This is a wonderful interview with author Paul Theroux. Here’s an excerpt: “Naipaul was a deeply flawed man — tantrum-prone and depressive — but a magnificent writer. His great gift to me was of encouragement. Everyone needs it, not only writers. Everyone. Naipaul would say, after reading something of mine, “You’re going to be all …

Humans naturally need answers and so typically find uncertainty aversive. With a presidential election, war erupting in multiple zones, rising climate volatility and myriad other types of flux, it’s easy to feel overwhelming angst for the future and see certainty as a beacon in a darkening time.

At their clearest, the data indicate that social media can have both a positive and negative impact on the well-being of young people, and that heavy use of social media — and screen time generally — appears to displace activities like sleep and exercise that are considered vital to developing brains.

Here are three books I’ve been reading and recommend to you, here are on Amazon, which I’m sharing so you can use their “Look Inside” feature. In no particular order:

This column was originally printed in The New York Times, Dec. 20, 2021 and updated Dec. 21, 2021. Columnist: Jane Brody Many of us took advantage of the long, lonely hours of the 2020 Covid-19 lockdowns to cleanse our closets, drawers and cabinets of clothing from a bygone era, packaged foods long past their expiration …

Source: New York Times, Nov. 13, 2020, updated May 24, 2021Reporter: Cheryl Maguire There is no simple answer, said Thomas Power, director of the center for management of A.D.H.D. at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and the senior author of the study. He was one of eight experts I consulted, and while they fell into different …

“Yale professor Dr. Laurie Santos has studied the science of happiness and found that many of us do the exact opposite of what will truly make our lives better. Based on the psychology course she teaches at Yale — the most popular class in the university’s 300-year history — Laurie will take you through the …

Here are some books I recommend for young adults and adults. These are available as ebooks, print, and audio.

A handy print-out to help you keep track of tasks so you can relax and be ready for the next day.