August Wrap Up | 2018

hi everyone I'm here to talk to you about what I read in August I think it's been a while since I sat at my desk you can't see this desk but it's here with my shelves behind me in a cup of tea I've been forming in various different parts of the house because I've been filming later in the day normally when the light isn't so good so it's nice to be back at my desk as I said I'm going to talk you through what I read last month and all the books that I mentioned as always will be linked in the description box down below first off I read bitter orange by Claire fuller this is Claire's third novel she was actually the first guest that I had on my podcast which is called books with Jen if you would like to search that on the podcast app I'll also link it down below I think this might be my favorite buy her my second favorite being her first book and I say that because it is extremely atmospheric and completely drew me and it was also just what I needed in August I had a very itty-bitty reading month I was running around doing lots of different things and therefore I only had snatched or stolen moments to read you know on the tube waiting in a queue and as all of you know if you're reading like that sometimes it can really make you disengage from what you're reading because you're not able to get deeply involved in it in the moment however because this book has such an amazing setting because the characters completely come to life I didn't find it a problem because I was immediately back in that book as soon as I opened the pages so this is about a woman called Frances who goes to a country house she's been asked to go and make a catalogue of all the things that are in the grounds and there's a couple also saying there Peter and Cara they're staying in the room below her Peter is there to do the same catalog everything but for the house and his partner Cora is there Francis is not so great with people she doesn't really interact with others very much she's been caring for her mother who was recently died but she's intrigued by Peter and Cora she is attracted ISM as a couple and there is a hole in the floorboards that looks down into their room that she then peers into and she spends a lot of her time doing that knowing that she shouldn't be doing that and she starts to uncover things that aren't quite right about them it's gothic there is a haunting element to it I think it would be amazing to come up with this at Halloween even though it is set in the height of summer it is about what we tell other people and the narratives that we form of ourselves that then show to the world and how that can get us into trouble speaking of narratives and stories we tell ourselves I also read ghost wall by Sarah Moss I made a video with Sarah before which I'll link in the description box down below she's the author of the tidal zone this is her new book which is out next week on the 20th of September and I was so excited to get to this I'm also doing an event with Sarah and Megan hunter at the Birmingham Book Festival early October we're going to be talking about how we craft strange short fiction so if you would like to come along to that I'll leave a link in the description box down below this is about Sylvie and her parents who've gone to stay or camp out at an Iron Age site just north of my old stomping ground in Northumberland the way that Sarah most gives voice to teenage girls is always one of my favorite parts of her writing there's one part where they get to the side and Sylvie's trying to persuade her parents that she should be allowed to sleep in her own tent I could sleep in one too dad I said giving you a mum some privacy but dad didn't want privacy he wanted to be able to see what I was up to don't be daft you said of course you can't sleep with the lads shame on you in any way privacy is a fancy modern idea exactly what we're getting away from everyone trying to hide away and do what they want you'd be joining in with the rest of us I don't know what my father thought I might want to do in those days but he devoted considerable attention to making sure I couldn't do it it's about class it's about feminism as a group of students who were also at the site who thinks Sylvie's dad is putting on an act pretending to be from a bygone era to fit in with their surroundings but actually he's just like that there's also a haunting to this book to the people at the site are doing reenactments they're also not buying food they are searching for food and catching fish but there's not enough of it to go around so they're lacking in energy and it's like that what is driving them the energy that's driving them is the life that they can invoke from their surroundings so therefore they become like husks like they themselves are haunted there's a line that says there are a few dark fish ghosting the pool so it becomes a question of who is haunting who and whether the past is amazing the present or the other way round I'm also currently reading somebody I used to know by Wendy Mitchell which I'll talk about more once I finished reading it I spoke about this in a reading and walking vlog which I'll link up here and down below I took you for a walk across Hampstead Heath and talked about this because I was listening to it on audio books you could head over there also last month I've reread our foreword prize shortlisted books I'm one of the judges this year and we'll be announcing our winners on Tuesday the 18th of September it's going to be an amazing ceremony so if you're in London come along I'll leave details down below and so I had to reread through everything in preparation for meeting with the judges which I'm very excited about to pick our winners so I will quickly run through the books that were on our short lists but I'll also link a video down below where I talked about them in more detail so in alphabetical order for the debut poetry prize we have karatbars calling a wolf a wolf which is a lyrical look at addiction has lots of fairytale imagery lots of plays on color and on language there's an amazing poem where he's talking about and his mother turning into a taxidermied ox and then him becoming like an ox Daisy next we have jinx by abigail Perry these poems are like sleight of hand they trick you they race you to the end they try and trip you up they're very playful and they fizz we've got shrines of Upper Austria by Phoebe Powell which is like a series of Polaroid photographs from all across Europe inviting you to look here and there and everywhere and show you lots of very different things we have everyone knows I'm a haunting by Shivani Ram Lakhan this is about abuse power legacy history the narrator picks out narratives and presents them to you like Queens and her palm and the poetry swims in language we've got Richard Scott Soho which plays with your expectations as a reader you think you're getting one thing and then you get something a little bit different so it begins with a celebration and reclaiming of queer literature and plays with Whitman and stuff like that and it continues to be there but then delves into darker territory it takes your hand though and guides you through it and ends with the history of Soho in London moving on to best collection we have Barney capybaras Venus as a bear this book is like a museum I only went to lots of different places and wrote about the things that intrigued her and one of my favorites is called where just went past it moss for Maya and it's a prose poem and I particularly loved her prose poems number three says for the benefit of giants 14 kinds of Icelandic moss were exhibited under glass including the static flicker of a moss named for its resemblance to white worms and named miss translatable as pale dragons you can see why I like that next we have assurances by Jo Morgan this is a long-form poem about nuclear deterrent set during the Cold War and the way that it space can give you anxiety phrases are often repeated only slightly different to the way they were before in these short sharp sentences so it is like you're inching forward in this ticking time bomb that could potentially lead to somewhere terrible we have Black Sun by Toby Martinez zilla's rivers and this is so rich it's like Ted Hughes and John Berryman had a baby we have don't call us dead by dinner Smith this is about being black queer and hiv-positive in America it's about police brutality the lyricism of these poems completely shines through and the way Virgenes plays with words and their meaning is fascinating so for one example would be and talking about what matters as in weighty subjects but also the matter of people and the physicality of them and who is clasped and embraced by society and seen and weighted down and who is let go a raised and is no longer matter in many different senses of the word and then we have wade in the water by Tracy K Smith Tracy is the US poet laureate in the center of this collection we have some found / erasure poems Tracy did research into letters written by african-american families during the Civil War black men who'd been conscripted forced to fight then treated terribly their families are trying to find out where they are and the way that she's arranged these letters into poems is it's fascinating so those are our short lists we also have our individual poems and we have edited this book together so I also read this in August because I was compiling it with the other judges this is a four word book of poetry 2019 in this we have two poems from each of the shortlisted books then we have the five shortlisted individual poems and a collection of highly commended poems the best poems have been published in the last year according to us so if you would like to experience some new poetry if you would like to find some new authors this is a great way of discovering new people so definitely check it out I of course love it because it's just filled with poetry that I love so if you like my reading taste you're gonna like this too so no to all the books that I have to talk to you about today what did you read in August let me know in the comments section down below as I said all of the books that I mentioned a linked in the description box if you enjoy my channel and would like to consider supporting me on patreon that would be lovely there are awards up for grabs I'll also leave details of that down below to please subscribe if you're new and I'll speak to you guys very soon lots below [Music]

Channel: Jen Campbell

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Length: 10min 13sec (613 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 12 2018