Atlantic Editions

Elizabeth Bruenig On Human Slaughter Spencer Kornhaber On Divas Caitlin Flanagan On Thinking For Yourself Jennifer Senior On Grief

A new line of paperback books by Atlantic writers presenting definitive essays on consequential topics.

Published by Zando

On Human Slaughter - book cover

Elizabeth Bruenig On Human Slaughter

A collection of compassionate reporting from America’s death row, named a 2023 Pulitzer Prize finalist for feature writing.

Elizabeth Bruenig’s sensitive reporting pulls back the curtain on an increasingly routine crisis in America’s death chambers: state executioner’s inability to kill the condemned humanely. She takes readers to the torturous final moments of death row inmates, while considering the often heinous crimes that earned them their sentences, and the complex legal system and prison bureaucracy that uphold them. Thoughtful and profound, Bruenig negotiates the culture of violence in America and examines what’s at stake when we refuse to see the humanity in those who have done the inhumane.

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  • Release: 10/10/23
  • ISBN: 9781638931423
  • Format: Paperback
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About Elizabeth Bruenig

Elizabeth Bruenig is a writer at The Atlantic, where she arrived after stints at the New York Times and the Washington Post. In 2019, she was named a Pulitzer finalist in feature writing for her investigation of a gang rape that took place at her high school in Arlington, Texas. Liz now reports on capital punishment, criminal justice, and American violence. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and two daughters and two cats.

On Divas - book cover

Spencer Kornhaber On Divas

A critic’s notebook on sparkle and spectacle.

A collection of essays on musicians, celebrities, and aesthetic movements and moments that, taken together, characterizes the often used, yet widely misunderstood term diva. On Divas offers readers an original understanding of an age-old phenomenon by drawing together figures as diverse as Beyoncé, Björk, and Donald Trump. With keen insight and genuine enthusiasm, Spencer Kornhaber illustrates how willfulness, pleasure, spectacular self-involvement, and the public’s blend of adoration and resentment define divadom.

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  • Release: 10/10/23
  • ISBN: 9781638931133
  • Format: Paperback
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About Spencer Kornhaber

Spencer Kornhaber is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers music and popular culture. Prior to joining The Atlantic as an editor in 2011, he wrote for Spin, The A.V. Club, and OC Weekly. In 2019, he won the Excellence in Column Writing Award from NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists.

On Thinking For Yourself - book cover

Caitlin Flanagan On Thinking For Yourself

Seven essays that make the compelling case for coming to your own informed conclusions in an age of extremes.

Caitlin Flanagan’s two decades of celebrated reporting and commentary at The Atlantic span an array of subjects—from cancer to fraternities, abortion to scammers—but always return to one central question: What happens when we suppress our critical instincts and shut our ears to opposing opinions and competing facts? With poise, humor, and an analytical acumen unlike any other working journalist, this collection of deep reporting and cultural commentary encourages readers to dismantle their echo chambers—whether they be social media feeds or lecture halls—and embrace disagreement.

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  • Release: 10/10/23
  • ISBN: 9781638931409
  • Format: Paperback
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About Caitlin Flanagan

Caitlin Flanagan has written for The Atlantic since 2001 and she is a former staff writer for the New Yorker. Her subjects have included modern family life; college admissions; adolescence; sexuality; and the culture wars. Her essays have been widely anthologized, including in the Best American Essays, Best American Travel Writing, and Best American Magazine Writing series. She is the author of two books, To Hell with All That and Girl Land. She was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize and she has won a National Magazine Award for Reviews and Criticism. Flanagan grew up in Berkeley and now lives in Los Angeles. Before becoming a writer, she was an English teacher and college counselor at Harvard-Westlake school.

On Misdirection - book cover

Megan Garber On Misdirection

An investigation of misinformation and fracturing in contemporary American political culture.

A collection of essays from Atlantic staff writer Megan Garber, On Misdirection: Magic, Mayhem, American Politics is a timely treatise on our contemporary American political culture. Using the concept of “misdirection” to argue how attention, boredom, uncertainty, and cynicism have become the disquieting stalwarts of our current political arena, Garber offers readers a new and accessible theory for understanding the lasting power of Donald Trump and his right-wing legions.

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  • Release: 01/10/23
  • ISBN: 9781638930624
  • Format: Paperback
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About Megan Garber

Megan Garber is a staff writer at The Atlantic. She writes about television, movies, books, and the intersection of politics and entertainment. The recipient of a Mirror Award for her writing about the media, she previously worked as a technology reporter for Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab and as a critic for the Columbia Journalism Review. She holds a BA in English Literature from Princeton University and an MA in journalism from Columbia University, and lives in Washington, DC.

On Nobody Famous - book cover

Kaitlyn Tiffany & Lizzie Plaugic On Nobody Famous

Dispatches from the everyday adventures of two millennial New Yorkers.

Welcome to the world of Lizzie and Kaitlyn: small parties, weird dinners, and aimless evenings in New York City. Join Lizzie and Kaitlyn as they recap getting together and going nowhere in chatty prose rich with niche references about New York and the internet alike. Take the Q train to Coney Island, an Uber to eat Garbage Plates (a Western New York delicacy), or a walk to a Crown Heights birthday party. Eclectic and endlessly funny, On Nobody Famous used to be a Substack that turned into an Atlantic newsletter and is now a literary collection of the lives of nobody all that famous.

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  • Release: 04/04/23
  • ISBN: 9781638930709
  • Format: Paperback
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About Kaitlyn Tiffany

Kaitlyn Tiffany is a staff writer at The Atlantic. She writes about online platforms and internet culture. Before joining The Atlantic in 2019, she was a technology reporter for Vox’s The Goods, and a culture reporter at The Verge, where she co-hosted the podcast Why’d You Push That Button. She is the author of the book Everything I Need I Get From You: How Fangirls Created the Internet as We Know It.

About Lizzie Plaugic

Lizzie Plaugic is a creative strategist and writer. Previously, she was a reporter at The Verge, where she wrote about internet culture.

On Womanhood - book cover

Sophie Gilbert On Womanhood

Twelve incisive, probing essays on womanhood in popular culture.

In these penetrating essays, Pulitzer Prize finalist Sophie Gilbert sharply surveys our contemporary media landscape and the state of modern feminism. By positioning television and literature as capacious sites of feminist critique, Gilbert unflinchingly examines questions of choice, individuality, and visibility to help us better understand womanhood and its future.

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  • Release: 01/10/23
  • ISBN: 9781638930662
  • Format: Paperback
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About Sophie Gilbert

Sophie Gilbert is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where she writes about television, books, and popular culture. She was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism. Before joining The Atlantic in 2014, she was the arts editor at Washingtonian, where she won three Society of Professional Journalists awards for arts reporting and criticism. She has previously written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, and The Brooklyn Rail.

On BTS - book cover

Lenika Cruz On BTS

A love letter to Korean pop sensation BTS and an ode to fandom.

The supersonic rise of the Korean pop group BTS may seem enigmatic to some, but for Lenika Cruz, senior culture editor at The Atlantic, their worldwide fame is obvious. As Cruz argues in On BTS: Pop Music, Fandom, Sincerity, the group’s trajectory—debuting on a relatively obscure label in Korea to becoming a global household name in just a few years—is a natural result of their authenticity, artistry, energy, social conscientiousness, and general coolness. As a non-English-language band finding record-breaking international success, BTS is helping usher in a fresh, more inclusive era in the music industry. In this love letter to the once-in-a-generation pop sensation, Cruz narrates her own unexpected embrace of the fandom and in doing so might welcome you in, too.

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  • Release: 01/10/23
  • ISBN: 9781638930648
  • Format: Paperback
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About Lenika Cruz

Lenika Cruz is a senior editor at The Atlantic where she has been a staffer on the culture section since 2014. She has edited stories that have been nominated for James Beard Awards and included in anthologies such as Best Food Writing, and one that was named as a Pulitzer Prize finalist. In addition to The Atlantic, Lenika’s essays, reporting, and criticism have appeared in LA Weekly, Glamour, The Rumpus, East Bay Express, and Guam’s Pacific Daily News. She has spoken about race, culture, and media for the Asian American Journalists Association, the Washington National Cathedral, and Pomona College’s Humanities Studio. She has appeared as a guest on NPR’s Code Switch and Pop Culture Happy Hour, The Atlantic’s Review podcast, Blank Check, KPCC, and other radio shows. She is a volunteer contributing editor for the street newspaper Street Sense. She graduated from UCLA in 2012 with a BA in English.

On Grief - book cover

Jennifer Senior On Grief

A Pulitzer Prize–winning portrait of one family’s search for meaning in the face of unspeakable loss.

In this Pulitzer Prize–winning work, Jennifer Senior explores the contours of grief through one family’s twenty-year reckoning with the loss of their son, Bobby McIlvaine Jr., on September 11, 2001. Devastating and expansive, Senior’s portrait examines her own relationship with the McIlvaine family alongside intimate scenes of both mourning and recovery experienced by Bobby’s mother, father, younger brother, and soon-to-be fiancée. On Grief generously asks us what it means to consider grief, both personal and national, as an ongoing project.

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  • Release: 04/04/23
  • ISBN: 9781638930747
  • Format: Paperback

About Jennifer Senior

Jennifer Senior is a staff writer at The Atlantic and winner of the 2022 Pulitzer for Feature Writing for “Twenty Years Gone.” Previously, she was a daily book critic and then columnist for The New York Times and a staff writer for New York Magazine. Her book All Joy and No Fun spent eight weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. Senior has also won a GLAAD award, two Front Page awards, and the Erikson Prize in Mental Health Media. She lives in New York with her husband and son.

On Work - book cover

Derek Thompson On Work

An urgent treatise on the future of work in a precarious world.

On Work gathers a selection of Derek Thompson’s most popular and significant essays on work, life, and the future of jobs. From essays on how mass automation could change society to his widely read treatise on “workism” as our modern religion, Thompson’s analysis and forecasts have become fixtures of the 21st century conversation about work. This collection answers questions like: what would Americans do if they never had to work again? What is the “job” of the modern office? And what does leisure look like when we can work anytime, anywhere? We are at an inflection point in the history of labor with the rise of remote work and AI. On Work is an essential and memorable guide to that anxious future.

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  • Release: 04/04/23
  • ISBN: 9781638930723
  • Format: Paperback
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About Derek Thompson

Derek Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he publishes the newsletter “Work in Progress” on science, tech, and culture. He is the founder and host of the popular news podcast Plain English with Derek Thompson. A news analyst with NPR, Derek appears weekly on the national news show Here and Now and is also a contributor to CBS News. His first book, the national bestseller Hit Makers: How to Succeed in an Age of Distraction, has been translated into more than a dozen languages and was named the 2018 Book of the Year by the American Marketing Association. Derek lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and dog.