The Reading Life Review- December 2020

  

Row 1 - left to right

1. Janet H Swinney- U K - this is her  eighth time to be featured, wonderful short stories - her stories have appeared in print anthologies and online journals across the UK, India and America. Earlyworks Press have published much of her work in the UK, while in India, it has appeared in a number of online literary journals, including the Bombay Review, Out of Print and the Lakeside International Review of Literature and Arts as well as in the academic journal Postcolonial Text. Her story The Map of Bihar was nominated for the Eric Hoffer prize for prose 2012 and was published in Best New Writing 2013 (USA). In 2014 she was a runner-up for the London Short Story Prize. She has had work listed in many competitions. Her story The House with Two Letter-Boxes was longlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize 2019. In 2020 she was a guest of the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival in Mumbai, with a specific remit to talk about India as seen through the lens of the short story. Her first collection of short fiction, The Map of Bihar and Other Stories, was published in 2019 by Circaidy Gregory Press and was well reviewed by the Irish Times. She has just completed her second collection, from which Foxtrot in Fulham is the title story, and a play based on the short stories and vignettes of Saadat Hasan Manto.
2. Chaim Grade - Poland to NYC - Yiddish writer, very profound 
3. Tarasankar Badopadhyay - India- pre-independence Bengali writer- first time featured 
4. Linda Lappin - USA to Italy, Linda Lappin is the prize-winning author of four novels: The Etruscan (Wynkin deWorde, 2004), Katherine’s Wish (Wordcraft, 2008), Signatures in Stone: A Bomarzo Mystery (Pleasureboat Studio, 2013), and Loving Modigliani: The Afterlife of Jeanne Hébuterne (Serving House Books, 2020). Signatures in Stone was the overall winner of the Daphne DuMaurier prize for best novel of 2014. She is also the author of The Soul of Place: Ideas and Exercises for Conjuring the Genius Loci (Travelers Tales, 2015), which won a Nautilus Award in the category of creativity in 2015
5. Winifred Holtby - UK, - read and loved her Short story collection Truth is Not Sober and other stories- Will read her novel South Rising soon. - first appearance 

Row Two - Left to Right

1. Joyce Blackburn - USA - Author of James Oglethorpe, a biography of The first Governor of Georgia and 25 others books - please excuse poor image but all I could find. First apperance
2. Winifred Parker-Downes - UK - i read 21 of her set in England during World War Two Short Stories. Published 852 times in The New Yorker- first appearance 
3. Dasha Philyaw - USA - author of highly regarded debut collection The Secret Lives of Church Ladies - first appearance - will read more of her work. Highly recommended 
4. Steve Wade - Ireland - featured eight times -Steve Wade’s award-winning short fiction has been widely published in literary magazines and anthologies. His work has been broadcast on national and regional radio. He has had stories short-listed for the Francis McManus Short Story Competitionand for the Hennessy Award. His stories have appeared in over fifty publications.  

Row 3 - Left to Right 

1. Dennis Marks - UK - musical director of BBC, manager of National Opera, producer of numerous TV Documentaries, Author of In Search of Joseph Roth - First Apperance
2. Catherine McNamara. - Australia to Italy - Catherine McNamara grew up in Sydney, ran away to Paris to write, and ended up in West Africa running a bar. She was an embassy secretary in pre-war Mogadishu, and has worked as an au pair, graphic designer, gallery manager, teacher, translator and shoe model.. Praised by Hilary Mantel, her short story collection The Cartography of Others (May 2018, Unbound) was a Finalist in the People’s Book Prize 2019-20, was awarded Grand Prize in the Eyelands International Book Awards (Greece) and listed on the Literary Sofa’s Best of 2018 Reads. Her book Pelt and Other Stories (2013) was long-listed for the Frank O’Connor Award and semi-finalist in the Hudson Prize. Her short stories and flash fiction have been Pushcart-nominated and published widely in the U.K., Europe, U.S.A. and Australia. Her flash fiction collection Love Stories for Hectic Peopleis out in autumn 2020. Catherine speaks Italian and French and lives in Veneto, Italy, where she hosts summer retreats for writers and artists in her African-art-filled farmhouse. She is an online writing mentor and coach - featured many times 
3. Saul Friedländer- Born in Prague now splits time between the USA and Israel - Holocaust scholar. Author Proustian Uncertainies - Reflections on Reading in Search of Lost Time. Pulitzer Prize winner- First appearance 
4. Danille Evans - USA - author two highly regarded collections of short collections - I hope to read them both 

Blog Stats 

Birth Countries of authors

1. UK - 3
2. USA - 4
3. Poland - 1
4. Czechoslovakia - 1
5. India - 1
6. Australia- 1
7. Ireland-2
8. 
   

Seven authors were featured for the first time, eight are old friends .

Eight women were featured, seven men. Six are deceased.

In December I posted upon one novel, three works of nonfiction , and eleven short stories.

I read In December 

three very good narrative nonfiction works upon which I did not post.

1. Books Promiscuously Read - Reading As a Way of Life by Heather Cass White - forthcoming July 2021 - no post. 
2. The last kings of Shanghai : the rival Jewish dynasties that helped create modern China by Jonathan Kaufman - 2020 - no post
3. The Slave Ship: A Human History by Marcus Rediker - no post

As of today Pages on The Reading Life have been viewed 6,192,503 times.  There are 3858 posts online.

The top home countries for visitors in December were

1. USA
2. India
3. Malaysia - first appearance so high on the list
4. Russia
5. UK
6. United Arab Emirates
7. Phillippines
8. Germany
9. Canada

Of the five most viewed posts, two were on pre-WW Two Short Stories from India, a Short Story from Indonesia, “Miss Adele Among The Corsets” by Zadie Smith and a wonderful new novel Loving Modigliani: The Afterlife of Jeanne Hébuterne by Linda Lappin

Soon I Will do The Year End Reading Life Review in which i Will set out my plans and hopes for 2021.

My thanks to Max u for his kind provision of Amazon Gift Cards.

To those who leave comments you Help keep me going 

Mel u - Curator

Ambrosia Bousweau - European Director

Oleander Bousweau - Advisory Director