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.
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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
The Unabashed Jewishness of Barbra Streisand
In her new memoir, Streisand describes the risks involved in making Yentl.
Eight Books That Explain How the World Works
Technologies such as skyscrapers, airplanes, and sewage systems are fundamental—and confusing. These titles explain how they actually work.
Tick Season
A poem for Sunday
A Book That Was Like Putting on ‘a New Set of Glasses’
I consider its argument almost every day.
Do You Have Free Will?
A new book by Robert Sapolsky argues that we’re not in control of or responsible for the decisions we make.
The Heart
A poem for Wednesday
The Tech That’s Radically Reimagining the Public Sphere
In her new book about facial recognition, Kashmir Hill shows how our expectations of privacy have been rewritten over the past few years.
Six Books That Will Scare You—And Make You Think
Black writers have long used science fiction, fantasy, and horror to dramatize the terrors of racism or to tell frightening tales.
Who Made the Oxford English Dictionary?
A new book gives life to one of the world’s greatest crowdsourcing efforts.
A Greek Statue
Published in The Atlantic in 2007