Members and friends, we hope you’re doing well! Our members have been busy this past week with reviews of books by authors including Maggie O’Farrell, Ian Frazier, William T. Vollmann, and Teo Rivera-Dundas, and interviews with writers such as Dave Eggers, chaun webster, and Emily St. John Mandel. Take care, and thanks for reading!
Member Reviews/Essays
Former NBCC President Laurie Hertzel reviewed Maggie O’Farrell’s Land for The Boston Globe.
Edna Bonhomme reviewed Ian Frazier’s The Snakes That Ate Floridafor the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Karl Wolff reviewed Claire Fuller’s Hunger and Thirst for The Driftless Area Review.
Former NBCC board member and Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing recipient Steven G. Kellman reviewed Thomas S. Mullaney’s How We Disappear for The American Scholar.
Kristen Martin reviewed Candice Wuehle’s Ultranatural for The New Republic.
Al Kratz reviewed Kill Dick by Luke Goebel for Heavy Feather Review.
Ellen Prentiss Campbell wrote about a memorable book party in her Girl Writing column for the Washington Independent Review of Books.
Morgan Leigh Davies wrote about what COVID fiction is missing for Current Affairs.
Erick Verran reviewed Kieron Walquist’s Our Hands Hold Violence for The Poetry Project Newsletter and Matthew Tuckner’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire for The Hopkins Review.
For the California Review of Books, Brian Tanguay reviewed Agnes Lives! by Hallie Elizabeth Newton, Washington Is Burning by Andrew Cockburn, and Tin Can Coast by Joseph Ogilvy.
Bill Thompson reviewed Emily Seyl’s Trinity for the Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier.
Celia McGee wrote about David Baerwald and his debut novel, The Fire Agent, a family history, for The New York Times.
Michael Barron reviewed William T. Vollmann’s A Table for Fortune for The Baffler.
McKenzie Watson-Fore reviewed Teo Rivera-Dundas’ debut novel, Slow Guillotine, for Full Stop.
Member Interviews
Former NBCC President and current Advisory Board member Jane Ciabattari’s conversation with NBCC Award finalist Dave Eggers about his new novel, Contrapposto, delves into his lifetime of artistic passion.
Sean Carlson’s interview with Michelle Quay on Iranian exile and her debut translation of Reza Ghassemi’s novel Woodwind Harmony in the Nighttime was published in The Adroit Journal.
Sullivan Summer interviewed two-time winner of the Minnesota Book Award for Poetry chaun webster about his new book, Without Terminus, for the Additions to the Archive podcast.
Michael Quinn interviewed author Sally Frances about her debut novel, Carroll Gardens Story, for The Red Hook Star-Revue.
Elaine Szewczyk profiled Emily St. John Mandel for Publishers Weekly.
Member News
Julia M. Klein was named a finalist for the 2026 Kukula Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Book Reviewing for her review of A Flower Traveled in My Blood by Haley Cohen Gilliland in The Atlantic. She also received an honorable mention for arts criticism from the Simon Rockower Awards (in the category of web-based publications) for her review of Douglas Century’s Crash of the Heavens in the Forward.
The New Books Network interviewed NBCC member Sullivan Summer about her author interview podcast, Additions to the Archive, in their newsletter.
Ellen Prentiss Campbell’s Vanishing Pointwas published on May 27 by Apprentice House Press.
John Skoyles has five poems in Plume, and comments on them here.
Joan Silverman’s newsletter, Away From It All: Essays From Near And Far, highlights “essays by leading writers on any and everything, but the news.” The current issue features essays by Brock Clarke, Beth Ann Fennelly, and Murr Brewster. For more information, visit awayfromitall.substack.com.
Jake Casella Brookins was part of a roundtable on negative reviews in speculative fiction coverage at the Ancillary Review of Books.
“Bookshop” by Conxa Rodà is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.