Critical Notes

Roundup: Lauren Groff, Mary Karr, Salman Rushdie, Margo Jefferson, and more

By Carmela Ciuraru

Your reviews and recommendations help seed these roundups: If you’re an NBCC member with a review you’d like considered for inclusion, please email nbcccritics@gmail.com.

Marion Winik reviews Lauren Groff's “Fates and Furies” for Newsday.

Julia M. Klein reviews Erica Jong's “Fear of Dying” for the Chicago Tribune, John Norris for Columbia Journalism Review, and offers recommended fall reading in the Forward.

For the Boston Globe's “Fall Book Preview,” NBCC board member Jane Ciabattari on fiction, and NBCC board member Kate Tuttle on nonfiction.

Abby Nolan reviews “Most Dangerous” by Steve Sheinkin in the Washington Post.

Ellen Akins reviews Salman Rushdie for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

John Domini reviews Matt Bell for Bookforum.

Geoff Bendeck reviews Valeria Luiselli for Electric Literature, and Charles Bukowski for the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Diane Scharper reviews Jon Krakauer in the National Catholic Reporter.

Angie Jabine reviews Amy Stewart in the Oregonian.

Rebecca Hussey reviews Margo Jefferson and Mat Johnson.

Hope Reese reviews “In the Mind Fields” by Casey Schwartz, for the Chicago Tribune.

Lisa Russ Spaar's latest poetry review for her Second Acts column in the Los Angeles Review of Books. 

Laurie Hertzel reviews Mary Karr for the Star Tribune.

Anjali Enjeti reviews Salman Rushdie for ArtsATL.

Paul Wilner reviews “Fat City” by Leonard Gardner in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Gerald Bartell reviews Stephen Amidon in the Washington Post.

Joe Peschel reviews Lauren Groff's “Fates and Furies” in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Former NBCC president Art Winslow on Thomas Pynchon in Harper's.

Meredith Maran reviews Lauren Groff for the Chicago Tribune.

Diane Scarper reviews Mia Alvar's debut story collection in “America” magazine.

Elfrieda Abbe profiles Julianna Baggott (Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders) for Kirkus.

Laurie Hertzel profiles Faith Sullivan for the Star Tribune and rounds up the big books of the fall season.

Scott Porch interviews Tracy Daugherty (The Last Love Song: A Biography of Joan Didion) and Deborah Davis (The Trip: Andy Warhol's Plastic Fantastic Cross-Country Adventure) for Biographile.