Critical Notes

Reviews and More From NBCC Members

By Michael Schaub


Friends, later this week, we’ll be celebrating our 50th anniversary at an in-person event at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Dweck Center on Thursday, Nov. 21, at 7 p.m. Eastern. Join NBCC board members past and present, including Michele Filgate, Maris Kreizman, David Varno, Jo Livingstone, Tobias Carroll, and others, who will discuss the borough’s impact on books and criticism over the decades. We hope to see you there!

Member Reviews/Essays

NBCC Emerging Critics Fellow Hannah Bonner wrote about Another Gaze Editions’ edition of Marguerite Duras’ My Cinema, translated by Daniella Shreir, for Senses of Cinema.

Costa Beavin Pappas wrote about the contemporary art exhibition at the Pyramids of Giza for Artsy.

Marcie Geffner reviewed Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King, for the Washington Independent Review of Books.

NBCC Vice President/Barrios Book in Translation Prize Mandana Chaffa wrote about Selim Temo’s Nightlands, translated by Zêdan Xelef and Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse and edited by Öykü Tekten, for Words Without Borders.

Randall Mann published two essays: “On Contempt: I Want to Be Liked” in Poetry, and “Rereading May Swenson” in On the Seawall.

Cory Oldweiler wrote about Nada Gašić’s Water, Spiderweb, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursać, for On the Seawall.

Jay Rogoff has a new essay, “Race, Taste, and Fred Astaire,” in the Fall-Winter issue of Salmagundi, nos. 224-225, whose theme is “On Taste.” He examines “Bojangles of Harlem,” Astaire’s only blackface number, from the 1936 Astaire-Rogers musical Swing Time.

Brian Tanguay reviewed Money, Lies, and God by Katherine Stewart for the California Review of Books.

Jake Casella Brookins reviewed Manuela Draeger’s Kree for Locus.

Lanie Tankard reviewed The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World by Christine Rosen for On the Seawall.

Chris Barsanti reviewed four graphic novels for The Minnesota Star Tribune.

Nell Beram reviewed four books for Shelf Awareness: The Author’s Guide to Murder by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White; Does This Taste Funny?: Recipes Our Family Loves by Stephen Colbert and Evie McGee Colbert; How Women Made Music: A Revolutionary History From NPR Music, edited by Alison Fensterstock; and River of Books by Donna Seaman.

Former NBCC board member and recipient of the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing Steven G. Kellman reviewedA Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa for Arts Alive San Antonio.

Randy Cepuch reviewed Carson the Magnificentby Bill Zehme with Mike Thomas for the Washington Independent Review of Books.

Priscilla Gilman reviewed The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami for The Boston Globe.

Melissa Holbrook Pierson reviewed Selected Amazon Reviews by Kevin Killian for The Washington Post and An Image of My Name Enters America by Lucy Ives for On the Seawall.

Member Interviews

Elaine Szewczyk profiled Grady Hendrix for Publishers Weekly.

Eric Olson profiled Neal Stephenson for Literary Hub.

For BOMB, Farooz Rather talked to Joseph O’Neill about his new novel, Godwin. The two talked about cricket, colonialism, and the characters sparring with the political exigencies of our time.

For her Literary Hub column, NBCC Co-Vice President/Events Jane Ciabattari talked craft with Marguerite Sheffer, whose The Man in the Banana Trees won the Iowa Short Fiction Award.

Former NBCC board member Anita Felicelli profiled Lydia Kiesling and Lilliam Rivera for Alta.

Jake Casella Brookins talked to Shinjini Dey, critic and essayist, about Leena Krohn’s novel Tainaron, translated by Hildi Hawkins, for the podcast A Meal of Thorns.

Hollay Ghadery interviewed debut author Adelle Purdham about her new collection of personal essays, I Don’t Do Disability and Other Lies I’ve Told Myself, for the Creative Nonfiction Collective.

Grant Faulkner interviewed Elizabeth Rosner about her new book Third Ear, a hybrid memoir that explores listening—as a practice, as an experience, as something that interacts with our writing.

NBCC Vice President/Online Michael Schaub interviewed Esinam Bediako for the Orange County Register.

Member News

NBCC board member Jacob M. Appel’s latest poetry collection, The View from the Curb, was published by Unsolicited Press.

Other News

The application deadline for the MFA in Creative Writing at The New School is approaching. Submit your materials by the preferred due date of Jan. 15. Our friends at The New School have tracks in Arts Writing, Writing for Children and Young Adults, Poetry, Nonfiction, and Fiction. 

“underwood keys” by feric80537 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.