The Most Memorable Advice of 2023 - The Atlantic   

In a year when global temperatures reached a record high, artificial-intelligence advancements sparked questions around work and human interaction, and wars raged in Europe and in the Middle East, Atlantic writers and other experts offered pragmatic wisdom on navigating everyday experiences with friendship, family, and work.

Their words point to the virtues of finding wonder in mundane moments, navigating grief with a spirit of acceptance, and prioritizing human connection.

As 2024 approaches, we’re reflecting on some of the most memorable advice shared this year. If this guidance resonates with you, carry it with you into the new year.

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The 25 Best Podcasts of 2023 - The Atlantic   

If art imitates life, it’s no wonder many of this year’s podcasts contained a dash of doom. During a year of planetary uncertainty, in which fears about the climate crisis and AI encroaching on the workforce intensified, the audio space reflected our impulse to decode mysteries: Series zeroed in on deception, premiering plenty of heist and con-artist content. Podcasters reexamined the justice system, from parole boards to the FBI. Three separate shows tried to solve the puzzle of the perplexing ailment known as Havana syndrome. Like many of us, producers searched for any answers they could get.

But the biggest podcasting trend I noticed in 2023 was, by far, the predominance of women as protagonists, hosts, and subjects. Traditionally male archetypes were served up with a feminine twist: Creators explored female adultery, espionage, scamming, and wanderlust. Although podcasts about delinquent doctors continued to draw in audiences, this year, they seemed to focus on misconduct in obstetrics—not too surprising, considering last year’s overturn of Roe v. Wade.

With millions of podcasts in existence, this list includes the 25 best I heard this year, each one novel and compelling. (As with every year, I’ve recused myself from considering The Atlantic’s podcasts.) These shows premiered fresh frameworks, experimented with sound design, and elevated underrepresented voices and stories. They dazzled in exposition, reporting, and range. We offer them as a compass for unpredictable times, a pick-me-up for winter blues, and, we hope, a hint of clarity in times to come.

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The Nine Breakthroughs of the Year - The Atlantic   

The theme of my second-annual Breakthroughs of the Year is the long road of progress. My top breakthrough is Casgevy, a gene-editing treatment for sickle-cell anemia. In the 1980s and early 1990s, scientists in Spain and Japan found strange, repeating patterns in the DNA of certain bacteria. Researchers eventually linked these sequences to an immune defense system that they named “clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats”—or CRISPR. In the following decades, scientists found clever ways to build on CRISPR to edit genes in plants, animals, and even humans. CRISPR is this year’s top breakthrough not only because of heroic work done in the past 12 months, but also because of a long thread of heroes whose work spans decades.

Sometimes, what looks like a big deal amounts to nothing at all. For several weeks this summer, the internet lost its mind over claims that researchers in South Korea had built a room-temperature superconductor. One viral thread called it “the biggest physics discovery of my lifetime.” The technology could have paved the way to magnificently efficient energy grids and levitating cars. But, alas, it wasn’t real. So, perhaps, this is 2023’s biggest lesson about progress: Time is the ultimate test. The breakthrough of the year took more than three decades to go from discovery to FDA approval, while the “biggest” physics discovery of the year was disproved in about 30 days.

In December, the FDA approved the world’s first medicine based on CRISPR technology. Developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals, in Boston, and CRISPR Therapeutics, based in Switzerland, Casgevy is a new treatment for sickle-cell disease, a chronic blood disorder that affects about 100,000 people in the U.S., most of whom are Black.

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Six Books to Read During a Stressful Family Holiday - The Atlantic   

Reading about other people’s kin, fictional or not, may help you feel better about yours.

Leo Tolstoy’s observation in Anna Karenina is famous to the point of becoming a cliché: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” But it wouldn’t have become a truism if it didn’t resonate—whether or not you agree with the first part, the second half is inarguably a fact. Every family plays host to its own histories, neuroses, feuds, foibles, tragedies, traumas, triggers, pains, pet peeves, and dysfunctional patterns. Literature has long borne witness to humanity’s enormous diversity of potential interpersonal horrors, all of which seem to become accentuated during stressful periods—such as the holiday season. According to the American Psychological Association, a whopping nine out of 10 U.S. adults experience stress at the end of the year, in part because they are “anticipating family conflict.”

The web is full of tips for how to deal with challenging relatives in these months. But if you’re a bookworm, your first recourse might be to turn to reading: Other people’s emotional conflagrations, fictional or not, may help you feel better about any you’re currently living out with your own family. Anyone in need of an escape can turn to this list of books. Each serves as a reminder that although your own kin may be difficult, you at least aren't related to the ones below.

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