#45 🧠 Your dose of culture is here
And a little announcement.
Hello boys and girls,
I bet you’ve missed my roundup of cultural recommendations. Yes, me too. So here you go – I spared you from entering into a new week without some food for thought.
One quick announcement before I let you dive into today’s issue: The Culture Worm is now a weekly Sunday affair! I’m switching from Fridays to Sundays simply because of my work schedule. Hope this doesn't cause too much inconvenience, friends.
Side hustles ain’t easy but are worth doing. And as always, I appreciate and feel humbled for choosing to be part of this small, but ever-growing community of open-minded and genuinely curious people. Hats off to you for sticking with me every week.
Now back to business. Coming up:
✔️ News on longlists for major UK literary prizes, Bob Dylan, and possibly the best book trailer you’ve ever seen.
✔️ Plus, how do we know when we’re *actually* happy, the meaning of success, and why we should stop telling women they’ve got impostor syndrome.
Happy reading, happy learning,
Teodora x
📣 Did you know…?
✨ You can now read The Culture Worm in the new Substack app! ***
With the app, you’ll have a dedicated Inbox for my Substack and any others you subscribe to. Comments and rich media will all work seamlessly. Overall, it’s a significant upgrade to the reading experience. (apparently 🤷)
I personally still think the email communication feels more intimate, but hey, I won’t judge you if you decide to read me from an app as opposed to your inbox. You do you - and spread the word about my little worm, of course! 🙌
** At the moment, the app is only available on Apple devices. Sorry, Android users! Please join the waitlist here and let’s hope the Substack team will get an Android version in no time!
🥁 📚 The latest in the literary world
The 2022 International Booker Prize Longlist is here and I’m not entirely sure I’m ready for this! 😱 As I’m writing this, I took a quick glance at my ever-growing TBR pile and sighed. Nope, still haven’t managed to get to last year’s winner, David Diop’s “At Night All Blood Is Black.” Anywayyyy… Go ahead and take a look at the 13 selected titles, then stack them up and savour the wealth! There are novels from 12 countries, so a true celebration of translated literature and a testament to the power of language. The shortlist of six will be announced on 7 April and the winners of the prize will be named on 26 May 2022. 🙌
The 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction has also been announced, featuring both debut and acclaimed writers from across the globe – Trinidad and Tobago, New Zealand, Canada, Turkey, USA and UK. 👏 I’m glad that Elif Shafak’s “The Island of Missing Trees” is among the 16 longlisted novels, as this was such a sweet and heartfelt read. Miranda Cowley Heller’s “The Paper Palace” is a strong competitor too. It’s going to be a tough job to whittle down to a shortlist of just six books – good luck, judges! We’ll find out the winner on Wednesday 15 June.
The Polari Prize is launching a new award for Children’s and YA Literature with LGBTQ+ themes or representation. The award is sponsored by Little Box of Books, and the winner will receive £1,000. 💸 Submissions are open until 2 May, so if you know someone who fits the bill, this could be a great opportunity. 🏳️🌈
Fahad Al-Amoudi is the 2022 winner of the White Review Poet’s Prize for his “mixture of tradition, fabulation, allusion, and anecdote held by his poetic variations.” 🏆 Al-Amoudi’s portfolio has been selected from more than 200 entries. To get a glimpse of Al-Amoudi’s poetic style – influenced by his Ethiopian and Yemeni heritage – you can read one of his poems, “The Old Justice,” here. 👏
Amazon will close all the 4-star, pop-up and bookstores in the UK and US to focus more on their grocery markets and department stores going forward. Independent bookshops, your time to shine?! 📚 ☀️
The pocket watch owned by Edgar Allan Poe while he was writing his famous short story “The Tell-Tale Heart”, has been donated to the Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia, alongside other artefacts, including letters and rare first editions. ⌚ Literary collector and donor Susan Jaffe Tane decided to also give away a fragment from the original coffin in which Poe was buried in 1849. BONUS: Here’s a chance to revisit my little homage to Edgar Allan Poe. 👈
Bob Dylan wrote a new book, 18 years since his memoir, “Chronicles Volume One.” There’s no volume two involved, I’m afraid if this is what you were expecting. Instead, Simon & Schuster will be publishing this November “The Philosophy of Modern Song,” a collection of more than 60 essays devoted to examining other songwriters’ material, including Elvis Costello, Nina Simone and Hank Williams. 🎶
Cormac McCarthy fans, this one’s for you! The long-awaited follow-up to “The Road” is finally happening! 🤩 Hold on. That’s not all! I realise I sound like a teleshopping presenter, but it’s worth it. After 16 years of silence, McCarthy is giving us not one, but two novels, published ONE MONTH apart: “The Passenger”, out in October, and “Stella Maris”, out in November.
First published in 1974 and edited by Toni Morrison, Angela Y Davis’ “An Autobiography” has been reissued and there’s never been a better time for a new generation of readers to get their hands on this iconic memoir. Penguin calls it “a classic of the Black Liberation era” and quite rightly so. As I’m writing this, I am hours away from attending an event with the activist, scholar, abolitionist and legend that Angela Davis is. 🔥 Excited is an understatement! BONUS: The cover is stunning. (A good memoir AND a splendid cover? We’re in for a treat, my friends! 🤩)
Peace must prevail: Nobel Laureates, writers and artists condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a letter signed by over a thousand. ✉️ 🇺🇦 “We, writers around the world, are appalled by the violence unleashed by Russian forces against Ukraine and urgently call for an end to the bloodshed. We stand united in condemnation of a senseless war, waged by President Putin’s refusal to accept the rights of Ukraine’s people to debate their future allegiance and history without Moscow’s interference.”
BONUS: I dare you to find a better book trailer than this one. 😎
🎧 📰 👀 My media diet this week
READ: Who Does She Think She Is? | Longreads | “The internet does not hate women. People hate women, and the internet allows them to do it faster, harder, and with impunity.” Okay, Laurie Penny, you win. 🤔
READ: Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves | In The Library With The Lead Pipe | First off, I love this for being one of the most accessible peer-reviewed journal papers I’ve ever read. It dismantles the idea that librarianship is a sacred calling and the role libraries play in institutional oppression. Brace yourselves for a ride! 🏫
READ: Notes on Craft | Granta | Sara Freeman’s powerful personal account on the amnesia that sets in after you finish writing a novel and the struggle to get back to your routine. ✍️
READ: Stop Telling Women They Have Impostor Syndrome | Harvard Business Review | We’re often too quick to diagnose someone for feeling a tad insecure with impostor syndrome. Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey explain why this needs to stop, looking at the historical and cultural contexts that are foundational to how impostor syndrome manifests in both white women and women of colour. 💡
READ: The Meaning of “Success” Has Drastically Changed | The Hyphen | Author and podcaster Emma Gannon has recently launched her newsletter on Substack. In this issue, she writes about how traditional success (most often measured in financial prosperity) is not something you can hang your life on. This read will make you reevaluate your own definition of success. ⭐
WATCH: How do we know when we’re happy? | Big Questions - Penguin | Fearne Cotton gives her answers on fame, parenting, happiness, and the future of radio, in just ten minutes. Utter joy and a little motivation to release the blocks and insecurities that hold us back. ✨
LISTEN: Michelle Visage’s Rule Breakers | Episode 1 - Cameron Diaz | BBC Radio 2 | A one-to-one encounter with actress, author and entrepreneur Cameron Diaz about finding love in your 40s, fame, and learning not to look in the mirror, ha! 🪞🙅♀️
📌 ICYMI
My take on the current war in Ukraine and why you should reconsider what you share on social media. 🇺🇦 ** At the time of publication which was three days into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there were 60,000 people fleeing the country. Today (13th of March) there are at least 2.6 million. 💔
On this #TuesdayThread that coincided with International Women’s Day, I asked you about the superwomen you admire. I'm working on a series about inspiring women in the next few weeks, so any recommendations are welcome! 🦸♀️
Aaaand I still can’t get over the fact that World Book Day was ten days ago! We deserve a book day every month, don’t you think so? 👀 More on this and one of my fondest book memories here. 💕
Before we say goodbye… 🥺
If you liked this issue of the newsletter, please click on the 💜 button, so I know I’m doing a good job. There’s always the option to leave a comment with your feedback. I promise I’ll always reply!
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