Members and friends, we’re proud to announce the finalists for the NBCC Awards! Our board members worked hard last year to identify the best books of 2025, and are looking forward to reading even more over the next two months to determine the winners. You can see the lists of finalists here. Mark your calendars for our annual awards ceremony on March 26, which will be livestreamed!
Member Reviews/Essays
Hope Reese wrote about four productivity books recommended by experts for The New York Times.
McKenzie Watson-Fore reviewed Anne Berest’s La Carte Postale for the Cincinnati Romance Review.
Cory Oldweiler wrote about Eating Ashes, written by Brenda Navarro and translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell, for the Los Angeles Review of Books.
For The Village Star-Revue, Michael Quinn reviewed Could It Be Love, the first monograph devoted to the work of trans artist Greer Lankton, featuring her own photographs of her life-size dolls.
Linda Hitchcock reviewed Scott Eyman’s Joan Crawford: A Woman’s Face for BookTrib.
Diya Isha wrote about the careerist spectacle that is the literature festival for The Swaddle.
Robert Rubsam wrote a long essay that includes, in part, a review of Joseph Leo Koerner’s Art in a State of Siege for Liberties Journal.
Marcie Geffner reviewed The Jaguar’s Roar, written by Micheliny Verunschk and translated from the Portuguese by Juliana Barbassa; American Reich by Eric Lichtblau; There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone; and House of Odysseus by Claire North for her Substack, Mostly Books.
Joan Frank reviewed Gabriel Tallent’s Crux for The Washington Post.
Tom Peebles reviewed Robert B. Reich’s Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America on his personal blog.
Michael Barron reviewed What Remains, written by Brais Lamela and translated from the Galician by Jacob Rogers, for the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Bridget Quinn reviewed Sue Roe’s Hidden Portraits: Six Women Who Shaped Picasso’s Life for Hyperallergic.
Hannah Bonner wrote about Courtney Stephens’ film Invention for the MUBI Notebook.
Catehrien Parnell reviewed Sea Now, written by Eva Meijer and translated from the Dutch by Anne Thompson Melo, for MicroLit.
Brian Tanguay reviewed Railsong by Rahul Bhattacharya for the California Review of Books.
Member Interviews
Eric Olson profiled Karl Ove Knausgaard for Literary Hub, asking whether artistic ego bears any semblance to the story of Faust.
NBCC Co-Vice President/Awards Iris Jamahl Dunkle interviewed biographer Carla Kaplan for Finding Lost Voices.
For Literary Hub, NBCC Co-Vice President/Events Jane Ciabattari interviewed Madeline Cash, whose first novel, Lost Lambs, is wondrously comic, propelled by absurdist wordplay and a deep knowledge of today’s over-commercialized culture, focuses on the droll, sophisticated yet empathetic tone of the story which follows the Flynns, a dysfunctional nuclear family of five, and the sometimes wacky people around them. Add-on: it’s a crime caper involving each Flynn, one way or another.
Former NBCC board member Anita Felicelli profiled Annalee Newitz for Alta.
Sullivan Summer interviewed Civil War historian Dr. Robert D. Bland about his book Requiem for Reconstruction: Black Countermemory and the Legacy of the Lowcountry’s Lost Political Generation for the New Books Network.
Elaine Szewczyk profiled Will Self for Publishers Weekly.
NBCC Vice President/Online Michael Schaub interviewed Rick Bass and Sarah McCoy for The Orange County Register.
Member News
Danijela Trajković interviewed NBCC member Hélène Cardona in the current issue of A Too Powerful World.
Former NBCC Treasurer Marion Winik will participate in several events for her recently reissued memoir, First Comes Love, with stops in Baltimore, Austin, New York, Boston, and Washington. You can see her list of upcoming events here. Marion wrote “I Knew He Was Gay When I Met Him—and I Married Him Anyway” for Oprah Daily, and Marion was interviewed by her daughter Jane Winik Sartwell for Writer’s Digest. The new audiobook edition of First Comes Love was reviewed in Kirkus Audiobook Reviews (formerly AudioFile).
Sullivan Summer’s chapbook, Performance Anxiety, was reviewed in New Pages.
Sarah Dowling was interviewed by Alix Beeston on her podcast for the New Books Network about their book Here Is a Figure: Grounding Literary Form, a work of literary criticism that gathers together the lying-down figures in contemporary literature.
Restless Books has chosen Stephen Narain’s novel The Church of Mastery as the winner of the newly named Steven Kellman Prize for Immigrant Literature. The annual award given to a first-time, first-generation immigrant author includes a $10,000 advance, a writing residency from Millay Arts, and publication by Restless Books. It is named after Steven Kellman, a former NBCC board member and recipient of the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing. Steven was also the featured guest on the Love and Literature podcast based in Amsterdam.
Hollay Ghadery’s forthcoming novel, The Unravelling of Ou, was reviewed at Quill & Quire.
John Skoyles has four poems in the new issue of On the Seawall.