The Best of The New Yorker
20+ most popular The New Yorker articles, as voted by our community.
Unparalleled reporting and commentary on politics and culture, plus humor and cartoons, fiction and poetry. Get our Daily newsletter: http://nyer.cm/gtI6pVM
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The Origins of Creativity
The concept was devised in postwar America, in response to the cultural and commercial demands of the era. Now we’re stuck with it.
Will A.I. Become the New McKinsey?
The technology, as it’s currently imagined, promises to concentrate wealth and disempower workers. Is an alternative imaginable?
How Much Can Duolingo Teach Us?
The company’s founder, Luis von Ahn, believes that artificial intelligence is going to make computers better teachers than humans.
There Is No A.I.
There are ways of controlling the new technology—but first we have to stop mythologizing it.
The Future of Fertility
A new crop of biotech startups want to revolutionize human reproduction.
The New Yorker on Books
What’s the Point of Reading Writing by Humans?
Maybe one day journalism could be replaced with an immense surveillance state with a GPT-4 plug-in. Why would we want that?
The Best Books of 2022 So Far
Reviews of the year’s notable new fiction, poetry, and nonfiction.
The New Yorker on Comics
How “Peanuts” Created a Space for Thinking
Charles Schulz’s beloved comic strip invited readers to contemplate the big picture on a small scale.
The Debt That All Cartoonists Owe to “Peanuts”
If there is one cartooning accomplishment for which Charles Schulz should be credited, it’s that he brought into comics a broader visual language of emotion and empathy.
The New Yorker on Fiction
The Case Against the Trauma Plot
Fiction writers love it. Filmmakers can’t resist it. But does this trope deepen characters, or flatten them into a set of symptoms?
How William Gibson Keeps His Science Fiction Real
Midway through his career, the inventor of “cyberspace” turned his attention to a strange new world: the present.
The New Yorker on Food
Don’t Eat Before Reading This
Anthony Bourdain’s 1999 memoir about working in Manhattan restaurants. “Gastronomy is the science of pain. It was the unsavory side of professional cooking that attracted me to it in the first place.”
Taco Bell’s Innovation Kitchen, the Front Line in the Stunt-Food Wars
How did the chain outdo Burger King’s Bacon Sundae, Pizza Hut’s hot-dog-stuffed crust, Cinnabon’s Pizzabon, and KFC’s fried-chicken-flavored nail polish?
The New Yorker on Justice
How An Élite University Research Center Concealed Its Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein
New documents show that the M.I.T. Media Lab was aware of Epstein’s status as a convicted sex offender, and that Epstein directed contributions to the lab far exceeding the amounts M.I.T. has publicly…
The Covert Mission to Solve a Mexican Journalist’s Murder
After the death of a reporter who investigated narcopolitics, her colleagues formed a secret collective to bring the killers to justice—and challenge a culture of impunity.
The New Yorker on Politics
American Democracy Isn’t Dead Yet, but It’s Getting There
A country that cannot even agree to investigate an assault on its Capitol is in big trouble, indeed.
«When Joe Biden was a Presidential candidate, he carried around a wonkish book of international comparative politics by two Harvard professors, “How Democracies Die,”»
The New Yorker on Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum
Silicon Valley fails to take into account the human consequences of its technological wizardry.
The New Yorker on Trump
Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich
Some of the wealthiest people in America—in Silicon Valley, New York, and beyond—are getting ready for the crackup of civilization.
Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter Tells All
In “The Art of the Deal,” Tony Schwartz helped create the myth that Trump is a charming business genius. Now he calls him unfit to lead.
The New Yorker on TV
How Much More Netflix Can the World Absorb?
Bela Bajaria, who oversees the streaming giant’s hyper-aggressive approach to TV-making, says success is about “recognizing that people like having more.”
The Funny, Forward, and Bracingly Political “Joyland”
The Pakistani director Saim Sadiq’s sensuous film mounts an indictment of misogyny and transphobia without ever lecturing us.
The New Yorker on World
An American Tragedy
The electorate has, in its plurality, decided to live in Trump’s world of vanity, hate, arrogance, untruth, and recklessness.
Christopher Steele, the Man Behind the Trump Dossier
How the ex-spy tried to warn the world about Trump’s ties to Russia.
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These are some all-time favorites with Refind users.
Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds
New discoveries about the human mind show the limitations of reason.
We Know Less About Social Media Than We Think
There’s a general sense that social media is harmful—and that may be right. But studies offer surprisingly few easy answers.
How the Internet Turned Us Into Content Machines
Two new books examine how social media traps users in a brutal race to the bottom.
«According to Smith, the Internet actually limits attention, in the sense of a deep aesthetic experience that changes the person who is engaging.»
A Guide to Getting Rid of Almost Everything
Once you’ve thanked and said goodbye to the items that do not spark joy, what can you do with them?
The Mind-Expanding Ideas of Andy Clark
The tools we use to help us think—from language to smartphones—may be part of thought itself.
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