Best of the Week: October 26 – 30, 2015

TODAY: In 1892, the first collection of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is published; here is author Arthur Conan Doyle (far left) with his family and Harry Houdini (center). 

• Junot Díaz has been declared unpatriotic and stripped of his order of merit award for advocating on behalf of persecuted immigrants in the Dominican Republic. | The Guardian
• “It is perhaps even truer of our society than of most that religion and public life are inextricably involved.” An excerpt from Marilynne Robinson’s forthcoming essay collection. | Financial Times
• The newest “widely-practiced, if somewhat less-than-honest, trend with clear payoffs” in politics: bulk buying copies of a candidate’s own memoir. | The Christian Science Monitor
• “Diversity as an editor begins with your friends, your teachers, and your books.” Editors respond to the Best American Poetry debacle and offer thoughts on improving the (dismal) state of diversity in publishing. | PEN America
• David Mitchell talks Twitter fiction, acts of literary escapology, and the harm of genre elitism. | Salon
• “The dinner table, Salter understood, was the perfect stage for the frailty of our relationships.” Kathleen Alcott on James Salter’s writing about food. | The Paris Review
• Jonathan Franzen on the rise of “the New Yorker story,” known for its “carefully wrought, many-comma’d prose,” in the 1950s. | The New Yorker
• “American literature has been missing Kurniawan, without even being aware, until now, of our loss.” On Eka Kurniawan’s two newly translated novels. | Bookforum
• The disturbing and amazing Mark Z. Danielewski offers five books that are both unsettling and beautiful. | A.V. Club
• “She was hypnotized by Sadie, and her dark, evil laughter.” An unpublished short story by teenage Truman Capote. | The New Republic
• Jeb Bush as Marie Kondo, Ted Cruz as Beowulf, and Hilary Clinton as Jane Austen: linguistically matching presidential candidates to books. | The New York Times
• “It gives us a sense of who we all are as Americans. It will be both her story and our story.” Talking with the director of the potential, first-ever Maya Angelou documentary. | The Cut
• It has been too long since we’ve heard from our favorite “powerful American wizard who lives in Germany,” so here is an interview with Nell Zink. | Full Stop
• Read the ghost of Mark Twain’s debut novel, Jap Herron, which he wrote via Ouija board. | The Public Domain Review
• From the rage of Achilles to 2666’s “dirge of pure literary hell,” the scariest moments in Western literature. | Flavorwire

And on Literary Hub:

• How will an African superhero handle race in America? On Ta-Nehisi Coates and the new Black Panther. | Literary Hub
• Rupert Thomson goes to the wilds of industrial Russia for book research he won’t use. | Literary Hub
• Alexander Chee finds himself in an Iris Murdoch novel. | Literary Hub
• Finding  life-changing books in the most unlikely places; a reading list from Bruce Bauman. | Literary Hub
• On favorite reading experiences and the “great hunger” of first-person narration: part two of Paul Holdengraber’s chat with Ben Lerner. | Literary Hub
• How Andre Agassi ushered Marie-Helene Bertino into womanhood (and made her a writer). | Literary Hub
• On manifestos and the writing life: Tracy K. Smith and Gregory Pardlo in conversation. | Literary Hub
• “In 1692 the Massachusetts Bay Colony executed fourteen women, five men, and two dogs for witchcraft.” Stacy Schiff on the madness behind the Salem witch hunt. | Literary Hub
• Hermione Hoby is haunted on her honeymoon, and punched by the ghost of Frida Kahlo. | Literary Hub
• Jennifer Tseng on becoming a mother, losing a parent, the public library, and living on an island called Martha’s Vineyard. | Literary Hub

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