Dear Reader, You are reading

“[I]n the days following the election, one thing became clear: many librarians are anxious about the future.” From Carla Hayden to copyright reform, Publisher’s Weekly has the top 10 library stories of 2016. Also recommended: a piece by Daniel Penev from our own pages earlier this year, about how libraries matter now more than ever.

“Whatever the facts of her life – whether she turned out to be an ancient man living in the Icelandic interior or a woman waiting tables at a Texan diner – Ferrante writes in an autobiographical mode. That is fuel for the truthers, a sort of literary ankle-flashing. But it is also good cover for another motive: a very contemporary form of envy of another’s autonomous space and their creativity, a rage that while they give us their work, they will not also give us their person.” On a new collection of Elena Ferrante’s letters, interviews and short pieces.

“I came back to my studio and tried to think of the slowest possible way to write a novel, and the slowest way is with frosting.” The Paris Review interviews cartoonist Lynda Barry about writing novels with a paintbrush.