Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone

Sharon Marcus, the Orlando Harriman Professor of English at Columbia University and the fiction editor of Public Books, interviews Eric Klinenberg, the author of what The Atlantic has called "The Most Conversation-Generating Book about How We Live Now" of 2012. In Going Solo, Klinenberg, professor of sociology at NYU, upends conventional wisdom about how the rise of living alone is transforming modern life. Challenging the myths of increasing social isolation and community decline, Klinenberg argues instead that the dramatic emergence of single living is made possible by the robustness of urban societies, and he highlights its benefits as well as its dangers.