The great cousin decline
Plus: 10 books The Atlantic’s Culture desk read too late, America’s coming smoke epidemic, and more.

Stephanie Bai

Associate editor

Spend time with stories about the bizarre relationship of a “work wife” and a “work husband,” the great cousin decline, and more.

Your Reading List

(Stella Blackmon)

Families are shrinking. But the weirdest family role is a vital one. (From 2023)

(Illustration by Derek Abella)

I’ve never owned the device, and I’m not sure I ever want to.

One of the great, bittersweet pleasures of life is finishing a title and thinking about how it might have affected you—if only you’d found it sooner. (From 2022)

The work marriage is a strange response to our anxieties about mixed-gender friendships, heightened by the norms of a professional environment. (From 2023)

(Karsten Moran / Redux)

The research on what smoke does to a body is just beginning.