Best of the Week: August 22 – 26, 2016

TODAY: In 1856, Ivan Franko, author of the first detective novels and modern poetry in the Ukrainian language, is born. 

• “The more Harlem changes, the more I’m motivated to do something.” On the battle to save Langston Hughes’ home. | CNNMoney
• Garth Greenwell shares his ten favorite books, from the late poetry of Louise Glück to A Little Life. | T Magazine
• Ramona Ausubel on trusting her own obsessions, how stories change the real chemistry of the world, and the structures that contain us. | The Rumpus
• The singular story held notes of the universal: On portrayals of the immigrant experience in Second Class Citizen, Behold the Dreamers and Americanah. | BuzzFeed Reader
• In which Leopoldine Core describes her face, her dogs, and why she writes about what she writes about. | The Believer Logger
• A Spanish publisher will release the indecipherable Voynich Manuscript, which “has led some of the smartest people down rabbit holes for centuries.” | The Washington Post
• “I was obliged to address my favorite detectives with dismissive authority:” Patti Smith on her cameo in The Killing and recommending books. | The New Yorker
• Truman Capote’s ashes will be auctioned off; the auction house behind the sale asserts that “it’s absolutely fine because it really embodies what Truman Capote was and what he loved to do.” | The Guardian
• “This isn’t some dreaded worthy cause. Actively seeking work from under-represented groups is one of the most effective ways of giving publishing a much-needed shot in the arm.” An interview with Man Booker International Prize-winning translator and founder of Tilted Axis Press, Deborah Smith. | Conversational Reading
• “What I’m seeing here is that I’m not alone in being tired of medieval Europe and phallic spaceships.” An interview with N. K. Jemisin, the first black writer to win a Hugo Award for best novel. | The New York Times
• Tim Murphy on the under-narrativization of the treatment story of AIDS, re-finding fiction, and heroism. | Interview Magazine
• “It was important to me that this book be able to speak to that audience even if that audience does not want to hear the message, but then also at the same time speak to black Americans, or Americans of color, or queer Americans, people who may feel like their lives are valued less.” An interview with Jesmyn Ward. | Bookforum
• 45 highly anticipated fall books, including works by Elena Ferrante, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Nell Zink. | Vulture
• Remembering the life and work of poet Max Ritvo, who died this Tuesday. | Milkweed Editions
• E-readers haven’t come with books: On ways of reading and the potential technology offers storytelling. | The Wild Detectives

And on Literary Hub:

• How the writer listens: Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich in conversation with John Freeman, plus an excerpt from Alexievich’s Secondhand Time.
• God, guns, and survival, deep in the heart of the dust bowl: Rae Meadows on hardscrabble life in the Oklahoma panhandle.
• Margo Jefferson on the pleasures of poetry and (not) reading the Russians.
• A masterpiece of Latin American literature finally appears in English: on Antonio di Benedetto’s Zama.
• The dos and don’ts of writing about the disabled: Nicola Griffith on the need to go beyond empathy.
• Caleb Carr lives in a very dark place: on growing up with the Beats, living on Mount Misery, and disappearing children.
• How to write while traveling: Andrés Neuman’s fragments from a Latin American book tour.
• Tracy K. Smith on God, poetry, and parenting in New York City.
• The woman who launched a newspaper during WWII: on the messy first issue of Alicia Patterson’s Newsday.
• Who am I? Benjamin Rybeck on trying to figure out if he’s a writer and a bookseller.
• There is no secret to writing about people who do not look like you: Brandon Taylor on the importance of empathy as craft.
• Why pleasures should never be guilty, from Valley of the Dolls to bonkbusters (yes, bonkbusters).
• Announcing the PEN Center USA’s literary award-winners: Sandra Cisneros, Jill Leovy, Isabel Allende, and more.
• How a self-published writer of gay erotica beat sci-fi bad guys Sad Puppies at their own game.
• Jacqueline Woodson talks Bushwick and the brilliance of black girls.
• How to write coincidence: on writerly manipulation, from E.M. Forster to Flannery O’Connor.

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