22 of the Funniest Novels

When it comes to fiction, humor is serious business. If tragedy appeals to the emotions, wit appeals to the mind. “You have to know where the funny is,” the writer Sheila Heti says, “and if you know where the funny is, you know everything.” Humor is a bulwark against complacency and conformity, mediocrity and predictability….

Read More

Outdoor Voices to Close All Stores This Week

Outdoor Voices, an athletic apparel company, is closing all its stores on Sunday, according to four employees at four different stores who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the news. In an internal Slack message reviewed by The New York Times, some employees were notified on Wednesday that “Outdoor Voices is…

Read More

Restaurant Pop-Ups Are About the Thrill of the Hunt

Restaurant pop-ups, by their very nature, are ephemeral and hard to pin down. But they can also be destinations for some of New York’s most creative and inspired dining as the chefs that run them aren’t bogged down by the minutiae that plague brick-and-mortar restaurants. Sometimes, pop-ups become popular, permanent restaurants, as in the cases…

Read More

Restaurant Pop-Ups Are About the Thrill of the Hunt

Restaurant pop-ups, by their very nature, are ephemeral and hard to pin down. But they can also be destinations for some of New York’s most creative and inspired dining as the chefs that run them aren’t bogged down by the minutiae that plague brick-and-mortar restaurants. Sometimes, pop-ups become popular, permanent restaurants, as in the cases…

Read More

TikTok Is Its Own Worst Enemy

I was really rooting for TikTok. In 2020, when the Trump administration first tried to force TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the app or risk having it shut down, I argued that banning TikTok in the United States would do more harm than good. Why? Partly because TikTok seemed like a convenient scapegoat for…

Read More

Taiwan Is Building a Satellite Network Without Elon Musk

In Taiwan, the government is racing to do what no country or even company has been able to: build an alternative to Starlink, the satellite internet service operated by Elon Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX. Starlink has allowed militaries, power plants and medical workers to maintain crucial online connections when primary infrastructure has failed in emergencies,…

Read More