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College-graduation ceremonies are expressions of joy, but also of relief. As photos are taken, tassels turned, hugs exchanged, the hope is that all of the hard work, and the money, will have been worth it.
But many Americans aren’t convinced that it is.
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“History found you.” In 2020, Caitlin Flanagan told recent college graduates that their dreams were interrupted in much the same way her father’s dreams had once been interrupted. In 1941, he was a new student at Amherst College, “and he thought it was paradise,” Caitlin wrote.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
People in a vegetative state may be far more aware than was once thought, Sarah Zhang reports in a recent feature. “In some extraordinary patients, the line between conscious and unconscious is more permeable than one might expect,” she writes.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
Many of us spend our teenage years working tirelessly to avoid becoming our parents. But sooner or later, we discover that we didn’t stray quite as far as we thought.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
Older parents are constantly telling those in the early days to cherish it: It goes by in a flash. But that can be very hard advice to follow when you’re in the thick of it, as Stephanie H. Murray wrote in 2022.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
Think back to a good time you recently had with a loved one: an hours-long conversation with a friend or a perfect night of watching TV on the couch with family. I’d venture to guess you still feel a little surge of warmth when you recall it.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
“I am a battery that needs to be often recharged,” Randolph S. Bourne wrote in The Atlantic in 1912. His language of “recharging” foretold modern-day conversations about what is now called “self-care.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
American grandparents in earlier generations had many identities, but caregiver was not first among them. Now, “America is in an age of peak grandparenting—particularly grandmothering,” my colleague Faith Hill wrote recently.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
Seed oils—think canola, soybean, corn—have long been “maligned by both the crunchy left and the MAHA right,” Rachel Sugar wrote yesterday. Many consider them to be unhealthy, despite no scientific evidence to back up that claim. (Just don’t use a black plastic spatula to spread oil around.
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“We’re going to start being smart, and we’re going to start being very wealthy again,” President Donald Trump announced today as he laid out a plan that risks derailing America’s economy.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
Trying to get better at relaxing might sound silly. Isn’t the point of relaxing to not work at all? But as Arthur C. Brooks points out in a recent article, “doing leisure well will generate the sort of growth in our well-being that work cannot provide.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning
E-bikes can add a layer of richness to your life—especially if you name them. “On a chilly morning last October, my 8-year-old daughter and I took our new e-bike, which she had named Toby, on its maiden voyage to school,” Elizabeth Endicott writes.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning
Dating has never been easy.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning
It’s that time of the year, when clocks become the subject of unusually heated debate. As far as hours go, the extra one that daylight saving time provides is a controversial one. At least a few Americans are such die-hard fans of DST that they choose to live on it all year round.
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Just as the institution of marriage has evolved, so has the institution of divorce. In a review of Haley Mlotek’s new divorce memoir, the writer Rachel Vorona Cote traces the introduction of “no fault “ divorce—a split without the designation of blame.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“The quest” is a well-worn literary trope: Characters travel long distances and face obstacles in hopes of finding justice, or revenge, or forgiveness. But when real people go on quests, their goals can be a little more eclectic.
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Americans keeping close track of political news may have been toggling their screens today between Senate confirmation hearings: the second day of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
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.
Our editors compiled a list of seven absorbing reads for your weekend. Spend time with stories about the secretive world of extreme fishing, new approaches to aging, and more.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
“The thing about dinner,” Rachel Sugar wrote recently, “is that you have to deal with it every single night.” Despite the world’s many technological advancements, figuring out how to provide a household with a tasty, healthy meal day after day can feel impossible.
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.
For weeks, Donald Trump has been exerting influence on events in the Middle East. After winning the 2024 election, he dispatched his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to the region to help the Biden administration get the Israel-Hamas cease-fire and hostage-release deal over the finish line.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
“Alcohol ambivalence has been with us for almost as long as alcohol,” my colleague Derek Thompson wrote this week. He notes that according to the Greek comic poet Eubulus, of the fourth century B.C.E.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
In The Atlantic’s latest cover story, my colleague Derek Thompson explores how Americans turned anti-social. Many young people are actively choosing the solitary life, spending time at home in front of screens instead of out with other people, he explains.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
Some people view reading as though it’s homework, making a list of the books they intend to get through in a given month or year. But perhaps a better approach is to view reading as a mental workout.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
New Year’s might as well be called the Day of the Goal.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
Small talk, in my experience, is one of those life skills that doesn’t get easier the more you practice.
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If this week was any indication of congressional Republicans’ ability to pass legislation in 2025, it won’t be easy. On Wednesday, it looked like Elon Musk had succeeded in undercutting a bipartisan spending bill, leading the government to the edge of a shutdown.
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
In 2022, my colleague Megan Garber reflected on the transactional side of attention. “Far too often, I find myself mindlessly twitch-clicking on an enticing headline, and then reading, and then regretting,” she wrote. “I pay my attention; I instantly wish for a refund.
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here.
In 1931, an Atlantic contributor named Frances Taylor begged stores to take her money.