Edgard Farasijn, Sad News (detail), ca. 1880, oil on canvas.

• Today is supposedly Blue Monday, the saddest day of the year. And Jude the Obscure, 120 Days of Sodom, Germinal: these are among the fifteen most depressing books in literature.
• And yet The Day of the Locustlands on a list of comfort reads.
• Ship first, ask questions later. Amazon’s latest stratagem: “anticipatory shipping,” a program in which the company preemptively sends you products it expects you to buy, “based on previous searches and purchases, wish lists, and how long the user’s cursor hovers over an item online.”
• Not unrelatedly, here’s a roundup of socially resonant dystopian fiction. “These dystopias, I think, speak to a different kind of anxiety … one of widespread helplessness in an unfathomably complex world.”
• “Using science to explain art is a good way to butcher both.” A scorched-earth takedown of Jane Austen, Game Theorist.
• This roundup is looking pretty bleak. In the name of balance, a celebration of literary rule-breakers.