Before
A poem for Wednesday
The One Cause of Poverty That’s Never Considered
In a new book, Matthew Desmond argues that to understand what keeps people poor, we need to take a good look at the rich.
Eight Books That Will Take You Somewhere New
These titles conjure their settings so vividly that you’ll feel as if you’re there.
Friendship, 1963
A poem for Sunday
The Gift of Rereading
Returning to a book you’ve already finished is an underrated pursuit in a fast-paced world: Your weekly guide to the best in books
Nora Ephron’s Revenge
What right do women have to tell their side of the story?
10 Poetry Collections to Read Again and Again
Here is the verse that we just can’t get out of our heads.
The Failed Promise of Having It All
Rona Jaffe’s classic novel explores the age-old question, but contains a darker message for contemporary readers.
America’s Most Insidious Myth
It’s time to challenge our country’s dangerous obsession with self-reliance.
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.”
Tuesday
The Book That Teaches Us to Live With Our Fears
Wolfish explores the question of what, exactly, we perceive as threats.
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