Critical Notes

Reviews and More From NBCC Members

By Michael Schaub

Members and friends, we hope you’re enjoying the last days of spring, and getting in some good reading time! Our members definitely have been—they’ve been keeping busy with reviews of books by authors including Anne Carson, Rosalind Brown, Morgan Talty, James Lee Burke, and Amitava Kumar, and interviewing writers like Viet Thanh Nguyen, Andrew Porter, Kerry Howley, and Robin Sloan. Keep cool, stay safe, and as always, thanks for reading!

Member Reviews/Essays

Diana Heald reviewed Marisa Meltzer’s Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss’s Glossier for the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Samantha Neugebauer reviewed Anne Carson’s Wrong Norma for PRISM international

Carole V. Bell wrote about the novel Queenie and its new adaptation on Hulu, interviewing author turned showrunner Candice Carty-Williams and actress Dionne Brown.

NBCC lifetime member Fran Hawthorne reviewed Clare Sestanovich’s Ask Me Againfor the New York Journal of Books.

NBCC lifetime member Heller McAlpin reviewed Rosalind Brown’s Practice and Camille Bordas’ The Material for The Wall Street Journal. She also reviewed Jill Ciment’s Consent and Valerie Perrin’s Forgotten on Sunday for NPR.

Laura Johnsrude reviewed Jonathan Buckley’s Tellfor Good River Review.

Jenny Shank reviewed Tracy Chevalier’s The Glassmaker for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Rhoda Feng reviewed Madhumita Murgia’s Code Dependent for The Boston Globe.

Tamara MC wrote about undergoing surgery after a divorce for HuffPost.

Linda Hitchcok reviewed Monica Woods’ How to Read a Book for BookTrib.

Alex Gurtis reviewed Mike Nagel’s Culdesac for the Heavy Feather Review.

Hamilton Cain reviewed Zach Williams’ Beautiful Days for The Washington Post and Morgan Talty’s Fire Exit and Scott Preston’s The Borrowed Hillsfor the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and 

Diane Scharper reviewed American Bloods:The Untamed Dynasty That Shaped a Nation by John Kaag for the Washington Examiner.

Genanne Walsh reviewed Morgan Talty’s Fire Exit for the Portland Press Herald—Maine Sunday Telegram.

Britta Stromeyer wrote about Genevieve Kingston’s Did I Ever Tell You?, and talked to the author, for the Marin Independent Journal.

Clea Simon reviewed James Lee Burke’s Clete for The ArtsFuse.

Kristen Martin reviewed Cory Leadbeater’s The Uptown Local for The Washington Post.

Julia M. Klein reviewed Reuven Fenton’s Goyhood for the Forward.

Karl Wolff reviewed Juja, written by Nino Haratischvili and translated by Ruth Martin, for Translation Tuesdays at The Driftless Area Review.

Zack Graham reviewed Vinson Cunningham’s Great Expectationsfor the Literary Review.

Tom Peebles reviewed Wolfram Eilenberger’s The Visionaries: Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil and the Power of Philosophy in Dark Times on his blog.

Brian Tanguay reviewed My Beloved Life by Amitava Kumar for the California Review of Books.

Nell Beram reviewed two books for Shelf Awareness: Hollywood Pride: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Representation and Perseverance in Film by Alonso Duralde and Starring Joan Crawford: The Films, the Fantasy, and the Modern Relevance of a Silver Screen Icon by Samuel Garza Bernstein.

Bill Thompson reviewed Robert Kagan’s Rebellion: How Antiliberalism is Tearing American Apart—Again for the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Nicole Yurcaba reviewed Scott Dimovitz’s The Joy Divisions for the Heavy Feather Review.

For The Red Hook Star-Revue, Michael Quinn reviewed I Heard Her Call My Name by Lucy Sante.

Member Interviews

Grant Faulkner interviewed Viet Thanh Nguyen about the new TV show based on The Sympathizer for the Write-minded podcast. It was the 300th episode of the podcast, which has now had more than 1 million downloads. 

Laura Villareal interviewed Sandra Guzmán, editor of Daughters of Latin America: An International Anthology of Writing by Latine Women, for Kirkus Reviews, and talked to poet Miguel Avero and translator Jona Colson about Aguas/Waters in a bilingual interview for Letras Latinas Blog 2.

Chuck Augello interviewed Andrew Porter about his book The Disappeared for Identity Theory.   

Richard Scott Larson has recently done three interviews about his recently published memoir, The Long Hallway, for Full Stop, Write or Die magazine, and the show “Madison BookBeat” on WORT 89.9 FM. 

Rhoda Feng interviewed Kerry Howley for The Nation.

Terese Svoboda and Victoria’s former poet laureate John Barton discussed their most recent books of poetry, Theatrix: Poetry Plays and Lost Family, on Rob McLennan’s periodocities site. 

Lisa Peet interviewed Yxta Maya Murray about We Make Each Other Beautiful: Art, Activism, and the Law for Bloom.

In her Literary Hub conversation with Robin Sloan about his new novel Moonbound, NBCC Co-Vice President/Events Jane Ciabattari delved into the craft questions behind his highly unusual narrator, a “chronicler and counselor” combining the intimacy of first person, the suspenseful option of limited third person, and the scope of an omniscient third person.

Alex Gurtis interviewed author and Burrow Press publisher Ryan Rivas for Barrelhouse.

Member News

Molly Giles, winner of the 1991 Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, published her memoir Life Spanwith WTAW Press on June 4.

The Abduction (White Pine Press), Hélène Cardona’s translation of Maram Al-Masri, has been longlisted for the Julie Suk Award from Jacar Press.

Alex Gurtis published his debut chapbook, When the Ocean Comes to Me, with Bottlecap Press.

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