This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here.Over the past few months, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about old age. Earlier this year, imost Americans seemed to share my fixation, as voters debated President Joe Biden’s mental fitness for a second term. But my preoccupation also has...

At this late stage in Bob Woodward’s career, it would be possible to publish an entertaining anthology of the negative reviews of his books. Although there’s an ongoing debate about the journalistic merits of Woodward’s reportorial mode, he has no doubt succeeded in bringing out the vitriolic best from the likes of Joan Didion, Christopher Hitchens,...

As a being whose body contains billions of billions of atoms, I am subject to certain rules. To walk through my front door, I first have to open it. If I throw my jacket onto a chair, it will move in the direction and at the speed with which I tossed it, and stay on the chair until I pick it up again. I can’t affect the movement of a tennis ball in...

Illustrations by Anuj ShresthaIt’s called the “longest-swim problem”: If you had to drop someone at the place in the ocean farthest from any speck of land—the remotest spot on Earth—where would that place be? The answer, proposed only a few decades ago, is a location in the South Pacific with the coordinates 4852.5291ʹS 12323.5116ʹW: the “oceanic point...

The aftermath of Hurricane Milton in Florida, a beachside air show in California, restoration efforts in the Vatican, a historical autumn fair in England, a dog-grooming class in Brazil, cranberry harvesting in Massachusetts, and much moreTo receive an email notification every time new photo stories are published, sign up here.

Donald Trump’s affection for oppressive and bloodthirsty dictators is by now so familiar that it might go unremarked, and yet also so bizarre that it goes unappreciated or even disbelieved.Sometimes, though, a vivid reminder surfaces. That was the case this week, when stories from Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book, War, became public. In the book, the...