Nat’l Book Critics Circle Retreats into Past

Critical Mass, the National Book Critics Circle blog, has always suffered from an identity crisis to some extent. Is it a forum for book critics to talk about issues that matter to them? Or a platform to inform the general public about the vitality of book reviewing? Or a place to collect links to articles by NBCC members? It’s been all those things and more—and when the discussion around their posts got a little too heated, the NBCC was quick to point out that Critical Mass wasn’t really the Circle’s blog after all, just a blog written by “independent members” of the board of directors who happened to want to talk about matters directly related to the NBCC’s mission.

Well, apparently the Circle wants back in on the action, because they’re using Critical Mass to launch a new “initiative” tomorrow, spotlighting every NBCC award winner and finalist from 1974 onward, starting with Robert Lowell‘s prize-winning poetry collection Day by Day from 1977. The press release says that each book will be celebrated in a guest essay by a book critic, along with “review roundups, reminiscences of award winners by friends and former students, panel discussions, and excerpts from the work itself.” And Circle president John Freeman suggests in his announcement post that this’ll be going on for the next ten years or so, presumably in and around the half-dozen other things the blog is already trying to do. And why? Because there’s an awful lot of books out there, and “one of the great functions of book criticism is to give you safe passage through these waters to one book worth reading.”

Not to be picky, because after all there’s some great books on all those NBCC shortlists, but what about all the contemporary writers clamoring for that kind of attention? Or are they already adequately represented in the space provided for literary criticism in America’s newspapers and magazines?

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