National Book Critics Circle
@bookcritics.bsky.social
Honoring outstanding writing and fostering a national conversation about reading, criticism, and literature since 1974.
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NBCC member @elaineszewczyk.bsky.social profiled Laura Restrepo for Publishers Weekly:
Laura Restrepo and the Power of Myths
For her latest novel, the Colombian author drew inspiration from the story of the Queen of Sheba as well as her work with refugees for Doctors Without Borders
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November 12, 2025 at 3:03 PM
NBCC member @elaineszewczyk.bsky.social profiled Laura Restrepo for Publishers Weekly:
NBCC member Sullivan Summer interviewed award-winning poet, features editor at The Rumpus, and former NBCC Emerging Critics Fellow Taylor Byas about her new collection, "Resting Bitch Face," for the New Books Network:
Taylor Byas, "Resting Bitch Face: Poems" (Soft Skull Press, 2025) - New Books Network
Also Hosted By Sullivan Summer
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November 11, 2025 at 3:02 PM
NBCC member Sullivan Summer interviewed award-winning poet, features editor at The Rumpus, and former NBCC Emerging Critics Fellow Taylor Byas about her new collection, "Resting Bitch Face," for the New Books Network:
NBCC member Hannah Bonner interviewed Nia DaCosta about her film adaptation "Hedda" for Literary Hub: lithub.com/what-hedda-r...
What Hedda Reveals About the Timelessness of Feminine Rage
In Nia DaCosta’s vespertine parlor drama Hedda, an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s 1890 play Hedda Gabler, Tessa Thompson transfixes in the titular role. The film takes place in 1954 almost exclusivel…
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November 10, 2025 at 3:03 PM
NBCC member Hannah Bonner interviewed Nia DaCosta about her film adaptation "Hedda" for Literary Hub: lithub.com/what-hedda-r...
NBCC member Nell Beram reviewed "What a Way to Go" by Bella Mackie:
Shelf Awareness for Readers for Friday, October 31, 2025
This week we invite you to wander A Gallery of Cats, Ruth Brown's "immersive and whimsical" museum in which fuzzy felines pay homage to famous artworks. Or, perhaps, traverse essayist Ren Cedar…
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November 8, 2025 at 11:00 PM
NBCC member Nell Beram reviewed "What a Way to Go" by Bella Mackie:
NBCC member Tiffany Troy reviewed "When We Only Have the Earth," written by Abdourahman A. Waberi and translated from the French by Nancy Naomi Carlson, for World Literature Today:
When We Only Have the Earth by Abdourahman A. Waberi
Trans. Nancy Naomi Carlson. University of Nebraska Press. 2025. 80 pages.
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November 8, 2025 at 10:00 PM
NBCC member Tiffany Troy reviewed "When We Only Have the Earth," written by Abdourahman A. Waberi and translated from the French by Nancy Naomi Carlson, for World Literature Today:
NBCC board member Tobias Carroll reviewed Agnes Bushell's "Verity & Perpetua" for the Portland Press-Herald:
In ‘Verity & Perpetua,’ plenty of literary references alongside big ideas
In the latest novel by Agnes Bushell, two young women try to figure out their mysterious pasts.
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November 8, 2025 at 9:01 PM
NBCC board member Tobias Carroll reviewed Agnes Bushell's "Verity & Perpetua" for the Portland Press-Herald:
NBCC member Stephen Patrick Bell interviewed Susan Cheever for BOMB:
BOMB Magazine | Susan Cheever by Stephen Patrick Bell
A daughter uncovers her father’s inner life through his fiction.
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November 8, 2025 at 8:01 PM
NBCC member Stephen Patrick Bell interviewed Susan Cheever for BOMB:
NBCC member Kevin Anthony Brown’s essay-review of "Henry James Comes Home," together with Henry James’ "On Writers and Writing," appeared in the New English Review:
Arrangements in Gray and Black: Portraits of Henry James - New English Review
An Interior in Venice (John Singer Sargent, 1898)
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November 8, 2025 at 7:01 PM
NBCC member Kevin Anthony Brown’s essay-review of "Henry James Comes Home," together with Henry James’ "On Writers and Writing," appeared in the New English Review:
NBCC member Catherine Parnell reviewed "Our Precious Wars," written by Perrine Tripier and translated from the French by Alison Anderson, for Compulsive Reader:
A review of Our Precious Wars by Perrine Tripier – Compulsive Reader
Our Precious Wars
By Perrine Tripier
translated from the French by Alison Anderson
Europa Editions
ISBN: 979888661450, November 2025, 160 pages, Paperback
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November 8, 2025 at 6:02 PM
NBCC member Catherine Parnell reviewed "Our Precious Wars," written by Perrine Tripier and translated from the French by Alison Anderson, for Compulsive Reader:
NBCC Tech VP and Membership Co-VP Rebecca Hussey reviewed "Sea Now," written by Eva Meijer and translated from the Dutch by Anne Thompson Melo, for Words Without Borders:
How the Sea Might Speak: On Eva Meijer’s Sea Now - Words Without Borders
Sea Now hints "at mysteries that humans can sense but never penetrate," writes critic Rebecca Hussey.
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November 8, 2025 at 5:02 PM
NBCC Tech VP and Membership Co-VP Rebecca Hussey reviewed "Sea Now," written by Eva Meijer and translated from the Dutch by Anne Thompson Melo, for Words Without Borders:
NBCC member Laura Johnsrude reviewed "No Less Strange or Wonderful: Essays in Curiosity" by A. Kendra Greene for Good River Review:
Book Review: NO LESS STRANGE OR WONDERFUL: ESSAYS IN CURIOSITY by A. Kendra Greene
A. Kendra GreeneNo Less Strange or Wonderful: Essays in Curiosity Tin House / March 2025 / 228 pp / $28.95Reviewed by Laura Johnsrude / October 2025In No Less Strange or Wonderful: Essays in…
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November 8, 2025 at 4:00 PM
NBCC member Laura Johnsrude reviewed "No Less Strange or Wonderful: Essays in Curiosity" by A. Kendra Greene for Good River Review:
NBCC member Sullivan Summer was interviewed by Brooklyn Poets in conjunction with the launch of her chapbook, "Performance Anxiety" (Black Sunflowers Poetry Press):
Performance Anxiety by Sullivan Summer | Black Sunflowers
Spiky and offbeat, Summer's Performance Anxiety collages hybrid texts in a dazzling mosaic of self, race and adoption.Take a listen to the poet reading 'The Seduction of Silence' here.PRE-BUY now for…
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November 8, 2025 at 3:02 PM
NBCC member Sullivan Summer was interviewed by Brooklyn Poets in conjunction with the launch of her chapbook, "Performance Anxiety" (Black Sunflowers Poetry Press):
NBCC member Hollay Ghadery interviewed Zilla Jones for the New Books Network:
Zilla Jones, "The World So Wide" (Cormorant Books, 2025) - New Books Network
Also Hosted By Hollay Ghadery
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November 8, 2025 at 2:01 PM
NBCC member Hollay Ghadery interviewed Zilla Jones for the New Books Network:
NBCC member Nell Beram reviewed "The Sequel" by Jean Hanff Korelitz:
Shelf Awareness for Readers for Friday, October 10, 2025
Absurdity in the workplace has been an endless well of artistic inspiration for generations, whether it's Severance and Abbott Elementary nowadays, Working Girl and Office Space in the age of VHS, or…
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November 8, 2025 at 1:00 PM
NBCC member Nell Beram reviewed "The Sequel" by Jean Hanff Korelitz:
Linda Hitchcock reviewed David McCullough’s "History Matters" for BookTrib:
David McCullough’s Final Reflections | BookTrib.
History Matters is a posthumous collection of essays and speeches written by renowned and revered historian and biographer David McCullough (1933-2022). Edited by his daughter Dorie McCullough Lawson…
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November 7, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Linda Hitchcock reviewed David McCullough’s "History Matters" for BookTrib:
NBCC member Tiffany Troy reviewed "Everything in Life Is Resurrection" by Cyrus Cassells for Life & Legends:
Everything in Life is Resurrection
Everything in Life is Resurrection: A Book Review by Tiffany Troy Everything in Life is Resurrection (TCU Press, 2025), a Poetry Collection by Cyrus Cassells Everything in Life is Resurrection, lik…
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November 7, 2025 at 10:00 PM
NBCC member Tiffany Troy reviewed "Everything in Life Is Resurrection" by Cyrus Cassells for Life & Legends:
NBCC member Paul Wilner interviewed Julian Brave NoiseCat about "We Survived The Night" for the Nob Hill Gazette:
Julian Brave Noisecat’s Literary Debut Makes a Striking Statement
“What any writer of nonfiction wants is to influence the world, which seems so immovable these days,” says Julian Brave NoiseCat, whose new book, We Survived the Night, comes to grips with his Native…
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November 7, 2025 at 9:02 PM
NBCC member Paul Wilner interviewed Julian Brave NoiseCat about "We Survived The Night" for the Nob Hill Gazette:
NBCC member Hope Reese talked to Beth Macy, author of "Paper Girl," for Greater Good Magazine:
Why Well-Being Is Falling in Rural America
According to a new memoir, inequalities in rural education may be contributing to the political polarization in the United States.
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November 7, 2025 at 8:02 PM
NBCC member Hope Reese talked to Beth Macy, author of "Paper Girl," for Greater Good Magazine:
NBCC member Carol Iaciofano Aucoin reviewed Gish Jen's "Bad Bad Girl" for WBUR's Arts & Culture:
In 'Bad Bad Girl,' Gish Jen reimagines the relationship with her mother
In this genre-bending book, Jen explores her damaging relationship with her mother, how she became a writer, and her mother’s own story. "It is at once a personal history of generational trauma, an…
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November 7, 2025 at 7:01 PM
NBCC member Carol Iaciofano Aucoin reviewed Gish Jen's "Bad Bad Girl" for WBUR's Arts & Culture:
NBCC member Heller McAlpin reviewed Catherine Newman’s "Wreck" for NPR:
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November 7, 2025 at 6:01 PM
NBCC member Heller McAlpin reviewed Catherine Newman’s "Wreck" for NPR:
NBCC member Ryan Chapman talked about this year’s Booker Prize shortlist on The Lit Hub Podcast:
The Lit Hub Podcast Talks the 2025 Booker Prize Shortlist
A weekly behind-the-scenes dive into everything interesting, dynamic, strange, and wonderful happening in literary culture—featuring Lit Hub staff, columnists, and special guests! Hosted by Drew Br…
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November 7, 2025 at 5:03 PM
NBCC member Ryan Chapman talked about this year’s Booker Prize shortlist on The Lit Hub Podcast:
NBCC member Nicholas Birns reviewed David Unger’s novel "In My Eyes You Are Beautiful" for Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas:
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November 7, 2025 at 4:04 PM
NBCC member Nicholas Birns reviewed David Unger’s novel "In My Eyes You Are Beautiful" for Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas:
NBCC member Clea Simon’s first four “Witch Cats of Cambridge” cozy mysteries are being reissued by Level Best Books, following the demise of Polis Books. A new witch cat mystery, "The Cat’s Eye Charm," will follow in December:
The Witch Cats are back!|Clea Simon
by Erin | Oct 29, 2025 | A Cat on the Case, A Spell of Murder, An Incantation of Cats, To Conjure a Killer, witch cats | 0 comments
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November 7, 2025 at 3:03 PM
NBCC member Clea Simon’s first four “Witch Cats of Cambridge” cozy mysteries are being reissued by Level Best Books, following the demise of Polis Books. A new witch cat mystery, "The Cat’s Eye Charm," will follow in December:
NBCC member Nell Beram reviewed "The Last Spirits of Manhattan" by John A. McDermott:
Shelf Awareness for Readers for Friday, October 31, 2025
This week we invite you to wander A Gallery of Cats, Ruth Brown's "immersive and whimsical" museum in which fuzzy felines pay homage to famous artworks. Or, perhaps, traverse essayist Ren Cedar…
buff.ly
November 7, 2025 at 2:02 PM
NBCC member Nell Beram reviewed "The Last Spirits of Manhattan" by John A. McDermott:
NBCC member Jeff Alessandrelli wrote about the concept of minorness on the Substack Zona Motel:
ESSAY: Minor, Minor, Minor Writer
A minor writer is a writer who sees the literary landscape for what it is: one where, at the end of the day, talent and interest win out, but those winnings are oftentimes fickle and/or delayed.
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November 7, 2025 at 1:02 PM
NBCC member Jeff Alessandrelli wrote about the concept of minorness on the Substack Zona Motel: