Is Cohabitation the Feminist Future?
Stories about women living together are proliferating—and offering alternative visions to the nuclear family.
Books
Introducing The Atlantic’s expanded books coverage: essays, criticism, fiction, poetry, and recommendations from our writers and editors
Peter Hujar’s Photos Are All the Rage. He’d Be Shocked.
A new biography brings the late photographer’s relationship with the artist Paul Thek to vivid life.
If You Want a Better World, Act Like You Live in It
We’ve had Henry David Thoreau the environmentalist, the libertarian, the life coach. To understand his influence, think of him first as a dissident.
The Publishing Mystery That No One Wants to Talk About
A minimally speaking autistic man just wrote a best-selling book. Or did he?
The Paradox of Modern Medicine
Testing has become so advanced that doctors now miss important elements of diagnosis.
What To Read
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Eight of the Most Fascinating Biographies to Read
Each is animated by the author’s love—for their subject, for language, and for pushing the boundaries of what the genre can do.
Six Books That Simply Must Be Talked About
These six books demand discussion—with a pal, a date, or a book club.
Nine Books to Reset Your View of the World
Each of these titles will widen your perspective, offering you original insight and vision.
Seven Books to Read When You Have No Time to Read
These titles are worth picking up, even if you have only a moment to spare.
Newsletter
The Books Briefing
Our culture editors’ weekly guide to the best in books.
Subject to The Atlantic's Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions
Fiction
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Scars
A short story
Fortunes
A short story
The Honor of the Layward Brothers
A short story
We Are Not One
A short story
‘That’s Just Like White Noise.’
Any writer with an interest in probing “American magic and dread”—to borrow a phrase from the novel—is probably in conversation with Don DeLillo, whether or not she knows it.
Little House on the Prairie—With Meth
In his new book, Ted Conover moves to a remote valley in southern Colorado to experience 21st-century life off the grid.
T. S. Eliot Saw All This Coming
One hundred years after the publication of The Waste Land, its vision has never been more terrifying.
The Companies That Are Killing Creativity
Amazon and Spotify offer a raw deal for artists.
Great Sex in the Time of War
A new entrant into the literature of conflict attends to gossipy intimacy as much as to beatings and bombings.
The Incandescent Wisdom of Cormac McCarthy
His two final novels are the pinnacle of a controversial career.
Mayakovsky in New York: A Found Poem
Published in The Atlantic in 1994
A Novel That Will Make You Laugh and Then Punch You in the Gut
Kevin Wilson’s Now Is Not the Time to Panic features narrators haunted, yet not bound, by troubled pasts.
The Wrong Way to Look at the Past
Americans are taught history through the stories of great men, but no one changes the world alone: Your weekly guide to the best in books
A Provincial Roman Town
A poem for Wednesday