Great new(ish) stories from around the Web. Forget work for a minute and read a story. It’s good for you.

– Francis Varsho took leave from opening his birthday presents to calm himself in private. Almost all gifts people gave him these days insulted Francis deeply, as though, through the act of generosity, they were trying to undermine his sense of self. The latest offender—on this, his twelfth birthday—was his grandmother, whom he’d not seen in over a year and who hadn’t bothered to show up for his birthday dinner of square pizza and two kinds of root beer. — Baird Harper in Cut Bank

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Stop Me If You've Heard This Before

In a snap our weekend is gone. Yes, it’s Monday again and with us we carry pedestrian, predictable, tiring complaints. But we’ll spare you the details. In fact, we love Mondays! We love them so much we’re changing our pedestrian, tiring complaints into fragrant and pretty literature links. On board? Good. Here’s Monday’s bouquet: Comedy as a force to be reckoned with — in terms of Dante — in the Chicago Tribune. An elderly and revered Chinese writer publishes a new novel, much to the relief of her ardent, breath-holding fans. The Financial Times adds up the net worth of literature, which in itself equals news. A Japanese writer’s short stories are heralded by Words Without Borders and Paper Cuts surmises 2009′s best books. In closing, it’s an anniversary for Bill Burroughs and his copy-paste/cult-favorite/mind-bending novel, and Shakespeare — that iconic, foresighted scribe — knew before us all the perils of delinquent environmentalism. Read more in Grist. If that doesn’t smell good, we don’t know what will. — Kevin Murphy

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