The Atlantic 10
The books that made us think the most this year
The Case of the Unknowable Human
Dorothy Sayers’s most famous character is a detective who solves crimes with elegance—but he finds the deeper enigmas of human beings always out of reach.
Sports Offer More Than Winning
Female athletes have been subject to harmful expectations for years. They want to bring back the joy.
What Is It About Pamela Anderson?
The model and actor drove men wild. She’s still enduring the consequences.
The Police Can Be Reformed. These Two Books Lay Out How.
In the aftermath of Tyre Nichols’s killing, it’s easy to despair. But two new books show how police departments can alter their behavior.
America’s Byron
Remembering the poet and novelist James Dickey on his centennial
A New Way to Read Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald never explicitly states Jay Gatsby’s race.
Did George Washington Burn New York?
Americans disparaged the British as arsonists. But the rebels fought with fire too.
The Miraculous Salman Rushdie
His enchanting new novel is a triumph.
Background
A short story
Elaine Hsieh Chou on the Ethics of ‘Trauma Porn’
“If you are retraumatizing the very audience a piece of media is supposedly for, can it really be for them?”
Poem Beginning With a Sentence From My Last Will & Testament
What Kids Learn From Hard Conversations
Talking with children about painful topics can be complicated—but it can help shape their worldview for life.
What to Read When You’re Expecting
These writers go beyond the realm of standard guidebooks to offer generous insight and reassurance.
Patience
Published in The Atlantic in 1880
The Brutal Reality of Life in America’s Most Notorious Jail
I’ve been locked up in maximum-security prisons for two decades. My time on Rikers Island was worse.
Woman in Labor
A poem for Sunday
How Do You Adapt a Book Into a TV Show?
On the challenges of translating the page to the screen: Your weekly guide to the best in books
When Truman Capote’s Lies Caught Up With Him
The author of In Cold Blood played fast and loose with the facts.
He’s Tweeting for His Life
Hanif Kureishi’s tweets from his sickbed are a bravura performance that is no performance at all.
The Bug
A poem for Wednesday
/media/img/mt/2023/01/books_tv_adaptations/original.gif)