The Horror of an Optimized Life

The Girl Before, a sleek, sinister new miniseries on HBO Max, has all the hallmarks of the “girl, etc.” genre that’s dominated thrillers since Gillian Flynn published Gone Girl a decade ago. There’s a girl, actually a woman: Jane (played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who becomes fixated on the fate of …

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How to Tell a War Story

Wars, and the humanitarian crises they create, are often reduced to numbers: how many dead, how many ill, how many left behind. The larger the scale, the more impossible the telling of these world-altering events can seem. But different approaches to writing about conflict—fiction and nonfiction, speculation and investigation—can help …

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The Unexpected Joy of Finding Your Best Friends in Your 40s

Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship. This week she talks with a group of middle-aged men who met at the New York Mets fantasy baseball camp, where they trained …

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