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Read through our list of popular stories from 2024, including the tale of a disastrous cruise vacation, a deep dive into why Americans have stopped hanging out, news of a life-changing medical breakthrough, and more.
Your 2024 Reading List
Crying Myself to Sleep on the Biggest Cruise Ship Ever
Seven agonizing nights aboard the Icon of the Seas
By Gary Shteyngart
Why Americans Suddenly Stopped Hanging Out
Too much aloneness is creating a crisis of social fitness.
By Derek Thompson
Remember That DNA You Gave 23andMe?
The company is in trouble, and anyone who has spit into one of its test tubes should be concerned.
By Kristen V. Brown
The Carry-On-Baggage Bubble Is About to Pop
Airplanes aren’t made for this much luggage.
By Ian Bogost
The Golden Age of American Jews Is Ending
Anti-Semitism on the right and the left threatens to bring to a close an unprecedented period of safety and prosperity for Jewish Americans—and demolish the liberal order they helped establish.
By Franklin Foer
The Darién Gap was once considered impassable. Now hundreds of thousands of migrants are risking treacherous terrain, violence, hunger, and disease to travel through the jungle to the United States.
By Caitlin Dickerson
Trump: “I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had”
The Republican nominee’s preoccupation with dictators, and his disdain for the American military, is deepening.
By Jeffrey Goldberg
Throw Out Your Black Plastic Spatula
It’s probably leaching chemicals into your cooking oil.
By Zoë Schlanger
The Real Reason People Aren’t Having Kids
It’s a need that government subsidies and better family policy can’t necessarily address.
By Christine Emba
End the Phone-Based Childhood Now
The environment in which kids grow up today is hostile to human development.
By Jonathan Haidt
The Cystic-Fibrosis Breakthrough That Changed Everything
The disease once guaranteed an early death—but a new treatment has given many patients a chance to live decades longer than expected. What do they do now?
By Sarah Zhang
The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books
To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school.
By Rose Horowitch
* “The Golden Age of American Jews Is Ending” lead image source: Top row from left to right: Michael Ochs Archives / Getty; Universal History Archive / Getty. Middle row from left to right: Robert Mitra / WWD / Penske Media / Getty; Ulf Andersen / Getty; Jean-Régis Roustan / Roger Viollet / Getty; CBS Photo Archive / Getty; Daily Herald / Mirrorpix / Getty; Bettmann / Getty; David Lefranc / Getty; Bettmann / Getty; Frederick M. Brown / Getty; CBS Photo Archive / Getty; Theo Wargo / Getty; Max B. Miller / Archive Photos / Getty. Bottom row from left to right: ABC Photo Archives / Getty; Bachrach / Getty; Getty; Bernard Gotfryd / Getty.
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