New feature! Books, new and not, by New Yorker authors. Today, what excommunication was like for one unlucky literary soul:

It was probably inevitable that James Atlas, a well-known writer, would present himself in his memoirs as a wretched loser. These days, even big-time executives complain that "the system" has done them wrong, and wealthy athletes whine about a few harsh words from coaches or sports writers. So why shouldn't James Atlas make My Life in the Middle Ages: A Survivor's Tale (HarperCollins), which might have been written as a chronicle of success, into a 220-page lament for his ego? He's learned how to transform defeat into something grand and theatrical.
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A few years ago, something tragic happened to Atlas: In middle age he was fired from his job. A staff writer on The New Yorker, he had been hired in the Tina Brown era and apparently never adjusted to the requirements of her successor, David Remnick. He wasn't turning out what Remnick wanted. So Remnick fired him, explaining that the money he was paying Atlas would go to a more productive writer.

Something like this has happened to most of us. It is never nice. Keep going...