Members and friends, we’re proud to announce the NBCC Emerging Critics Class of 2025-2026! The Emerging Critics Fellowship seeks to identify, nurture, and support the development of the next generation of book critics, and our new cohort is composed of 11 exciting writers from across the world. Congratulations to Karen Chalamilla, Michelle Chan Schmidt, Diya Isha, Mary Karmelek, Veeda Khan, Thuy Chi Le, Vika Mujumdar, Celine Nguyen, Ernest Ògúnyẹmí, Spencer Williams, and Lauren Yu-Ting Bo! You can read more about them here. We’re looking forward to working with all of them!
Member Reviews/Essays
Hope Reese wrote a roundup of six books about perfectionism for The New York Times.
David Starkey reviewed Insectopolis: A Natural History by Peter Kuper for the California Review of Books.
Meg Lemke wrote previews of fall 2025 comics for Publishers Weekly.
Oline H. Cogdill reviewed Shaw Connolly Lives to Tell by Gillian French and Death of an Ex by Delia Pitts for Shelf Awareness and shared some summer mystery picks with South Florida PBS.
Linda Hitchcock reviewed Elly Griffiths’ The Frozen People for BookTrib.
Brian Tanguay reviewed The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document that Fails Them by Aziz Rana; Guest Privileges: Queer Lives and Finding Home in the Middle East by Gaar Adams; and Thanks to Life: A Biography of Violeta Parra by Ericka Verba for the California Review of Books.
Amy Yee wrote an op-ed about the 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the Chicago Sun-Times, citing three books.
Yvonne C. Garrett reviewed Caroline Fraser’s Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers for The Brooklyn Rail.
Tom Peebles reviewed Lynn Hunt’s The Revolutionary Self: Social Change and the Emergence of the Modern Individual 1770-1800 on his blog.
Heller McAlpin reviewed Esther Freud’s My Sister and Other Lovers for The New York Times; Jessica Francis Kane’s Fonseca for The Wall Street Journal; and the Louis Vuitton Foundation’s David Hockney, edited by Norman Rosenthal, for The Christian Science Monitor.
Jim Schley reviewed James Shea’s poetry collection Last Day of My Face for Seven Days.
Member Interviews
Nina Palattella interviewed Elaine Castillo about her new novel, Moderation, for Kirkus Reviews.
Meg Lemke profiled Joe Sacco for Publishers Weekly.
Britta Stromeyer interviewed Kim Culbertson about her new novel Other People’s Kids for the Marin Independent Journal.
Oline H. Cogdill interviewed Delia Pitts for Shelf Awareness.
Elaine Szewczyk profiled Kirsten Miller for Publishers Weekly.
Member News
Britta Stromeyer published a flash story titled “Open. Close. Welcome. Goodbye.” in Beyond Words’ new print anthology Do Not Disturb.
Times-Picayune columnist Quin Hillyer wrote about NBCC member Jason Berry’s forthcoming book, a biography of James Carville, while noting a documentary based on his last book.
“In the Library at Nymans” by Lex McKee is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.