Of the thousands of self-help books on the market, which ones are truly helpful? “It’s uncommon to find a self-help book that feels different,” said Vienna Pharaon, a marriage and family therapist in New York City. But genuinely useful titles abound. The best of the genre invite reflection or offer practical tools to promote emotional,…
Good morning. Hot pot’s on the docket for Saturday night: a big metal tureen of soup bubbling over a burner in the center of the dining table, into which we’ll float slices of beef, cubes of tofu, leafy greens, oyster mushrooms, rounds of sweet potato, rice cakes, cubes of daikon radish and lots and lots…
Some hot springs look like palaces, others like holes in the ground. Some feel like parties, others like prayers. There are hot baths within cities, on remote islands, in the desert, inside thick forests. Thermal water can be green, orange, blue, yellow or turquoise. It can be milky and opaque, silty with sediment or as…
One man got down on his knees and kissed the rug emblazoned with the ship’s logo. Another lifted his wife and swung her around, ecstatic to be among the roughly 5,000 passengers to embark on the inaugural sailing of the world’s largest cruise ship, the Icon of the Seas. For months, the 250,800-ton ship, which…
For the past few weeks, I’ve been running an experiment: inviting friends to simply hang out and do nothing, or close to nothing. I’ve asked them to drop by for a cup of tea. I’ve volunteered to join them as they walk their dogs. When I found out that my local grocery store opened at…
While Rome’s charms may be, as they say, eternal, it’s never been a city particularly prized for its hotels. Until recently, upmarket lodging in the Italian capital usually meant an ostentatiously decorated pile meant to evoke the city’s 16th- and 17th-century palazzi, stuffed with gilded furniture and vague nostalgia. Over the past year or so,…
In my first dispatch since returning from my stint on The Times’s Live team, I shared a laundry list of exciting developments in the restaurant world, including that Regina’s Grocery & Deli, a beloved Lower East Side staple, had opened a third location on the Upper East Side. (Over Instagram messages, the owner, Roman Grandinetti,…
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating an outbreak on a luxury cruise ship after more than 150 people reported symptoms of gastrointestinal illness, including diarrhea and vomiting. The ship, the Queen Victoria, operated by Cunard Line, departed Southampton, England, on Jan. 11 on a 107-night cruise that included recent stops in Florida…
Romance is in the eye of the beholder. To some, it is an unprompted text with a thoughtful date-night itinerary, the day, time and place selected and the reservation made — your only task is to show up. To others, it is an elaborate meal awaiting you at home, labored over by the one you…
Premature births, after years of steady decline, rose sharply in the U.S. between 2014 and 2022, according to recently published data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Experts said the shift might be partly the result of a growing prevalence of health complications among mothers. “I’m not too surprised that these are the…
