
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.
Introducing The Atlantic’s expanded books coverage: essays, criticism, fiction, poetry, and recommendations from our writers and editors

We’ve had Henry David Thoreau the environmentalist, the libertarian, the life coach. To understand his influence, think of him first as a dissident.

A minimally speaking autistic man just wrote a best-selling book. Or did he?

Testing has become so advanced that doctors now miss important elements of diagnosis.

Her new memoir captures the cost of being an impossibly popular target.

Humankind has devised a new form of debasement.
Our culture editors’ weekly guide to the best in books.

These titles might lend readers a new perspective ahead of November 5.

These eight titles are some of the best the true-crime genre has to offer.

A poem for Wednesday

The late Gary Indiana kept the culture of his time close to his chest because it fueled his indignation—and his fixations.

A new book argues that privacy is the key to a meaningful existence.

The oratorio is a feat of sustained inspiration arguably unsurpassed in the canon of Western classical music.

A poem for Sunday

Political autobiographies are usually dreck, but some rise above their genre.

In a new novel, France’s famously abrasive author progresses from barbed satire to a spiritual-conversion narrative.

The musician’s greatest songs are dramatic, psychologically complex, and often very bleak.