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
I Wish I Could Remember
A poem for Sunday
There’s a Book for That
When you want a book that will show you how to do something new
When Judaism Went à la Carte
On the 50th anniversary of The Jewish Catalog
Can Nature Lie?
The lying that we humans do requires a more sophisticated kind of cognition than a bird, flower, or fungus can muster.
Seven Books for the Lifelong Learner
These books may tempt you to take up a new pursuit and enlarge your sense of your own capabilities.
Claude Glass as Night Song
A poem for Sunday
The Book Behind Oppenheimer
A conversation with Kai Bird, a co-writer of the mammoth biography from which the new film is adapted
Colson Whitehead Loses the Plot
Crook Manifesto is both powered and limited by its most absorbing characteristic: the author’s voice.
The Secret to a Good Conversation
A new cultural history embraces talk as an open-ended source of temporary delight.
I Watched Russian Television for Five Days Straight
My full immersion in Putin’s propaganda