A long list of good reads
- New Yorker offers a hilarious guide to things you can do when your flight is delayed this holiday season.
- The Dial has a great photo essay on the reindeer herders of Norway.
- Nell Greenfieldboyce in Lithub pens an interesting essay on children, science and the ‘wonder’ of Santa Claus.
- NPR offers a poignant report on Christmas in Bethlehem—which will be overshadowed by the horrific tragedy in Gaza.
- Atlas Obscura has a wonderful essay on the family that made the first traditional nutcracker in Germany—and are still making them.
- Vox asks an important question: Why are all Christmas movies romantic?
Moving onto some non-holiday themed picks…
- A must read: New Yorker’s brilliant profile of Mangesh Ghogre—whose extraordinary ability is writing crossword puzzles.
- Scroll has a deeply reported look at people in coastal Karnataka who were displaced due to rising sea levels—and have been abandoned by the government.
- Michael J Coren in the Washington Post (splainer gift link) argues that the world needs to undertake “big, public, audacious goals” for the climate—just as it did for the restoration of Notre Dame.
- Rest of World has an important essay on how YouTube has turned into the “last bastion of unbiased journalism in India”—but for how long?
- Also in Rest of World: a revealing glossary of slang used by gig workers around the world.
- The Guardian investigates why women are now increasingly choosing to remain single.
- Ajaz Ashraf in Mid-Day looks at recent rulings that have shaken the faith of many in the judiciary.
- Tyler Austin Harper in The Atlantic (splainer gift link) pens a thought-provoking essay on the ways in which the field of humanities has contorted itself in an attempt to appear “useful”—and sown the seeds of its self-destruction.
- New York Times (splainer gift link) has a relatable piece on how winters have essentially become a time of never-ending illness.
