Critical Notes

Roundup: Maya Angelou, Tom Robbins, Colson Whitehead and a booklovers’ tribute to Brazilian lit

By Eric Liebetrau

Your reviews seed this roundup; please send items to NBCCCritics@gmail.com. Make sure to send links that do not require a subscription or username and password.

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Jan Alexander reviews David Adams Cleveland's Love's Attraction.

Meganne Fabrega highlights summer fiction titles in “Five novels you must read–and then ten more” for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Nicole Rudick reviews Bough Down, by Karen Green, who recently won the Believer Poetry Award.

In the Wall Street JournalRobert K. Landers reviews Fred Kaplan's John Quincy Adams.

Alexis Burling reviews Colson Whitehead's The Noble Hustle. She also reviews Evie Wyld's All the Birds, Singing. Also, Smith Henderson's Fourth of July Creek.

“A successful poem enlivens awareness of the world and unlocks the energy of life.” NBCC board member David Biespiel's latest Poetry Wire.

NBCC board member Jane Ciabattari's Between the Lines column for BBC.com gives a booklovers' guide to Brazilian literature in honor of the World Cup. Ciabattari also finds Lily King's Euphoria “atmospheric and sensual, with startling images throughout…an intellectually stimulating tour de force.”

David Cooper reviews Boris Fishman's A Replacement Life.

“There's so much mystery around Charles Portis that we're not even clear whether he’s alive.” Jay Jennings on the American author.

Jim Ruland reviews the latest from Geoff Dyer. He also reviews Aaron Burch's Backswing.

At BN.com, Daniel Asa Rose talks with Dyer about his new book.

NBCC board member Colette Bancroft reviews Tom Robbins' Tibetan Peach Pie.

Barbara Hoffert rounds up the responses to the passing of Maya Angelou.

NBCC board member Rigoberto González interviewed by PEN, as well as Lambda Literary. He also returns with his Small Press Spotlight.

“The colorful world of comics,” from Jan Gardner.

Rayyan Al-Shawaf reviews Tom Rachman's The Rise & Fall of Great Powers.