Critical Notes

Roundup: Dave Eggers, Orson Scott Card, and plenty of love for Nobel winner Alice Munro

By Eric Liebetrau

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

***********************************

NBCC board member Carolyn Kellogg examines the L.A. Times reviews of recent Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro.

Hector Tobar on Alice Munro.

Hope Reese reviews NBA-winner Jesmyn Ward's memoir, Men We Reaped. For the Harvard Review, Reese reviews Gideon Lewis-Kraus' A Sense of Direction. And LISTEN to Reese interview Clive Thompson, author of Smarter Than You Think.

“Out Of Lahiri's Muddy Lowland, An Ambitious Story Soars.” Maureen Corrigan on the acclaimed author's latest.

Julia M. Klein reviews Jill Lepore's Book of Ages for the Boston Globe. She also reviews Wendy Lower's Hitler's Furies for Chicago TribuneAnd she reviews Marianne Szegedy-Maszak's I Kiss Your Hands Many Times for the Jewish Daily Forward.

Robert Darnton on why books are important.

Michele Filgate: “Dave Eggers made me quit Twitter.”

In the Jewish Daily ForwardErika Dreifus reviews Orly Castel-Bloom's Textile (translated by Dalya Bilu). On her own blog, Erika chronicles a recent evening at New York's Symphony Space that focused on Etgar Keret and his work.

Heller McAlpin reviews Graeme Simsion's first novel, The Rosie Project. She also explores Malcolm Gladwell's latest.

LISTEN: Slate and David Haglund discuss Orson Scott Card's sci-fi classic, Ender's Game, and its upcoming film adaptation.

NBCC board member Colette Bancroft reviews Jayne Anne Phillips' Quiet Dell.

Marion Winik dismantles the new Bridget Jones novel.

Michael Leong reviews Lytle Shaw's new study Fieldworks: From Place to Site in Postwar Poetics. He also reevaluates Stephanie Strickland and Cynthia Lawson Jaramillo's digital poem V: Vniverse.

Former NBCC member and Granta editor “John Freeman's Five Best Books of Criticism.”

“Andre Dubus III explores messy relationships in four lightly interlocked (and lightly melodramatic) stories.” NBCC board member Mark Athitakis on the novelist's new book.