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
See All
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
The Cellist
Published in The Atlantic in 1994
A Novel That Probes the Line Between Justice and Revenge
The narrator in Rebecca Makkai’s novel I Have Some Questions for You has a healthy skepticism of true crime—but a decades-old murder pulls her in deep.
The Value in Decoding Fairy Tales
The simple logic of a fable can reveal something bigger about our culture: Your weekly guide to the best in books
All of Shakespeare’s Plays Are About Race
A new book argues that the playwright’s work was central to defining whiteness as a racial category—one that has persisted ever since.
Mona Simpson on the Dissonance Between Reality and Memory
“Maybe a person is everyone she’s ever been, not just who she is at the present moment. With those we love, we see overlays of their best selves.”
The Oscars’ Incredible Knack for Being Wrong
Despite a history of embarrassment, the Academy has somehow managed to hold on to its prestige.
A Novel in Which Nightmares Are All Too Real
The Argentine writer Mariana Enriquez shows how violence can haunt and destabilize a civilization.
A View of American History That Leads to One Conclusion
For many historians today, the present is forever trapped in the past and defined by the worst of it.
The Family Who Tried to End Racism Through Adoption
Bob and Sheryl Guterl saw their family as a kind of “ark for the age of the nuclear bomb” and attempted to gather “two of every race.”
