Midweek Links from Around the Web (February 23rd)

All the best literary links that are fit to, well, link

Is Shakespeare as genius as he’s cracked up to be? The lead general editor of The New Oxford Shakespeare has some incendiary opinions.

America’s favorite dad, Tom Hanks, has written a short story collection themed around his fascination with typewriters. Uncommon Type: Some Stories is due out in October.

In an unrelated note, here’s a list of the worst novels by Hollywood actors. It turns out Franco’s extensive MFA binge-enrollment spree in 2008 couldn’t save him from the list…

Self-conscious to the point of inanity, [Franco’s] Actors Anonymous is built on a towering stack on unwarranted pretension that sporadically attempts to undercut itself with a scene where a professor tells Franco that his book isn’t very good. Also includes an oral sex scene in a public bathroom that ends with a character spitting semen on to an unflushed turd.

We’ve got 10 therapeutic short story recommendations for the 5 stages of grief (which really, anyone who’s paying attention to the news could benefit from).

It turns out librarians make badass objectors.

Harvard College Writing professor, Ben Roth, makes an interesting case against the supposed compliment of “readability” in literature:

“Readable” has become the chosen term of praise in our times precisely because so many of us find ourselves unable to concentrate as we once could or still aspire to. But to praise readability is to embrace the vicious feedback loop that our culture now finds itself in.”

A graduate student at the University of Houston discovered Walt Whitman’s long-lost mediocre novel, Life and Adventures of Jack Engle.

Lithub put together a list of 10 writers they’d like to see debate Trump. We can already hear his rebuttal, “Your novel is a fake story!”