Best of the Week: December 28 – 31, 2015

TODAY: In 1920, professor Isaac Asimov, science fiction writer, is born. 

• In a reality show begging to be made, This Old House’s Bob Vila is working to restore Hemingway’s Cuban home and the papers stored there. | NPR
• “It is language that pulls moments into their reality.” Claudia Rankine discusses the complicated nature of racism, loose anthropological exercises, and reading Adrienne Rich. | The Guardian
• A contest, with voting, was held to select this fan-designed cover for Infinite Jest’s 20th anniversary. | IJ20
• “Literary prankster” Mario Bellatin has very seriously demanded that no one buy his most recent reissued novel. | The New Yorker
• The best book of 2015 (about Marvin Gaye) and of other less timely years (1965, 2003, 1955, 2006, 1970). | Granta
• “Today we are going to have a nice lesson.” A short story by Hilary Mantel. | The London Review of Books
• Sharon Olds on finding inspiration in tedious hymns and gorgeous Psalms, receiving enraged rejection slips, and writing “less worse” poetry. | Divedapper
• “It’s not Marjorie Perloff that must leave the poetry world; we must leave it.” Fred Moten responds to Marjorie Perloff’s shockingly racist defense of Kenneth Goldsmith. | Entropy
• Existentialist cafés, blessed patriarchs, and Don DeLillo’s 17th novel: ten books to look forward to in 2016. | BBC
• A belated holiday gift from Lenny: their Winter Poetry Issue, which includes work by Morgan Parker, Ariana Reines, Chelsea Martin, and Diamond Sharp. | Lenny
• The inaugural installment of Otherworldly, N. K. Jemisin’s new science fiction and fantasy review column. | The New York Times Sunday Book Review
• “This is the vanguard of slow-minded liberal whiteness, myopia imposed through righteousness. My freedom of expression is to acknowledge that.” Fariha Róisín reflects on the year in Islamaphobia. | Hazlitt
• Barnes & Noble is considering serving alcohol and not shutting down the Barnes & Noble Review; it is just taking a holiday break, like the rest of us. | LA Times, The New Republic
• Right now they were just boys. I was just a boy. And still these guns were real and my skin was black.” Clint Smith on shooting guns, what gets to be called an error, and Tamir Rice. | The New Yorker
• George Saunders on letting the world kick his ass, the importance of variation, and how humor is like his oxygen. | TriQuarterly

And on Literary Hub:

• We finished counting down the 50 biggest lit stories of the year: numbers 25 to 16, 15 to 6, and the final top five.
• Our ten most popular stories of the year.
• Literary Hub staff picks our favorite stories of the year.
• Poet-Editors select their favorite poetry this year.
• The unheralded monk who turned his small town into a center of publishing.
• Sarah Knight on giving up editing to become a writer, and not giving a f*ck.
• Barry Day on Noel Coward, the reluctant screenwriter.
• New additions to Bartlett’s Quotations for 2015.

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