Critical Notes

Nell Zink, David McCullough, Oliver Sacks, Heidi Julavits, Steven Millhauser, & more

By Eric Liebetrau

Your reviews seed this roundup; please send items, including new about your new publications and recent honors, to NBCCCritics@gmail.com. Make sure to send links that do not require a subscription or username and password.

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“Looking for a brainy yet breezy novel that addresses gender, race, and class issues with levity and has a happy ending? Try Nell Zink’s Mislaid, her second published novel following her critically well-received debut The Wallcreeper in 2014″–from a book review by David Cooper.

Alexandra Schwartz also reviews Zink's new novel.

Heller McAlpin reviews David McCullough's “The Wright Brothers.” She also reviews Oliver Sacks' memoir, in addition to Lucas Mann's “Lord Fear.”

Charles Twardy also weighs in on McCullough's new biography.

Mike Lindgren reviews “The Richard Peabody Reader.”

NBCC board member and autobiography chair Joanna Scutts reviews Heidi Julavits' scrambled diary “The Folded Clock” for the Washington Post.

Don Waters reviews new story collections by Steven Millhauser, Jonathan Lethem, and Luis Alberto Urrea for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Morris Dickstein reflects on the writing of his memoir.

Janette Currie reviews Matthew Pearl's “The Last Bookaneer.”

“Earthly gossip and heavenly voices”: three reviews by Diane Scharper.

NBCC board member Eric Liebetrau reviews Craig Lambert's “Shadow Work.”

Elizabeth Rosner reviews “The Empire of the Senses,” by Alexis Landau.

Karl Wolff reviews “The Strange Case of the Rickety Cossack,” by Ian Tattersall at The Driftless Area Review.

American literary critic and classical scholar Daniel Mendelsohn in conversation with acclaimed Australian writer David Malouf.

Chris Barsanti reviews Neal Stephenson's “Sevenes.”

Rachel Shteir reviews “The Argonauts” by Maggie Nelson.