Friends, we hope you’re doing well! This past week, our members have been busy with reviews of books by authors including Joy Williams, W. David Marx, Solvej Balle, and Ayana Gray, and interviews with writers Stephen Greenblatt, Varun Ravindran, Julian Barnes, and Elaine Hsieh Chou. Take care, and thanks for reading!
Member Reviews/Essays
Jake Cline reviewed Joy Williams’ The Pelican Childfor The Washington Post.
Chris Barsanti reviewed W. David Marx’s Blank Space: A Cultural History of the 21st Century and And to Think We Started as a Book Club… by Tom Toro; Do Admit!: The Mitford Sisters and Me by Mimi Pond; Fela: Music is the Weapon by Jibola Fagbamiye and Conor McCreery; and More Weight: A Salem Story by Ben Wickey for The Minnesota Star Tribune.
Linda Hitchcock reviewed James R. Benn’s A Bitter Wind for BookTrib.
Rebecca Ruth Gould reviewed A Spring That Did Not Blossom: Palestinian Short Stories, written by Nejmeh Khalil Habib and translated from the Arabic by Samar Habib, for The Markaz Review.
Mike Good has two book reviews in the latest issue of Foreword Reviews, including one of One, None, and a Hundred Grand, written by Luigi Pirandello and translated from the Italian by Sean Wilsey.
Ricardo Santiago Soto reviewed Charlotte Shane’s An Honest Woman for Raevue.
Britta Stromeyer reviewed Coming. Apart., written by Edy Poppy and translated from the Norwegian by May-Brit Akerholt, for Tupelo Quarterly.
DW McKinney spoke with independent publishers about how they’re supporting marginalized authors and their work in our current political climate for Publishers Weekly.
Cory Oldweiler wrote about the third part of On the Calculation of Volume, written by Solvej Balle and translated from the Danish by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell, for the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Craig Teicher wrote about three new books of poetry for NPR.
Susan Bernofsky reviewed Morten Høi Jensen’s The Master of Contradictions: Thomas Mann and the Making of The Magic Mountain for The Nation.
Jack Rockwell wrote about On the Calculation of Volume (Book III), written by Solvej Balle and translated from the Danish by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell, for Words Without Borders.
Marcie Geffner reviewed Ayana Gray’s novel I, Medusa for her Substack, Mostly Books.
Robert Allen Papinchak reviewed Damion Searls’ Analog Days for Shelf Awareness.
Member Interviews
Former NBCC President Tom Beer interviewed Stephen Greenblatt about his new book, Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival, for Kirkus Reviews.
Mike Good interviewed Varun Ravindran for The Adroit Journal blog about Ravindran’s debut poetry collection, Betweenness.
Elaine Szewczyk profiled Julian Barnes for Publishers Weekly.
NBCC Vice President/Online Michael Schaub interviewed Elaine Hsieh Chou for The Orange County Register.
“More books than shelves” by Jeff Vincent is licensed under CC BY 2.0.