Best of the Week: January 11 – 15, 2016

TODAY: In 1605, the first edition of El Ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Macha by Miguel de Cervantes is published in Madrid, Spain. 

• Christian Lorentzen traces the history of short story anthologies from their pale and sickly beginnings. | Vulture
• On starting every young and vulnerable year with The Great Gatsby. | Sacred Trespasses
• From lit wicks to the horizontal mambo, the metaphorical, “quick-and-dirty ways” we write about sex. | Hazlitt
• From Dante to Díaz, a reading list of Bowie’s 100 favorite books. | David Bowie
• A. Igoni Barrett on the “congested, cacophonous, chaotic, cosmopolitan, captivating” city of Lagos and the writing life in Nigeria. | Electric Literature
• Reconciling twinned layers of poetry: Chloe Garcia Roberts and Guangchen Chen discuss translating the notoriously obscure 9th century poet Li Shangyin. | Critical Flame
• Parul Sehgal’s new column debuted with her reflections on the “spider of a writer” Bohumil Hrabal. | The New York Times
• “There it was. A new tumor, large, filling my right middle lobe.” An excerpt from neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi’s posthumously published memoir, When Breath Becomes Air. | The New Yorker
• The White Review’s translation issue, which includes work by/interviews with Marlene van Niekerk, Eka Kurniawan, Fiston Mwanza Mujila, and others. | The White Review
• Margaret Atwood on watching her speculative fiction become reality, “however many shades of grey,” and drinking blood. | Broadly
• Ta-Nehisi Coates, Sheila Heti, George Saunders, and (many) others share their “breakthrough moments.” | New York Magazine
• “Their identities were magnified by the other.” Patti Smith on the inspiring love and artwork of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. | Smithsonian Magazine
• A symbolic monument/fundraiser aiming to rebuild the University of Baghdad’s destroyed library. | Hyperallergic
• “The entire Western world is saturated by black female figures, everywhere.” An interview with Robin Coste Lewis. | BOMB Magazine
• Hundreds of writers in 44 countries participated in coordinated readings of Ashraf Fayadh’s poetry to protest his death sentence. | The Guardian

And on Literary Hub:

• The time I wrote a book with an anonymous private military contractor.
• Dear Rick Moody, Life Coach: I need to learn to fight.
• Sunil Yapa on how to live cheaply and finish a novel.
• On David Bowie, alien and actor.
• Announcing the finalists for The Story Prize.
• Don’t let your mom read this: how a mother-daughter translation team makes it work.
• A Phone Call from Paul: William Gibson talks to Paul Holengraber about phones, fiction, and the end of the world.
• A brief history of book illustration: where it’s been, where it could go…
• BuzzBooks recommends 117 books you should read this spring and summer.

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