Police had stopped the lorry, but the driver refused to get out of the vehicle.

Editor’s Note: Find all of The Atlantic’s “Best of 2023” coverage here.

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.

25. Ride With Benito Skinner and Mary Beth Barone

This comedian-BFF duo invites listeners to ride shotgun on their friendship. With only brief preparation and rapid-fire banter, Benito Skinner and Mary Beth Barone make the case for the phenomena they ride for: Ferrero Rocher, Kim K’s private theater, and driving safely, among others. Listeners leave with inspiration for light pranking and Skinner and Barone’s new definition of cheating, which, they claim, includes choosing the checkout counter of an opposite-sex cashier if you’re heterosexual. Ride is not educational—though the hosts’ quips do offer a crash course in Millennial and Gen Z pop culture. The show boosts serotonin levels on a reliable 30-minute joyride.

Start with “Traditional Family Values + Pranking.”

24. Believable: The Coco Berthmann Story

Coco Berthmann rose to fame sharing her story as a sex-trafficking survivor. In early 2022, she told her 60,000 Instagram followers that she’d been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. While a GoFundMe raised roughly $10,000 for her treatments, some people held suspicions about her illness. Unable to substantiate her diagnosis but accepting charity for it, Berthmann was arrested for communications fraud. Her hoax led people to question her public persona, including her work as a human-rights activist. The hosts Sara Ganim and Karen Given hunt down every salacious detail of Berthmann’s story, many of which sound ridiculous, such as claiming that Céline Dion invited her to sing with her in Berlin. Although droves of podcasts remind people that the internet is an engine for easy deception, this series stands out in noting that Berthmann’s falsehoods don’t mean that she lied about everything—or that she wasn’t a victim herself.

Start with “Episode 1: Something’s Not Right.”

23. One Song

If the beloved Switched on Pop and Song Exploder had a baby, it would be One Song, a show hosted by two music heads and experienced DJs, Diallo Riddle and Blake “LUXXURY” Robin. The duo break down pop tunes by isolating the instrumentals, chatting about their memories associated with the songs, and showing off their extensive music-history knowledge. Riddle and Robin are music know-it-alls: They can talk about where they were when they first heard Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as easily as they can speculate about whether DJ Kool Herc’s 1973 Bronx party marked the birth of hip-hop. Discussing hit tracks such as Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” and Britney Spears’s “Toxic,” the show leans into snobbery and reverence while analyzing—you guessed it—one song.

Start with “Rehab.”

22. Truth Be Told

This year gave us many series about psychedelic drugs. Yet Tonya Mosley—whom listeners might recognize as the new co-host of Fresh Air—offered a new perspective on tripping by framing it in the context of Black liberation, including her own. Though Indigenous and African communities originated the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms for healing, the current psychedelics industry is largely white, complicating their use in treating racial trauma. Mosley takes care to name these hurdles, such as the negative associations many people can carry with even legal drugs, given the War on Drugs’ asymmetrical ramifications in their communities. Mosley moves forward with her own hallucinogenic experimentation anyway, asserting that, even if therapeutic drugs are approved and legalized, the Black psychedelic revolution might still be far off. Black people first need a safe space to partake in these substances, Mosley explains. Truth Be Told is a welcome start.

Start with “How to Get Free.”

21. The 13th Step

The 13th Step began as one journalist’s investigation into alleged sexual misconduct in the addiction-treatment industry. But when Eric Spofford, the founder of the largest addiction-recovery-facility network in New Hampshire, was accused of sexual misconduct (allegations he has denied), he used various legal tactics to try to suppress the investigation. The story then widened to include Lauren Chooljian, this show’s host. Chooljian refused to change her reporting despite Spofford’s efforts—even after her parents’ home was vandalized. The 13th Step gives a high-level dissertation on intimidation in sexual-assault cases, even getting expert insights from Lisa Banks, one of Christine Blasey Ford’s lawyers. Although the series has wrapped, Chooljian’s own story has still to find a conclusion.

Start with “Episode 1: The Shadow.”

20. Too Far With Rachel Kaly and Robby Hoffman

Narrative craft is usually a prerequisite for this list, given that podcasts featuring comics chitchatting are hard to recommend based on the hosts’ personalities alone. Too Far is the exception. It works because the hosts Rachel Kaly and Robby Hoffman are opposing narratives in themselves: Hoffman defines Kaly as being trapped in a “Brooklyn-alt bubble where you are valued based on how mentally ill you are.” Kaly describes Hoffman as abrasive and attached to having grown up Hasidic and poor. The way Kaly and Hoffman talk about their identities feels safe, despite their near-constant tough love. It’s not clear whether Hoffman and Kaly discuss predetermined topics or not. Yet the way their opposition plays out in each episode makes it feel like they are getting somewhere—which might just be back to their respective corners.

Start with “Cold Feet.”

19. The Dream

The life-coaching industry has exploded to the scale of multilevel marketing—except that, in place of supplements and Tupperware, coaches sell human optimization. The host Jane Marie is well suited to administer a general fact-check of the field: Her signature skeptical style makes her especially adept at asking slippery people to make sense of their wares, and her open-mindedness leads her to hire her own coach to determine the profession’s effectiveness for herself. During a year in which many podcasts were focused on catfishing and scammers, The Dream examined a more measured style of deceit. It begins and ends with Jessie Lee Ward, one of the industry’s most famous coaches, who claimed to be curing her own cancer holistically but died from the disease a few days after this series premiered. The Dream thoughtfully teases out the cult-versus-coach comparison, even bringing on Sarah Edmondson, whose whistleblowing instigated the collapse of the corporate-coaching company and sex-cult front NXIVM, for a bonus episode. Marie’s conversations with industry shysters are the most exciting interviews of the year.  

Start with “Becoming a #Boss.”

18. Drifting Off With Joe Pera

It’s hard to tell whether this series is meant to help you fall asleep or to parody shows that do. Yet it’s bound to calm listeners, thanks to soothing monologues, stunning sound design, meditative waterfall sounds, and conversations about mostly cozy topics, such as soup. The stand-up comic and host Joe Pera’s signature gentle affectation furthers the show’s sleepy-time conceit, which sometimes contrasts with the subject matter: In one episode, Pera’s friend tells a bro-ey story about trying to skip the line at a club; in another, cynical love advice is delivered over synth tones (“Just be very emotionally shut off”). The show’s intermittent incongruity is part of its humor—and enough to keep listeners happily awake.

Start with “Episode 1: Soup ft. Jo Firestone.”

17. Free From Desire: Asexual in the City of Love

In a world in which sex sells, many people question the veracity of asexuality. This is the subject of Free From Desire, a nonfiction show centering 35-year-old Aline, who identifies as both asexual and aromantic. Though Aline, as the show’s title suggests, doesn’t experience traditional desire, this doesn’t mean they’re immune to the effects of society’s conventions about love and romance. Instead, Aline provides insights into not only asexuality but also sexuality in general, offering a compassionate perspective on topics such as the pressures of puberty and parenthood. Though Free From Desire provides plenty of answers, its success isn’t rooted in being educational—accompanying Aline as they pursue agency and happiness, regardless of who understands it, fuels the show’s magic.

Start with “What Is Wrong With Me?”

16. Imperfect Paradise: Nury & the Secret Tapes

Imperfect Paradise relaunched in September, led by the host Antonia Cereijido—previously of Latino USA—with a four-part series about a hot-mic situation involving the Los Angeles City Council. When a group of powerful Latino council members and a union leader were secretly recorded making anti-Black comments, the release of the tapes and the resulting fallout became an example of fractures in progressive thinking. Citizens demanded the council members’ resignation. Until Imperfect Paradise, Council President Nury Martinez hadn’t given an interview about the incident. You’ll hear the offensive comments she made, along with her explanation. Cereijido’s interview style is masterful: She treats Martinez, however problematic, as a whole, complex human. The series also explores Cereijido’s suspicion that the scandal garnered sizable media attention partly because it revealed larger legacies of anti-Blackness within the Latino community. The show concludes that it may be time to think beyond unquestioning representation and to ensure that legislators’ morals align with progress instead.

Start with “Nury & the Secret Tapes: Part 1.”

15. Borrowed and Banned

From Brooklyn Public Library, Borrowed and Banned drums up awareness about what it calls “America’s ideological war with its bookshelves.” The series explains how the stakes of book bans, although supported by a vocal minority, are high for everyone. In small towns especially, school libraries are some of the only places where kids can access books. These restrictions can be long-lasting. Take Keller, Texas, where, after a title is pulled, it can’t be reconsidered for 10 years—effectively censoring it for an entire generation. Book bans affect educators too: In one episode, a teacher is forced out of her job for not complying, her teaching license and life threatened. Interviews with authors of banned books are peppered in, including never-before-heard audio of Toni Morrison. Each episode ends with a call to action, urging listeners to get a library card or vote in school-board elections. Borrowed and Banned paints a portrait of teachers, students, and librarians as revolutionaries.

Start with “All for a Library Card.”

14. Expectant

Several polls have found that climate change, beyond giving rise to eco-anxiety, significantly affects parenting choices. Expectant mixes fiction and nonfiction as it follows its protagonist Pippa Johnstone’s thought process about having a child. After finding out that she’s pregnant, Johnstone contemplates the reality that having fewer children lowers a person’s carbon emissions, discussing these questions with her partner, her mom, and experts. Expectant centers parenting fears without growing them, possibly because episodes ground dystopian narratives in data or because, as one expert puts it, the show confronts climate worries head-on instead of avoiding the crisis’s “ambient drone of anxiety.” Following Johnstone through the will-we-won’t-we of various climate calculations, listeners learn that having a child and optimism about the planet’s future don’t necessarily go hand in hand.

Start with “The North.”

13. ODB: A Son Unique

Ol’ Dirty Bastard from Wu-Tang Clan, also known as ODB and Ason Unique, has one of hip-hop’s most recognizable voices. The host and photographer Khalik Allah knew him well, and in ODB: A Son Unique, he demonstrates what helped ODB stand out from other ’90s lyricists: his unpredictable style and refusal to subscribe to aspiration as a concept. Although ODB’s media portrayal was often unfair, reducing him to stereotypes, Allah argues that he knew how to maximize his public persona: He wasn’t as close with Mariah Carey as his verse in her “Fantasy” remix suggested, for example, but ODB knew that saying so could help them both. Allah’s eight-part profile is full of love and surprises, filling in the blanks that ODB’s death, in 2004, left behind. Whether listeners miss ODB or not, this is a poignant memorial.

Start with “Episode 1: For the Children.”

12. Wild

Wild kicks off with co-host Megan Tan asking co-host Erick Galindo the wildest thing he’s ever done for love. From there, the show takes the form of a fictional love story based mostly on Galindo’s life, about an ill-advised cross-country road trip with a woman, her mother, and her best friend. With the support of a buoyant Lizzo track, Wild is sweet, insightful, and occasionally educational. It touches on the tenderness of friendship, growing up in southeast L.A., and the sticky theme of self-worth. In a podcasting year that revolved around heavy subjects, Galindo’s warm storytelling about his younger self’s love life is the most comforting corner in audio.

Start with “A Southeast L.A. Rom-Com.”

11. Have You Heard George’s Podcast?

If the answer to Have You Heard George’s Podcast? is no, you’re in luck: The critically acclaimed BBC show is back after a two-year hiatus, exploring this assertion of the host George Mpanga, also known as George the Poet: When he was younger, it wasn’t cool to be African; now it is. Mpanga, a British spoken-word artist born to Ugandan parents, shows that this shift can be credited, in large part, to music—genres with colonial histories that listeners will gain deeper appreciation for under his energetic tutelage. Mpanga’s talent for telling complex stories through rhyme schemes can make it hard not to sit in awe of him instead of taking in his lessons, yet nothing feels forced as he remixes discussions about Ghana’s first president and the impact of Western languages on African economies. Hot tip: Listen to this show with headphones. Its soundscapes and samples allow his insights, lyrics, and music to dance across your mind.

Start with “Listen Closer.”

10. The Set

On The Set, one of the biggest police-corruption stories is told by the guilty cops themselves. In 1992, Michael Dowd, a drug-dealing law-enforcement officer, was arrested, subsequently spending 12 years in prison. Aware that Dowd wasn’t acting alone, the then-mayor of New York formed the Mollen Commission to investigate broader police corruption in the NYPD. The breadth of what they found surpassed what they had anticipated: The Set host Zak Levitt interviews several officers of the “Dirty Thirty”—the 30th Precinct that includes West Harlem—to uncover how law enforcement easily committed crime, including robbing drug dealers and skimming profits for themselves. The Set analyzes the politics of policing, tapes from the ’90s Mollen Commission hearings, and private confessions. Corrupt police stories aren’t new, but The Set’s storyteller is.

Start with “Ep 1: The Wild Kingdom.”

9. Classy With Jonathan Menjivar

In the first episode of Classy, the host Jonathan Menjivar compares himself, someone who wears cashmere socks, to his mother, a woman who used iron-on patches to repair her jeans. Noting how the differences in economic status within his family make him feel uneasy, Menjivar interrogates the many dimensions of class, including money, race, status, and taste—even the word classy itself. Listeners can expect that each episode will make them squirm, and that Menjivar will double down on this feeling. He’s earnest and open-minded, a winning combination when wading into such a fraught topic. Menjivar even catches people having real-time crises of conscience about class on tape, including his former boss, Terry Gross (her cameo is a series highlight). Though Menjivar doesn’t shield listeners from the topic’s discomfort, he’s a welcoming and buoyant guide.  

Start with “Are Rich People Bad?”

8. Bot Love

Don’t knock falling in love with a chatbot until you listen to Bot Love, a show about the companionship chatbot Replika, which launched in 2017. This series profiles a handful of what Replika claims are more than 1 million users, including a person who considers their bot a therapist and another who turned to Replika for COVID-lockdown camaraderie. When one user’s husband becomes terminally ill, she sparks a relationship with her bot; after her husband’s death, it escalates into full-fledged romantic commitment. (Yes, the show discusses the ins and outs of bot sex too.) Most Replika users seem to know that their bots lack sentience, but that doesn’t stop them from forming a bond. Ultimately, Bot Love proposes that perhaps we should worry less about technological capabilities than about the unabating human desire for connection.

Start with “Episode 1: Looking for a Friend.”

7. Louder Than a Riot

In 2020, Megan Thee Stallion publicly alleged that her fellow rapper Tory Lanez shot her in the foot, a crime for which he was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison this past August. The hosts Sidney Madden and Rodney Carmichael argue that the cultural conversation that unfolded between Megan Thee Stallion’s announcement and the court’s verdict was shaped by misogynoir—racist misogyny against Black women. Whereas most hip-hop history lessons predictably center male artists such as Run-DMC and Pete Rock, this season of Louder Than a Riot focuses instead on hip-hop’s unsung women and the misogynoir they face within the genre. Listeners learn about Sha-Rock, the first female emcee, and Trina, one of the first artists to popularize the pussy-rap subgenre. The show also discusses the marginalization of gay emcees, who are often dismissed as “viral rappers.” The show is critical of the genre but still celebrates its history over the past 50 years. Of the many ways to commemorate hip-hop’s anniversary, listening to this show should be at the top of your list.

Start with “Megan’s Rule: Being Exceptional Doesn’t Make You the Exception.”

6. Violation

In 1986, when Jacob Wideman was 16, he murdered 16-year-old Eric Kane while the duo were on their way to the Grand Canyon. Wideman was sentenced to life in prison, eligible for parole after 25 years. Wideman’s case is special—especially given that his father, the writer John Edgar Wideman, based his 1984 memoir, Brothers and Keepers, on his own brother’s life sentence for murder. For Violation, a podcast created by The Marshall Project, the host Beth Schwartzapfel speaks with Jacob Wideman and his father, who provides rare interviews about his son. In one moving exchange, John discusses his feelings about being asked to explain his son’s actions: Such questions seem to blame him for Jake’s choices and expect simple explanations for layered tragedies. Plenty of true-crime podcasts gawk at heinous crimes without opening conversations about recidivism or redemption. Yet Violation recounts the case without sensationalism. Listeners might not come away believing that Jacob deserves parole or sympathy, but Violation makes a nuanced case that he might.  

Start with “A Summer Camp Murder. Two Sons, Lost.”

5. You Didn’t See Nothin

In 1997 in Bridgeport, Chicago, a group of white teens assaulted a Black child, Lenard Clark, putting him into a coma and garnering extensive media attention. The host and journalist Yohance Lacour began his reporting career because of this case, and what’s stuck with him for the past 25 years is how quickly the media narrative turned from outrage over a violent racist act to demonstrations of racial reconciliation. Throughout the seven-part series, Lacour switches between his own compelling personal history as a formerly incarcerated writer and that of Clark, dissecting how the child’s case was handled by law enforcement, the court, community leaders, and the family of one of the perpetrators. Lacour’s talent especially shines through his personality—he is funny and cool, full of surprises—and his incisive critical discourse. Unlike many shows that examine past events, You Didn’t See Nothin puts the onus of what follows on the listener.

Start with “Young Black Male.”

4. The Heart

Created by Kaitlin Prest, The Heart has pushed listeners to the outer bounds of vulnerability since 2014. This year, Prest turned the lens on herself with two dynamic series about her family, Sisters and Dad. Each centers on her relationship with the titular family member and features heated arguments, reconciliation attempts, and everyday moments from 20 years of personal tape. Episodes offer a variety of sonic textures, layering documentary-style audio, cinematic visual descriptions, and moments so intimate that you’d think they weren’t, at least initially, meant for sharing. In one moving montage of COVID-lockdown clips, Prest’s father teaches her to drive, brings her coffee, and smashes her e-cigarette with a hammer. In another, Prest’s therapist diagnoses her with borderline personality disorder, a label primarily given to survivors of abuse. Together, the two series offer a portrait of a loving family reconciling with the lasting impacts of trauma, treated with more humanity than is commonly extended to the subject. This season of The Heart is a feat precisely because the artist is the art.

Start with “Sisters: Chapter One-isode.”

3. The Spiritual Edge: A Prayer for Salmon  

The ancestors of the Winnemem Wintu prophesied that, one day, the abundant Chinook salmon, which they regard as relatives, would temporarily disappear from the McCloud River in Northern California. Based on five years of field reporting, A Prayer for Salmon documents the tribe’s resistance to the federal government’s planned expansion of the Shasta Dam, which would further erode their sacred sites and the salmon population. Hosted by Judy Silber and Lyla June Johnston, an Indigenous scholar, the show provides moving vignettes of the Winnemem Wintu’s tribal practices and briefs listeners on relevant history, politics, and data. By carefully conveying what Western science loses when it excludes Indigenous wisdom, the show transforms existential dread about the environment into hope: The Winnemem Wintu, and other Indigenous groups, know the way forward.

Start with “Chapter 1: A Protest at Shasta Dam.”

2. The Retrievals

Dozens of women at the Yale Fertility Center endured excruciating pain while undergoing the egg-retrieval process, one aspect of IVF treatment. Although they shouldn’t have been conscious during the procedure, let alone have felt anything, some were, and did. Some patients also faced the decision of going through with their procedure awake and in pain or losing their eggs—a loss that could cost them time, money, and the chance to have a child. In the fall of 2020, it was discovered that the cause of these women’s experiences was a nurse who routinely stole patients’ fentanyl and replaced or diluted it with saline solution. Chronicling this catastrophe would have sufficed, but the host and reporter Susan Burton broadens her scope to examine the many arenas of women’s lives in which their pain is measured, devalued, or ignored.

Start with “Episode 1: The Patients.”

1. The Turning: Room of Mirrors

The Turning: Room of Mirrors initiates listeners into the artistry and grueling elitism of American ballet, and the show is made richer by a momentous score and the host and reporter Erika Lantz’s experience as a ballerina. The podcast centers on George Balanchine, the eccentric choreographer who co-founded the New York City Ballet and is credited with bringing the art form to the United States. The dancers who share their stories about Balanchine rarely criticize him, despite his often-inappropriate behavior. Some ballerinas recall him demanding romantic and sexual attention and constantly critiquing their bodies, driving many to pursue major interventions such as extreme diets, plastic surgery, and abortions. During a year in which many shows examined women’s suffering, The Turning asks listeners to consider how many of their expectations about themselves and their bodies are their own.

Start with “Season 2, Episode 1: Only I Can See You.”

The former member of the US country music band dies after being involved in a two-vehicle crash in Texas.

A Christmas fair in Germany, a new volcanic eruption in Iceland, a floating Nativity scene in Italy, border crossings in Arizona and Texas, war damage in a Ukrainian cathedral, continued Israeli strikes inside the Gaza Strip, guard geese at a penitentiary in Brazil, an ice hotel in Sweden, and much more

Washington Wizards fans didn’t need a new reason to be miserable. As a Wizards diehard, I’m used to following their annual descent in the NBA standings. But I experienced a fresh sort of pain at the recent announcement that the team would be moving from its convenient downtown-D.C. home to a new, $2.2 billion “world-class Entertainment District” in the Virginia suburb of Alexandria. What’s so sad about my terrible team leaving the emptiest arena in the NBA for a gleaming palace across the Potomac? Sit down and let me explain—right here, in row G, seat 11, because I couldn’t find anyone else to go to the game with me.

In many cities, having NBA season tickets is a status symbol. Not in D.C. lately. I’ve had Wizards season tickets for the past 10 years, a fact that tends to be met with the sort of pitying curiosity that I assume is familiar to Civil War reenactors and ferret owners. I love this team. I really do. I follow the Wizards religiously, by which I mean: regular attendance, tithing, and a vague promise of salvation through suffering. That suffering stretches back 45 years. The then–Washington Bullets won the franchise’s only NBA title in 1978. The following year they went back to the finals but lost. Since that season, the team has never made it past the second round of the playoffs and hasn’t even made it to 50 regular-season wins, the longest such streak in the league by two decades. (Last season alone, six teams won more than 50 games.) The median age in the United States is about 39 years old, meaning most Americans have never existed at the same time as a relevant Washington basketball team.

For my first five years as a season-ticket owner, the Wizards weren’t great, but they were at least competitive, with some exciting young talent. They even made it to 49 wins once! Back then, the arena was loud and the city was paying attention. Now they’re one of the very worst teams in the league, and the seats are empty. The beautiful thing about sports, though, is that winning cures everything. Improving the vibes would seem straightforward: Build a better team. Instead, the owner, Ted Leonsis—who, through his company, Monumental Sports and Entertainment, also owns the NHL’s Washington Capitals and the WNBA’s Washington Mystics—would rather put a $2.2 billion cart before the horse. Maybe building a flashy new arena with the help of Virginia taxpayers is a way to sidestep the “winning basketball games” thing. (Laurene Powell Jobs, a minority owner of Monumental Sports, is the founder of Emerson Collective, which is the majority owner of The Atlantic.)

[Prashant Rao: Why it’s good that Americans don’t dominate in basketball]

The new complex will be only about six miles from the Wizards’ current Chinatown digs, but emotionally the team might as well be moving to Alexandria, Egypt. Capital One Arena is easily accessible from nearly anywhere in the region, walking distance from every subway line, and close to bars, restaurants, and museums. The new location is slotted between the Potomac River, a big Target, and acres of current and upcoming construction just south of the still-in-progress Amazon HQ2. In addition to the arena for basketball and hockey, the site plans envision a performing-arts venue, a TV studio, corporate offices, and a “fan plaza,” which is developer-speak for “a big sidewalk.”

The complex that Leonsis wants to build is the dream of sports owners and developers everywhere: a city without the city. It’s a big, walkable, transit-accessible area full of tall buildings and bright lights without any of the annoyances that arise from crowded civilization. There’s no loud music blasting, except what the company pumps through the speakers. There’s no vice, except for the company-owned bars and gambling parlors. There’s no theft, except for the likely extortionate price of everything inside.

Having the Washington Wizards play in the heart of Washington, D.C., isn’t just convenient; it weaves the team into the city’s culture, making every win and loss a matter of civic pride or civic shame. When I reached out for comment, Monumental Sports officials stressed to me that they weren’t abandoning D.C. Under the proposed plan, the WNBA’s Mystics would move to the Wizards’ old arena in Chinatown, and Monumental would put money into improvements that would allow it to host more college sports, concerts, conferences, and other events. But the company just built a partially publicly funded arena for the Mystics and the Wizards’ minor-league team that only opened in 2018 and was supposed to spur redevelopment in the economically depressed, predominantly Black neighborhood of Congress Heights. Now, only five years later, it’s supposedly overcrowded and outdated.

At the new arena’s rollout event, Leonsis gestured to the airport that sits about a mile from the proposed site. “It’s no secret that this great airport here was considered Washington National, and yet it’s in Virginia,” he said. It was an inadvertently apt comparison. An annoying trip out to a sterile complex where everything costs more than it should? Future Wizards games already sound like trips to the airport.

The surprise Alexandria announcement came after Leonsis unsuccessfully asked the city of Washington for $600 million to renovate Capital One Arena, which was built with minimal public investment and opened in 1997. The new arena still isn’t a done deal. It needs approval from local and state representatives, and many who live in Alexandria and nearby aren’t happy with the idea of an “entertainment district” bringing even more traffic through their city. Leonsis’s agreement with Virginia is nonbinding, and he’s still allowed to negotiate with D.C. going forward. Meanwhile, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser prepared a last-ditch plan that would keep the Wizards and Capitals in Chinatown in exchange for $500 million in public funding.

As a longtime fan and D.C. resident, I should be rooting for the Virginia deal to fall through. But what if that option feels just as bad? A “win” for D.C. would cost half a billion dollars that could be spent on, well, anything other than fixing up a billionaire’s property. It’s nearly as much as the city plans to “invest in affordable housing, support community redevelopment, and provide shelter” over the next five years, according to its fiscal-year-2024 budget. Worried about the state of Chinatown after the Wizards and Capitals leave? Maybe the city could put some of that money toward supplementing the $70 million earmarked to “support the District’s economic recovery and growth.” If Monumental takes Bowser’s deal, stays put, and has me back in my usual seat at a renovated Capital One Arena, I can’t imagine looking around the stadium and seeing anything but better uses for my city’s tax dollars. Sure, the schools need new computers, but have you seen the size of the new Jumbotron?

The argument for spending the money is that an arena brings people downtown, and those people in turn spend money, providing tax revenue. But crediting arenas with all that revenue means assuming that those people wouldn’t go out and spend their money anywhere in the city unless they visited the arena—and that the city couldn’t get better results by investing the money directly into neighborhoods. Monumental Sports officials say that all public spending on the new arena complex will be offset by future tax revenue from it—$1.35 billion in funding from Virginia, potentially the largest arena subsidy in American history, would actually be free. But among economists, who disagree on nearly everything, there is broad consensus that sports stadiums don’t contribute much to the local economy. These projects tend to do a better job of obfuscating cost than preventing it, says Nate Jensen, a University of Texas professor who researches government economic-development strategies. He has found that public-school budgets tend to be hit hard, due to their reliance on the sort of property taxes that are often waived to fund new arenas. “It’s probably one of the worst bets you can make in terms of economic development,” he told me. “The economic impact of most stadiums is about the same as a Target store.” (That’s bad news for Alexandria, where developers are considering knocking down the Target next door to make room for more stadium-adjacent development.)

[Read: Sports stadiums are a bad deal for cities]

In economic terms, moving the Wizards to Virginia would actually be a big win for me as a D.C. resident. My subway ride to games would be longer, but the billion dollars in funding, the traffic issues, and the potential legal battles would be Virginia’s problem—with apologies to my friends who teach at Alexandria City High School. I would be a free rider, which, economically speaking, is the best thing to be. But that doesn’t feel like a win either. If I operated from a place of pure, cold logic, I wouldn’t be a Wizards fan.

I can think of one more option, though—one that no one has discussed, because, I presume, it is utterly unprecedented in its civic genius. The city of Washington, D.C., should seize the Washington Wizards through eminent domain. The city code outlines the right to acquire private property for condemnation or other reasons in the public interest after paying a satisfactory price to the current owner. If you’re willing to pay half a billion dollars to fix up the arena, why not kick in another couple billion and just take the franchise? The case could certainly be made that the current Wizards team is a form of urban decay.

Government ownership of a sports franchise might sound bizarre and un-American. But consider that, earlier this year, the Qatari sovereign-wealth fund bought a 5 percent stake in Monumental Sports. Why should a foreign nation get to own part of the Wizards while the city they play in gets nothing? Mayor Bowser and the D.C. city council should declare the team a public utility, pump the NBA’s massive TV revenue back into the city, and make the front office run for reelection every four years. I’ll leave it to the lawyers to figure out whether any of this is actually legal. I’m more interested in the principle. D.C. residents infamously don’t get to vote for representation in Congress. At least let us vote for our basketball team.

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A little more than halfway into his speech in Waterloo, Iowa, last night, former President Donald Trump returned to his new favorite line.

“They’re destroying the blood of our country,” Trump said, complaining that immigrants are arriving from Africa, Asia, South America, and “all over the world.” He said that unnamed individuals (presumably his advisers) do not like it when he uses these sorts of phrases. During this section of his speech, the packed crowd inside the Waterloo Convention Center was pin-drop silent. He suddenly assured everybody that he’s never read Mein Kampf. “They said, ‘Oh, Hitler said that,’” he explained, adding, “in a much different way.” Then he was right back to it. “They could bring in disease that’s going to catch on in our country,” Trump warned. “They’re destroying the blood of our country; they’re destroying the fabric of our country.”

Trump has enjoyed a double-digit lead in the polls for months. “We could put this to bed after Iowa, if you want to know the truth,” he said of the GOP-primary race. His first-place finish in the caucus less than four weeks from now seems all but certain. He continues to trounce Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whose campaign has become something like a balloon expelling air, chaotically fluttering in its descent. And although former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley has continued to rise in the polls, she remains a long shot in Iowa, and only slightly less of a long shot in New Hampshire. Congressional Republicans are coalescing around their leader. Over the weekend, Representatives Lee Zeldin of New York, Wesley Hunt of Texas, and Matt Gaetz of Florida were all stumping for Trump in Iowa. The former president smells it in the air. Last night, he seemed animated, as if taking a preemptive victory lap.

[Read: ‘Nothing is going to stop Donald Trump’]

As Trump’s position in the race has improved, his rhetoric has become more extreme. Speaking to the overwhelmingly white crowd in Waterloo, he spent even more time than usual demonizing nonwhite people. Immigrants, Trump said, are dumped on our borders, pouring into our country, bringing in crime. He said they were coming from other nations’ prisons and mental institutions, that they were “emptying out the insane asylums.” Later, he went after the kids. “You have children going to school, speaking languages that nobody even knows what the language is,” Trump said, adding that “there’s no room for our students in the classrooms”—emphasis on the “our.” He once again promised that, if reelected, he’ll carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.

Two weeks ago, Trump said he would be a dictator “on day one.” Last night, he praised the “great gentleman” Viktor Orbán of Hungary. “He’s the leader, he’s the boss, he’s everything you want to call him,” Trump said of the autocratic Orbán. He cautioned that our planet is on the brink of World War III, and that he, Donald Trump, is the only one who can prevent it. (He bragged about how he personally made sure our nuclear stockpile was “all tippy-top.”) Trump scoffed at his indictments, particularly the classified-documents case against him: “I have total protection. I’m allowed to do it.” He vowed to “take over our horribly run Washington, D.C.” and give indemnification to any police officer who “gets in trouble” for pursuing a criminal. I’ve watched Trump speak live in several different settings over the past several months. I’ve never seen him more bombastic this year than he seemed last night; he sounded like an unmoored strongman.

Scott Olson / Getty

Trump’s pageant of darkness unfolded against a backdrop of Christmas cheer. The former president was flanked by two Christmas trees, each topped with a red MAGA hat. Prop presents in Trump-branded wrapping paper dotted the stage. Red, green, and white lights glowed down from the ceiling. Trump opened with a long monologue from his earlier days: how we’re all saying “Merry Christmas” again. (His campaign volunteers handed out signs plastered with the phrase.) Even the press laminates were decorated with a string of cartoon Christmas lights.

One of Trump’s warm-up speakers, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, asked the audience, “What do you give the man who has everything as a Christmas present?” This was a slightly confusing setup for a joke about how Christmas is going to come late for Trump this year, when he wins the Iowa caucus in mid-January. People sort of got it.

Before Trump took the stage, I spotted Santa Claus leaning against a brick wall outside the assembly hall and asked for an interview. He wavered, then reluctantly agreed. The back of his red suit said MAGA CLAUS in gold block letters. Santa, it turns out, is a man in his mid-20s named Alex. He said he lives in Northern Virginia and works for Public Advocate of the United States, a conservative nonprofit group. He told me he plays all sorts of characters, such as Cupid and an evil doctor/mad scientist who forces people to take a COVID vaccine. He told me he had showed up at the Loudoun County school protests dressed as Uncle Sam. Two of his organization’s signs hung outside the venue’s entryway: Make the Family Great Again! and There are only TWO genders: Male & Female. Merry Christmas.

[Read: What is this ‘Christmas’ you speak of?]

Sitting at a nearby table was 81-year-old Susan Holland and her husband, Buzz. Both welcomed me with a nod as I pulled up a chair next to them. Holland, wearing a bedazzled Trump hat and an American-flag sweater with flag earrings, told me she had seen Trump in person about 10 times over the years. “We can hardly wait ’til he’s sworn in again,” she said. I asked her where she gets her news. “We watch Fox News,” she said. “We watch the regular news too.”

Over the past several months, I’ve asked dozens of Trump supporters if there is anything the former president could do or say that would make them withdraw their support. Mike Benson, a 62-year-old retired carpenter from Waterloo, was posted up a few blocks away from the venue at the Broken Record Bar earlier in the afternoon, wearing a red TRUMP 2024 hat, nursing a Bud. He told me about being out of step with his union buddies, who all staunchly vote Democratic. (He said he cast his first presidential vote for Ronald Reagan and has supported the GOP ever since.) I brought up that Trump had been praising people like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Orbán, and asked if he thought Trump himself would end up a dictator.

“Not a chance,” Benson said. “People confuse Trump’s praise for them. He’s not praising them; he’s acknowledging that they’re smart people. They’re smart enough to manipulate their population, and Trump is acknowledging that,” he said. “The devil is smart,” he added.

I asked him if he thinks Trump manipulates our population.

“No,” he said. “He puts what he believes is true out there, and if you believe that too, all you have to do is follow him. He’s not strong-arming people around. He’s not manipulating facts. He’s not militarizing government departments to go after opponents. He’s not doing any of that.”

Less than an hour before Trump took the stage last night, the Colorado Supreme Court had ruled that the former president was disqualified from appearing on the state’s ballot under the Fourteenth Amendment because of his actions leading up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. His campaign has already said that it will appeal the decision, and the case appears destined to wind up before the Supreme Court.

In Waterloo, Trump didn’t mention the Colorado ruling. Instead, he focused on Biden, the swamp, and the “deep state.” “We’re going to bring our country back from hell; our country’s gone to hell,” Trump said. By Christmas 2024, he countered, the economy will be roaring back and energy prices will be plummeting. He claimed responsibility for the presently high stock market—arguing that returns are up because people believe he is returning to office.

[John Hendrickson: Could the courts actually take Trump off the ballots?]

“Crooked Joe Biden” is “a low-IQ individual” and “the most incompetent, most corrupt president in the history of our country,” Trump said. “Other than that, I think quite a bit of him.” Later, Trump mocked Biden’s slow speech at a recent news conference.

Throughout the night, Trump pandered to Iowa voters, attacking electric cars, talking about persecution of Christians, and praising those who “still till that soil.” He fired off some strange ad-libs: “Does everybody in this room love their children? Does anybody in this room not love their children? Raise your hand. Oh, that guy in the blue jacket raised his hand!”

But his grotesque anti-immigrant rhetoric kept returning—a messier, ganglier version of “Build the Wall.”

As attendees filtered into the convention center, a 69-year-old man stood outside in the frigid cold and wind holding a handwritten sign. It read: EVERY TIME YOU EAT A PORK CHOP OR RIBEYE STEAK THANK AN IMMIGRANT. The man, Paul, had driven from his home in Manchester, about 50 miles east. He told me he used to work alongside many immigrants at a seed-corn plant. He said he was dismayed by all the slurs he had been hearing about foreigners. “I decided I was gonna come, I was gonna hold the sign,” and offer a message that was “at least halfway positive,” he said. I didn’t see any members of Trump’s flock stopping to consider it.

Sean Durkin’s first film, Martha Marcy May Marlene, was about the complex aftermath of one woman’s escape from a modern Manson-esque “family” centered around sex and drug use. His second, 2020’s The Nest, looked at a high-society couple in 1980s Britain who buy a mansion and are subsequently haunted by the decision, struggling to stay above water as the property sucks up all of their money. Both movies were immersed in an atmosphere of gloom and anxiety that somehow didn’t overwhelm either; even as Durkin tormented his characters, he had real, obvious love for them.

That’s exactly what makes his newest work, the wrestling drama The Iron Claw, such a triumph. The Iron Claw is, like many films released in the lead-up to the Oscar nominations, based on a true story. It chronicles the lives of the Von Erich brothers, professional wrestlers who were mentored by their tough-love father, rose to fame in 1980s Texas, and were eventually plagued by tragedy. Usually, these biographical movies lean into the drama, exaggerating the shocking stuff for the big screen. The story of the Von Erich family is almost unbelievably tragic, however, as five out of six brothers met an early death, several by suicide. Durkin even removed one of the real-life brothers from his script, deciding (correctly) that one more death would be too much for audiences to take.

I realize that doesn’t make The Iron Claw sound like a tempting choice this Christmas season. But it is the kind of big, weepy, macho film that just doesn’t get made much anymore, a soaring power ballad that should prompt a lot of loud sniffling in the theater. Durkin is a somewhat challenging, arty filmmaker whose prior films left many things unspoken; The Iron Claw is more broadly appealing without losing anything that makes his work so unique. It’s rich with feeling, shrouded in darkness, but not despairing as it digs into the trials the Von Erichs faced, without merely dismissing the family as cursed.

The notion of a family curse is baked into the brothers’ lives from birth. Their father, Fritz Von Erich (played by Holt McCallany, a walking cinder block sporting a permanent scowl), was named Jack Adkisson in real life but took the “Von Erich” pseudonym because his initial wrestling character was a villainous Nazi, an easy figure for postwar audiences to boo. When the film opens, in the late ’70s, Fritz has already lost his first son at the age of 6 in a freak accident; his second son, Kevin (a beefed-up Zac Efron), is thus expected to follow his dad into the family business, and quickly becomes something of a local legend around Dallas.

[Read: A gory amalgam of truth and spectacle]

Fritz is fond of informing his sons which of them is his current favorite, running down his list at the breakfast table while reminding them, “The rankings can always change.” Durkin summons a grunting alpha nightmare environment, a hothouse of muscle-bound teens and 20-somethings all vying for the attention of their stony father and icy, remote mother, Doris (a magnificent Maura Tierney). Along with Kevin, there’s Kerry (Jeremy Allen White), a potential Olympic discus thrower who gets diverted to the family business after the American boycott of the 1980 Games; David (Harris Dickinson), who has a particular flair for the sport’s showy dramatics; and Mike (Stanley Simons), a moon-eyed musician who is roped in out of sheer familial obligation.

To wrestling nerds, the Von Erichs have a titanic legacy, and Durkin does his best to represent that by exploring the sport’s crunchy, amateurish pre-corporate age, when regional live events were the big moneymakers and television was largely ignored. Yes, the fights are scripted, but the athleticism is real and punishing. More important, as Kevin reminds the audience early on, a fighter could only succeed in the ring if the audience (and, by extension, Fritz) loved what they were doing. The Iron Claw manages a tricky balance, depicting the ups and downs of everyone’s careers and acknowledging the required showmanship, but without getting too much into the behind-the-scenes politics.

The real drama of The Iron Claw, obviously, is the awful fates of the Von Erich children, a swirling combination of bad luck, possible substance abuse, likely undiagnosed depression, and very, very lousy parenting. Although Dickinson is effortlessly charming and White brings the fiery intensity viewers will associate with his performance in The Bear, it’s Efron, as the ostensible top dog Kevin, who is burdened with the film’s big dramatic arc. Kevin is not the brightest and possibly not even the most talented of the Von Erichs, but he is the most well adjusted, and Durkin charts his difficult journey to realizing the poisonous circumstances of his upbringing.

Efron is very talented given the right material—he’s a charming doofus in the Neighbors films, and appropriately emo in the DJ dramedy We Are Your Friends. His work in The Iron Claw feels like a major leap forward, or at least a perfect match of skill and plot. As Kevin’s life drags on and his brothers’ lives are cut sadly short, Efron powerfully demonstrates the character’s perseverance and eventual acceptance that, no, he is not fated to a similarly destructive end. Durkin might be the feel-bad filmmaker of the decade, and I mean that in the best way possible: He can depict tragedy with sensitivity and grace, and somehow not let his films be overwhelmed by their darkest moments.

Police will be able to hold undocumented border crossers - an area until now enforced by federal officials.

Republican Greg Abbott claims US President Joe Biden has left state to 'fend for itself' as he signs controversial bill.

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Many Americans—of both parties—have become untethered from reality. When the voters become incoherent, electing leaders becomes a reality show instead of a solemn civic obligation.

First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:

The myth of the unemployed college grad Texas becomes an abortion dystopia. They do it for Trump.

National Hypochondria

It’s been a stormy Monday on the East Coast, but with all respect to the Carpenters, I happen to like rainy days and Mondays. So I promise that what I am about to say is not the result of the rain or any Monday blues.

Millions of American voters appear to have lost their grip on reality.

I have been thinking (and writing) about the problem of poorly informed citizens for a long time. Low-information voters are a normal part of the political landscape; in the 21st century, democracies face the added danger of disinformation efforts from authoritarians at home and hostile powers overseas.

But America faces an even more fundamental challenge as the 2024 elections approach: For too many voters, nothing seems to matter. And I mean nothing. Donald Trump approvingly quotes Russian President Vladimir Putin and evokes the language of Adolf Hitler, and yet Americans are so accustomed to Trump’s rhetoric at this point that the story gets relegated to page A10 of the Sunday Washington Post. Joe Biden presides over an economic “soft landing” that almost no one thought could happen, and his approval rating drops to 33 percent—below Jimmy Carter’s in the summer of 1980, when American hostages were being held in Iran, and inflation, at more than 14 percent, was well into a second year of double digits. (Inflation is currently 3.1 percent—and likely will go lower.)

My concern here is not that people aren’t taking Trump’s threat seriously enough (even if they aren’t) or that Biden isn’t getting some of the credit he deserves (even if he isn’t). Rather, the political reactions of American voters seem completely detached from anything that’s happened over the past several years, or even from things that are happening right now. We use vibes to talk about all of this: We’re not in an actual recession, just a “vibecession,” where people feel like it’s a recession.

But you can’t solve imaginary recessions with real policies, just as you can’t cure imagined diseases with real medicine. We are experiencing a kind of political and economic hypochondria, where our good test results can’t possibly be true.

Consider, for example, that last month, Americans felt worse about the economy than they did in April 2009. The key word is feel, because by any standard remotely tied to this planet, it is delusional to think that things are worse today than during the meltdown of the Great Recession. As James Surowiecki (a contributing writer for The Atlantic) dryly observed on X about the comparison to 2009, “It’s true that if you ignore the 9% unemployment rate, the financial system melting down, the millions of people being foreclosed on and losing their homes, and the plummeting stock market decimating people's retirements, it was better. But why would you do that?”

For many reasons, people often say things are bad when they’re good. Even during the best times, someone is hurting. But a simple and very human phenomenon, as I wrote a few years ago, is that people can feel reluctant to jinx the good times by acknowledging them. And of course, partisanship makes people change their views of the economy literally overnight. The media, especially, enables the obsession with bad news. Too many stories about good economic reports (especially on television) are tied to the trope that begins: Not everyone is benefiting, however. Here’s a town …

Such stories are in the name of not forgetting the poor, the dispossessed, the left-behind. The reader or viewer of such stories might be moved to say, “There but for the grace of God go I,” but more likely they will reach the conclusion that the good economic news is a fluke and the destitution before them is the ongoing reality.

A much deeper and more stubborn problem, however, is that Americans, for at least 30 years or more, have developed immense expectations and a powerful sense of entitlement because of years of rising living standards. They are hypersensitive to any change or setback that produces a gap between how they live and how they expect to live—a disconnect that is unbridgeable by any politician.

Trump deals with this disconnect by encouraging it. He indulges his base by talking about “carnage” and the collapse of America, about how terrible things are, how much better they were, and how they’ll be good again in a year. Biden and the Democrats, still tethered to reality, gamely respond with data. Hussein Ibish recently wrote in The Atlantic that Biden can win with this approach: “Biden should ask voters Ronald Reagan’s classic question: Are you better off today than you were four years ago? The answer can only be yes.”

But I think Ibish is being too optimistic. In general, reality-based voters would answer yes. But what if the voters say no?

Even in casual conversations, I find myself flummoxed by people who argue, with much conviction, that America is in fact worse off, even if their own situation is better. When I respond by noting that inflation is not going up, say, or that America is at full employment, or that wages are outpacing prices, or that pay is increasing fastest for the lowest-paid workers, none of it matters. Instead, I get a response that is so common I can now see it coming every time: a head shake, a sigh, and then a comment about how everything is just such a mess.

And yet, after all of the hand-wringing about all the mess, people aren’t acting as if they’re living in an economic crisis. As my colleague Annie Lowrey pointed out recently, few people are spending less, no matter how much they carp about inflation; in surveys, she notes, “people say that they are trading down because of cost pressures. But in fact they are spending more than they ever have, even after accounting for higher prices. They’re spending not just on the necessities, but on fun stuff—amusement parks, UberEats.”

Such paradoxes suggest that dumping on the economy has transcended partisanship or the news cycle and is now a fashion, a kind of expected response, a way of identifying ourselves—no matter what we really believe—as a friend of the downtrodden, a reflex that prevents people from saying that they are doing well and the country seems to be doing fine. No one, after all, wants to get yelled at by the local Helen Lovejoy.

For now, I am going to hope that what we’re seeing is the classic problem of lag: The data are good, but people are still thinking about their situation three months ago—you know, back when the 2023 economy was worse than the Great Recession—and that perceptions will catch up. Abraham Lincoln implored citizens in 1838 to rely on “cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason.” But if Americans are now stuck in the mode where nothing but vibes and feelings matter, much more is at risk than one or two elections. No democracy can long survive an electorate whose only guidance is emotion.

Related:

The bad-vibes economy Why Trump won’t win

Today’s News

The Vatican said that the Pope had allowed priests to bless same-sex couples but clarified that the new rule does not amend the Church’s traditional doctrine on marriage. A new ProPublica investigation reported that Justice Clarence Thomas made private complaints in 2000 about his salary, raising alarm across the judiciary and Capitol Hill that he would resign. Governor Greg Abbott of Texas signed a bill into law that gives law enforcement the power to arrest migrants suspected of illegally crossing the Mexican border. The law takes effect in March, but lawsuits against it are expected.

Dispatches

Galaxy Brain: Charlie Warzel asks: Why does nobody know what’s happening online anymore? Stuck in our own corner of the internet, the concept of what makes a trend viral is now up for debate.

Explore all of our newsletters here.

Evening Read

Hannah Price

In 2021, Wright Thompson wrote about the barn where Emmett Till was tortured.

The Atlantic article caught the attention of Shonda Rhimes, who today announced a donation to the Emmett Till Interpretive Center, which will buy the barn and convert it into a memorial.

Read Wright’s article.

More From The Atlantic

The curious SNL return of Kate McKinnon The new family vacation The little-known rule change that made the Supreme Court so powerful Give Russia’s frozen assets to Ukraine now.

Culture Break

Illustration by The Atlantic

Listen. Today, work isn’t done exclusively in the workplace. What if there are better ways to separate your personal and professional time? Becca Rashid and Ian Bogost discuss in the latest episode of How to Keep Time.

Read. Dan Sinykin’s Big Fiction, the most buzzed-about work of literary scholarship published this past year, explores the invisible forces behind the books we read.

Play our daily crossword.

Katherine Hu contributed to this newsletter.

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