Members and friends, we hope you’re all having a good fall so far and getting in some good reading time! We’d like to invite all of you to a special event coming in just two days: Our board member Mandana Chaffa, Vice President of the Barrios Book in Translation Prize, is set to talk with Maureen Freely, translator of Cold Nights of Childhood by Tezer Özlü, winner of the 2023 Barrios Prize. This event will be on Zoom on Wednesday, Oct. 9, at 6:30 p.m. Eastern—registration is required; you can do so here.
We’ve got some more exciting events coming later this month. We’ll be hosting a wide-ranging interactive roundtable conversation about the future of book criticism at Litquake in San Francisco on Friday, Oct. 25, at 7 p.m. Pacific. Then we’re headed to Massachusetts for the Boston Book Festival, where we’ll be hosting a panel in celebration of our 50th anniversary, on Saturday, Oct. 26, at 11:30 a.m. Eastern.
We’d also like to remind you that we’re still accepting submissions for the NBCC Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing! Find more information about the award here. Submissions must be entered at Submittable before midnight Pacific on Monday, Dec. 2.
Finally, we’re looking for member volunteers to help with the NBCC Awards Finalists Reading on March 19, 2025, as well as the Awards Ceremony and the reception on March 20. If you’ll be in New York and would like to help, email our Co-Vice Presidents of Awards, Iris Jamahl Dunkle and Christoph Irmscher, at awards@bookcritics.org. We’re also looking for sponsors for the awards events and livestream. If you would like to help with sponsorships, we’d love to hear from you!
Member Reviews/Essays
NBCC Co-Vice President/Events Lauren LeBlanc reviewed Sally Rooney’s Intermezzofor The Boston Globe.
Susan Bernofsky reviewed Fatma Aydemir’s novel Djinns, translated by Jon Cho-Polizzi, as an online feature of The Baffler.
Heller McAlpin reviewed Rumaan Alam’s Entitlement for The Wall Street Journal.
Michael Bobelian reviewed David Brock’s Stench: The Making of the Thomas Court and the Unmaking of Americafor The Washington Post.
NBCC board member David Woo wrote about seven poetry books, including titles by Janice N. Harrington, Jennifer Chang, and Idra Novey, for Literary Hub.
Cory Oldweiler wrote about Monica Cure’s translation of Liliana Corobca’s Too Great a Skyfor Words Without Borders, and about two Andrés Neuman books, Sensitive Anatomy and Once Upon Argentina, both translated by Nick Caistor and Lorenza García, for Southwest Review. He also reviewed Antonia Lloyd-Jones’s translation of Olga Tokarczuk’s The Empusiumfor The Boston Globe.
Linda Hitchcock reviewed Agnes Sharp and the Trip of a Lifetime, written by Leonie Swann and translated by Amy Bojang, and The Third Wife of Faraday House by B.R. Myers for BookTrib.
For Southwest Review, former board member Lori Feathers wrote about the latest novel by Argentine writer Claudia Pineiro, Time of the Flies, translated by Frances Riddle.
Ron Slate reviewed The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Savaş and Overstaying by Ariane Koch, translated by Damion Searls, for On The Seawall.
Carol Iaciofano Aucoin reviewed Louise Erdrich’s The Mighty Red for WBUR’s Arts & Culture.
Jake Casella Brookins reviewed James S.A. Corey’s The Mercy of Gods for Typebar Magazine.
Nell Beram reviewed two books for Shelf Awareness: Charles Bock’s I Will Do Better: A Father’s Memoir of Heartbreak, Parenting, and Love and Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Sequel.
Member Interviews
Eric Olson profiled Chuck Palahniuk for The Seattle Times.
Elizabeth Lund interviewed Ajibola Tolase, winner of the 2024 Cave Canem Prize, for The Christian Science Monitor, and January Gill O’Neil about her new book, Glitter Road, for Poetic Lines.
Anne Charles interviewed Patrick Horrigan about his novel American Scholar for the cable access show All Things LGBTQ.
Former NBCC board member Anita Felicelli interviewed Laura van den Berg for ZYZZYVA.
Grant Faulkner interviewed Anne Lamott for the Write-minded podcast.
Benjamin Woodard interviewed Sarah Seltzer about her debut novel, The Singer Sisters, for CRAFT.
Member News
Elizabeth Rosner was interviewed by Elizabeth McNeill for the Chicago Review of Books.
On Oct. 14, Britta Stromeyer will be in conversation with Nico Lang for their new book American Teenager: How Trans Kids Are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era. This event is co-sponsored by the Mill Valley Public Library among a number of other organizations.
JoeAnn Hart’s new novel, Arroyo Circle, was published by Green Writers Press on Oct. 1. The book explores the role of humanity and late-stage capitalism on earth’s environmental degradation through a story of hoarding, homelessness, and hope.