This year’s Balakian winner, Ron Charles, handicaps the National Book Critics Circle fiction awards, to be announced next Thursday evening, March 23, at the New School. Meanwhile, finalist M. Glenn Taylor makes news with his second novel.
Balakian winner Wyatt Mason calls D.T. Max’s New Yorker piece on David Foster Wallace “a very sensitive job,” gives the Tennyson poem referenced by the title of Wallace’s last novel, “The Pale King.”
Author of the Havana Quartet, Leonardo Padura’s Top 10 Cuban Novels.
Steve Paul revels in the writing of the late A.J. Liebling on the Kansas City Star book blog.
NBCC board member Celia McGee on Geoffrey Rush’s coming to Broadway as “the decrepit Energizer Bunny of a royal destined to die by play’s end despite his best efforts not t” in Ionesco’s “Exit the King.”
Clark Blaise passes along this commentary on the end of the Washington Post Book World from the Toronto Globe and Mail.
Los Angeles Times Festival of the Book, with awards, coming up April 24, with NBCC board member David L. Ulin as emcee.
NBCC board member Rebecca Skloot discovers Maud Newton’s blog is on Amazon @ .99/reader/month.
Adam Kirsch on Samuel Johnson, professional writer:“Money made him do it.”
NBCC board member Rigoberto Gonzalez reads Friday night at Gemini Ink in San Antonio. (Shout-out to the incredible Rosemary Catacalos.)