Things Like These is award-winning author Claire Keegan's landmark new novel, a tale of one man's courage and a remarkable portrait of love and family.

A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure - A collection inspired by Hoa’s mother, a stunt motorcyclist in an all-woman Vietnamese circus troupe, is verse meditation on Vietnam’s diaspora.

The Icarus Girl - A story of twins and ghosts, of a little girl growing up between cultures and colors, this book heralds the arrival of a remarkable new talent.

An interview with Helen Oyeyemi: https://www.npr.org/2014/03/07/282065410/the-professionally-haunted-life-of-helen-oyeyemi

Yoruba and twins: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6687030/

In this episode we have brought back Tony Thompson. The new books discussed this episoder are Elena Knows by Claudia Peneiro and translated by Frances Riddle and Pure Life by Eugene Martin.  When picked we had no idea how much the two books had in common! The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary is the old classic for this month.

Side topics include: what books should go on your best of list, why not to play contact sports, and how we look at books now as opposed to then.

Elena Know -From the ‘Hitchcock of the River Plate’ (Corriere della Sera) comes Piñeiro’s third novel, a unique tale that interveaves crime fiction with intimate tales of morality and search for individual freedom.
Pure Life -A harrowing, intense, powerful new novel that reads like a classic, from one of the great writers of his generation.
The Horse's Mouth - The Horse's Mouth, the third and most celebrated volume of Joyce Cary's First Trilogy, is perhaps the finest novel ever written about an artist.

 
Interview with Claudia Peneiro by her translator Frances Riddle
https://southwestreview.com/a-mundane-odyssey-an-interview-with-claudia-pineiro/

In this episode, Tim discusses the new release, Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden. Janet is looking forward to The Wall by Marlen Haushofer being revived as it is being rereleased by New Directions. There is also a special guest! Tony Thompson, author of The Doors: every album every song, comes on to remind us what an excellent book Suttree by Cormac McCarthey was.
New logo by Sadie Henry
Music is Young One Eye by Paul Emery and the Dickens