Members and friends, we hope you’re doing well! Our members have been busy this past week with reviews of books by authors including Claire Hoffman, Jennifer Weiner, Paul Elie, Tash Aw, and Paula Bomer, and interviews with writers such as Mia You, Sanam Mahloudji, Vauhini Vara, and Honor Jones. Take care, and as always, thanks for reading!
Member Reviews/Essays
Ryan Teitman reviewed Rosalie Moffett’s Making a Living for the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Julia Flynn Siler reviewed David Rooney’s The Big Hop for The Wall Street Journal‘s Best of Summer Books section.
Shara Lessley published “Let Me Whisper in Your Ear: A Craft Essay” on disclosure and creative nonfiction for The Cincinnati Review.
Ann Fabian reviewed Sister, Sinner: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson by Claire Hoffman for The National Book Review.
Edna Bonhomme wrote a short article for the British magazine The Big Issue, in which she discussed her book, A History of the World in Six Plagues, and what we can learn from studying epidemics.
Linda Hitchcock reviewed Jennifer Weiner’s The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits and Gabe Henry’s Enough Is Enuf for BookTrib.
Diane Scharper reviewed Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin by Sue Prideaux for the Washington Examiner.
Nell Beram reviewed two books for Shelf Awareness: Hollywood High: A Totally Epic, Way Opinionated History of Teen Movies by Bruce Handy and The Labyrinth House Murders, written by Yukito Ayatsuji and translated from the Japanese by Ho-Ling Wong.
Cha published “The Telos of Toil: Reading Weike Wang’s Joan Is Okay Through Labour and Identity” by Tiffany Troy.
Daneet Steffens wrote about mysteries and thrillers coming out this summer for The Boston Globe.
Former NBCC board member Mark Athitakis reviewed Paul Elie’s The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s for The Washington Post.
For Defector, Sebastian Stockman wrote about his experiences as the pronouncer for the Boston Spelling Bee.
Sean Carlson reviewed singer-songwriter Mirah’s recent living-room concert in Providence for Rhode Island’s alt-monthly Motif magazine.
Heller McAlpin reviewed Tash Aw’s The South for The New York Times and Jessica Stanley’s Consider Yourself Kissed for NPR.
Heather Treseler reviewed Willard Spiegelman’s biography Nothing Stays Put: The Life and Art of Amy Clampitt for North American Review.
Terese Svoboda reviewed Molly Giles’ Lifespan and Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book for The Common.
Jonathan Marks reviewed Sophia Rosenfeld’s The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life for The Bulwark and Agnes Callard’s Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life for Frontiers of American Reaction for Illiberalism.
Tom Peebles wrote about Clare MacCumhall and Rachell Wiseman’s Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life on his blog.
Zelda-Zerkel Morris recommended books about labor, labor organizing, and the real origins of May Day for The National Book Review.
Joan Silverman reviewed Richard Russo’s Life and Artfor The Portland Press Herald.
Robert Allen Papinchak reviewed Sarah Pinborough’s domestic thriller We Live Here Now for Shelf Awareness.
NBCC Vice President/Online Michael Schaub reviewed Paula Bomer’s The Stalkerfor NPR.
Member Interviews
Laura Wetherington interviewed Mia You about her new poetry collection, Festival, for the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Mandana Chaffa, NBCC’s Vice President of the Barrios Book in Translation Prize and Co-Vice President of Membership, interviewed Sanam Mahloudji about her novel The Persians for Electric Literature.
Grant Faulkner interviewed Vauhini Vara on Memoir Nation. Vara’s new book, Searches, explores our online footprints, how technology shapes us, and how we both exploit and get exploited by big tech—like Google, YouTube, and social media companies.
Sasha Vasilyuk spoke with Boris Fishman about his novel The Unwanted for the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Paul Wilner interviewed novelist/translator Caro De Robertis about So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer and Two-Spirit People of Color for the Nob Hill Gazette.
For her Literary Hub column, NBCC Co-Vice President/Events Jane Ciabattari discussed the lasting effect of childhood trauma with Honor Jones, author of Sleep.
Member News
Sasha Vasilyuk is the winner of the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature for her novel Your Presence Is Mandatory (Bloomsbury).
NBCC Vice President/Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Marie Myung-Ok Lee delivered the convocation address at Carleton College and talked about how her parents being undocumented immigrants, solely due to Asian exclusion acts, affected their lives and hers, and how this time around they would have surely already been deported by ICE.
Sean Carlson received a 2025 St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artist Award for Literature.
Heather Treseler’s poem “Purpura,” which appears in her collection Auguries & Divinations, was selected for a Pushcart Prize and will appear in the 50th edition of the Pushcart Prizeanthology (W. W. Norton) in November.
Edna Bonhomme was interviewed by journalist Carlyn Zwarenstein for Salon about her book, A History of the World in Six Plagues.
“the comfort of a bookstore” by Alexandre Dulaunoy is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.