Critical Notes

Sunday Roundup 1

By NBCC

The line to get a seat at the April 11 symposiums celebrating Philip Roth’s 75th birthday snaked a block up Broadway at Columbia University’s Miller Theater. NBCC member Bob Hoover of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette used that time-honored dodge of asking. “Where’s the press table?” to get in. His report appeared today.

NBCC board member Mary Ann Gwinn, book editor of the Seattle Times, talks to Michael Gruber about his new thriller, “The Forgery of Venus.”

NBCC board member Jennifer Reese gives Germaine Greer’s “Shakespeare’s Wife” a B+.

Over at insidehighered.com, NBCC board member Scott McLemee writers about wrapping up his review for Bookforum of Francois Cusset’s “French Theory,” only to learn that Stanley Fish had just published a column on the book in the NY Times….

NBCC member David Shankbone talks to Eric Bogosian about writing and the creative urge.

NBCC member Ed Park devotes his Astral Weeks column in the LA Times to Cory Doctorow’s new novel about a hacker, “Little Brother.” 

Poets Tracy K. Smith, Alex Lemon, Brenda Shaughnessy, and Ilya Kaminsky discusse “The Narrow Road to Watershed”: A Panel on First Books, Sunday afternoon, April 27,at the Sarah Lawrence Poetry festival.