Freinds, we hope you’re having a good December so far! Our critics have been busy with reviews of books by authors including Patricia Williams, Haruki Murakami, Kevin Anthony Brown, and Amy Schmiesing, and interviews with writers like Emily Witt, Musa al-Gharbi, and Geraldine Brooks. Stay safe, stay warm, and thanks for reading!
Member Reviews/Essays
Jennifer Carson reviewed Jason Steffen’s Hidden in the Heavens: How the Kepler Mission’s Quest for New Planets Changed How We View Our Own and Richard Panek’s Pillars of Creation: How the James Webb Telescope Unlocked the Secrets of the Cosmosfor Science.
Former NBCC board member Harriet Washington reviewed Patricia Wiliiams’ The Miracle of the Black Leg for The Lancet.
Michele Sharpe reviewed Chris La Tray’s memoir Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home at On the Seawall.
Cory Oldweiler wrote about Omar Khalifah’s Sand-Catcher, translated by Barbara Romaine, for The Boston Globe, and reviewed Haruki Murakami’s The City and Its Uncertain Walls, translated by Philip Gabriel, and Cary Groner’s The Way for The Minnesota Star Tribune.
For The Red Hook Star-Revue, Michael Quinn reviewed NBCC member Kevin Anthony Brown’s Countée Cullen’s Harlem Renaissance. Kevin’s book was previously reviewed by Shanta Lee in The Massachusetts Review.
Paul Wilner’s end of year book roundup for the Nob Hill Gazette includes books by NBCC board member Iris Jamahl Dunkle, Camille Peri, Michael Nott, August Kleinzahler, Sam Sax, Greil Marcus, Charlie Haas, Michael Goldberg, Joshua Mohr, Fabienne Josephat, Rachel Kushner, former NBCC board member Anita Felicelli, and Jonathan Evison.
Martha Anne Toll nominated and wrote about seven books for NPR’s 2024 Books We Love.
Tom Peebles reviewed Jane Ferguson’s No Ordinary Assignment: A Memoir on his personal blog.
Jason Berry reviewed Patsy McGarry’s Well, Holy God: My Life as an Irish, Catholic, Agnostic Correspondentfor the National Catholic Reporter.
Bill Thompson reviewed The Brothers Grimm: A Biography by Amy Schmiesing and It’s A Gas: The Magnificent Elements That Expand Our World by Mark Miodownik for the Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier.
Member Interviews
DW McKinney talked to literary agents, editors, and publishers of color about their experiences in the publishing industry for Publishers Weekly.
Grant Faulkner interviewed New Yorker staff reporter Emily Witt about her latest memoir, Health and Safety, and her foray into the intersections between drugs and art, for the Write-minded podcast.
Michael Quinn talked to The New York Times about finding holiday inspiration in Beat poet Diane di Prima’s Dinners and Nightmares.
Dan Kois interviewed Vincenzo Barney for Slate.
Adam M. Lowenstein spoke with the sociologist Musa al-Gharbi, author of We Have Never Been Woke, for Anand Giridharadas’s newsletter, The Ink.
Elaine Szewczyk profiled Geradline Brooks for Publishers Weekly.
Ryan Asmussen interviewed Richard Higgins for the Chicago Review of Books.
Member News
Nicholas Birns was named a Corresponding Fellow of the Australian Academy for the humanities.
Rebecca Foust’s new book, YOU ARE LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR: Love Poems, probes the parallels between America’s emerging political landscape and George Orwell’s totalitarian dystopia in 1984, asking whether love can be an effective act of resistance. Rebecca’s poems “Grounds for Dissolution” and “Parallax” won first place for the 2024 James Dickey Prize (Five Points), and another poem, “Polaris,” won first place for the Telluride Institute’s 2024 Cantor Fischer Prize.
Former NBCC board member Rod Davis presented a panel discussion on “The Stress of Human Bondage and Love in Post-War Occupational Settings” as a key narrative factor in his Korea-based novel, The Life of Kim and the Behavior of Men, at the 67th Annual Conference of American Studies Association of Texas (ASAT), a regional chapter of the American Studies Association, Nov.14-16 at Midwestern State University.
“Cat in Berlin” by Yukiko Matsuoka is licensed under CC BY 2.0.