Members and friends, save the date for a special NBCC webinar! On Thursday, January 15, 2026, at 7 p.m. Eastern, Barrios Book in Translation Prize Vice President Mandana Chaffa will be interviewing the new U.S. Poet Laureate, Arthur Sze, about poetry in translation, a key focus of his Laureateship. Registration details to follow in the new year. For now, mark your calendars.
Also, in case you missed it, last week we unveiled the longlists for our NBCC Awards! You can see them all here. We’ll be revealing the shortlists for the prizes, as well as the finalists for the John Leonard Prize for the best first book in any genre, and the winners of the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Toni Morrison Achievement Award, on January 20, 2026. The NBCC Awards will be presented on March 26 at a ceremony at the New School in New York.
Finally, we’d like to thank all of you for your support over this last year! We couldn’t do what we do without our members and friends. Critical Notes will be on break next week, but we’ll be back in 2026—from all of us on the NBCC board, happy holidays and happy New Year!
Member Reviews/Essays
Kitty Kelley reviewed Martha Ackmann’s Ain’t Nobody’s Fool: The Life and Times of Dolly Partonfor the Washington Independent Review of Books.
Lauren Yu-Ting Bo reviewed Our Precious Wars, written by Perrine Tripier and translated from the French by Alison Anderson, for World Literature Today, and Lydi Conklin’s Songs of No Provenance for Rain Taxi.
Dan Kois wrote about the best cookbooks of the year for Slate.
Linda Hitchcock reviewed Daniel Pollack-Pelzner’s Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist and Anthony Hopkins’ We Did OK, Kidfor BookTrib.
Diane Scharper reviewed Michael Drout’s The Tower and the Ruin for the Washington Examiner.
Tom Peebles reviewed University of Maryland history professor Richard Bell’s The American Revolution and the Fate of The World on his personal blog.
Charles Green reviewed Bill Janovitz’s The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told for The Lexington Observer, through Viva la Book Review, and Daniel Pollack-Pelzner’s Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist for DC Theater Arts.
Hope Reese wrote about five books to help you through a breakup for The New York Times.
Dean Rader reviewed ABLAZE (did Rodin like chandeliers?) by photographer Ewa Monika Zebrowski and novelist/poet Anne Michaels for The Brooklyn Rail.
Robert Rubsam reviewed Joe Sacco’s The Once and Future Riot for The Atlantic.
Rebecca Brenner Graham reviewed Christine Kuehn’s Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor for The Washington Post.
Tamara MC wrote about the sensory delights of Christmas for Motley Bloom.
Britta Stromeyer reviewed Skylighting by Charles Hansmann for Bending Genres.
McKenzie Watson-Fore reviewed Hymn to Moray Eels, written by Mireille Best and translated from the French by Stephanie Schechner, for Full Stop.
Paul Wilner reviewed Even Ghosts Can Be Shared: The Collected Letters of Jack Spicer for ZYZZYVA, and contributed a book roundup on the first months of the new year for Alta.
Publishers Weekly reviews editors, including NBCC members Meg Lemke and David Varno, picked faves from 2025 not to miss.
George Yatchisin reviewed The Future of Truth by Werner Herzog for the California Review of Books.
Marcie Geffner reviewed Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite for the Washington Independent Review of Books.
Jim Schley reviewed Peter Orner’s The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter and contributed a remembrance of three Vermont poets who died in October—David Huddle, Ellen Bryant Voigt, and Baron Wormser—for Seven Days.
Member Interviews
Roberto Carlos Garcia was interviewed about his essay collection, Traveling Freely, by Alex Rivera of Letras Latinas.
Mandana Chaffa, NBCC Vice President of the Barrios Book in Translation Prize and co-Vice President of Membership, interviewed Devon Walker-Figueroa about Lazarus Species for Chicago Review of Books.
Acentos Review published “Near the river cherry blossoms ripe pink as wounds against the sky: Tiffany Troy in conversation with Isabella DeSendi.”
Hollay Ghadery completed over 100 interviews for The New Books Network as of this year. You can see them all here.
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