Friends, we hope you’re having a good January! Last week, we announced the finalists for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Awards. We hope you’ll join us at the awards ceremony, either in person or virtually, on March 20—you can get tickets here. Thanks so much, and as always, thanks for reading!
Member Reviews/Essays
Sheila McClear reviewed Pagan Kennedy’s The Secret History of the Rape Kit for The Atlantic.
Former NBCC board member Steve Paul published the second part of a two-part column connecting art, poetry, and American history in KC Studio magazine. For the same publication, he reviewed James Mangold’s Bob Dylan movie, A Complete Unknown.
Bridget Quinn reviewed Esther Chadwick’s The Radical Print: Art and Politics in Late Eighteenth-Century Britain for Hyperallergic.
Ron Slate reviewed I’ll Come to You by Rebecca Kauffman, Paradise Close by Lisa Russ Spaar, and Blue Light Hours by Bruna Dantas Lobato in “Book Notes: Novels” for On The Seawall.
Carol Iaciofano Aucoin reviewed We Do Not Part, written by Han Kang and translated from the Korean by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris, for WBUR’s Arts & Culture.
Former NBCC board member and Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing recipient Steven G. Kellman reviewed Anne Tyler’s Three Days in June for Arts Alive San Antonio.
Jessica Gigot reviewed Todd Davis’ Ditch Memory for EcoTheo.
For her inaugural bimonthly translation spotlight column at The Arts Fuse, former NBCC board member Tess Lewis reviewed The Homeland’s an Ocean, written by Mir Taqi Mir and translated from the Urdu by Ranjit Hoskote; Birds, Beasts and a World Made New: Guillaume Apollinaire and Velimir Khlebnikov, edited and translated from the French and Russian by Robert Chandler; and The Oceans of Cruelty: Twenty-five Tales of a Corpse Spirit, a retelling of the ancient Sanskrit Vetāla Panchavimshati story cycle, by Douglas J. Penick.
Maryanne Hannan reviewed A Whole Life in Twelve Movies: A Cinematic Journey to a Deeper Spirituality by Gareth Higgins and Kathleen Norris for National Catholic Reporter.
Linda Hitchcock reviewed Peter Lovesey’s Against the Grain and John Straley’s Big Breath In for BookTrib.
For The Red Hook Star-Revue, Michael Quinn reviewed the reissue of Peter Hujar’s groundbreaking photography collection, Portraits in Life and Death.
Olga Zilberbourg reviewed The Lady of the Mine, written by Sergei Lebedev and translated from the Russian by Antonina W. Bouis, for On the Seawall.
Cory Oldweiler reviewed Underground Barbie, written by Maša Kolanović and translated from the Croatian by Ena Selimović, for Words Without Borders.
Former NBCC board member Mark Athitakis reviewed Tom Lamont’s Going Home for The Washington Post and Thomas Dai’s Take My Name but Say It Slow for On the Seawall.
Nell Beram reviewed four books for Shelf Awareness: Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney, How to Sleep at Night by Elizabeth Harris, The Last Word by Elly Griffiths, and Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett.
Robert Rubsam reviewed We Do Not Part, written by Han Kang and translated from the Korean by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris, for Vulture.
Laurie Stone wrote about Edmund White’s The Loves of My Life for Everything Is Personal.
Heather Treseler reviewed Vidyan Ravinthiran’s Asian/Other: Life, Poems, and the Problem of Memoir for On the Seawall.
Hannah Joyner reviewed Bright Circle: Five Remarkable Women in the Age of Transcendentalism by Randall Fuller for Open Letters Review.
Heller McAlpin reviewed David Wright Faladé’s The New Internationals for The Wall Street Journal.
Member Interviews
Tiffany Troy interviewed poet Hadara Bar-Nadav about her collection The Animal is Chemical for The Los Angeles Review‘s double feature, which also includes Shannon Vare Christine’s review. Tiffany also interviewed Dorothea Lasky about her poetry collection The Shining and editing Essays for Tupelo Quarterly.
NBCC Vice President/Online Michael Schaub interviewed Grady Hendrix for Kirkus Reviews.
Member News
Rebecca Brenner Graham’s first book, Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins’s Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany was published on Jan. 21 by Kensington. Rebecca has many bookstore talks coming up, including Lost City on Jan. 23, Politics & Prose on Jan. 26, People’s Book on Jan. 29, Brown University Bookstore on Feb. 5, Barrington Books on Feb. 6, and Bards Alley on March 1. Sara Georgini interviewed Rebecca for Smithsonian Magazine.
Jon Davis’ album with Greg Glazner and the poetics-of-rock band Clap the Houses Dark launched on all streaming platforms on Nov. 4. His new book of poetry, Fearless Now & Nameless, is forthcoming from Grid Books on April 8. He was interviewed by Nancy Mitchell for the February issue of Plume.