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.” In order to get to that place of growth, “we must treat it with every bit as much seriousness as we do our careers,” he argues. Part of that process is redefining what rest and relaxation look like. When you hear the word rest, you might think of idleness, or just sleep. But experts on rest (yes, they exist) have highlighted the importance of more active types of relaxation, too, such as exercise or pursuing hobbies. Today’s newsletter explores how to rest.

On Rest and Leisure

You Can Do Leisure Better, Seriously

By Arthur C. Brooks

If you think of personal time only as “not work,” you could be missing out on truly enriching experiences.

Read the article.

Aristotle’s 10 Rules for a Good Life

By Arthur C. Brooks

An ancient Greek recipe for happiness

Read the article.

What Is Rest, Anyway?

By Becca Rashid and Ian Bogost

There’s a difference between leisure and laziness.

Listen.

Still Curious?

How to have your most fulfilling vacation ever: Turning your leisure into learning offers the happiest holiday experience of all, Arthur C. Brooks wrote in 2023. The free-time paradox in America: The rich were meant to have the most leisure time. The working poor were meant to have the least. The opposite is happening, Derek Thompson wrote in 2016. Why?

Other Diversions

The drink Americans can’t quit Susan Sontag’s vision Winners of the 2025 World Press Photo Contest