Critical Notes

Reviews From NBCC Members

By David Varno

Among the books covered in the past week are the much-touted debut from Temim Fruchter about queerness and Jewish family history, the explosive and widely reviewed satire by Lexi Frieman of a cancelled author who starts reading Ayn Rand, and poet Cynthia Zarin’s time-bending love story.

Reviews
 
Lauren LeBlanc reviewed Temim Fruchter’s debut novel, City of Laughter, for the New York Times.
 
Joan Frank reviewed Jill McCorkle’s Old Crimes for the Boston Globe.
 
Christoph Irmscher wrote about Walter Benjamin’s “Unpacking My Library” and rearranging author Max Eastman’s own library in an essay for On the Seawall.
 
Rebecca Morgan Frank and David Woo wrote a preview of 2024 poetry books for Literary Hub.
 
Cory Oldweiler reviewed Rebecca Boyle’s Our Moon for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
 
Former NBCC Board Member Mark Athitakis reviewed Cynthia Zarin’s novel Inverno for the Washington Post and Irene Graziosi’s novel The Other Profile, translated from the Italian by Lucy Rand, for On the Seawall.
 
Aviya Kushner reviewed In the Land of the Postscript: The Complete Short Stories of Chava Rosenfarb, by Chava Rosenfarb, translated by her daughter Goldie Morgentaler, for the Forward. 
 
Julia M. Klein discusses the process of dramatizing Lorene Cary’s memoir Ladysitting for the Pennsylvania Gazette.
 
Kristen Martin reviewed Katherine Min’s novel The Fetishist for NPR and wrote about Lexi Freiman’s novel The Book of Ayn for the New Republic
 
Douglas C. MacLeod, Jr. reviewed Robert Morgan’s Fallen Angel: The Life of Edgar Allan Poe for On the Seawall.
 
JoeAnn Hart reviewed Melanie Challenger’s How To Be Animal, A New History of What it Means to Be Human for EcoLit Books.
 
Ellen Prentiss Campbell writes about the work of Banana Yoshimoto in her latest column for the Washington Independent.
 
Nell Beram reviewed The Mayors of New York by S.J. Rozan; One of the Good Guys by Araminta Hall; and The Problem of the Wire Cage by John Dickson Carr for Shelf Awareness.
 
Aiden Hunt reviewed Arthur Russell’s At the Car Wash and CooXooEii Black’s The Morning You Saw a Train of Stars Streaking Across the Sky for the Philly Poetry Chapbook Review.
 
Chris Wolak reviewed Archives 101 by Lois Hamill in the latest issue of The American Archivist. 

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