Atlantic Reads: Screen People With Megan Garber
Staff writer Megan Garber and Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic’s executive editor, discuss Garber’s new book, Screen People: How We Entertained Ourselves Into a State of Emergency.
Fiction
Books
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The Lost Idealism of Heartland Rock
The genre of Bob Seger and John Mellencamp reached across the ideological spectrum in a way that seems unimaginable today.
The Books That Take Revenge, Centuries Later
A new history of the Red Scare prompts the question: Does literature still have enough influence to bring down the powerful?
What To Read
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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.
Only a Crazy Man Has Daughters
JAMES YAFFEmade his first appearance in the Atlantic with his short story “Mr. Feldman" in January, 1949, when he was twenty-one years old. Since then he has had another story in the Atlantic and has published a collection of short stories and a first novel both in the United States and in England. His stories hare appeared in anthologies, and for three years in succession he has won a prize in the Ellery Queen Mystery Contest. His new novel, What’s the Big Hurry?, of which the following is an excerpt, is the story of a Chicago businessman; it will be published under the Atlantic-Little, Brown imprint this month.
Flat Tire in Rarotonga
LYDIA DAVISof New Zealand followed her husband “Dr. Tom" back to his home island of Rarotonga and was his valiant ally during the six years of his uphill struggle as medical officer in the Cook Islands. When Dr. Tom had won through,the Davises sailed away on their dream ketch, the Miru, a 45-footer,bound for Boston where he had been offered a fellowship at the Harvard School of Public Health. With their young sons and two deck hands,they crossed 12,000 miles of the Pacific in an epic voyage of 155 days. All this they tell in their joint biography, Doctor to the Islands, which has just been published under the Atlantic-Little,Brown imprint. That their life was not always one of strain and buffeting can be judged from the enchanting glimpses in Lydia’s short story.
A Nice Cool Drink on the Porch
A graduate of Exeter and Harvard, RICHARD BISSELL knows our inland waterways — the Ohio,the Missouri,and the Mississippi (on all of which he holds a pilot’s license) —as well as Mark Twain knew them seventy-five years ago. From this river experience came the source material for his first novel, A Stretch on the River; his second, 7 1/2 Cents, the story of a strike in a pajama factory,has been converted into a highly successful musical comedy, The Pajama Game; and his third, High Water, will make its debut in September under the AtlanticLittle,Brown imprint.
Limbo
MARY LAVIN does her writing today looking out on one of the-loveliest curves of the River Boyne, with the famous Hill of Tara rising above the distant trees. A protegee of Lord Dunsany, she turned to the Atlantic with her first short stories, which when published in 1942 in book form. under the title Tales from Beetive Bridge, were awarded the James Tail Black Memorial Brize. Her first novel. The House in Clewe Street, was serialized in our columns, and her second. Mary O’Grady, teas published in 1930.
The Scale Room
Now in his twenty-Seventh year, GEORGE VUKELICH is a veteran of World War II and a graduate of the Universitv of Wisconsin and the tcademy of Radio Arts of Toronto. He has had some poetry published and has done radio scripts for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Ford Theatre. He is currently on the staff of Station WKOW -CBS in Madison, Wisconsin.
The Secret
A student of economics now working towards his doctorate, RICHARD T. GILL is a Harvard graduate who finds the atmosphere of Cambridge conducive also to the writing of short stories. He has enjoyed the stimulus of working under Archibald MacLeish in English S, and in summer school has gained much from his hours with Frank O’Connor, the Irish storyteller, This is his first story to be published.