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Magdalena Ball

Goodreads Author

Website

http://www.magdalenaball.com

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Poetry

Member Since

July 2007

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/magdalenaball

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Magdalena Ball runs Compulsive Reader http://www.compulsivereader.com. Her stories, poetry, reviews and articles have appeared in many printed anthologies and journals, and have won several awards. She is the author of Bobish, The Density of Compact Bone, Unmaking Atoms, Black Cow, Repulsion Thrust, The Art of Assessment, Quark Soup, Sleep Before Evening and many other collaborations. A new book, Exotic Matter, is forthcoming from Liquid Amber Press in February 2027. Find out more at http://www.magdalenaball.com ...more

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Magdalena Ball's Blog

Compulsive Reader News

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Compulsive Reader News
maggieball@compulsivereader.com
http://www.compulsivereader.com
Volume 29, Issue 10, 1 October 2026

IN THIS ISSUE

New Reviews at Compulsive Reader
Literary News
Competition News
Sponsored By
Coming Soon

Hello dear readers. Happy October! Here are the latest batch of reviews and interviews:

A review of Shelf Life by Hemat Malak

Shelf Life is a finely wr

Combine Editions
Magdalena Ball’s books

Average rating: 4.46 · 226 ratings · 97 reviews · 45 distinct works

	Black Cow 4.21 avg rating — 39 ratings — published 2012 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Bobish 4.75 avg rating — 20 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Sleep Before Evening 4.74 avg rating — 19 ratings — published 2007 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	She Wore Emerald Then: Reflections On Motherhood 4.64 avg rating — 11 ratings — published 2008 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Unmaking Atoms 4.55 avg rating — 11 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Repulsion Thrust 4.44 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 2009 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Blooming Red: Christmas Poetry for the Rational (Celebration Series of Poetry Chapbooks) (Volume 1) by Magdalena Ball (Goodreads Author), Carolyn Howard-Johnson (Goodreads Author) it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 7 ratings — published 2009	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Cherished Pulse: Unconventional Love Poetry by Magdalena Ball (Goodreads Author), Carolyn Howard-Johnson (Goodreads Author), Vicki Thomas (Illustrator) 4.86 avg rating — 7 ratings — published 2009	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Imagining the Future: Ruminations on Fathers and Other Masculine Apparitions by Magdalena Ball (Goodreads Author), Carolyn Howard-Johnson (Goodreads Author) it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 2010 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	High Wire Step 4.20 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2018	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Magdalena is Currently Reading

Magdalena is currently reading

Joss: A History

by Grace Yee (Goodreads Author)

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Oct 10, 2026 10:07PM

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Magdalena’s Recent Updates

Magdalena Ball wrote a new blog post Compulsive Reader Newsletter Photo by Florian Klauer on UnsplashHappy new year dear readers! I’m not sure about you but for me 2025 was a pretty tough year for all sorts of reaso Read more of this blog post »
Oct 03, 2026 04:01PM · like
Magdalena and 3 other people liked Debbie Robson's review of Bobish: "What a marvellous achievement Bobish is, by Magdalena Ball. She has not only recreated her great grandmother’s life from memories, stories and research but turned the narrative into achingly beautiful poetry. This poetic montage on Rebecca Lieberman" Read more of this review »
Sep 30, 2026 07:24PM · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Bobish by Magdalena Ball. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Bobish by Magdalena Ball <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Magdalena is now following Debbie Robson Author of Crossing Paths
Jul 20, 2026 01:59PM · like
Magdalena is now following Rozanna Lilley's reviews
Sep 19, 2025 04:45PM · like

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Quotes by Magdalena Ball (?)

“You’re crying now her paradise an empty pond blurring your eyes to a crisis that needs more than tears. For her, pain is over the gate is open her job done. Her name is the Sixth Mass Extinction glaciers, forest, buildings, man.”
― Magdalena Ball, The Density of Compact Bone

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Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Aussie Readers: List of Aussie Authors who are members of Goodreads	4	426	Nov 12, 2013 04:56PM
Aussie Readers: Newcastle Writers Festival - 4th-6th April 2014	78	31	Apr 06, 2014 01:42AM
Aussie Readers: Recently purchased/acquired book/s	11518	1450	Mar 07, 2016 06:20PM
Aussie Readers: * List of Aussie Authors who are members of Goodreads	5	157	Aug 27, 2019 10:09PM
Around the World ...: First Reads Books and Other Book Giveaways	43	529	Dec 01, 2021 01:22AM

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Magdalena’s Quotes

“Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

tags: james-joyce, ulysses

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Magdalena’s Groups

¡ POETRY ! — 22487 members — last activity Oct 07, 2026 06:07PM
No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read it!) Goodreads honors wordsmiths: poets and poetry promoted and prompted here. ~~~ "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." -- Carl Sandburg “God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.” —Anne Sexton On Clouds – “…what primitive tastes the ancients must have had if their poets were inspired by those absurd, untidy clumps of mist, idiotically jostling one another about…” —Yevgeny Zamyatin “If the poet wants to be a poet, the poet must force the poet to revise. If the poet doesn’t wish to revise, let the poet abandon poetry and take up stamp-collecting or real estate.” —Donald Hall “Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation’s tears in shoulder blades.” —Boris Pasternak “Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.” —Charles Simic “Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.” —Gustave Flaubert “Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” —Allen Ginsberg. ~~~~~ Amy King, Moderator Amy King is the recipient of the 2015 Winner of the WNBA Award (Women’s National Book Association). Her latest collection, The Missing Museum, is a winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize. She serves on the executive board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and is co-editing with Heidi Lynn Staples the anthology, Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change. She is also co-editing the anthology, Bettering American Poetry 2015, and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College. ...more

AustralianReaderdotcom — 64 members — last activity Mar 04, 2011 01:08PM
This is a group for readers, writers and staff of AustralianReader.com to get together and chat about literature, the site, and life in general.

BOOKS THAT INSPIRE — 416 members — last activity Aug 30, 2023 08:54AM
This group is for those authors and readers to post their books that inspire, enlighten and enable individuals and society to enter into a new Golden ...more

Aussie Readers — 6572 members — last activity 7 hours, 28 min ago
A group for all Australian Goodreads members (and those interested in Australia), no matter what they read!

LinkedIn — 387 members — last activity Sep 28, 2017 05:25PM
LinkedIn Members on Goodreads.

Poetry Close Reading Group — 41 members — last activity Oct 20, 2013 04:06PM
We will attempt to close read difficult/modern poems. This will be a continuation of the practice of close reading that we started in ModPo: https://c ...more

Small and Independent Press Books — 498 members — last activity Dec 05, 2024 01:59AM
A group to discuss and recommend books published by the independent presses. Fiction, nonfiction, and poetry are all allowed.

Constant Reader — 6067 members — last activity 16 hours, 57 min ago
A forum for friendly discussion of classics, literary fiction, nonfiction, poetry and short stories. We also love movies and art. Don't ask to join th ...more

Books That Changed My Life — 372 members — last activity Apr 14, 2023 06:04AM
This is a group to discuss and list books that made a difference in your life, impacted the way you live, and so on. (The books don't need to be non ...more

Book Excerpts — 298 members — last activity Aug 12, 2024 09:24AM
A group where authors can post excerpts of their books and links to where people can purchase them.

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