Friends, we hope you’re doing well! Our members have been busy this past week with reviews of books by authors including Maggie Nelson, Cristina Rivera Garza, Julian Barnes, and Katie Kitamura, and interviews with writers such as George Saunders, Svetlana Satchkova, Rick Bass, and Kadir Nelson. Stay safe and warm, and thanks for reading!
Member Reviews/Essays
Amy Y.Q. Lin reviewed Maggie Nelson’s The Slicksfor The Rumpus.
Cory Oldweiler reviewed Autobiography of Cotton, written by Cristina Rivera Garza and translated by Christina MacSweeney, for The Boston Globe.
Linda Hitchcock reviewed Kat Devereaux’s The Daughters of Genoaand Amy Newman’s Barnett Newman Here for BookTrib.
Robert Allen Papinchak reviewed George Saunders’ Vigil for the Los Angeles Times.
Dan Kubis reviewed Albert Maltz’s Man on a Road and Other Stories for the Chicago Review of Books.
Jeremy Lybarger reviewed George Whitmore’s Nebraska for The Nation.
David Starkey reviewed The Lies of the Artists by Ingrid D. Rowland for the California Review of Books.
Suzana Vuljevic reviewed The Old Fire, written by Elisa Shua Dusapin and translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins, for Words Without Borders.
Tamara MC wrote about 10 wonderfully weird festivals to add to your bucket list this year for National Geographic.
Diane Scharper reviewed Everyone Still Here by Liadan Ni Chuinn for the Washington Examiner.
For her Substack, Mostly Books, Marcie Geffner reviewed The Last Song of Penelope by Claire North and Audition by Katie Kitamura, and published a story about the NBCC Awards, “Book Critics Begin Annual Awards Reading Marathons.”
Heller McAlpin reviewed Departure(s), which Julian Barnes says is his swansong, for NPR.
Meg Lemke compiled Publishers Weekly’s biannual comics and graphic novels previews issue.
Lee Rossi reviewed Berceuse Parish by Burnside Soleil for the Verseville.
Erick Verran reviewed Declan Ryan’s Crisis Actor for The Georgia Review and Camille Ralphs’ After You Were, I Am for Fence Digital.
Nell Beram reviewed At Midnight Comes the Cry, Julia Spencer-Fleming’s latest Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne mystery, for the Portland Press Herald.
Carol Iaciofano Aucoin reviewed Karen Winn’s Society and Jenna Blum’s Murder Your Darlings for WBUR’s Arts & Culture.
Member Interviews
Sasha Vasilyuk interviewed Svetlana Satchkova about her book The Undead for Electric Literature.
For her Literary Hub column, Jane Ciabattari interviewed George Saunders about his new novel, Vigil, its connection to Lincoln in the Bardo, envisioning the afterlife, the value of revision, and how he finds his way to the end of his books.
Meg Lemke interviewed Fantagraphics publisher Gary Groth for Publishers Weekly.
NBCC Vice President/Online Michael Schaub interviewed George Saunders and Kadir Nelson for Kirkus Reviews and Rick Bass and Sarah McCoy for The Orange County Register.
Member News
Veteran arts critic and NBCC member Bill Marx is leading a book critique workshop through Viva la Book Review. The session, titled “Writing Critical Reviews,” focuses on how to write negative reviews in a fair and effective manner. It will be free to attend and will be held sometime in February. The exact date and time can be voted on through tinyurl.com/vivavote. Anyone interested in attending can register by filling out the form at vivalabookreview.org/contact.
“Central Library Minneapolis 2/22/24” by Sharon Mollerus is licensed under CC BY 2.0.