The Best of The Guardian
20+ most popular The Guardian articles, as voted by our community.
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The vorfreude secret: 30 zero-effort ways to fill your life with joy
How can you change your life for the better today? Learn not just to appreciate happiness – but to anticipate it
«“Today I will look for good moments and remember them.” Mort suggests: “May I be open to joy and have many moments of joy ahead.”»
How Covid changed politics
The long read: Four years on from the start of the pandemic, the drama may have subsided but the lingering effects go on. Are we suffering from political long Covid?
The big idea: should you blame yourself for your bad habits?
Our ability to resist temptation is increasingly shaped by forces beyond our control
AI race heats up as OpenAI, Google and Mistral release new models
Launches within 12 hours of one another, and more activity expected in industry over summer
Why do we do things that are bad for us? The ancient philosophers had an answer
Plato, Socrates and Aristotle wrestled with the concept of akrasia –whether it’s possible to act against what you know to be good
The Guardian on Climate Crisis
‘You reach a point where you can’t live your life’: what is behind extreme hoarding?
The long read: Hoarding can be distressing and dangerous. But it’s not just a matter of ‘too much stuff’ – it’s a complex condition that requires careful, targeted help
The climate disaster is here
Earth is already becoming unlivable. Will governments act to stop this disaster from getting worse?
«At 1.5C, about 14% of the world’s population will be hit by severe heatwaves once every five years. with this number jumping to more than a third of the global population at 2C.»
The Guardian on Environment
Revealed: the 20 firms behind a third of all carbon emissions
New data shows how fossil fuel companies have driven climate crisis despite industry knowing dangers
Why you should go animal-free: 18 arguments for eating meat debunked
Unpalatable as it may be for those wedded to producing and eating meat, the environmental and health evidence for a plant-based diet is clear
The Guardian on Fiction
The 100 best books of the 21st century
Dazzling debut novels, searing polemics, the history of humanity and trailblazing memoirs ... Read our pick of the best books since 2000
Lost chapter of world's first novel found in Japanese storeroom
A fifth part of The Tale of Genji, which was completed around 1010 by a woman later named Murasaki Shikibu, has been found in a house in Tokyo
The Guardian on Food
The truth about caffeine: how coffee really affects our bodies
Every day, around the world, 2bn cups are consumed. But what actually happens after you swallow that first mouthful? Here is everything you need to know
Inside the surprisingly secretive world of crisp flavours
Why can you buy lasagne flavour snacks in Thailand but not in Italy? Which country can cope with the hottest chilli? And why do Germans like paprika so much?
The Guardian on Greta Thunberg
Why the Guardian is changing the language it uses about the environment
From now, house style guide recommends terms such as ‘climate crisis’ and ‘global heating’
Greta Thunberg: ‘We are ignoring natural climate solutions’
Film by Swedish activist and Guardian journalist George Monbiot says nature must be used to repair broken climate
The Guardian on Health
Never past your prime! 13 peaks we reach at 40 or later
Ageing doesn’t have to mean slowing down. In fact, you’re more likely to win an ultramarathon in midlife, not to mention get happier, wiser and more body confident
Step on it! Walking is good for health but walking faster is even better, study finds
Walking briskly is beneficial for all health outcomes including dementia, heart disease, cancer and death
The Guardian on LGBTQIA
TikTok's local moderation guidelines ban pro-LGBT content
Chinese-owned social media app bans such content even in countries where homosexuality has never been illegal
Subversive, queer and terrifyingly relevant: six reasons why Moby-Dick is the novel for our times
The book features gay marriage, hits out at slavery and imperialism and predicts the climate crisis – 200 years after the birth of its author, Herman Melville, it has never been more important
The Guardian on Nature
50 simple ways to make your life greener
Expert tips on how to be kinder to the planet – from cooking and cleaning to fashion and finance
Scientists accidentally create mutant enzyme that eats plastic bottles
The breakthrough, spurred by the discovery of plastic-eating bugs at a Japanese dump, could help solve the global plastic pollution crisis
The Guardian on Poetry
Poem of the week: 7th Nerve by Rhiannon Hooson
A hi-tech medical exam draws its subject back to a more archaic, essential experience
When Milton met Shakespeare: poet's notes on Bard appear to have been found
Hailed as one of the most significant archival discoveries of modern times, text seems to show the Paradise Lost poet making careful annotations on his edition of Shakespeare’s plays
The Guardian on Vegan
If you want to save the world, veganism isn’t the answer
Intensively farmed meat and dairy are a blight, but so are fields of soya and maize. There is another way, says the farmer Isabella Tree
Love cheese and hate tofu? 14 vegan obstacles
A few weeks into Veganuary, you may be wondering how to keep a plant-based lifestyle going. Whether you’re worried about supplements, expense or food aversions, here’s everything you need to know
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Can ‘smart thinking’ books really give you the edge?
Trust your gut, boost your memory, de-bias your decision making… can we train our brains to perform better?
«A decade ago, the fashion was to be pessimistic about the prospects of improving our thinking, and even about the value of thinking at all.»
100 ways to slightly improve your life without really trying
Whether it’s taking fruit to work (and to the bedroom!), being polite to rude strangers or taking up skinny-dipping, here’s a century of ways to make life better, with little effort involved …
«Reuse all plastic bags – even bread bags. Much of the packaging you can’t reuse can be taken to larger branches of supermarkets for recycling.»
Uber broke laws, duped police and built secret lobbying operation, leak reveals
124,000 documents expose inner workings behind US tech firm’s rise as a global empire responsible for 19m journeys a day
«As Uber launched across India, Kalanick’s top executive in Asia urged managers to focus on driving growth, even when “fires start to burn”. “Know this is a normal part of Uber’s business,” he said. “Embrace the chaos. It means you’re doing something meaningful.”»
Is your smartphone ruining your memory? A special report on the rise of ‘digital amnesia’
‘I can’t remember anything’ is a common complaint these days. But is it because we rely so heavily on our smartphones? And do the endless alerts and distractions stop us forming new memories?
«When we’re not attending to an experience, we are less likely to recall it properly, and fewer recalled experiences could even limit our capacity to have new ideas and being creative»
Your attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen
Social media and many other facets of modern life are destroying our ability to concentrate. We need to reclaim our minds while we still can
«“an attentional pathogenic culture” – an environment in which sustained and deep focus is harder for all of us»
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