Critical Notes

Roundup: Alice McDermott, top fall books, and a whole lot of Thomas Pynchon

By Eric Liebetrau

NBCC board member Jane Ciabattari reviews Valerie Miner's Traveling with Spirits.

“The best bad book on Salinger ever written.” Paul Wilner reviews the new Salinger bio.

Gerald Bartell interviews mystery author James R. Benn for Kirkus.

Andrew Ervin reviews Thomas Pynchon's Bleeding Edge for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He has also sold his debut novel Burning Down George Orwell's House to Soho Press.

For the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, new NBCC member Julie Hakim Azzam reviews Edwidge Danticat's new novel.

Jan Gardner reviews Dale Peterson's Giraffe Reflections.

For the Virginia Quarterly Review, Tess Taylor explores the process of launching her first book.

Looking at The O. Henry Prize Stories 2013. NBCC board member David L. Ulin examines this year's collection.

LISTEN: Hope Reese speaks with Mahzarin Banaji, co-author of Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People. She also talks to Rosalind Wiseman about her new book, Masterminds and Wingmen.

Roxana Robinson reviews Someone, the latest novel by Alice McDermott.

“In Someone, an ordinary life becomes extraordinary.” Carmela Ciuraru also reviews McDermott's new novel.

NBCC board member Carolyn Kellogg presents literary links for 9/11. She also reviews Thomas Pynchon's latest novel.

In the New Republic, Adam Kirsch takes on Pynchon's new novel.

Craig Seligman also chimes in.

Joelle Biele reviews David Kirby's The Biscuit Joint at Harvard Review.

NBCC board member Steven G. Kellman reviews Dara Horn's A Guide for the Perplexed.

For The Forward's “Arty Semite” blog, Erika Dreifus pays tribute to Bernard Malamud's The German Refugee on the 50th anniversary of the story's publication in the Saturday Evening Post.

Steve Weinberg reviews the food memoir Biting Through the Skin: An Indian Kitchen in America's Heartland by Nina Mukerjee Furstenau for the Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul.

WATCH: NBCC board members David L. Ulin and Carolyn Kellogg discuss the top books of the fall season.

Katherine A. Powers on Ring Lardner in the Barnes and Noble Review.

Heller McAlpin reviews Tom Perrotta's first book of short stories in two decades.

“In the devastating To Be a Friend Is Fatal, Kirk W. Johnson focuses on…the abandonment of Iraqis who worked — often as interpreters — with the US Army and its affiliates.” Rayyan Al-Shawaf reviews Johnson's book.

 

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Your reviews seed this roundup, please send items to NBCCCritics@gmail.com.