Melissa Kirsch

Looking back over the archive, so many of the stories that you publish are about love that doesn't last. They're about breakups, they're about one-night stands, or they're about chance encounters with people that you never see again. It's about the loss of love or a very fleeting love more than it's about an enduring love. I'd love to talk about what you take away from pieces like that.

And so it seems like you need to be an expert on everything.

Maybe it's what, like, movies and fairy tales maybe tell us about what a successful relationship looks like, right?

Mm-hmm. My favorite modern love essays tend to be about tiny quiet moments instead of grand gestures. I'm thinking about essays like learning to measure time in love and loss. Talk to me about that piece.

Well, thank you so much, Dan, for talking with me today. Thank you, Melissa. And Happy New Year to you. Happy New Year to you. We're going to take a short break. And when we return, New York Times readers share the best advice they received this year.

Instead of trying harder, try softer.

Are there qualities that all good advice has in common? Like, what makes advice good advice?

Today's episode was produced by Sarah Curtis, with help from Kate Lopresti. It was edited by Wendy Dorr, with production support by Frannie Carthoff, and original music by Diane Wong, Dan Powell, Alisha Baetoop, Marion Lozano, and Sophia Landman. It was engineered by Daniel Ramirez. That's it for The Daily. I'm Melissa Kirsch. Michael and Sabrina will be back on Thursday after the holiday.

Happy New Year.

From The New York Times, this is The Daily. I'm Melissa Kirsch, Deputy Editor of Culture & Lifestyle. 2024 is coming to a close. This is traditionally a time of reflection when we look back on the year that was and look ahead to the year to come. So I'm talking with three of my colleagues whose jobs, in part, are to think about how we live and to think about how we can all live better.

Just sort of turning up the volume on that voice inside of me. Yes.

So it's New Year's Eve. This is the time of year when people are making resolutions, deciding how they're going to be better next year. Do you have thoughts about New Year's resolutions?

Punishing. Punishing. Self-punishing.

Thank you so much for talking with me, Philip.

My colleague Jancy Dunn writes a weekly column about wellness. She consults doctors and researchers and other experts on topics like how to sleep better, how to apologize like you mean it, and perfect timing for anyone who's traveling for the holidays, how to avoid getting sick on a flight. She's here with me today to share some of the most useful things she's learned this year. Hi, Janci.

Hi, Melissa. Okay, so I asked you to look back on your year in reporting. I'm very excited to hear what you found. What have you got?

A mentor from your past, like someone who has given you guidance, like in a previous job or when you were a child? Yes.

Today, the year in wisdom. It's Tuesday, December 31st. Philip Galanis, welcome.

Is there some sort of wisdom there in like reaching out to someone who knew you so long ago like they know the essential you?

Don't chew ice ever. Okay, as someone who very rarely chews ice, I'm going to guess that the reason why one should not chew ice ever is because one may break a tooth. Is that correct?

No, I just have like a really good gut instinct about things having to do with teeth.

Good. How are you doing?

Yes, it is. So, Philip, for the past 16 years, you've been writing an advice column for The Times called Social Cues. Every week, you answer questions from readers on a pretty wide array of subjects. Give me a sense of that range.

Well, I always think like, well, I'm going to need these things or someone's going to need a cord. You know, I don't want to be caught without a cord.

Moral beauty. Okay, tell me what moral beauty is.

I think that I walk around a lot like a cop looking for social infractions, just like the tiny ways in which people are being rude to one another. And my antennae are always up for that.

And so that idea of resetting and reorienting myself, looking for those moments of beauty or where people are being kind and not paying so much attention to these tiny injustices, that seems like a really worthy pursuit.

Thank you so much. This was really great.

Happy New Year to you. We're going to take a little break, and when we return, lessons from 20 years of the Times' Modern Love column. 20 years ago, Daniel Jones helped create the Times' Modern Love column.

Every week, Modern Love publishes personal essays on love in all its forms, not just romantic love, but love between parents and children, siblings, love between friends, love that's lost or unrequited. Dan has read thousands of these love stories, and today he's here to tell us what he's learned. Hi, Dan.

So, Dan, I imagine over all the years of doing this work, your perspective on love has probably changed. How has this work changed the way you think about love?

You published a piece earlier this year about what you've learned from reading and editing all these love stories. One of the takeaways that stayed with me is the line, love is more like a basketball than a vase. Talk about that.

Got it. Okay. So let's take a spin through the list. Sure. Let's start with fiction.

If you were scrambling for a pen to write down those titles, here they are once again.

When we come back, Dwight Garner cracks open his commonplace book. What's a commonplace book? We'll tell you all about it in just a minute. My colleague Dwight Garner is a book critic at The Times, and he's also a kind of literary scavenger. As he reads, he collects sentences that move him, and he keeps them all in one huge document. This practice actually has a name.

It's called keeping a commonplace book. And Dwight is here today to talk about his commonplace book. Dwight, hello. Thank you for being here.

Okay, let's start with the basics. Explain the concept of a commonplace book.

And talk about what spurred you to start writing down snippets that jumped out at you while you were reading.

So do you have any idea of how many quotes or sentences or lines you added in 2024?

Okay, I need you to, like, break down to me Dwight Garner reading, because I'm imagining you, like, with a keyboard next to you while you're reading, or are you highlighting in the book? Are you...

Okay, so let's take a look at your commonplace book for 2024. Give me a line that you added to the book this year.

Do you have a personal favorite from that fiction list?

And it seems sort of like that's what you do when you're reading and when you're keeping your commonplace book. You're sort of taking notes on how to live. Do you think that way when you're reading, that you're getting instructions?

Mm-hmm. Can we hear another one?

Did it strike you while you were reading the Salman Rushdie book that, like, because his sense of humor was intact, like, his vitality was intact?

All right, let's hear another one.

Okay, Dwight, can you explain to me what any of that means?

There is something pleasurable about spending time in that sort of like in an unfamiliar world and steeping oneself in the lingo of that world.

Dwight, this has been fascinating. Thank you for letting us peer inside your commonplace book.

Today's episode was produced by Tina Antolini and Alex Barron, with help from Kate Lopresti. It was edited by Wendy Dorr, with production support by Franny Carr-Toth, and original music by Diane Wong, Marion Lozano, and Dan Powell. It was engineered by Daniel Ramirez.

Special thanks to Sam Sifton, Tina Jordan, Lauren Manley, Alicia Baetup, Sarah Curtis, John White, Elissa Dudley, Olivia Waite, Paula Schumann, and Sam Dolmick. That's it for The Daily. I'm Melissa Kirsch. Thanks for listening.

Right. What about the nonfiction list? What books are on there?

From the New York Times, this is The Daily. I'm Melissa Kirsch, Deputy Editor of Culture and Lifestyle. As we close out 2024, I'm talking with my colleagues around the newsroom about what they watched and listened to and read this year. Today, we're talking about books.

And so your favorite nonfiction selection?

I would love to read about possibly getting scurvy. So those are the best books of the year. But I want to talk to you about another project the book review tackled this year. You put out a list of the best books of the 21st century so far. How does one determine the best books of the last 25 years?

So it seems to me that if you're looking for a book to read, you could do a lot worse than to start with the number one book on the list, which is...

And why do you think this book emerged as the number one book of the 21st century?

I can.

I'll talk with Gilbert Cruz, the editor of the New York Times Book Review, about the best books of the year and the best books of the century. Then the Times' book critics will join us with some of their favorites of 2024. And the critic Dwight Garner will share some of the funniest, snappiest, and most insightful writing he encountered this year. It's Tuesday, December 31st. Gilbert Cruz, hello.

Yeah, everyone I know loves these books. So were there any surprises on the list?

The list has a feature where you can check off the books that you've read, and at the end, it gives you a tally, like a score of how conscientious a reader you've been. So when this list was originally published over the summer, there were a lot of people online bragging about how many of the books they'd read. Yeah. But some of us were a little surprised at how low our number was.

I was wondering what you would say to somebody who was feeling perhaps a little bit sheepish about how few of these books they'd read.

But what I want to say is you can still be a reader who reads widely and curiously and not have read many books on this list, right?

Did you find a book on this list that you ended up really loving?

Oh, how I love George Saunders. Me too. So on that note, we're going to take a break. And when we come back, we're going to hear from some of your book review colleagues about the best books they read this year.

Thank you so much for being here, Gilbert.

We'll be right back.

Today we're talking about the best books of the year. We asked our colleagues at The Book Review to recommend some of the books they loved in 2024.

Okay, so every year, the staff of the New York Times Book Review puts out a list of the 10 best books of the year. It has just come out. Tell me about how that list comes together.

And now let's talk about a very different kind of movie. Another film you loved this year was Furiosa, a Mad Max saga. This is the latest entry in the Mad Max franchise. It's directed by George Miller and stars Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth.

I think a movie people might be surprised to find in your top 10 is Megalopolis. This is the movie that Francis Ford Coppola, who directed The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, self-financed and wrote and directed. It stars Adam Driver. It was divisive, but you loved it.

Okay, let's take a little break. And when we return, we're going to talk about movies you can see in the theater right now.

A lot of people have time off from work. This is a time when a lot of people go to the movies. What do you recommend?

So give me an example of what you mean.

Well, it sounds like there's a lot of good stuff to see in the theater right now. Manola, thank you so much for being here.

Today's episode was produced by Alex Barron with help from Kate Lopresti. It was edited by Wendy Dorr with production support by Franny Carr-Toth and original music by Diane Wong, Pat McCusker, and Dan Powell. It was engineered by Daniel Ramirez.

Special thanks to Sia Michael, Sam Sifton, David Mallitz, Jason Bailey, Jeremy Egner, Stephanie Goodman, Lauren Manley, Ben Calhoun, Claire Tennesketter, Alexandra Lee Young, Alishaba Etup, Sarah Curtis, John White, Tina Antolini, Paula Schumann, and Sam Dolnik. That's it for The Daily. I'm Melissa Kirsch. I'll see you tomorrow.

I never said I used the door. I barely remember this show.

Okay, but it wasn't that long ago that everybody was talking about prestige TV, right? Like these highly polished hour-long dramas that were as good as movies. Walk me through how we got from prestige TV to mid-TV.

From The New York Times, this is The Daily. I'm Melissa Kirsch, Deputy Editor of Culture & Lifestyle. As we close out 2024, I'll be talking with my colleagues around the newsroom about what they watched and listened to and read this year, about the things they loved and the things they didn't love.

So you hear so much about how people's attention spans are limited these days and there's so much vying for their attention with social media and TikTok and Instagram. If TV is mid, how can TV hope to retain its audience?

I mean, as a viewer, I want off the wall and idiosyncratic and personal, you know, and what you're describing, you know, I'm familiar with this kind of zombie version of prestige TV and it's not satisfying. It's not, you know, the show that I want to binge. I'm just I'm wondering what the outlook is. Is mid TV the future of TV? Is this just the way TV is now?

Today, chief television critic James Ponowozik is here to talk about why TV might feel a little blah right now. And then our chief film critic Manola Dargis on her favorite movies of 2024 and why you shouldn't let the algorithm tell you what to watch. It's Thursday, December 26th. Jim Ponowozik, thanks so much for being here.

Okay, so reasons for optimism. So tell me about the shows that really stood out for you this year.

No, Julio, don't go into your thoughts. Come back.

Oh, I'm going to check this out.

Well, I am feeling a little more hopeful than I was at the outset of this conversation. So thank you so much for talking with me, Jim. Thank you so much for talking with me. After the break, I'll talk with chief film critic Manola Dargis about the best movies of 2024. We'll be right back.

Thanks for having me. So I'm wondering if you could do something for me, which is I'd like you to read the list of the top grossing movies of 2024.

Okay, now of the movies you just mentioned, nine out of ten of them are sequels, and Wicked is technically a prequel to The Wizard of Oz. What's going on here?

Okay, so Jim, fill in the blank. In the world of television, 2024 was the year of... Mid-TV.

So very similar to what's going on with TV, where studios aren't looking for necessarily innovative or original work.

You liked some sequels.

Okay, so let's talk about some of those things to see. I've got your list of the best films of the year here. Your number one movie of 2024 is an Indian film called All We Imagine is Light. I have not seen this movie.

Okay, so this feud that is still going on between two of the rap world's biggest stars has gotten fairly nasty. John Karamonica, can you briefly summarize what happened this year between Kendrick Lamar and Drake?

Let's take another little break, and when we come back, we're going to talk about how country music took over pop.

So this song is from Beyonce's album, Cowboy Carter. This album featured appearances by famous country artists, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson. But Beyonce herself said, it's not a country album, it's a Beyonce album. John Perelis, what does that mean?

Lindsay, it wasn't just that people loved these songs. Brat became this, like, culture-wide phenomenon, right? How did that happen?

Okay, I'd like to talk about another artist who went country this year, who was also featured on Cowboy Carter. Let's hear a bar song, Tipsy, by Shaboosie.

From the New York Times, this is The Daily. I'm Melissa Kirsch, Deputy Editor of Culture and Lifestyle. As we close out 2024, I'm talking with my colleagues around the newsroom about what they watched and listened to and read this year. about the things they loved and the things they didn't love. Today, pop music critics John Pirellis, John Karamonica, and Lindsay Zolatz on The Year in Music.

Thank you.

Nailed it. John Pirellas?

Yeah, let's hear Post Malone, another pop artist who had a huge country moment this year. Let's hear I Had Some Help featuring Morgan Wallen.

This is from Post Malone's country album, F1 Trillion. Morgan Wallen is a huge country artist. Post Malone, not traditionally a country artist, but he went to Nashville and made this album. John Perelis, talk to me about this song.

And why are we seeing so many pop stars going country?

John, Lindsay, John, thank you so much for being here today, and thank you so much for helping us make sense of the year in music. Thanks for having us.

Today's episode was produced by John White with help from Kate Lopresti. It was edited by Wendy Dorr with production support by Franny Carr-Toth and original music by Diane Wong. It was engineered by Daniel Ramirez. Special thanks to Sia Michael, Sam Sifton, Karen Gans, Lauren Manley, and Alicia Baitoup, Sarah Curtis, Alex Barron, Tina Antolini, Elissa Dudley, Paula Schumann, and Sam Dolmick.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Melissa Kirsch. See you on Monday.

She's reflecting a mood very well, but you don't feel the mood?

So you buy brat as a cultural phenomenon more than you do as a musical phenomenon.

I think this might be the time.

Well, Lindsay, what does that mean, the daily is brat?

Okay, let's hear from another young female artist whose music seemed to be everywhere this year.

I didn't know Chapel Roan's name before 2024, and she ended up being one of the artists I listened to the most this year. John Caramonica, can you talk a little bit about where Chapel Roan came from and how she got so big?

It's Friday, December 27th. John, Lindsay, John, thanks for being here. Hi.

Thank you. Okay, so we're going to take a little trip through the music of 2024, and I thought it would be good to start off with this song. So this is 360 from Charli XCX's album, Brat. Charli XCX was one of a bunch of young women who had huge moments in pop this year. John Pirellas, Brat was your number one album of 2024. Tell us why. Because the music is...

Well, John Perales, people really identified with Chapel Roan, the human being, right? Like they really connected with her as a person. What do you think it is about her that made people connect with her?

And I think that's really important. I think people really, like, identify with her as a human being.

If we're talking about young women in pop, we can't forget to mention Sabrina Carpenter, the Disney star turned pop phenom. Let's hear Espresso. Thoughts on this song, John Perlis?

Lindsay, you felt like Sabrina Carpenter had some of the defining hits of the year.

Sabrina Carpenter, Chapel Roan, and Charlie XCX all had massive years, but the number one album of the year by far came from an industry veteran, Taylor Swift.

This is from her album, The Tortured Poets Department. But of all the music we're talking about, it didn't feel like the music from this album defined the year. Do you all have theories as to why?

Let's take a break and we'll be right back with more of the music of 2024. So we're going to switch gears here. We're going to talk about a pretty major story from the year, the beef between the rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar. Can we hear Not Like Us? Psst, I see dead people.