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 S21The seven best books of 2023 reviewed by our experts   We have covered a lot of new releases this year but these seven really impressed our experts. There’s a feminist retelling of a classic, a twist on the murder mystery from the greatest voice in horror and a giggle-inducing ride through the Middle Ages – not mention one of the most hotly anticipated autobiographies of all time.Zadie Smith’s latest novel, The Fraud, is her first foray into the world of historical fiction. The result is a stunning, well-studied examination of Victorian colonial England and some of its inhabitants.
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S70The Most Unsettling 'Christmas Carol'  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.Over the past few years, I’ve reminded you of the best Christmas specials and talked about some classic Christmas music. This year, it’s time to clear the field for the greatest adaptation of the greatest Christmas story.
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S46How Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol anticipated the psychology of Freud in its tale of childhood trauma  With a joyful celebration of family love and communal bonds at its heart, Charles Dickens’s story A Christmas Carol has often been credited with creating our modern idea of Christmas. Published on December 19 1843, the first edition sold out rapidly and the story was immediately adapted onto the Victorian stage. The Internet Movie Database now lists 213 versions of the story, with the first film made in 1901, the same year Queen Victoria died. Less well-known than the story itself though is Dickens’s importance to our understanding of trauma.
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S32S26Santa Claus is coming to town! How to help kids manage the big build-up to Christmas  School is out and Santa is on his way, but there’s still a bit of a wait before he wriggles down that chimney. The days before Christmas are both exciting and challenging for children and families. How can you manage kids’ excitement in this last build-up to Christmas? What should you do if emotions run over? And how might you respond if all the focus on Santa means some kids start asking if he is real?
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S59PlayStation Plus Just Quietly Added the Most Overlooked Final Fantasy Spinoff Ever  Few franchises have the legacy of Final Fantasy, a series with dozens of games released over 36 years. That puts Final Fantasy in a unique position to use its history and examine how the tropes the first game established influenced the rest of the franchise. While games like Final Fantasy 7 Remake toy with the series’ history, nothing goes as meta as Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, a deceptively subversive action game that examines the very nature of what it means to be a Final Fantasy game and puts a fantastic action combat system on top as a bow. It’s a fascinating experience that fully embraces campy storytelling. And it’s a must-play now that it’s free on PS Plus Extra and Premium. Stranger of Paradise is ostensibly a “retelling” of the very first Final Fantasy, but it also functions as a bit of a pseudo-sequel that examines and subverts the role the “Warrior of Light” trope has played in the series. You follow Jack Garland, a man with no memory of his past who bears a mysterious crystal and finds out he’s one of the prophesized Warriors meant to save the world from darkness.
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S34How to make gravy (using chemistry)  “Gravy Day” is a relatively new date in the Australian calendar. Paul Kelly’s song How to Make Gravy tells the story of a prisoner (Joe) writing to his brother on December 21. Joe laments missing the family Christmas celebrations and asks who will make gravy for the roast lunch in his absence.While a roast may not be everyone’s idea of the perfect Christmas feast, “Gravy Day” does give the opportunity to discuss the chemistry involved in making gravy – a thickened sauce made from drippings collected from roasted meats.
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S60The Wildest Sci-Fi Show of 2023 Rings in an Exciting New Era  Change is written into the DNA of Doctor Who. From its very first regeneration, in which the show did the unprecedented and recast its lead actor, Doctor Who has adapted to the times. And so, over the past 60 years, each regeneration gives Doctor Who the chance to basically reboot the entire show.Maybe the Doctor is a James Bond-type who wields all kinds of gadgets and drives a cool car. Maybe this time, the Doctor is a Peter Pan figure, traipsing through all kinds of fairytale-inspired adventures. Maybe he’s a tortured hero on the path to redemption or a goofy clown who plays tricks on kids. But with “The Church on Ruby Road,” the 2023 Christmas special that introduces Ncuti Gatwa as the 15th Doctor, Doctor Who feels like it’s doing something wholly new all over again.
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S25Far-right 'tradwives' see feminism as evil. Their lifestyles push back against 'the lie of equality'  There is a seductive simplicity to the “tradwife” trend, with its filtered representations of domestic bliss – from homesteading to homeschooling, home baking to homemaking. Tradwife is internet shorthand for “traditional wife”. While tradwives emerge across the political spectrum, a small subculture use their platforms to promote the dark ideas of the far right. They operate across social media platforms, prominent on X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and Instagram. For some, the lifestyle seems driven by social media, but for others, it’s a way of living.
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S28Dreaming may have evolved as a strategy for co-operative survival  Have you ever woken from a dream, emotionally laden with anxiety, fear or a sense of unpreparedness? Typically, these kinds of dreams are associated with content like losing one’s voice, teeth falling out or being chased by a threatening being. But one question I’ve always been interested in is whether or not these kinds of dreams are experienced globally across many cultures. And if some features of dreaming are universal, could they have enhanced the likelihood of our ancestors surviving the evolutionary game of life?
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S38Trump barred from Colorado ballot - now what?  Mark A. Graber filed an amicus brief in the Colorado case that was technically in support of the voters seeking to block Trump from the ballot, but focused specifically on the history of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.In the wake of the Colorado Supreme Court ruling that bars Donald Trump from the ballot in the state’s primary and general elections, The Conversation U.S. asked Mark A. Graber, regents professor of law at the University of Maryland Carey Law School, what this all means – for Trump, for regular Americans and for the 2024 election.
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S31Canada's competition laws just changed: here's what you need to know  The state of competition — or lack of it — has been on Canadians’ minds for a while. From the Rogers-Shaw merger to the concentrated grocery sector and record fines for bread price-fixing, just about everyone agrees it’s time to improve our competition law.The wait is over. Eighteen months after an initial set of reforms was completed in June 2022, and six months after public consultation on the future of competition law, the second phase of reform is coming.
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S52"The Iron Claw" Is a Combustible Family Drama of Love, Loss, and Pro Wrestling  Sean Durkin's first two features, "Martha Marcy May Marlene" and "The Nest," have a manner that I'd describe as apologetic realism: there's something he's bursting to say, but he forces it into the confines of tightly crafted dramas. Those films have a tamped-down melancholy that hint at how much he's holding in check. He doesn't lay his voice on the line, but, by forcing his characters into frameworks with a too-clear point, he never seems to explore their lives fully, either. His third feature, "The Iron Claw" (which opens December 22nd), is different. In this group bio-pic of the Von Erich family of professional wrestlers, Durkin's brand of realism is even more rigorous, yet unapologetic. He still has plenty to say, but this time his characters do more than fit his ideasâthey inspire his imagination, largely because they themselves are creators of fantasy.As presented by Durkin, the patriarch, Fritz Von Erich (Holt McCallany), has a chip on his shoulder the size of a sequoia, and he matches it with colossal dreams of vengeful success that overwhelm everyone in his life. The story starts in the nineteen-sixties, when Fritz, a struggling wrestler, splurges on a Cadillac to foster an illusion of success, while imbuing his two young sons, Kevin and David, with a gospel of fanatical self-reliance that's also an imperative to be the "toughest" and the "strongest." The movie's protagonist, and its occasional narrator, is the grownup Kevin (Zac Efron, imposingly muscled), the family's oldest surviving son. Kevin's older brother, Jack, Jr., died in an accident at the age of six. Jack's death is one of the key reversals that shadows the family, leading to the pervasive, publicity-fuelled notionâone that the Von Erichs take grimly seriouslyâof a family curse. The heart of the drama begins in 1979, when Kevin is making a name for himself in the ringânamely, the Sportatorium, a small Dallas arena that Fritz owns and operates. "We loved wrestling," Kevin reminisces in voice-over, and it shows, even as the rest of the movie depicts how that love was lost, along with many of the people he loved.
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S22How fossil fuel companies won COP28  Another climate summit has come and gone. The 28th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28 to you and me) took stock of the world’s progress in limiting global heating to 1.5°C. This is the guardrail scientists have advised world leaders to make every effort to limit warming to, lest they trigger tipping points that send Earth hurtling into climate breakdown.So now that the dust has settled, who left Dubai happy and who went home empty-handed? Let’s ask the experts.
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S14Can seabirds hear their way across the ocean? Our research suggests so  Animals cover astonishing distances when they are looking for food. While caribou, reindeer and wolves clock up impressive mileage on land, seabirds are unrivalled in their travelling distances. Arctic terns travel from the Arctic to Antarctica and back as part of their annual migration. Wandering albatrosses (Diomedea exulans) fly the equivalent of ten times to the Moon and back over their lifetimes. Wandering albatrosses can travel more than 10,000km in a single foraging trip, though, and we don’t know much about how these birds use mid- and long-range cues from their environment to decide where to go.
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S33In the spirit of the season: Here's what 'woke' means and how to respond to it  A few years ago, there was considerable anxiety in some quarters about “political correctness,” particularly at universities. Now it’s known as wokeness, and even though the terminology has changed, the concerns are much the same.Some years ago, I offered an analysis of political correctness that equally pertains to wokeness today. What interests me are ways to think about and discuss political correctness/wokeness so as to avoid polarizing polemics and increase mutual understanding.
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S57The 12 Most Mind-Blowing Science Breakthroughs of 2023  The work of these scientists will nonetheless move research, medicine, and technology forward for a more enlightened 2024.The year 2023 featured mind-blowing advancements in nearly every -ology imaginable. While ranking this progress is fraught with subjectivity, these breakthroughs are no-doubt-about-it advances that crucially improved our medical, technological, or astronomical understanding.
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S43How to pitch story ideas to The Conversation  While much of The Conversation’s content comes from editors identifying stories to cover and finding relevant experts to write them, we also welcome pitches – ideas for stories as yet unwritten – from academics. You are the experts, so we’re always happy to hear your ideas. [For more guidance, why not look at our self-paced, online training courses, which include how to write for and pitch to The Conversation.]
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S48'It'll all be over by next year' - how Britain celebrated Christmas in 1943  Britain’s popular newspapers greeted Christmas 1943 with the fond hope that it would be the last Christmas of the war. Daily Mail columnist Simon Harcourt-Smith wrote: “We will have only ourselves to blame if by Christmas 1944 our victory in Europe is not several months old.”The popular left-wing weekly Picture Post was equally optimistic: “Christmas 1943 brings promise,” it declared, adding: “The day we are looking for is coming – perhaps sooner than we all expect.” And writing for Picture Post, Dorothy Crook, an American experiencing her first Christmas in England, thought Britons were enjoying “the brightest and most hopeful Christmas season in five years”.
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S61'Rick and Morty' Season 7 Review: A Sci-Fi Classic Reaches Dazzling New Heights  After watching the entire season, it’s clear the show is only getting better in its post-Justin Roiland era.Let’s get one thing out of the way first. I absolutely stand by my original review of Rick and Morty Season 7. At the time, Adult Swim only provided the first two episodes of the new season, and I maintain today what I said back then: those two episodes were mediocre at best. They failed to stand on their own merits and didn’t push the overarching plot forward either. It was enough to make me worried for the future of Rick and Morty.
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S66Mercedes Is Giving Us an Obvious Way To Tell if a Car Is Self-Driving  Driving is a conversation. You may not process it immediately, but every time you get in the car, you’re negotiating with other cars on the road — who’s turning where, who’s merging when, and who gets to go first after stopping at a stop sign.But what if you’re not negotiating with another driver per se? What if the car is driving itself? Well, Mercedes-Benz now has a way to communicate that, too.
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S30How to keep your physical and mental health on track during the holidays  With the festive season upon us, many people will be gathering with family and friends, whether it’s a workplace party, a friend’s get-together or a quiet night at home watching Christmas movies. While enjoyable, these events can disrupt your healthy lifestyle habits. A recent survey reported nearly 45 per cent of people take a break from exercise during the holidays, more than half say they feel more tired and have less time for themselves, and about one-third report drinking more.
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S20S58What Created The Milky Way's Mysterious Bar? A Galactic Collision, Maybe  Some astronomers already suspect that the bar formed around the same time as a massive collision.Sometime between 8 and 11 billion years ago, the Milky Way crashed into a dwarf galaxy that astronomers call the Gaia Sausage. You will not see the Gaia Sausage today. As far as astronomers know, its remnants largely take the form of a handful of globular clusters — clumps of old stars floating in the Milky Way’s outskirts.
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S13S44Social media drains our brains and impacts our decision making - podcast  Matthew Pittman is a professor of advertising at the University of Tennessee in the US. In 2022, Pittman and his colleague Eric Haley, conducted three online studies on Americans aged 18-65 to examine how people under various mental loads respond to advertisements differently.“Our brain has limited resources and it can also be taxed if we try to do too many things at once and once those resources are depleted, there are usually negative consequences,” says Pittman.
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S55The Year of the Doll  In the highest-grossing movie of 2023, Barbie, a literal doll, leaves the comforts of Barbieland and ventures into real-world Los Angeles, where she discovers the myriad difficulties of modern womanhood. This arc from cosseted naïveté to feminist awakening is a narrative through line that connects some of the biggest cultural products of the year. In this episode of Critics at Large, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss how 2023 became “the year of the doll,” tracing the trope from “Barbie” to Yorgos Lanthimos’s film “Poor Things,” whose protagonist finds self-determination through sexual agency, and beyond. In Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla,” a teen-age Priscilla Beaulieu lives under the thumb of Elvis at Graceland before finally breaking free, while in Emma Cline’s novel “The Guest,” the doll figure must fend for herself after the trappings of luxury fall away, revealing the precarity of her circumstances. The hosts explore how ideas about whiteness, beauty, and women’s bodily autonomy inform these works, and how the shock of political backsliding might explain why these stories struck a chord with audiences. “Most of us believed that the work of Roe v. Wade was done,” Cunningham says. “If that is a message that we could all grasp—that a step forward is not a permanent thing—I think that would be a positive thing.”“Barbie” (2023) “M3GAN” (2023) “Poor Things” (2023) “Priscilla” (2023) “The Guest,” by Emma Cline “The House of Mirth,” by Edith Wharton
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S36Fatigue? Unexplained weight gain and dry skin? Could it be Hashimoto's disease?  Maybe you feel worn out. Perhaps you’re also having trouble losing weight. Generally, you just don’t feel 100%. Could it be Hashimoto’s disease? This common autoimmune thyroid disorder is when your immune system (which fights off viruses and bacteria), mistakenly attacks a part of your body. In this case, it’s your thyroid – a gland located at the base of your neck – and can cause low thyroid hormones levels (hypothyroidism).
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S29S47S27Do kids grow out of ADHD as they get older?  Alison Poulton is a board member of the Australasian ADHD Professionals Association. She has received personal fees and non-financial support from Shire/Takeda; and book royalties from Disruptive Publishing (ADHD Made Simple).Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is more often diagnosed in children. That might make you wonder if people grow out it as they reach adulthood.
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S23Telemovies have dominated Christmas movies for 50 years - so why are the Aussie straight-to-streaming ones this bad?  For some, December 25 is a solemn day, key on the Christian calendar, involving important traditions to be treated with reverence. But for many, Christmas is a time for unbridled fun: Santa, presents, and the random grump next door who suddenly decorates his house in an overwhelmingly delirious light display. For a month, we embrace with childlike delight things that for the rest of the year we would dismiss as kitsch, tacky, too bright, too shiny. Christmas films reflect these differing approaches to the season. There are the solemn, wholesome type, the model for which is Frank Capra’s marvellous It’s a Wonderful Life. There are cynical big budget comedies, trying to skewer the consumerism with which the holiday is now associated while maintaining a sentimental “Christmas cheer for all” ending, like Surviving Christmas and Christmas with the Kranks. And there are sweet comedies, films such as Elf and The Santa Clause, that cloak their gags in a more or less touching sense of wonder.
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S40What is pattern book development and how can it help ease the housing crisis?  Australian cities are grappling with ways to increase housing supply and make it more affordable. One suggested solution is “pattern book” development. The idea made headlines when proposed recently by Housing Now, an alliance of businesses and lobby groups in New South Wales. The problem, they argue, is that housing projects take years to process, due to overly lengthy processes of design, planning and public consultation. The group aims to fast-track development by commissioning “a modern pattern book with a suite of approved designs by recognised architects developed in partnership with local neighbourhoods”.
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S12How Red Sea attacks on cargo ships could disrupt deliveries and push up prices - a logistics expert explains  Attacks on international cargo ships in the Red Sea from Houthi-controlled Yemen have seen several cargo vessels hit by missiles and drones in recent days. In response, global shipping companies and cargo owners – including some of the world’s largest container lines such as Maersk, as well as energy giant BP – have diverted ships from the Red Sea. So far, more than 40 container ships have been diverted, with many rerouted to less direct channels than the Suez Canal – an artificial waterway in Egypt that connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea.
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S37Is it OK if my child eats lots of fruit but no vegetables?  Does it seem like most vegetables you serve your children end up left on the plate, or worse, strewn across the floor? But mention dessert, and your fruit skewers are polished off in an instant. Or maybe the carrot and cucumber sticks keep coming home in your child’s lunchbox untouched, yet the orange slices are nowhere to be seen.
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S16People love to vote in a new democracy - and then they rapidly lose interest  Poland’s recent election has been hailed as a great triumph of democracy in a global environment of democratic backsliding. It brought to power a coalition of pro-democratic forces led by Donald Tusk, the former president of the European Council. This election was also considered a historical landmark because it saw Poland record its highest voter turnout since 1919. Participation was even higher than the election that cemented the fall of Communism, paving the way for democracy in the first place.
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S56You Need to Watch the Most Absurdly Overhated Sci-Fi Movie for Free ASAP  In the race to the bottom to determine which sci-fi movie is the “worst” of all time, in the end, there can be only one. And, for 32 years, some have tried to claim that this dubious crown belongs to a film called Highlander 2. But is this true? Is Highlander 2 — sometimes subtitled “The Quickening” and other times “Renegade Edition” — really, honestly the worst sci-fi movie ever? The answer is 100 percent no, and that’s because I, along with perhaps one other human being have seen the 2013 Christian Slater-led film called Stranded. Yes, it’s true, like Stranded, Highlander 2 holds a score of exactly 0 on Rotten Tomatoes, but this is a case of critics and the shared cultural memory taking things too far. Highlander 2 deserves a solid 20 on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s not a good film at all. But let's defend its honor here for a second because the truth is this: Unlike so many actually awful films, there’s a legitimately good-ish movie buried in the immortal corpse of Highlander 2. Right now, this 1991 flop is streaming free on Tubi, alongside some of its cringeworthy peers. Here’s why it’s worth another look.
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S45Who are the new greats of Irish music? Five musicians to watch out for  The world lost three great Irish musicians in 2023: Shane MacGowan, Sinéad O’Connor and Christy Dignam. While their music reflected their individual struggles and resilience, it also grappled with the evolving essence of Irish identity. Their work stands as a reminder of Ireland’s complex history.In their absence, a new generation of Irish musicians is carrying forward their legacy, navigating the balance between tradition and innovation. They’re using music not just as entertainment but as a powerful tool for social commentary and cultural evolution. Here are just a few embodying that spirit.
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S53The Year in Getting "Chotinered"  In 2023, Isaac Chotiner conducted more than sixty Q. & A.s for The New Yorker, on a wide array of international and domestic topics. He has gained a reputation for being a fearless interviewer, who does not flinch from confrontation. Chotiner joins the senior editor Tyler Foggatt to look back on the year. They revisit a few conversations that stood outâabout settlements in the West Bank, Henry Kissinger, and India's economic growthâand discuss some questions Chotiner hopes to get answered in 2024.By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
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