TODAY: In 1640, Restoration-era writer and one of the first English women to earn her living by writing, Aphra Behn, is born.
- All this week we’re celebrating the best books of the year: from this year’s National Book Award winner Adam Johnson’s Fortune Smiles, Nirvana.”| Literary Hub
- The 99 best book covers of the year (for books by P.G. Wodehouse). | Literary Hub
- “I still think the men who can really be trusted are a minority” and other gems from the rarely interviewed Elena Ferrante. | FT Magazine
- Displaced southerner Harper Lee recalls a Christmas in New York. | The Guardian
- “If literary fiction is Brooklyn, the historical novel is Queens.” Geraldine Brooks attests that historical fiction is not doomed to a middlebrow wasteland. | The New York Times
- The mythical white lady reader and beyond: Marlon James and Claire Vaye Watkins discuss “On Pandering.” | NPR
- Lydia Davis, Sharon Olds, and other Paris Review contributors share their favorite books of the year. | The Paris Review
- On the second Patricia Highsmith cinematic adaptation starring Cate Blanchette, Carol. | Hazlitt
- In defense of honest doublethink and against pretentious wine descriptors. | Aeon
- “will he not write? will he write?” Flash fiction by Deb Olin Unferth. | Tin House
Also on Literary Hub: A portrait of the young artist in a poncho: Will Chancellor talks to Kevin Barry · The best 4,554 pages by journalists, critics, columnists, and contributors this year · Italian classes and 800 events: an interview with Book Passage bookstore
