Members and friends, we’re getting ready for the 2025 National Book Critics Circle Awards ceremony, which is happening later this month! We’ll be hosting our annual finalists reading on March 25 at 6:30 p.m. Eastern and our awards ceremony on March 26 at 6:30 p.m. Eastern. Both events will be held at the New School Auditorium in New York, and we’d love to see you there! We’ll also be livestreaming the reading and the ceremony on our YouTube channel. If you’ll be in New York, we’d love to see you—please register here. In the meantime, we hope you’ll check out the finalists for the awards—you’re bound to find something you love. Take care, and as always, thanks for reading!
Member Reviews/Essays
NBCC Emerging Critics Fellow Michelle Chan Schmidt reviewed Dorothy Tse’s latest novella, City Like Water, translated from the Chinese by Natascha Bruce, for Words Without Borders.
Adam M. Rosen reviewed Chelsea Sutton’s Krackle’s Last Movie for Heavy Feather Review.
George Yatchisin reviewed John Darnielle’s This Year: 365 Songs Annotated: A Book of Days for the California Review of Books.
Lori O’Dea reviewed Daddy Issues, a story collection by Eric C. Wat, for The Gay & Lesbian Review.
Krista Timeus Cerezo reviewed The Year of the Wind, written by Karina Pacheco Medrano and translated from the Spanish by Mara Faye Lethem, for World Literature Today.
Caroline Tracey reviewed Álvaro Enrigue’s Now I Surrender for The Border Chronicle.
Ellen Prentiss Campbell wrote about the 3 R’s of reading, writing, and reviewing for the Washington Independent Review of Books.
NBCC board member Tobias Carroll wrote about some books in translation for Words Without Borders; reviewed Aoife Josephine Clements’ Persona for Vol. 1 Brooklyn; reviewed Cullen Bunn’s Bones of Our Stars, Blood of Our World for Reactor, and wrote about Nicholas Mosley reckoning with his father’s legacy for Literary Hub.
Stephanie Gorton reviewed A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls by Adam Morgan for The New Republic.
For Southwest Review, Cory Oldweiler wrote about Francisco Maciel’s There’s No Point in Dying, translated from the Portuguese by Bruna Dantas Lobato.
Anne Charles reviewed Terry Dactyl by Matilda Bernstein Sycamore for The Gay & Lesbian Review.
Ryan Chapman wrote about the finalists for the 2025 Booker Prize for The Sewanee Review.
For Slate, Kristen Martin wrote a substantive critique of disgraced longevity influencer Peter Attia’s mega-bestseller Outlive.
Linda Hitchcock reviewed Naomi Hirahara’s Crown City for BookTrib.
Costa Beavin Pappas wrote about how Indigenous communities are utilizing AI for language preservation for PRISM.
Allison Adelle Hedge Coke curated five episodes of Poets on the Plains for NPR’s affiliate on the High Plains, HPPR.
Nicholas Birns reviewed Robert Reginio’s Bob Dylan Outside The Law: The Poetics of John Wesley Harding for The Dylan Review.
Charles Green reviewed Steven Reigns’ Outliving Michael for The Gay & Lesbian Review.
For The Gay & Lesbian Review, Michael Quinn reviewed E Is for Edward, Gregory Hischak’s centennial celebration of artist Edward Gorey.
In his column Biblioscopy for MedHum.org, Tony Miksanek reviewed Field Guide to Falling Ill by Jonathan Gleason, the short story “An Eye in the Throat” by Samanta Schweblin, and A Prescription for Burnout by Carolyn Roy-Bornstein.
Randy Cepuch reviewed Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s latest novel, Lake Effect, for the Washington Independent Review of Books.
Nicole Schrag wrote about the messy process of picking forthcoming books to review for her Substack newsletter, For Love or Money.
Member Interviews
Morgan Leigh Davies interviewed Rebecca Novack about her novel Murder Bimbo for Jezebel.
Allison Adelle Hedge Coke interviewed U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze for World Literature Today.
Leigh Haber wrote a profile of Tayari Jones for the Los Angeles Times.
Costa Beavin Pappas wrote a profile of Christina Kovac, author of Watch Us Fall, for the Washington City Paper.
Eric Olson profiled Evelyn Iritani and her new book, Safe Passage, about a Japan-America prisoner swap during World War II, for Seattle Met magazine.
Member News
NBCC Vice President/Technology and Co-Vice President/Membership Rebecca Hussey, NBCC member Frances Evangelista, and Dorian Stuber, hosts of the One Bright Book podcast, contributed a conversational afterword to a new edition of Sarah Orne Jewett’s A Marsh Island, published by Smith & Taylor Classics, an imprint of Unnamed Press.
Veteran critic Bill Marx continues his workshop series with the literary review nonprofit Viva la Book Review. His next session, “Writing Positive Reviews,” takes place in mid-March, and offers tips on how to craft smart critical recommendations that avoid clichés, platitudes, and blurb-ready buzzwords. Participants will learn practical strategies for writing compelling, original criticism that celebrates good work without descending into hype. Vote for the workshop date and register at https://tinyurl.com/contactviva.
Minnesota writer Marie Zhuikov’s interview with NBCC lifetime member Anthony Bukoski appeared in Hypertext magazine. Bukoski discussed his short story collection The Thief of Words, recently published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
Hollay Ghadery’s fourth book and debut novel, The Unravelling of Ou, was recently reviewed in The Miramichi Reader by Lucy E.M. Black and in The New Quarterly by Allison Snelgrove.
“Bookstore” by Joshua Kirby is licensed under CC BY 2.0.