TODAY: In 1273, 13th-century Persian poet Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, AKA Rumi, dies.
- Our book review aggregator has relaunched with a new design (and many other new features). | Book Marks
- “If he’d been a character in fiction, he’d have been unbelievable, less a convincing person than a constellation of symbols, a dream that a certain population of America had of itself.” Hanya Yanagihara, Marilynne Robinson, and other writers share thoughts on Obama’s legacy. | The Guardian
- “I still want Obama to be right. I still would like to fold myself into the dream. This will not be possible.” Ta-Nehisi Coates provides a history of Obama’s presidency. | The Atlantic
- I recognize that I am in very rare company, to say the least: Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech, which he did not deliver in person (although Patti Smith performed on his behalf). | Nobelprize.org, YouTube
- “It occurred to me then that, although I did not live in the time of Arthur Rimbaud, I existed in the time of Bob Dylan.” Patti Smith on performing at this year’s Nobel Prize ceremony. | The New Yorker
- “My hope is that, in the spaces between all those layers, a conversation between women of different generations slowly emerges.” Valeria Luiselli translates (and annotates) her mother’s conversation with a female ex-combatant of the FARC. | Guernica
- Vivian Gornick on “the shock of the quotidian” and Marriage as a Fine Art by Julia Kristeva and Philippe Sollers. | The New Republic
- A new issue of Public Books, including pieces on Victor LaValle and police brutality, being Octavia Butler’s neighbor, and animal interiority, is now online. | Public Books
- Profiles of 10 poets who published debut collections in 2016, including Ocean Vuong, Tommy Pico, and Solmaz Sharif. | Poets & Writers
- Téa Obreht on David Attenborough’s nature documentaries, which “put humans right in their place: small enough to swim in a blue whale’s veins, and yet, by 1970, responsible for that species’ near-extinction.” | The New Yorker
- Prose is a public language and poetry is a private language: An interview with Mary Ruefle. | The Paris Review
- Announcing this year’s 35 Over 35—a collection of remarkable debuts by authors over the age of 35. | 35 Over 35
- The longlist for the 2017 Tournament of Books, from Leila Aboulela to Nell Zink, has been announced. | The Morning News
- “It is easy enough to list the small group of well-known, foundational authors; but we must also take note of those lesser known writers—most enslaved at one point; a few born free—whose names and works deserve to be commemorated.” On early African American writing. | Times Literary Supplement
- On Walter Benjamin’s afterlives and the “burgeoning ‘Benjamin Industry.’” | Los Angeles Review of Books
- “The engine of his intelligence was turned painfully inwards. He had the brain that ate itself.” On David Foster Wallace and depression. | Hazlitt
On Literary Hub:
On the haunting intimacy of William Trevor’s short fiction · Pop culture in a post-truth America: On the political implications of TV’s new self-consciousness · 10 things you didn’t know about now the NY Times Book Review works · John Reed on fascism, the neoliberal oligarchy, and what Orwell can (and can’t) teach us · In praise of Zadie Smith’s London: 10 British writers find themselves in NW · An Obama administration speechwriter on the end of a literary presidency · Pedro Almodóvar on adapting Alice Munro for the screen · How writers are getting back to work in the wake of the election · On Donald Trump, Stranger Things, and nostalgia’s corrupting influence · Claire Messud reflects on life with four-footed family members
