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?
Fiction
Books
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Who Came Up With That?
Contrary to what we think of as intellectual property, most ideas are difficult to trace back to one human mind.
The Questionable Triumph of the ‘Baling Wire Hippies’
Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog was seen as a countercultural milestone, but his new book reveals his alliances with 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.
The Velvet Knife
As a dramatist, actor, and mimic, PETER USTINOV has made a unique place for himself. Two years ago, at the ATLANTIC urging, he embarked on a series of short stories which we have found both original and delightful. Now he is about to finish his first novel, which will appear under the Atlantic-Little, Brown imprint.
The Printer
An authority on high-performance and racing automobiles. KEN W. PURDY is the author of KINGS OF THE ROAD, BRIGHT WHEELS ROLLING (with James Melton), and THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE AUTOMOBILE. Before he became a free-lance writer, he had wide experience as a newspaperman and later as editor in chief of PARADE, TRUE, and ARGOSY.
The Enchanted Disenchanted
A native of New York and a graduate of Barnard College, JOYCE ENGELSONhas worked in the publishing field until recently, when she decided to devote full time to writing. She says: “What I am trying to do is to handle the matters orthodox to women‘s fiction, the matters of sentiment, but to explore and express them without sentimentality.” In this story she shows the sense and nonsense of the situation she describes.
The Loneliness of Billiwoonga
A born writer, who gives himself to the stage or to mimicry or to fiction as the spirit moves him, PETER USTINOV has recently been acting in Australia, where he found the setting and inspiration for this story, the third in his new sequence.
Don Nicola
After her graduation front Scripps College, MOLLIE MCCUSH studied at the University of Strasbourg on a french government fellowship. Later, in Paris, she met and married her Italian husband and lived for a few years in southern France and in Italy, the locale of the following story.
Life Is an Operetta
Playwright and actor, master mimic and monologist, PETER USTINOV embarked a year ago on a series of extraordinary tales which appeared in seven successive issues of the ATLANTIC. With some additional material. they were published last fall in book form under the title ADD ADASH OF PITY. This is the second in a new sequence, exclusive and certainty unpredictable.
The Legacy of Able Seaman Pickett
J. W. DICKSON is an Illinois businessman in his early forties for whom writing has been a persistent hobby. Now he has turned seriously to the short story form. The following sketch is based on a true anecdote.
The Proposal
The Miao are a minority group, numbering about two and a half million, in Southwest China. This is one of their tribal stories.
A Pair of Shoes
JU I is a 25-year-old amateur writer of peasant origin, who since his graduation from junior middle school eight years ago has been employed as a teacher. This story originally appeared in the Communist periodical CHINA RECONSTRUCTS.
The Cat Hotel
PAUL JACOBS is staff director of the Fund for the Republic Trade Union Project and has written articles and books about labor. He is a staff writer for the REPORTER and a correspondent for the ECONOMIST.