Critical Notes

“This low-key memoir is a modest dish.” Heller McAlpin on Kate Christensen's Blue Plate Special. For the Miami Herald, Kit Reed reviews Margaret Atwood's Maddaddam. “Long at Helm, U.T. Collector Leaves

Joe Peschel reviews Rick Bass's novel, All the Land to Hold Us, in the Boston Globe. For Bookforum, John Domini reviews Joseph McElroy's latest novel Cannonball. He also reviews Peter Dimock's novel George

Albert Murray, a recipient of the NBCC’s Sandrof Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1996, died earlier this month at 97. The Oxford American published Walton Muyumba’s “The Blues Hero in

“She was hardly the only science fiction writer of her day to craft beautiful sentences, but she was (as her peers recognized) one of the best…” Stephen Burt on Alice

In the New York Journal of Books, George De Stefano reviews Thomas Glave's Among the Bloodpeople. Julia M. Klein reviews Christine Montross's Falling into the Fire for the Boston Globe.

Please note that there will be no roundup today. We will return with a double edition on Monday, 8/12.

Marion Winik reviews David Rakoff's Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish in Newsday. In the New York Journal of Books, David Cooper reviews Burt Kimmelman's Gradually the World: New and

2013 PEN Literary Awards littered with NBCC connections. “When a loved one dies, people rarely get time to grieve fully, or find words to express its strange reality.” Matthew Jakubowski

Entertainment Weekly calls 2012 NBCC Fiction Award winner Ben Fountain's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk one of the 100 greatest books ever. San Francisco Chronicle books editor John McMurtrie interviews

School Library Journal associate book reviews editor Chelsey Philpot reviews three young adult novels the Boston Globe. She also compiles a recommended list of YA summer reading. NBCC board member Elizabeth