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.
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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
What It Feels Like When Fascism Starts
A 1933 novel tracks the Nazis’ rise to power in real time.
Girls’ School
A poem for Sunday
Six Classic Books That Live Up to Their Reputation
These novels are lengthy, but they lavishly reward the time and effort you pour into them.
What a Famous Writer’s Early Work Can Teach Us About Failure
Marguerite Duras’s second novel, The Easy Life, shows that all writing is practice.
What Successful Memoirs Accomplish
They make personal narrative into art: Your weekly guide to the best in books
The Shout
A poem for Wednesday
Why Read Literary Biography?
What Shirley Hazzard’s life can, and can’t, tell us about her fiction
The Atlantic 10
The books that made us think the most this year
The Reinvention of the Catholic Church
Scandals have taken a toll, and faith is flagging in Europe and the U.S. But Catholicism isn’t on the wane—it’s changing in influential ways.
Why It’s So Hard to Write About Science
Understanding something like a pandemic requires engagement with more than just biology: Your weekly guide to the best in books