Books for Non-Readers, the Most Depressing Book, Dali’s Wonderland, and More Lit Links

- The Millions has started up its annual and always interesting “Year in Reading” feature where dozens of authors share the books they read in 2011. Ben Marcus and Jennifer Egan are among early contributors. More to come.

- Speaking of year end features, HTMLGIANT has launched a pretty hilarious “tournament of bookshit” pitting the most annoying aspects of the literary world against each other. Early rounds include “Calling yrself editor-in-chief of online jrnl vs. posting pics of other people’s books on facebook” and “flarf vs. AWP“. It is too late to enter, but you can still watch. I have “nationwide Facebook invite to local event” going all the way.

- Daniel Clowes illustrated the new New Yorker cover and it is equal parts hilarious and probably depressingly accurate.

- Flavorwire on great books to give non-reading friends this X-mas.

- Have you been checking out the awesome flash fiction series that Tin House is running on their blog? Great work from Diane Williams, Michael Kimball, Seth Fried, and many others. Today’s story is by Gwenaelle Aubry and begins:

The apartment was full of balloons, garlands and children. One last little boy was still waiting for his parents, a little boy with long, curly, very dark hair. The telephone rang. I think it was already nightfall. The police were waiting for us outside my father’s building. They didn’t leave me alone with him. One of them preceded me into the room where he lay. He never took his eyes off me, told me not to touch a thing.

- The Rumpus interviews Rumpus Book Club author Laurie Weeks.

- New Directions unearths a great author photo of Clarice Lispector, whose The Hour of the Star was just published in a new translation.

- TFT editor Adam Wilson has a story in the new Paris Review. You can read an excerpt here:

“What is this cockshit?” someone behind me said.

I turned. Felix wore camo pants and a sleeveless tee. Hair long and greasy, facial features exaggerated: comically oversize mouth and nose. Like late-career Bogart: rheumy-eyed, beyond saving.

“It’s raining,” I said.

- The most depressing book ever?

- Lastly, did you know that Salvador Dalí illustrated Alice in Wonderland in the 1960s? Check out the gorgeous and surreal images at Brain Pickings.

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