\n<\/p>\n
This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors\u2019 weekly guide to the best in books.<\/em><\/p>\n In Toni Morrison\u2019s Sula<\/em>, the title character and Nel are friends and enemies all at once: Nel envies and eventually hates Sula but, at the end of the novel, finds herself entirely bereft without her. In Elena Ferrante\u2019s Neapolitan<\/em> novels, Lila and Elena are united by their similarities in an unforgiving world, until their differences send them hurtling away from each other. These intense, fickle friendships between women have been chronicled in literature \u201cfor as long as women have been able to publish their work,\u201d Lily Meyer wrote in The Atlantic<\/em> this week, \u201cbut the past 10 years have seen more and more novels about prickly, intellectual, and conflictedly maternal women like Elena, as well as gifted and charismatic yet abrasive ones like Lila.\u201d Meyer added, \u201cPerhaps most striking, the success of the Neapolitan<\/em> novels seems to have begun to influence breezier genres of fiction.\u201d<\/p>\n First, here are five new stories from The Atlantic\u2019s Books section:<\/p>\n Complicated female friendships have animated not only novels, but also TV shows and films in recent years. These bonds have quickly come to constitute a genre, with its own set of tropes. The stories are almost always about a pair of girls of similar ages, evenly matched in intellect, status, or beauty; the dyad is usually inseparable, at least at first. The two also typically resent and compete with each other, measuring themselves against their double. In many cases, they feel a confusing mix of contempt and desire (these books are best when they delve into their characters\u2019 ugly feelings or the erotic tension between them). And most of these couples will part by adulthood\u2014only to wonder, in their later years, how much breaking away from their other half cost them.<\/p>\n Meyer praises the lively, provocative connection between two 1970s female writers in a new novel by Ella Berman, L.A. Women<\/em>. Her essay reminded me of another book that portrays this dynamic perfectly: Margaret Atwood\u2019s Cat\u2019s Eye<\/em>. A grown woman and successful artist, Elaine, remembers the girl gang that defined her childhood in postwar Toronto\u2014Grace, Carol, and Cordelia. But whereas her friendships with Grace and Carol faded easily into the past, her vexed relationship with Cordelia lingers well into adulthood. When Elaine returns to Toronto for a retrospective of her paintings, she imagines Cordelia everywhere, just out of view.<\/p>\n Cordelia is, in grade school, Elaine\u2019s bully. But Cat\u2019s Eye <\/em>is unsentimental and unblinkered about the nuances of their friendship; when Elaine later gets the upper hand, she wields it without pity. There may be no better novel about the savagery and strangeness inside girls, and it is deadly serious about the stakes of their youthful business. Elaine, thinking back on their relationship, acknowledges that she and Cordelia weren\u2019t enemies, not really. \u201cWith enemies you can feel hatred, and anger,\u201d Atwood writes. \u201cWith hatred, I would have known what to do. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love.\u201d<\/p>\n Illustration by Celia Jacobs<\/p>\n All Our Brilliant Friends<\/strong><\/p>\n By Lily Meyer<\/p>\n The explosion of novels about intense female friendships, in the Elena Ferrante mold, is changing the genre\u2014and making it more fun.<\/p>\n Read the full article.<\/p>\n Boom Town<\/em>, by Sam Anderson<\/strong><\/p>\n Back in 2012, Anderson, a writer for The New York Times Magazine<\/em>, fell in love with Oklahoma City. He\u2019d traveled there to write about the Thunder, just four years after the NBA team had relocated from Seattle to Oklahoma\u2019s capital\u2014an unlikely town for a major sports franchise. As he began to learn more about the city, the wild story of its founding (thousands of settlers claimed lots on a single day during a land rush), followed by alternating tragedies and glories, struck Anderson as a microcosm of American history. That assignment ended up inspiring him to write this brilliant, kaleidoscopic portrait of a place; his book isn\u2019t just <\/em>about sports, but it never forgets how teams and homes reflect each other\u2019s fates, suggesting that a team begins to resemble its home the way a dog resembles its owner. Anderson hasn\u2019t updated the book since the Thunder won the NBA championship in June, but once you\u2019ve read it, you\u2019ll never watch a Thunder game again without thinking of it.\u00a0 \u2014 Will Leitch<\/em><\/p>\n From our list: Seven books that will change how you watch sports<\/p>\n \ud83d\udcda <\/em>Girls Play Dead<\/em>, by Jen Percy<\/p>\n \ud83d\udcda <\/em>The Silver Book<\/em>, by Olivia Laing<\/p>\n \ud83d\udcda <\/em>The White Hot<\/em>, by Quiara Alegr\u00eda Hudes<\/p>\n Big Green Lake at night, September 28, 2025 Caleb Alvarado for The Atlantic<\/p>\n The Missing Kayaker<\/strong><\/p>\n By Jamie Thompson<\/p>\n On the afternoon of Sunday, August 11, 2024, a few hours after attending church with his wife and three children, Ryan Borgwardt, a 44-year-old carpenter, left home with his kayak, tackle box, and fishing rod and arrived at Big Green Lake, one of the deepest lakes in Wisconsin. The Perseid meteor shower was expected to peak that night, one of the best times of the year to see shooting stars. Stargazers could glimpse dozens an hour, golden streaks that appeared to fall from the constellation Perseus.<\/p>\n At about 10 p.m., Ryan pushed the kayak into the inky-black water. He glided past the water lilies and cattails and headed toward the lake\u2019s deepest part, near its western end. It was so dark, he could barely see beyond the kayak\u2019s nose. Above him, the night sky sparkled.<\/p>\n Read the full article.<\/p>\n When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting <\/em>The Atlantic.<\/em><\/p>\n Sign up for The Wonder Reader, a Saturday newsletter in which our editors recommend stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight.<\/p>\n Explore all of our newsletters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors\u2019 weekly guide to the best in books. In Toni Morrison\u2019s Sula, the title character and Nel are friends and enemies all at once: Nel envies and eventually hates Sula but, at the end of the novel, finds herself entirely bereft without her. In Elena Ferrante\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[1001,1043,956,5966,18783,860,1141],"class_list":{"0":"post-32583","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-briefing","10":"tag-culture","11":"tag-female","12":"tag-friendships","13":"tag-obsessed","14":"tag-pop"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What to Read<\/h4>\n
Out Next Week<\/h4>\n
Your Weekend Read<\/strong><\/h4>\n