The NBCC will be holding a fundraising drive from Nov. 20 – Dec. 4. Our fundraising goal is $50,000. As we head into our 50th anniversary, we hope to raise money to enhance existing and continued work on a number of important literary programs and spearhead new initiatives. We have all seen book sections and review coverage shrink over the last two decades; the NBCC has worked to keep literary culture thriving, not only through multiple awards and a citation for reviewing, but also with our work towards diversity and accessibility, the Emerging Critics program, a member forum for discussion of books and criticism, and events. Democracy is made more possible by a healthy literary culture, one that makes space for a broad range of voices and perspectives and honors the best writers and thinkers of our time. Please look out for our fundraising emails and we hope you will give generously.
Member Reviews/Essays
Claude Peck reviewed Salar Abdoh’s A Nearby Country Called Love for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Former NBCC board member and Vice President Ruben Quesada wrote “Poetry in Times of Crisis” about 20th-century poets who bore witness to global tragedies for The Lambda Literary Review.
Jonathan Marks reviewed The Canceling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott for The Dispatch.
Kitty Kelley reviewed Anne Berest’s The Postcardfor the Washington Independent Review of Books.
At Alta, NBCC Vice President/Fundraising Anita Felicelli wrote the latest California Book Club newsletter on Deborah A. Miranda’s Bad Indians. Join the California Book Club on Nov. 16 at 5 p.m. Pacific, when Miranda will appear in conversation with special guest Cutcha Risling Baldy and host John Freeman to discuss Bad Indians. You can register for the Zoom conversation here.
Daneet Steffens reviewed Naomi Alderman’s The Futurefor The Boston Globe.
Christoph Irmscher reviewed Adam Nicolson’s How to Be: Life Lessons from the Early Greeks for On the Seawall.
For the Los Angeles Times, Ilana Masad reviewed debut novel The Liberators by E.J. Koh as well as Naomi Alderman’s newest novel, The Future.
NBCC board member Lauren LeBlanc reviewed Benjamin Taylor’s Chasing Bright Medusasfor The Boston Globe.
Nell Beram reviewed two books for Shelf Awareness: Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided by Scott Eyman, and Veg-table: Recipes, Techniques, and Plant Science for Big-Flavored, Vegetable-Focused Meals by Nik Sharma.
Jenny Shank reviewed Michael Cunningham’s new novel, Day, for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
For The Drift, Michael Quinn offered a brief analysis of the costumes from the 1988 film Mystic Pizza.
Benjamin Woodard reviewed The Delivery by Margarita García Robayo, translated by Megan McDowell, for On the Seawall.
NBCC board member Joanna Scutts reviewed Jennet Conant’s Fierce Ambition, a biography of war correspondent Marguerite Higgins, for The New York Times Book Review.
Kristen Martin reviewed Ben Austen’s Correction: Parole, Prison, and the Possibility of Change for The Washington Post.
Michael Malone reviewed James McBride’s The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store for the Pleasantville Examiner.
In The Brooklyn Rail, John Domini praised Blackouts by Justin Torres as “magical.”
Maggie Doherty reviewed Nate Schweber’s This America of Ours: Bernard and Avis DeVoto and the Forgotten Fight to Save the Wild for Flathead Living.
Martha Anne Toll reviewed Elaine Schattner’s From Whispers to Shoutsfor Lilith.
Heather Green reviewed Kate Briggs’ The Long Formfor On the Seawall.
Linda Hitchcock reviewed Spencer Quinn’s Up on the Woof Top and Laurence Leamer’s Hitchcock’s Blondes for BookTrib.
David Starkey reviewed The Upside-Down World: Meetings with the Dutch Mastersby Benjamin Moser for the California Review of Books.
Alexander Pyles reviewed Greg Jackson’s The Dimensions of a Cavefor the Chicago Review of Books.
Member Interviews
NBCC board member and Vice President/Barrios Book in Translation Prize Mandana Chaffa interviewed Lydia Davis about her book Our Strangers for The Brooklyn Rail.
Nancy Naomi Carlson interviewed Alta Price about her new translation of Juli Zeh’s About People for On the Seawall.
Kathleen Rooney interviewed Jami Nakamura Lin for Chicago magazine.
NBCC board member Lauren LeBlanc interviewed Sigrid Nunez for Vanity Fair.
Benjamin Woodard interviewed David Jauss about his essay collection, Alone with All That Could Happen, for Rain Taxi.
Clea Simon interviewed Scot Lehigh about his debut novel, Just East of Nowhere, for The Boston Globe.
Member News
NBCC Emerging Critics Fellow Hantian Zhang’s new short story, “Didi,” is appearing in AGNI 98.
Clea Simon’s new mystery, To Conjure a Killer, will be published by Polis Books on Nov. 14.
“There’s Nothing Like Living in a Bottle” by Thomas Hawk is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.