Best of the Week: December 14 - 18, 2015

• The mythical white lady reader and beyond: Marlon James and Claire Vaye Watkins discuss “On Pandering.” | NPR
• “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
• The 12 best book covers of 2015, one of which was lucky enough to become a GIF. | The New York Times
• Stressing trivia over treason: On A. David Moody’s gentle treatment of Ezra Pound and other “exonerating biographies of bastards.” | The Smart Set
• “Some days later he lights firebits in a scullery bowl to ape the scream of gunfire.” Home Alone, but written by Cormac McCarthy. | The Awl
• Karl Ove Knausgaard on his life and work after his “midlife-crisis novel.” | The Paris Review
• 75 notable works of literature in translation, from Naja Marie Aidt to Moikom Zeqo. | World Literature Today
• Laila Lalami recommends eight books about Muslim life to “complicate perceptions and deepen the conversation.” | The Washington Post
• On Lidia Yuknavitch’s “incendiary blast of a novel,” The Small Backs of Children. | Public Books
• Mapping literary worlds and visiting literary landscapes: On the fascination with geography in books. | The Toast
• The authors of ten of this year’s best books select ten other best books. | The Fader
• An investigation beginning with a since-disappeared Wikipedia line: Was Animal Farm inspired by the work of a 19th-century Russian writer? | Harper’s Magazine
• “I left all my memories in Syria.” Molly Crabapple interviewed and illustrated Syrian refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan. | VICE
• The origins of the word “poltergeist” and the other best facts Kathryn Schulz learned from books this year. | The New Yorker

And on Literary Hub: The 99 best book covers of the year (for books by P.G. Wodehouse) · Is silence a tool, weapon, gift, or myth? On John Cage, muzak, noise, and torture · Booksellers from across the country tell us the 25 best books of the year · Doctors who tell stories: on Oliver Sacks and narrative medicine · Our staff shelf: Literary Hub’s best books of 2015 · Rebecca Solnit explains to us how men explain Lolita to her · So you’ve decided to launch an imprint: Emily Gould and Ruth Curry on Emily Books’ new print adventure · Bonnie Jo Campbell on strong women and life in the margins

Plus, all this week we excerpted the best books of the year: Adam Johnson’s “Nirvana” from Fortune Smiles, Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff; Sally Mann’s Hold Still; Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk; and Angela Flournoy’s The Turner House