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

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Mississippi Fred McDowell is singing to us. It’s a fitting tune: Monday rode in on the wind and slapped us with the backside of its gee-tar. But we’ll push on through. We always do. Good things, like the Blues, and literature, keep us optimistic. Speaking of the Blues, what do you know about suffering? Evelio Rosero’s novel The Armies will make you relish every last minute of your existence — even the unsavory parts. George Orwell, that harbinger of social reform, uses his newly published Diaries to discuss his obsession with rats. Houghton Mifflin is miffed over its diminishing role in the modern-day market place, Terry Castle writes really good essays, and T.S. Eliot explains the proper ways to plagiarize. Elsewhere, Gabriel García Márquez’s early life is chronicled, Edgar Allan Poe can’t — for the life of him — find eternal peace, and Google takes over the world. Orwell was right, people. – Kevin Murphy

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