Best of the Week: August 3 – 7, 2015

TODAY: In 1965, Shirley Jackson dies unexpectedly of heart failure during her usual afternoon nap.

• Ta-Nehisi Coates enumerates his ten desert island books for the bookshop installation One Grand. | T Magazine
• A David Foster Wallace biopic by any other name (bromance movie, rom com) would get as much press. | The New Republic, Flavorwire
• Homosexuality in the African household: Chimamanda Adichie’s and Diriye Osman’s representations of same-sex desire. | Africa is a Country
• Join us in sobbing at our desks while reading this heartbreaking story by Lidia Yuknavitch. | Guernica
• On the purposeful formal experimentation and complicated publication history of America’s favorite typer, Jack Kerouac. | Library of America’s Reader’s Almanac
• Mining August’s “abundance of literary riches” for the most anticipated books of this month. | Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Shelfari
• “He is eight and a half times better than me at writing the same book.” A depressing account of submitting a novel under a male pseudonym. | Jezebel
• On the discrediting of professional writers and #TenThingsNotToSayToAWriter (“I’ve aggregated your tweet under a picture of Hannah Horvath.”) | The New Republic
• Ukrainian-language and Russian-language, pro-west and pro-Russian, official and independent: the writing life in Ukraine. | Electric Literature
• Hanya Yanagihara on clickbait, the meaninglessness of author bios, and the continued victory of non-trash over trash. | The Millions
• Sarah Gerard talks exes (best friend, boyfriend) and the writing they (did, did not) inspire. | The Rumpus
• Updating Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary for the Twitter age. | The Verge
• “I think people are sick and tired of seeing my face in the newspaper.” Think again, Knausgaard! An interview with the drummer of Lemen. | VICE
• A spectrum of literary ambition, from flannel-wearing victim of ennui (Hamlet) to self-proclaimed Artist (The Flamethrowers). | The Oyster Review
• “At its core, the United States is grateful, warm-hearted… not a cold and bullying prison.” An interview with Ilan Stavans, creator of Restless Books’ prize for immigrant writing. | Publishers Weekly

And on Literary Hub:

• Memorializing terror and oppression at Celica, the former Slovene military prison turned hostel. | Literary Hub
• Dale Peck on the dark genius of Shirley Jackson and her unheralded novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle. | Literary Hub
• Álvaro Enrigue meditates on the Mexican middle-class, the rise of the narcoterrorist, and the symbolic power of the Volkswagen bug. | Literary Hub
• Alexander Chee looks back at Peter Carey’s The Tax Collector and why Carey is a punk rock novelist. | Literary Hub
• How the “badass women of Polish mythology,” and the rusalka myth inspired Adrienne Celt’s writing. | Literary Hub
• It is everywhere, including our writing: Alexander Chee in defense of the present tense. | Literary Hub
• Adam Fitzgerald interviews poet Fred Moten, Part I and Part II. | Literary Hub

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