Welcome to the Alumni Essentials, or, as it shall be known for the next week: the Carly Lewis show! This is Lewis’s second time featured in this series and she’s the first person ever to fully take it over. Cue applause.

She really left us no choice, because whether it’s about Girls, the year’s best albums or Jian Ghomeshi (all topics in the following stories), her writing provokes you. It makes you want to join the essential dialogue she’s creating. Help yourself enter it by reading along:

1. The year’s best albums are full of women’s anger—and it’s glorious

2. The Year of Complicity: on Jian Ghomeshi, Bill Cosby, and their enablers

3. Single White Females: is Girls solving a representation problem or spoon-feeding its target audience?

That’s it for this week. Got a piece that should be featured here? Email the blog editor. We know you’re following the Review on Twitter. But how about its masthead? 

Is Monday slowly becoming your favourite day of the week? Is it difficult to sleep Sunday night because you’re so excited? We can’t blame you and we apologize. Now it’s finally time for your weekly fix. Here’s our favourite latest pieces of work from Review alumni.

First, winter 2012 editor Haley Cullingham delves into the extremely popular podcast, Serial, where a team led by Sarah Koenig re-investigates the 1999 murder of 18-year-old Hae Min Lee in Baltimore. But Cullingham finds Koenig as a character takes away from Lee’s story, which fades into the background.

Next, spring 2004 editor Megan Griffith-Greene was part of the team that worked on Marketplace‘s months-long investigation into the industry dedicated to positing fake online reviews for companies. Check out her articles showing how Marketplace obtained reviews for its made up organization and four ways companies are deceiving consumers.

Lastly, Don Obe, founder of the Review, died on Friday. Current Review instructor Tim Falconer looks back at Obe’s work in his guest blog post: Legacy of a Legend.

Until next week.

Do you have a piece that should be on here? Email the blog editor.