Critical Notes

NBCC board member Marcela Valdes on Dagoberto Gilb’s The Flowers: “For years, award-winning novelist Dagoberto Gilb said he was working on a novel about his mother. The book, he told

Reports from Book Expo America filtering in, including a wrapup this morning by Scott Timberg in the Los Angeles Times here. “BookExpo has been getting less important,” City Lights executive

NBCC Balakian winner Wyatt Mason compiles a critical mass of critics —with 25 links to 25 critical essays published during the first three weeks of May 2008 to prove his

NBCC board member Eric Banks’s Derby pick in Men’s Vogue. Former NBCC board member Laura Miller on Christopher Benfey’s “A Summer of Hummingbirds” in the New York Times Book Review.

NBCC board member and Critical Mass blogger Scott McLemee on “All the Sad Young Men”. NBCC board member Art Winslow on Christopher Benfey’s “A Summer of Hummingbirds.” NBCC board member

NBCC board member Maureen McLane’s three-part take on August Kleinholzer’s “Sleeping it Off in Rapid City.” NBCC member Kathryn Harrison reviews “Mad, Bad, and Sad” for the New York Times

Sunday Styles has a profile of the novelist and Martin Amis-attached Isabel Fonseca, heralding the publication of her novel Attachment. While on staff at the Times Literary Supplement, Fonseca apparently

The line to get a seat at the April 11 symposiums celebrating Philip Roth’s 75th birthday snaked a block up Broadway at Columbia University’s Miller Theater. NBCC member Bob Hoover

NBCC board member Kevin Prufer’s new book, “National Anthem,” well reviewed by Robert C. Jones here. In honor of Robert Hass’s Pulitzer earlier this month, The Atlantic has gone back

Maryanne Wolf explains the magic, mystery, and pathology behind reading and says the whole thing isn’t terribly natural. Neither is writing—especially if you’re Phillip Parker, author of 200,000 books. Also: