Photographs by Andres GonzalezIn the halls of schools where students have learned about the archaeological remains of failed civilizations, they have unwittingly shed the wreckage of their own. The visual artist and author Andres Gonzalez spent six years dutifully photographing the debris of a society in a specific form of decline: the letters, cards, notes, mementos, keepsakes, toys, talismans, objects, and ephemera that accumulate following a school shooting.

In the early 19th century, the European world had just defeated an imperialist tyrant, Napoleon Bonaparte, only to find the continent’s recently conquered monarchs quickly back in force. Intent on preventing another Napoleon from emerging on their own turf, the monarchies promptly cracked down on dissidents, on peaceful demonstrations, on the forming of unions, on the oppositional press.

In publishing, there are some books that are too big to fail. Very early on you get the message that this is a Major and Very Important Book. In 2013, that book was Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, which sold more than 1.5 million copies in its first year.

Here’s a bit of esoterica I think about from time to time: Mark Zuckerberg has a mortgage.Or at least, he had one. A decade ago, the Facebook founder refinanced his loan on a $6 million Palo Alto mansion. He was worth $16 billion at the time, meaning he could have bought that house and a hundred more outright, no mortgage necessary. But First Republic Bank offered him an adjustable-rate loan with an initial interest rate of just 1.

The novel Jamilia tells the story of a free-spirited woman trapped in a passionless marriage who is suddenly awakened by the arrival of a mournful, lonely outsider who touches something in her soul. Set in Kyrgyzstan, it achieved a degree of fame in the West after it was praised by the French poet Louis Aragon as “the most beautiful love story in the world.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Today I wanted to take a break from politics and war and think about fathers, especially the ones—like mine—who weren’t exactly the best role models.But first, here are three great new stories from The Atlantic.
This is the January 6 committee’s most damning revelation yet.

Sign up for Kaitlyn and Lizzie’s newsletter here.Lizzie: Some summer Saturdays are lazy, languid, and planless, with no clearly defined structure other than the requirement that you eat at some point and go to bed at some other point.

On a warm, late-March night in Washington, D.C., just a few blocks from where Walt Whitman once visited Union soldiers and wooed his beloved Irish horse-car conductor, Mike Hadreas took the mic for a sold-out show. As Perfume Genius, his stage name, he quickly settled into the lilting groove of “Your Body Changes Everything,” from his acclaimed 2020 album, Set My Heart on Fire Immediately.

When I was 21, the cool thing to be was famous on Instagram. Now the cooler thing to be is a mystery. Anonymity is in.The youngest adult generation and the most online generation is frustrated with being surveilled and embarrassed by attention-seeking behaviors. This has instigated a retreat into smaller internet spaces and secret-sharing apps, as well as a mini-renaissance for Tumblr, where users rarely use their full names.

On May 4, two days after Politico rocked Washington by revealing the draft of a Supreme Court decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion, California Governor Gavin Newsom delivered remarks at a Los Angeles Planned Parenthood office—and triggered a small earthquake of his own.Newsom pledged that, however the Court ruled, California would ensure legal access to abortion.