The Top-Saved Long Reads of 2023 (So Far)

From May 2023: The troubadour of mellow vibes has been one of the biggest acts in music for three decades. Now 56, Matthews has been singing about mortality for a long time, and he’s confronting its specter in new and surprising ways.

From May 2023: They crowd streets, belch carbon, bifurcate communities, and destroy the urban fabric. Will we ever overcome our addiction?

From May 2023: Research shows that counseling delivers great benefits to many people. But it’s hard to say exactly what that means for you.

From May 2023: All hail the jobless employed.

From May 2023: A multi-day descent into AI madness.

From May 2023: Sure, the US secretary of transportation has thoughts on building bridges. But infrastructure occupies just a sliver of his voluminous mind.

From May 2023: The sociologist Matthew Desmond believes that being poor is different in the U.S. than in other rich countries.

From May 2023: HomeVestors of America, the self-proclaimed “largest homebuyer in the U.S.,” trains its nearly 1,150 franchisees to zero in on homeowners’ desperation.

From May 2023: Increasing interest rates, inflation, and supply chain disruptions notwithstanding, the McMansion is alive and well. Far from being a boomtime fad, it has become a durable emblem of our American way of life.

From May 2023: What it’s like to live in a city that no longer believes its problems can be fixed.

From May 2023: Growing up, I thought being named after Connie Chung made me unique. Then I found out about the rest of us.

From May 2023: How a small-town auto mechanic peddling a green-energy breakthrough pulled off a massive scam.

From May 2023: The attackers were in thousands of corporate and government networks. They might still be there now. Behind the scenes of the SolarWinds investigation.

From May 2023: A community of freelance truckers known as transmigrantes transport used cars and other goods from the United States to Central America. When one of them from Colorado got kidnapped, an international investigation shifted uncomfortably close to home.

From May 2023: Bulgaria in the 1980s became known as the ‘virus factory’, where hundreds of malicious computer programs were unleashed to wreak havoc. But who was writing them, and why?

From May 2023: Work and family life are no longer so busy and life can suddenly seem empty. Here are some good ways to stay connected.

From May 2023: As the emirate’s ruler espoused gender equality, four royal women staked their lives on escaping his control.

From May 2023: Can you tell the difference between a $10,000 Chanel bag and a $200 knockoff? Almost nobody can, and it’s turning luxury fashion upside down.

From May 2023: Publishing companies like Primary Wave and Hipgnosis are making old hits new again. And again. And again.

From May 2023: The future of the democratic world will be determined by whether the Ukrainian military can break a stalemate with Russia and drive the country backwards—perhaps even out of Crimea for good.

From April 2023: What do we mean when we say the internet is reading our minds?

From April 2023: Andy Hunter’s ecommerce platform was a pandemic hit. Now he’s on a mission to prove that small businesses can scale up without selling out.

From April 2023: Why we should aim for a world with fewer but happier pets.

From April 2023: It’s easy to get lost in its sea of jargon. But it has never been more important to get your bearings than today.

From April 2023: Studies show a mysterious health benefit to ice cream. Scientists don’t want to talk about it.

From April 2023: The pediatrician and best-selling author on the perils of excessive individualism, the moralization of baby sleep, and why when it comes to newborns he’s “a little bit like a priest.”

From April 2023: For over 20 years, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been treated to luxury vacations by billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow. The extent of Crow’s largesse has never been revealed. Until now.

From April 2023: Women in Clinton, Arkansas, and places like it, women I’d grown up with, women I knew, were losing years of their life. What was going on?

From April 2023: ‘Fringe’ research suggests the insects that are essential to agriculture have emotions, dreams and even PTSD, raising complex ethical questions.

From April 2023: A niche group of consultants is trying to get you back to the office. It’s not going too well.

From April 2023: When in Rome — or Cabo or Tokyo — put down your phone.

From April 2023: Computers have been digital for half a century. Why would anyone want to resurrect the clunkers of yesteryear?

From April 2023: Rumors destroyed Hazim Nada’s company. Then hackers handed him terabytes of files exposing a covert campaign against him—and the culprit wasn’t a rival but an entire country.

From April 2023: Finding it hard to move past a hurtful mistake? With these steps toward repair and renewal, you can do and feel better.

From April 2023: “As a proponent of transparency, especially one who stands in opposition to the demonization of feeling, I can’t—I won’t—use the word anymore.”

From April 2023: There’s something off about LED bulbs — which will soon be, thanks to a federal ban, the only kind you can buy.

From April 2023: How Robin Thicke, Pharrell, and T.I.’s cursed megahit predicted everything bad about the past decade in pop culture

From March 2023: A Slate investigation into the past 70 years of action movies.

From March 2023: A century ago, Thomas Midgley Jr. was responsible for two phenomenally destructive innovations. What can we learn from them today?

From March 2023: Artificial intelligence in its current form is based on the wholesale appropriation of existing culture, and the notion that it is actually intelligent could be actively dangerous.

From March 2023: Searching for friends in Mark Zuckerberg’s deserted fantasyland.

From March 2023: Your brain is not the root of cognition.

From March 2023: We've looked at natural cycles and causes. None of them can produce this warming.

From March 2023: For three decades, a little-known group of “mitigation specialists” has helped save death-penalty defendants by documenting their childhood traumas. A rare look inside one case.

From February 2023: For the ultra-wealthy and the super-famous, regular therapy won’t do.

From February 2023: How an idealistic community for exchanging free stuff tried to break away from Facebook, and ended up breaking apart.

From February 2023: The focus on all forms of trauma except economic exploitation has helped to disguise the problem at the heart of neoliberalism.

From February 2023: Scientists are deciphering how the brain choreographs immune responses, hoping to find treatments for a range of diseases.

From February 2023: It sounds like a hippie fantasy: a kind of super yoga that can supposedly extend your lifespan, give you clairvoyant powers, and help you control your reality. But in a dark moment on a desert retreat, I became a believer.

From February 2023: When you use supermarket discount cards, you are sharing much more than what is in your cart—and grocery chains like Kroger are reaping huge profits selling this data to brands and advertisers.

From February 2023: Workers describe a peak production season marred by labor protests and Covid-19 chaos, right as Apple reconsiders its China supply chain.

From February 2023: There’s a growing crisis in our social lives. Could the cure be this simple?

From February 2023: With the help of new archaeological approaches, our picture of young lives in the Palaeolithic is now marvellously vivid.

From February 2023: The causes of long COVID, which disables millions, may come together in the brain and nervous system.

From February 2023: How to text, tip, ghost, host, and generally exist in polite society today.

From February 2023: ‘All of it is so unreal and so convergent,’ I wrote on the hotel stationery, ‘that I feel I am about to invent Surrealism 2.’

From February 2023: I never understood why veterinarians are at such a high risk of suicide. Until I became one.

From February 2023: Tech geniuses, nation builders and famous artists have praised the benefits of a Montessori education – but does it hold up to scientific scrutiny?

From February 2023: Need to call Facebook? Frontier? Good luck.

From February 2023: Hot flashes, sleeplessness, pain during sex: For some of menopause’s worst symptoms, there’s an established treatment. Why aren’t more women offered it?

From February 2023: He won four Super Bowls and retired as the undisputed greatest. What came next was turning a legacy into a life.

From February 2023: My town, once celebrated for its laid-back weirdness, is now a turbocharged tech megalopolis being shaped by exiles from places like Silicon Valley.

From February 2023: The medical establishment has a long history of ignoring patients with ‘unexplained’ symptoms. Long Covid might finally bring about a global attitude shift.

From January 2023: Twitter’s staff spent years trying to protect the social media site against impulsive billionaires who wanted to use the reach of its platform for their own ends, and then one made himself the CEO.

From January 2023: How the cult of consumerism ushered in an era of badly made products.

From January 2023: Some people say their thought takes place in images, some in words. But our mental processes are more mysterious than we realize.

From January 2023: Depression has often been blamed on low levels of serotonin in the brain. That answer is insufficient, but alternatives are coming into view and changing our understanding of the disease.

From January 2023: Scientists are abandoning conventional thinking to search for extraterrestrial creatures that bear little resemblance to Earthlings.

From January 2023: What started as an experiment has turned into a habit I hope will inspire others.

From January 2023: The recent spike in shoplifting is both overblown and real. And almost everyone is profiting from it (including you).

From January 2023: Glimpses of humanity in an unlikely corner of the internet.

From January 2023: Confident or shy, our temperament is mostly baked-in from birth. But how that influences our lives is up for grabs.