When a young person moves to “The Big Apple,” the experience can be so overwhelming that he is moved to write a powerful essay about it in noted millennial blogspot Thought Catalog. What’s that? Or, uh, National Review, sometimes.

In a move one might expect from an Education Minister who’s said such things as “when Palestinians were climbing trees, we already had a Jewish state” and “I’ve killed lots of Arabs in my life, and there’s no problem with that,” Israel has banned an Arab-Jewish romance novel from schools for “threatening Jewish identity.” Or put more simply, it banned the book over fears that it encourages race-mixing.

A copyright fight is brewing in Europe this week as the deadline after which two key WWII-era texts will fall within the public domain steadily approaches. In Europe, a book becomes public domain 70 years after the author’s death, on the first day of January. This Friday, January 1st, both Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl and Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf will enter the public domain.

Some people read the New York Times Book Review section for the book reviews. Other, smarter people read the New York Times Book Review just for the descriptions of the self-published books.

It used to be, when it came to food, people had a sort of devil-may-care just-put-the-food-in-your-damn-mouth attitude. This is no longer the case. Today there is more culinary-related material to sift through than ever before: Books! Magazines! Zines! Websites! Cookbooks! GOOP! If you live in one of the country’s many rapidly gentrifying cities, there is probably a new restaurant on your block every 15 minutes. On TV every day there is a new cooking show followed by a cooking competition show followed by a four-hour block of Rachael Ray talking to a backyard ghost about empanadas (log on to rachaelray.com to see Rachael and the ghost compete to make nachos).

"For a moment, she was grateful for the shark's oddly ridiculous yet comforting words, as strange as this all was. She listened quietly, taking in the delicious consolation being offered." Probably one of the best stories about a talking shark you'll find out there.

Novelist William Giraldi wants you to know he would appreciate it very much if everyone would stop comparing him so much to Cormac McCarthy. Such a burden, to be ceaselessly compared to Cormac McCarthy, just because Giraldi, like Cormac McCarthy, is interested in the "primitive flux and flex of violence."

"Is Michiko Kakutani incompetent or just crazy?" Shall we start with that question? Don't blame me. It's what Google autocomplete gave me when I typed "Michiko Kakutani is." I'm just reporting what the Internet says about her!

Emily Brontë: literary legend. Also, savage dog abuser.

James Joyce—literary titan, slayer of Victorian shibboleths, bane of schoolchildren the world over—was probably crippled and blinded by hooker-caused syphilis, according to new medical and documentary evidence uncovered by a Harvard researcher.

Here is a very special citation from the Pulitzer committee.

Timur Vermes, a German ghostwriter, penned a nationally best-selling novel satire about Hitler. Originally published in 2012, MacLehose Press is finally releasing the English translation of Vermes' literary debut, Look Who's Back (Er ist wieder da), next week.

"Thought Catalog invites authors to submit proposals for a new book on the culture-shaping series (HBO's Girls)." Sounds like a good book.

Even if you are a famous author published by a top publishing house and celebrated in rarefied literary circles, you will never write anything better than the description of a self-published author's book.

1) Person Under Age 30 Writes About Dating Life or Lack Thereof.

At risk of being somewhat reductionist, here is a bit of advice: Russians love poetry. Fuck with that at your own risk. If, for example, you tell a learned Russian that "the only real literature is prose," don't be surprised when he shivs you in the face.

What Being a Writer Feels Like: "Every day I see people shrugging with a derisiving look when I say being a writer is what I carve myself out to be."

"Still, there's a general sense that the drugs of choice for writers now are more often little blue pills than big brown bottles," writes Adam Gopnik, adding "(You can take the pill, and then send the kids to school.)" So those little blue pills would be, uh... Viagra? Valium? Please don't let it be Viagra.

Aliens. Spacealiens. No such thing. How theyd fought it out, cosmic mysteries reduced to raw shouting in the uncaring morning. Her leaving in wrath and now returning, straight into the bedroom without him. Rustling and thumps.