Members and friends, we hope you’re doing well, and looking forward to this year’s National Book Critics Circle Awards on March 21 in New York! There are a very limited number of tickets still available, but remember you can always watch the livestream on YouTube starting at 6:30 pm Eastern. In the meantime, you can catch up with what our members have been doing, including reviews of books by authors like Carlos Lozada, Sloane Crosley, Tommy Orange, and Major Jackson, and interviews with writers including Vanessa Chan, Sebastián Martínez Daniell, and Luanne Rice. Thanks for your support, and as always, thanks for reading!
Member Reviews/Essays
Jake Casella Brookins wrote about his top picks in speculative fiction from 2023 for Locus.
Kitty Kelley reviewed Carlos Lozada’s The Washington Book: How to Read Politics and Politiciansfor the Washington Independent Review of Books.
DW McKinney wrote about the 2024 Virtuous Con: Black History Month for Publishers Weekly.
Cory Oldweiler reviewed Sloane Crosley’s Grief Is for Peoplefor The Boston Globe.
Nan Cohen reviewed Finding Duende / Duende: Play and Theory / Imagination, Inspiration, Evasion by Federico García Lorca, edited by José Javier León and Christopher Maurer, for RHINO Reviews. She also reviewed Dara Barnat’s Walt Whitman and the Making of Jewish American Poetry for the Jewish Book Council.
Linda Hitchcock reviewed Jo Salas’ Mrs. Lowe-Porter and Philip Gefter’s Cocktails with George and Martha for BookTrib.
Hamilton Cain reviewed Brad Gooch’s Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haringfor the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
NBCC lifetime member Heller McAlpin reviewed Tommy Orange’s Wandering Stars and Sloane Crosley’s Grief Is for People for NPR.
Douglas C. MacLeod, Jr. reviewed 10-Minute Balance Exercises for Seniorsfor the Feathered Quill.
Tiffany Troy reviewed 11 by Carlos Soto-Román, translated by Alexis Almeida, Daniel Beauregard, Daniel Borzutsky, Whitney DeVos, Patrick Greneay, Robin Myers, Jessica Pujol Duran, and Thomas Rothe, for RHINO Poetry.
Charles Green reviewed J.Q. Gagliastro’s The Diary of a Sugarbaby for BlueInk Review.
Brendan Driscoll wrote about Peter Nadas’ massive two-volume memoir, Shimmering Details, for The Millions.
Ricardo Santiago Soto reviewed Hughes Norton’s Rainmaker for The Journal for Innovation.
Kristen Martin reviewed Deborah Jackson Taffa’s Whiskey Tender for The Washington Post.
Jim Schley reviewed Major Jackson’s Razzle Dazzle: New and Selected Poems 2002–2022 for Seven Days.
Christoph Irmscher reviewed Lewis Carroll’s Guide for Insomniacs for The Wall Street Journal.
Nell Beram reviewed two books for Shelf Awareness: Cocktails with George and Martha: Movies, Marriage, and the Making of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” by Philip Gefter and Where They Lie by Claire Coughlan.
Lee Rossi reviewed Francesca Bell’s translation of the Max Sessner collection Whoever Drowned Here for RHINO Reviews.
Member Interviews
UCLA Extension interviewed Erik Gleibermann about his upcoming class, “Writing the Review.”
Sasha Vasilyuk spoke with Vanessa Chan about her debut novel, The Storm We Made, for BOMB.
On their podcast Across the Pond, former NBCC board member Lori Feathers and co-host Sam Jordison talk to legendary Australian author Alex Wright about her latest novel addressing aboriginal sovereignty, Praiseworthy. Sam and Lori also talk to Sebastián Martínez Daniell about his novel Two Sherpas, translated by Jennifer Croft and published by Charco Press, one of the 10 longlisted titles for the 2023 Republic of Consciousness Prize, US and Canada, honoring the work of small publishers
For their Book Cougars podcast, NBCC member Chris Wolak and Emily Fine spoke with Luanne Rice about her new novel, Last Night.
Carr Harkrader interviewed Jillian Danback-McGhan about her new book, Midwatch, for the Washington Independent Review of Books.
Elaine Szewczyk wrote a profile of Erik Larson for Publishers Weekly.
“typewriter” by Amy Ross is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.