Members and friends, as we count down to our NBCC Awards Ceremony on March 20, and in celebration of our 50th anniversary, we’re posting statements and videos from former NBCC Awards finalists and winners, as well as former and current NBCC board members, on our Instagram account. Please do check out these talented writers discussing what the NBCC means to them!
We’re also excited to announce a new members-only discount! You can now save 25% off a digital subscription to The Atlantic. Your subscription includes unlimited articles, the Atlantic app, newsletters, podcasts, puzzles, and more, all for just $1.15 a week. Click here to subscribe.
Member Reviews/Essays
Former NBCC board member and recipient of the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing Scott McLemee concluded his “Intellectual Affairs” column at Inside Higher Ed, reflecting on 20 years of writing about scholarly books.
Incoming NBCC board member Wadzanai Mhute reviewed Laila Lalami’s The Dream Hotel for The Boston Globe.
Robert Rubsam wrote about Elon Musk, technology, AI slop, and Liz Pelly’s Mood Machine for Liberties.
NBCC President Heather Scott Partington wrote about Highway 99 towns and Manuel Muñoz’s The Consequences for Alta‘s California Book Club.
Ryan Chapman wrote about the six novels on the Booker Prize shortlist for The Sewanee Review.
Former NBCC board member and recipient of the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing Steven G. Kellman reviewed Lawrence Wright’s The Human Scale for Arts Alive San Antonio.
Michael O’Donnell wrote about the history of the private library for The Wall Street Journal.
Former NBCC board member Anita Felicelli reviewed Laila Lalami’s The Dream Hotel for the Los Angeles Times.
Dan Kois wrote about Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius for its 25th anniversary for Slate.
For the New English Review, Kevin Anthony Brown published an essay-review of six Jean Giono titles, reissued by Archipelago Books and New York Review Books Classics, and translated by Paul Eprile, Jody Gladding and Bill Johnston: Fragments of a Paradise; Ennemonde; The Open Road; Occupation Journal; Melville: A Novel; and Hill.
Robert Allen Papinchak reviewed Canoes, written by Maylis de Kerangal and translated from the French by Jessica Moore, for World Literature Today.
Diane Josefowicz reviewed Living in Your Light by Abdellah Taïa, translated from the French by Emma Ramadan, for Necessary Fiction.
Aiden Hunt reviewed The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective by Steven Johnson and The Black Box: Writing the Race by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. for NewPages.
Brian Tanguay reviewed Brittany Friedman’s Carceral Apartheid for the California Review of Books.
Linda Hitchcock reviewed Josef Lewkowicz and Michael Calvin’s The Survivor for BookTrib.
JoeAnn Hart reviewed Year of Plenty: A Family’s Season of Grief by B.J. Hollars for Terrain.org.
Claude Peck wrote about Hang On St. Christopher by Adrian McKinty for The Minnesota Star Tribune.
Nicole Yurcaba reviewed Timothy Schaffert’s The Titanic Survivors Book Club for Heavy Feather Review.
Nell Beram reviewed two books for Shelf Awareness: Becoming Spectacular: The Rhythm of Resilience from the First African American Rockette by Jennifer Jones and The Profiler by Helen Fields.
Michael Quinn reviewed poet Ben Grossberg’s debut novel, The Spring Before Obergefell, for The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide.
Member Interviews
Elaine Szewczyk profiled Lydia Millet for Publishers Weekly.
Sasha Vasilyuk spoke with Yaroslav Trofimov about his novel, No Country for Love, for the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Paul Wilner interviewed New York Times movie critic Alissa Wilkinson about her latest, We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine, for the Nob Hill Gazette.
NBCC Vice President/Barrios Book in Translation Prize Mandana Chaffa interviewed Anton Hur about his novel Toward Eternity for Words Without Borders, and Aria Aber about her novel Good Girl for The Brooklyn Rail.
Grant Faulkner interviewed Jean Kwok about writing thrillers with complex literary structures for the Write-minded podcast.
Dan Kois talked to Andrew Lipstein about bad reviews for 0s&1s.
NBCC Vice President/Online Michael Schaub talked to Corinna Vallianatos about Origin Stories for the Orange County Register.
Member News
Clea Simon’s upcoming psychological suspense novel, The Butterfly Trap, was reviewed by Booklist, which said, “The theme of fear and control in a relationship emerges in Simon’s tense, slow-burn latest, along with the exploration of the many ways two people can deceive each other.” Clea will be celebrating the book’s release at Harvard Book Store in discussion with Nina MacLaughlin on March 4 at 7 p.m.
The paperback edition of Ryan Chapman’s The Audacitywill be published on March 4 by Soho Press. Ryan was recently longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize.
Diane Josefowicz is now Senior Editor for Translation at The Adroit Journal. To join her team, apply here.