Nothing about Trump 2.0 is mere bluster.

Jake Paul is an emblem of a generation starving for purpose while gorging on spectacle.

A poem for Wednesday

The other night, a friend came over. A dear friend. A friend who has helped me out when I’ve been sick, and who brought over takeout when I had just given birth. Still, before he arrived, I vacuumed.I thought about this while reading the Gender Equity Policy Institute’s recent report on gender and domestic labor. The study finds that mothers spend twice as much time as fathers “on the essential and unpaid work” of taking care of kids and the home, and that women spend more time on this than men, regardless of parental and relationship status. “Simply being a woman” is the instrumental variable, the study concludes.The time gaps are large for all women, and especially large for certain subgroups. Moms with a high-school education or less spend 19 hours a week on cleaning and child care, versus seven hours for dads with a comparable education. Latina mothers devote 26 hours a week to chores and kids, Latino dads less than a third of that time.Remarkably, having a male domestic partner means more work for women, not less. Married women spend more time on housework than single women; married men spend roughly the same amount as single men. Women’s lower wages and higher propensity to take part-time jobs explain some of the difference: To maximize the household’s total income, the person earning more does less around the house. But other studies have found that women who earn as much as or more than their male partner still devote more time to domestic care. Queer relationships, unsurprisingly, tend to be more equitable.Perhaps most enraging: The gender divide results in women having fewer hours than men to devote to socializing, exercising, going out, or practicing a hobby. No wonder women tend to experience more stress and burnout.A generation after the publication of Arlie Russell Hochschild’s The Second Shift, a lot has changed, and nothing has changed. Women are much more likely to work outside the home, but the distribution of work within the home has not become commensurately equitable. Surveys show that women are not exactly happy with the situation. What would it take for things to be different?It was once thought that technology was part of the answer. Decades of labor-saving innovations cut the hours Americans spent on chores. A dishwasher saves a household an estimated 200 hours a year, a laundry machine three-plus hours of backbreaking work per load. Yet even as technology improved, homes got bigger, filled with more items to care for. As my colleague Derek Thompson has noted, standards of cleanliness have risen over time too: “Automatic washers and dryers raised our expectations for clean clothes and encouraged people to go out and buy new shirts and pants; housewives therefore had more loads of laundry to wash, dry, and fold.”You see this tidiness treadmill on TikTok and Instagram: People recommend how to wash your walls, “refresh” your furniture season by season, and organize everything in your pantry in clear acrylic bins. This labor isn’t time-saving; it is never-ending.The Gender Equity Policy Institute suggests, well, policy changes, including “use it or lose it” parental-leave programs for new fathers, caregiving credits for the Social Security system, and expanded early-child-care programs. But the report acknowledges that the unhappy divide is cultural, and requires cultural shifts as well.Caretaking is a central way that women perform their gender. The advertising of domestic goods and cleaning products remains intently focused on women. The majority of children still grow up watching their mother do more housework than their father. The gender chore gap shows up in children as young as 8.Men doing more housework is an obvious solution, but not one that I am particularly hopeful about. Virtually every woman I know who is unhappy with her household division of labor has tried and failed to get her male partner to pick up the slack. The belief that men care less about having a messy home is pervasive, and supported by at least some evidence. In one anthropological study, researchers had people give them a video tour of their house. Mothers almost unanimously apologized for the rooms not being tidier. “Fathers in their home tours would walk in the same rooms their wives had come through and often made no mention whatsoever of the messiness,” UCLA’s Jeanne Arnold reported. “This was pretty astonishing.”Perhaps the problem is women, and the remedy is for women to do less housework and tolerate a consequentially messier home. “The tidiness level of a home is a matter of simple preference with no right or wrong,” my colleague Jonathan Chait has written, offering an “easy answer” to the chore wars. “My wife and I happily learned to converge on each other’s level of tidiness. We settled—fairly, I think—on a home that’s neater than I’d prefer to keep it, but less neat than she would.”Yet men are perfectly capable of recognizing a mess when it is not theirs. The sociologists Sarah Thébaud, Leah Ruppanner, and Sabino Kornrich asked people to look at photographs of an open-plan living room and kitchen; half saw a living space cluttered with dishes and laundry, and the other half saw a tidy area. The participants rated how clean the room was on a 100-point scale, and said how urgent they thought it was for the owner to take care of it. Men and women had essentially the same ratings of how clean the space was and how important tidying up was.In a second experiment, the same researchers told study participants that the photos were taken by someone looking to rent out their place on an Airbnb-type site. Some participants viewed rooms hosted by “Jennifer,” some by “John.” The participants thought that Jennifer’s clean space was less tidy than John’s, and were more judgmental in their assessments of the female host.Women internalize this kind of judgment, making the individual desire to keep things clean inextricable from the social expectation to do so. Women are critiqued for having pans in the sink and grime on the countertops in a way that men aren’t. Women’s cortisol levels go up when their space is messy in a way that men’s cortisol levels don’t. Asking women to clean less means asking women to accept more criticism, to buck their culture, to put aside their desire for a socially desirable space. At the same time, men internalize the message that an untidy home is not their responsibility.The best path forward might be for men and women to applaud messy, normal, mismatched, lived-in spaces. We should recognize that multinational conglomerates are in the business of devising problems that need solutions, which are conveniently available at Walmart and Target; we should admit that everything done in front of a camera is a performance, not reality; we should acknowledge that being welcomed into someone’s house is a gift of connection, not an invitation to judge. Easy enough for me to say. I am one of the millions of us who cannot seem to put down the vacuum, even if I do not want to pick it up.

BRCA mutations can lead to cancer in the pancreas, prostate, and maybe more parts of the body.

Empowering Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will test one of American public health’s greatest successes.

Group fitness classes aren’t just about exercise.

When I lived in China, a decade ago, I often saw propaganda billboards covered in words that supposedly expressed the country’s values: Patriotism. Harmony. Equality. And … Democracy. Indeed, China claims to consider itself a democratic country. So do Russia, Cuba, Iran, and so on down the list of nations ranked by their level of commitment to rights and liberties. Even North Korea fancies itself part of the club. It’s right there in the official name: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.I thought of those Chinese billboards recently, when a postelection poll showed that many American voters touted the importance of democracy while supporting a candidate who had tried to overturn the results of the previous presidential election. According to a survey by the Associated Press, a full one-third of Trump voters said that democracy was their top issue. (Two-thirds of Harris voters said the same thing.) In a poll conducted before Joe Biden dropped out of the race, seven out of 10 uncommitted swing-state voters said they doubted that Donald Trump would accept the election results if he lost—but more people said they’d trust Trump to handle threats to democracy than said they’d trust Biden.Almost all Americans say they support democracy. They even agree that it’s in trouble. But when researchers drill down, they find that different people have very different ideas about what democracy means and what threatens its survival, and that democracy is just one competing value among many. In the collective mind of U.S. voters, the concept of democracy appears to be so muddled, and their commitment to it so conditional, that it makes you wonder what, if anything, they’d do anything to stop its erosion—or whether they’d even notice that happening.[Yoni Appelbaum: Americans aren’t practicing democracy anymore]Americans perceive democracy through an almost completely partisan lens. In recent polls, Democrats tend to cite Trump—in particular, the likelihood of him seeking to subvert elections—as the biggest threat to democracy. They also point to gerrymandering, voter suppression, and Trump’s rhetoric about using the government to exact retribution as causes for concern. For Republicans, by contrast, threats to democracy take the form of mainstream media, voting by mail, immigration, and what they see as politically motivated prosecutions of Trump. Perhaps the best Rorschach test is voter-ID laws, which get characterized as “election integrity” or “voter suppression” depending on the perspective: Republicans see them as a commonsense way to make elections more accurate and accountable, while Democrats see them as a ploy to disenfranchise voters who don’t have state-issued identification. No surprise, then, that campaigning on a platform of preserving democracy didn’t work for Kamala Harris. Invoking the term to rally support assumes a shared understanding of what it means.Even more troubling, American voters rarely prioritize democracy over other considerations. For the most part, we’re willing to overlook mischief that undermines democracy as long as our own team is the one doing it. A 2020 study in the American Political Science Review by Matthew H. Graham and Milan W. Svolik of Yale University found that only 3.5 percent of Americans would vote against a candidate whose policies they otherwise support if that candidate took antidemocratic actions, like gerrymandering or reducing the number of polling stations in an unfriendly district. Another survey found that when left-wing voters were presented with hypothetical undemocratic behavior by right-wing politicians—prohibiting protests, say, or giving private groups the ability to veto legislation—62 percent of them considered it undemocratic. But when the same behavior was attributed to left-wing politicians, only 36 percent saw it as undemocratic.[Graeme Wood: Only about 3.5 percent of Americans care about democracy]Some scholars have dubbed the phenomenon “democratic hypocrisy.” Others, however, argue that voters aren’t pretending that the antidemocratic behavior they’re supporting is democratic; they really feel that way. “People are pretty good at reasoning their way to believing that whatever they want to happen is the democratic outcome,” Brendan Nyhan, a political-science professor at Dartmouth University, told me. That’s especially true if you can tell yourself that this could be your last chance before the other guy abolishes elections altogether. We just have to sacrifice a little democracy for the sake of democracy, the thinking goes. Graham, who is now an assistant professor of political science at Temple University, has studied the reaction to the 2020 presidential election and the “Stop the Steal” movement. “Our conclusion was that pretty much everyone who says in polls that the election was stolen actually believes it,” he told me.The disturbing implication of the political-science research is that if the typical forms of incipient democratic backsliding did occur, at least half the country likely wouldn’t notice or care. Stacking the bureaucracy with loyalists, wielding law enforcement against political enemies, bullying critics into silence—these measures, all credibly threatened by President-Elect Trump, might not cut through the fog of partisan polarization. Short of tanks in the streets, most people might not perceive the destruction of democratic norms in their day-to-day life. And if Trump and his allies lose elections or fail to enact the most extreme pieces of their agenda, those data points will be held up as proof that anyone crying democratic erosion is a Chicken Little. “This is a debate that’s going to be very dumb,” Nyhan said.You might think that, in a democracy, support for democracy itself would be nonnegotiable—that voters would reject any candidate or leader who didn’t clear that bar, because they would recognize that weakening democracy threatens their way of life. But that simple story isn’t always true. The job of genuinely pro-democracy politicians is to convince voters that democratic norms and institutions really are connected to more tangible issues that they care about—that an America with less democracy would most likely also be one with more economic inequality, for example, and fewer individual liberties.The alternative to making and remaking the case for democracy is a descent into apathetic nihilism. Just look at the Chinese media’s coverage of the U.S. election. A video shared by China News Service said that whoever won would merely be “the face of the ruling elite, leaving ordinary people as mere spectators.” The state broadcaster China Central Television claimed that the election was plagued by “unprecedented chaos.” That kind of talk makes sense coming from democracy’s enemies. The danger is when democracies themselves start to believe it.

At a rally in Las Vegas in September, the reggaeton star Nicky Jam came onstage in a Make America Great Again hat and endorsed Donald Trump. “We need you. We need you back, right? We need you to be the president,” he said. But after a comedian at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden last month called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage,” the singer—whose father is Puerto Rican and who was raised partly on the island—had second thoughts.“Never in my life did I think that a month later, a comedian was going to come to criticize my country and speak badly of my country, and therefore, I renounce any support for Donald Trump,” Nicky Jam said.He had no right to be surprised. Trump himself had previously gone after Puerto Rico—he punished its leaders for criticizing him after Hurricane Maria, and sought to swap it for Greenland—but even if Nicky Jam had missed or forgotten that, he had to know who Trump was.Nicky Jam was ahead of the curve. Since the election, Trump has moved swiftly to do things he’d said he’d do, and yet many people—especially his own supporters—seem stunned and dismayed. This is absurd. Surprise was perhaps merited in late 2016 and early 2017, when Trump was still an unknown quantity. But after four years as president, culminating in an attempt to erase an election he lost, Trump has demonstrated who he is. Somehow, the delusion of Trump à la carte—take the lib-owning, take the electoral wins, but pass on all of the unsavory stuff—persists.In an article about how Trump’s transition is “shocking the Washington establishment,” Peter Baker of The New York Times writes: “Nine years after Mr. Trump began upsetting political norms, it may be easy to underestimate just how extraordinary all of this is.” He’s right that the aberrant nature of the picks may be overlooked, as I have warned, yet it is also true that the actual unpredictability of them is overestimated.[From the January/February 2024 issue: Trump isn’t bluffing]On K Street, Politico reports, health-care-industry lobbyists can’t believe that Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. They were “expecting a more conventional pick,” even though Trump emphasized Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda late in the campaign, and even though Kennedy said that Trump had promised him control of HHS. To be sure, Kennedy is a shocking and disturbing pick, as Benjamin Mazer and my colleague Yasmin Tayag have recently written for The Atlantic, but his nomination should not come as a surprise—especially for people whose entire business proposition is being highly paid to advise clients on how Washington actually works. (The influence peddlers reportedly hope that senators will block Kennedy. The fact that they’re still waiting for someone else to solve their problems is further evidence of how little they’ve learned, years into the Trump era.)Meanwhile, the New York Post, a key pillar of Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing media juggernaut, is similarly jittery about the Kennedy choice. Back when Kennedy was a thorn in President Joe Biden’s side, threatening to run against him in the Democratic primary, the Post’s editorial board was all too happy to elevate him. Now the board condemns his nomination and tells us that it came out of a meeting with him last year “thinking he’s nuts on a lot of fronts.” The columnist Michael Godwin, who beamed on November 9 that Trump’s victory “offers the promise of progress on so many fronts that it already feels like Morning in America again,” was back a week later to complain that “it’s not a close call to say” that Kennedy and Matt Gaetz, Trump’s pick for attorney general, are “unfit” for the roles.The lobbyists and editorialists are in good company, or at least in some sort of company. On Capitol Hill, Republican senators say they are shocked by many of Trump’s Cabinet picks. Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who notoriously professed surprise when Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, is “shocked” at the Gaetz nomination. Gaetz’s House Republican colleagues are “stunned and disgusted.”Reactions to Pete Hegseth’s nomination as secretary of defense are less vitriolic, if no less baffled. “Wow,” Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told NBC. “I’m just surprised, because the names that I’ve heard for secretary of defense have not included him.” Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was even blunter. “Who?” he said. “I just don’t know anything about him.”[David A. Graham: The Trump believability gap]If this is true, the senators could perhaps do with some better staff work. Hegseth was a real possibility to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs in the first Trump administration; more to the point, he’s a prominent figure on Fox News, which is a dominant force in the Republican Party, from whose ranks Trump has repeatedly drawn appointees.Staffers at the affected agencies have also expressed shock and horror at the prospect of an Attorney General Gaetz, a Defense Secretary Hegseth, or a Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.Ordinary Americans may also be taken aback. As I reported last month, Trump critics were concerned about a “believability gap,” in which voters opposed some of Trump’s big policy ideas, sometimes quite strongly, but just didn’t trust that he would really do those things. Although they perhaps deserve more grace than the Republican officials and power brokers who are astonished, they also had ample warning about who Trump is and how he’d govern.Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump vowed to deport undocumented immigrants en masse. He’s appointing officials such as Stephen Miller and Tom Homan who are committed to that, and yesterday morning, Trump confirmed on Truth Social a report that he would declare a national emergency and use the military to conduct mass deportations. And yet, when the roundups start in January, many people are somehow going to be taken by surprise.

Just 50 days before his reelection, Donald Trump took the time to hawk a new crypto platform.If the country does not build out its cryptocurrency ecosystem, “we’re not going to be the biggest, and we have to be the biggest and the best,” Trump said on a livestream on X. “It’s very young and very growing. And if we don’t do it, China’s going to do it.” The livestream was sponsored by World Liberty Financial, which has given Trump the title “chief crypto advocate” and his sons, Barron, Eric, and Donald Jr., that of “Web3 ambassador.”World Liberty Financial is the brainchild of Zak Folkman (the creator of an advisory firm called Date Hotter Girls LLC) and Chase Herro (an affiliate marketer who previously sold colon cleanses). It is a get-rich-quick scheme, and not one that seems designed to enrich its customers.It is also an emblem of a financial world that Trump’s election seems set to supercharge, populated by young men who have seen their economic prospects stagnate, their faith in the United States falter, and a champion in a baggy business suit and a red baseball cap emerge. Think of it as the bro-economy: a volatile, speculative, and extremely online casino, in which the house is already winning big.[Christopher Beam: The worst of crypto is yet to come]Its first major market sector: day-trading. I don’t mean old-fashioned, small-dollar equity investing done at the kitchen table. I mean hyper-speculative betting done with borrowed money on mobile apps, as investors shitpost and infinite-scroll. Market-moving rumors come not from corporate conferences, but from sites like YouTube and the Subreddit WallStreetBets (tagline: “Like 4chan found a Bloomberg terminal”). Users at times coordinate to buy up a certain stock with the explicit goal of screwing over a hedge fund that had bet the stock would go down.That’s what happened four years ago with GameStop: Redditors helped to push the share price up 8,000 percent. Now so-called meme stocks are resurgent. GameStop spiked this spring. Tesla climbed when Trump won. (Tesla is both a blue-chip stock and a meme stock; Elon Musk, the company’s founder, is one of Trump’s biggest donors and closest advisers, as well as being a storied internet troll and the owner of the social-media platform X.) “This rally seems unsustainable, even if you believe in the long-term growth story for the stock,” David Wagner of Aptus Capital Advisors told Bloomberg. “It makes no sense.”As noted by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, this trading behavior is in part driven by market democratization. A decade ago, the fintech firm Robinhood pioneered commission-free trading, allowing individuals to buy stocks or other financial assets without paying any fees. Today’s apps also allow users to purchase fractions of a stock and do not set minimum balances, ushering in less wealthy investors.The barriers to entry are low, yet the risks are high. Today’s young day-traders tend to make frequent transactions and gravitate toward exotic trades, when research shows that investors generate the best returns when they make simple investments infrequently. The apps encourage the piling-on of risk through push alerts, promotions, and other gamifications.The second crucial market sector: sports betting. In 2018, the Supreme Court overturned a 1992 law banning commercial sports betting outside of Nevada. That paved the way for more than three dozen states to okay the practice; 30 states also allow residents to make wagers online.It would be hard to overstate how much this has changed pro sports and the fan experience over the past half decade. Commentators talk about fantasy leagues and prop bets as much as they talk about the game; advertisements for sportsbooks are ubiquitous; millions of spectators keep DraftKings and FanDuel up on their second screen. An estimated two in five American adults engage in sport betting. One in four online bettors has wagered more than $500 in a single day. Americans staked $120 billion last year, double what they did in 2021.Many die-hard fans love the rise of sports betting: It’s entertaining, engaging, a way to support your favorite players and dunk on your friends. Still, in a survey, 37 percent of online bettors said they “felt bad or ashamed” for losing money. Nearly 40 percent said they bet more than they should; nearly 20 percent said they lied about the extent of their betting, and the same share said they lost cash that was meant for their day-to-day financial obligations. A strong majority supported the federal government “aggressively” regulating the market, “to specifically protect customers from compulsive gambling.”Third and last is crypto, which boomed into the mainstream a decade ago. Today, roughly one in three young people has traded in or used crypto. Sites such as Robinhood and Coinbase make purchasing easy. (Buying bitcoin used to take significant know-how and days of waiting.) The most recent bust, in 2022, seems to have done little to deter crypto’s most ardent fans.There might be more of them soon. For years, Trump was anti-crypto. “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air,” he wrote on Twitter five years ago. He added: “We have only one real currency in the USA, and it is stronger than ever, both dependable and reliable. It is by far the most dominant currency anywhere in the World, and it will always stay that way. It is called the United States Dollar!”Today, he’s not just promoting shady crypto start-ups. He’s promising regulation that would allow banks to offer crypto assets to clients, making the United States the “crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world.” Industry-friendly rules would lead to a flood of cash entering the crypto markets, enriching anyone with assets already in their wallets, but also increasing volatility and exposing millions more Americans to scams, frauds, and swindles.Day-trading, sports betting, and crypto are three floors in one bustling, high-stakes casino. Many folks trade crypto and meme stocks on the same platform, thumbing over to a second app to keep their sports bets going, thumbing over again to post their wins and losses. Apps have made the experience social. They have also made staking money as frictionless as ordering Uber Eats.[Charles Fain Lehman: Legalizing sports gambling was a huge mistake]The players in this casino are overwhelmingly young men, roughly 40 percent of whom are into sports betting and crypto. (A smaller minority is actively trading.) No surprise, Richard Reeves, the president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, told me, when I called to ask about the bro-economy. “Risk skews male, period, for good and for ill,” he said. “There’s this greater willingness, appetite for, vulnerability to, tolerance of risk.” He appreciated how the activities gave guys something to do together and talk about with one another. He also noted how many young men felt shut out of traditional wealth-building strategies, such as homeownership.Still, the bro-economy exploits its users’ penchant for risk. Crypto companies and betting sites do not generate value; they take cash from their users, reshuffle it, and redistribute it, while keeping a cut for themselves. Postmodern trading platforms encourage excess, making their margins on esoteric trades and superfluous volume. The casino lacks guardrails, not to benefit the bettors, but to benefit the house.Musk and Trump have given young men something to aspire to. But their ascendance makes the stricter regulation of the bro-economy unlikely—and, in the case of crypto, makes deregulation a sure thing. Guys are about to lose billions and billions of dollars a year on apps designed to obscure risk and keep them coming back for a dopamine hit. Trump and Musk can afford to lose huge sums. Most young American men cannot.

Should we be jealous of our hunter-gatherer ancestors?

Welcome to The Atlantic’s 2024 gift guide. With the help of an eclectic group of writers and editors, we offer 65 ideas for bringing more merriment, adventure, and wonder to the ones you love. Some items may be available at a holiday discount.The Person Who Has EverythingA Map of City Movement Courtesy of Traintrackr Do you need the current status of cars running on the Boston T or London Underground? Or perhaps you’re curious whether the Washington Metro, or the New York or Chicago or San Francisco rapid transit systems, are running smoothly. You need to know all this, don’t you? Of course you don’t. But it would be cool to have that information flashing at you in twinkling lights. Traintrackr—which gets real-time information from these urban transit systems—is a great gift for someone who has everything, especially if they’ve lived in a city, used to live in a city, wish they did—or are glad they don’t. (“Oh, look, the Red Line to South Station is all jammed up again. Bummer.”) — Tom Nichols, Staff Writer$129–$315 on TraintrackrLos Alamos Staff Mug Courtesy of Cafe Press When my husband came home from a visit to Los Alamos a few years back, he bore a mug that featured a bewildering collage of grainy, black-and-white headshots. Only after close inspection did I realize: These were the identification badges of the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project. If you’re a physics nerd or history buff, many of the faces are recognizable—Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, Luis Alvarez, John von Neumann, and of course, J. Robert Oppenheimer. The mug has been discontinued at Los Alamos History Museum, but an enterprising science historian and blogger, Alex Wellerstein, sells one online. It’s a mesmerizing object, visually stimulating yet intensely sobering, which seems appropriate for morning coffee. — Jennifer Senior, Staff Writer$10.49–$13.49 on Cafe PressSwiss Army Knife Courtesy of Victorinox No one needs another scarf or another sweater (even a great sweater), and we all have enough socks to last us from now until Armageddon. Don’t even talk to me about steak knives. Knives are all the same. Except for the Swiss Army knife, which is an entire tool chest contained in one beautifully designed red cover. You’ve got your blades, you’ve got your magnifying glass, you’ve got a fork that can be a spoon, a spoon that can be a fork, a hammer, tweezers, a toothpick, a corkscrew. I believe there’s even a fishing pole somewhere in there. What a gift! It looks beautiful just sitting there on the counter. It fits nicely in a drawer. And it gives you confidence in your pocket. Stepping on it could be a problem, but that’s true for any knife. It really is the perfect gift. — Henry Winkler, Actor$115 on VictorinoxA Future Classic Courtesy of Lorca Watch Company Watch collecting can be a brutal, unforgiving hobby, but not if you start out right with the Lorca Model No. 2. The musician and watch lover Jesse Marchant designed this future classic. It’s got 100 meters of water-resistance (go for a swim!), can time events with a chronograph, and even has a second time zone on the bezel for travel. Most important, it will make you look smart and attractive. Spend $2,650 for a watch way cooler than a Rolex. Tell them Gary sent you. — Gary Shteyngart, Author $2,650 on Lorca WatchesHandcrafted Copper Grater Courtesy of Tenzo No one you know needs to own a beautiful handcrafted grater in the shape of an animal. Everyone you know would be thrilled to receive one. These are made by the chef-adored Japanese brand Ooya Seisakusho using centuries-old techniques and can be used to grate lemon, ginger, garlic, cheese, or anything else. This is the rare kitchen tool that requires no technique and very little storage space but makes everything feel special. — Ellen Cushing, Staff Writer$44 on TenzoA Christmas Miracle Courtesy of Rogaine This holiday season my gift recommendation is the product known as Rogaine. Is this a gift? I believe it is a gift to the world, because it actually works. When I started taking it many years ago, I had a rapidly growing bald spot and receding hairline. Now I am proud to say that that bald spot is the exact same size. What product keeps its promises? I am just as bald as I was seven years ago. It’s a Christmas miracle that must be respected and honored. — Judd Apatow, Writer, Comedian, and Director$31.84–$80.00 on AmazonA Speaker Built to Last Courtesy of Tivoli Audio The perfect portable speaker is an essential item in any house, especially if more is less. And the Tivoli PAL BT radio is definitely giving both. It’s audio ambidextrous, doubling as both an analog radio and a Bluetooth speaker, with a crisp sound. And it’s fun! The retro-radio look comes in customizable popping colors. It’s also a sturdy workhorse that is weather-resistant and holds a charge for what seems like forever (okay, I think technically 12 hours). Reliable, stylish, functional, the PAL BT is a gift built to last in a time when our world is full of disposables. — Claudine Ebeid, Executive Producer, Audio$179.99–$219.99 on AmazonA Subscription for the Soul Courtesy of Whitefish Review A subscription may be a small thing to unwrap; it is a wonderful thing to receive for the rest of the year. Pick a small literary journal from your mom’s hometown, or from where your father-in-law attended college. The muted response on Christmas morning will turn into a year’s worth of calls or texts as each issue delivers unexpected stories, poems, essays, and art that feel as though you picked them out personally. — Evan McMurry, Senior Editor$35 one-year subscription with auto renew on Whitefish ReviewPassword Peace of Mind Courtesy of 1Password It won’t get you any points for romance or sentimentality, but a gift card to 1Password or another password manager can reduce the stress of being a human being online in 2024—and that’s perhaps the nicest thing you can do for a friend or loved one. These services are widely (and rightly) recommended for the security they can bring to your online accounts, but for me, the real benefit has been the relief of having to remember just one single password. I appreciate this every time I have to log in to order takeout, see my bank statement, or view a message sent to me by a doctor via some arcane medical portal. And it’s also taken the pain out of signing up for any other new service or site—no need to create a new password and keep track of it, ever again. — Rebecca J. Rosen, Senior Editor$25–$100 on 1PasswordTwo Tickets to a Show Getty Images For people who covet physical objects—to the point where they either cannot or should not keep collecting them—I like to go in the opposite direction, with something more experiential: two tickets to a show (ideally for the both of us to go together). Either I pick the show to surprise them, or I hand them my credit card and let them decide. Not only does this gift come with the built-in promise of making a memory; it also leaves no tangible trace behind—that is, unless they can’t help but swing by the merch stand. — Allegra Frank, Senior EditorOne Good Scraper Courtesy of August Thomsen Corp. A nice, sturdy bench scraper: Sure, you can (and will) use this for its intended purposes—scooping up chopped vegetables, slicing up bread dough, etc. But you’ll find yourself using it for so much more (in my case: scraping up the inevitable post-dinner mess from the splat mat under my kid’s high chair). — Dan Fallon, Senior Editor$18.35 on AmazonA Dollop of Luxury Courtesy of La Mer I take my six-step beauty routine very seriously. My favorite part is always, always applying La Mer’s Moisturizing Soft Cream. I love using the tiny spatula to spread the cream all over my face, watching it melt into my skin. And honestly, when I apply these luxurious products, I feel like I’m the ultimate beauty snob. — Jenisha Watts, Senior Editor$100–$1,440 on Saks Fifth AvenueCeramic Sun Bowls Courtesy of the Nationlal Nordic Museum My husband and I received four of these bowls as a wedding gift last year, and they haven’t seen the inside of a cabinet yet: They’re in such constant rotation in our household, and so nice to look at, that as soon as we take them out of the dishwasher we just put them right back in a (very pretty) stack on the counter to be used again the next day. The handmade ceramic dishes come in dozens of colors and patterns—I recommend mixing and matching—and are the perfect size for your morning bowl of cereal or yogurt. — Amy Weiss-Meyer, Senior Editor$38 on National Nordic MuseumA Morning Ritual Courtesy of De’Longhi The coffee lovers in your life might swear by their French press or daily Starbucks, but that’s only because they haven’t experienced the sweet, sweet satisfaction of making themselves that perfect cappuccino in the morning. This gift isn’t just about better coffee (although trust me, it’s so much better). It’s about introducing a ritual of slowness, simplicity, and concerted attention in a world that too often pulls us toward the very opposite. Think: all the benefits of meditation but infinitely more delicious (and at a fraction of the price of most espresso machines!). — Rogé Karma, Staff Writer$119.95 on De’LonghiAdventurersShibumi Shade Courtesy of Shibumi Shade Visit almost any beach in North Carolina, where I live, and you’ll see what looks like a Christo and Jeanne-Claude installation of two-tone blue flags stretching down the sand. They’re called Shibumi Shades, and they are the state’s best export since Rhiannon Giddens. Real talk: I found them dumb and gimmicky and doubted that they worked right up until we received one as a gift. They’re really light, much simpler to put up than any other beach shelter, and produce a surprisingly large shade area in even gentle breeze. — David A. Graham, Staff Writer$250 on AmazonA Speaker Fit for a Music Critic Courtesy of Bose In a world of junky wireless boom boxes with pointless flashing lights and walkie-talkie-level sound quality, this unassuming, palm-sized pellet is a quiet—but loud—miracle. For years, I’ve brought one along on beach trips, bike rides, and various other occasions that I suspected might suffer from a dearth of Charli XCX. Waterproof, sand-resistant, and capable of producing a rich roar of sound, the speaker has only one bit of filigree—a stretchy strap for fastening to tree branches. The durability is part of the fun: I love knowing that a potential party is always bumping around at the bottom of my backpack. — Spencer Kornhaber, Staff Writer$119 on BoseRound Mini Shoulder Bag Courtesy of Uniqlo Spend time walking around any city and you’ll likely see one of these so-called Millennial Birkin slung across the body of someone Out and About Doing Stuff. The Uniqlo round mini shoulder bag—reasonably priced, modestly designed, solidly constructed—is a handy gift for a person of any generation, a reminder that “fashion can be affordable without being disposable,” Gillian B. White wrote in 2019. Uniqlo made its founder, Tadashi Yanai, the richest man in Japan; its parent company is one of the largest apparel retailers in the world. Yet in the United States, the brick-and-mortars mostly exist in coastal cities. You may just have to order online. — Shan Wang, Programming Director$19.90 on Uniqlo Protein Bars You’ll Crave Courtesy of Hakan Chocolatier Going to the grocery store and looking at the protein-added products is the equivalent of having a closet full of clothes and absolutely nothing to wear. Yes, there are about a million options, but at best, they don’t want to make you throw up, and at worst, well. I’d given up until a restaurateur I respect shared that he'd found a gem: Håkan Chocolatier protein bars, made by a chocolate company in upstate New York. At $73 for a box of 12, the bars do not come cheap. When I tried one of the biscoff-flavored ones, I was astonished. It truly did taste like a regular, craveable, eat-when-high chocolate; loaded with quinoa, it had the effect of a fancy Crunch Bar. They don’t feel “healthy,” per se, but they’re what I want to pack the next time I go on a hiking excursion. — Serena Dai, Senior Editor$73 on Hakan ChocolatierA Travel Companion Courtesy of Roadtrippers Okay, yes, I’m recommending an app. But I’m really recommending the gift of adventurous whimsy. Road-trippers, whether you give the standard app or a gift-friendly premium version, will delight any road-trip enthusiast in your life. Much more detailed and user-friendly than a standard map service (with routes and stops customizable by budget, vehicle type, and much more), the app is great for trip planning. But its real magic is its on-the-road serendipity. As you travel, route maps update with all of the attractions that beckon nearby, whether arts venues or natural wonders or quirky cultural spots. Wax museums? Waterfalls? A house made of newspapers? The app will keep finding new proof that, in road-tripping as in so much else, the journey is the destination. — Megan Garber, Staff WriterFree, $35.99–$59.99 a year for the annual plans on RoadtrippersOsprey Skimmer Courtesy of Osprey Packs Traditionally, people think of the water-bladder backpack for long hikes and cycling rides. I think of my Osprey when I think of a road trip—quality time on an extended drive with my partner, my bestie, my ride-or-dies. Going on a road trip, enclosed with nothing to do but yap, is an underrated way to spend leisure time. The only issue is refreshing on water, which the backpack solves. The water reservoir holds more than double what the classic Stanley cup fits, and the long straw means even the driver can sip without much trouble. And maybe this is gauche, but I could also see hydration-obsessed Americans carrying one around their travels in European cities. Hiking backpacks: not just for hikers! — Serena Dai, Senior Editor$110 on OspreyA Wondrous Train Ride Courtesy of Alaska Railroad If you’re hoping to see North America’s tallest mountain, there’s a roughly 70 percent chance you won’t; Denali is often shrouded in cloud cover partially or fully obfuscating the mammoth mountain. But even if you don’t join the “30 percent club,” as locals call it, you have a 100 percent surefire way to make the trip to the far-flung destination worth the journey. Alaska Railroad’s Denali Star Train runs daily in the summer, from Anchorage to Fairbanks, with a stop at Denali National Park. The glass-domed ceilings in parts of the train allow for panoramic views of the Alaskan countryside, and even an opportunity to glimpse the elusive peak. — Andrea Valdez, Managing EditorPrice varies, on Alaska RailroadSwinging in the Rain Courtesy of Eagles Nest Outfitters I love backpacking but hate sleeping in a tent because I'm almost always too warm. A few years ago, I started experimenting with hammock camping but woke up to a midnight thunderstorm and had to duck into a tent where two other people were already sleeping. Never again! ENO sells a rain tarp and a bug net that both fit around its hammocks. I use them with my favorite old hammock to sleep outside while staying dry, itch-free, and, most important, cool. — Rachel Gutman-Wei, Supervisory Senior Associate Editor$84.95 on Eagles Nest OutfittersArt LoversBrandon Bird Artwork Courtesy of Brandon Bird We live in a time of rich and varied mass-market decorative goods. They’re delightful but stamped out, assembly-line style. Generative AI is making things even weirder. All of that means now is a great time to give original art—pieces created uniquely by a human and sold as singular works or small editions. You can find these in local galleries, but you can also buy them online—on Etsy, on eBay, or directly from the artists. An example: Brandon Bird was one of the earliest painters creating fine-art mash-ups of pop-culture figures. He sells signed prints and original drawings and oil paintings of Law & Order characters, Transformers, the exteriors of Sears stores, and more at extremely affordable prices. — Ian Bogost, Contributing Writer$3–$550 on Brandon BirdThe Story of Art Without Men Courtesy of W. W. Norton & Company If, like me, you love museums, love coffee-table books, and loathe the systemic erasure of women from the Western cultural canon, then this gift is for you. In 2015, Katy Hessel went to an art fair, only to slowly realize that, “out of the thousands of artworks before me, not a single one was by a woman.” This was by no means unusual, given that approximately 87 percent of artworks in American museums were made by men, and most of us struggle to name even three female artists off the top of our head. And yet all this time, women have been making work quietly in the shadows. The Story of Art Without Men is Hessel’s attempt to give them their due, documenting the pioneers, Renaissance women, portraitists, and photographers whose work is only now starting to get the attention it’s long deserved. — Sophie Gilbert, Staff Writer$42 on BookshopMuseum-Quality Prints Courtesy of Aperture These prints from Aperture are perfect for someone with an interest in art and photography, a hobbyist, or a friend starting an art collection. Aperture’s limited-edition-print program offers museum-quality pieces from incredible photographers including Michael Wolf, Nico Krijno, and An-My Lê—ready to hang and impress fellow art lovers. Proceeds support both the artists and Aperture’s educational initiatives, exhibitions, and public programming. Whether your friend is into abstract or fashion-focused or documentary photography, you’ll find something for them here. — Lucy Murray Willis, Photo Editor$150–$20,000 on ApertureDreamy Artwork by Kim Mintz Courtesy of Kim Mintz A recommendation from my own personal wish list: Kim Mintz is one of my favorite working artists; her paintings remind me of fantasies I had as a little girl, delicate sweetness and magic. But there’s a striking, eerie edge to Mintz’s work that lends it an otherworldly aura (you’ll dream of celestial goddesses weeping starlight). If your style is dreamy and unabashedly feminine, you’ll appreciate her oeuvre. — Elizabeth Bruenig, Staff WriterPrice varies, on Kim Mintz ArtTiny, Whimsical Artwork Courtesy of Tiny Framed Artwork As the saying goes, sometimes good things come in small packages. Such is the case with Elisa Wikey’s Tiny Framed Things, a series of whimsical art prints that will, as promised, “woo and delight even the curmudgeoniest of mudgeons.” On offer are dozens of diminutive illustrations, such as a teeny tardigrade and an elfin elephant. — Andrea Valdez, Managing Editor$15–$25 on Elisa WikeyAkari Light Sculptures Courtesy of Akari at Noguchi I’ve been trying to incorporate more functional art and objects into my home recently, and one thing that has really made a world of difference in my home office is my new Akari light-sculpture fixture, which immediately transformed the space. These lamps and fixtures are originally designed by the artist and architect Isamu Noguchi using Japanese Gifu lanterns as inspiration. — Vann R. Newkirk II, Senior Editor$175.00, $157.50 for members on Noguchi ShopComfortA Raincoat Courtesy of Stutterheim Cold rain is unpleasant. Cold rain on vacation is more unpleasant. Cold rain on vacation when you don’t have rain gear: more unpleasant still. Under these conditions, I convinced myself that spending a few hundred dollars on a Stutterheim raincoat was actually rational. And, actually, I don’t regret my purchase. It’s designed by Swedes, who I suppose have no choice but to know a thing or two about dressing for the weather. In this raincoat, precipitation means nothing to me. It’s long; it’s actually waterproof rather than merely water resistant; it makes me look and feel like a fisherman. Does someone in your life want to look and feel like a fisherman? This coat’s for them. — Juliet Lapidos, Senior Editor$380 on StutterheimPillow Slippers Courtesy of Joomra I recently had a child, which means that my life is joyous and meaningful in one big way but inconvenient and painful in a million other ways. One thing that has helped: these pillowy slippers I bought off of Amazon. The brand I have is Joomra, but you can buy any of the similar ones that sound like someone threw some Scrabble tiles in the air. These puppies cradle your soles and massage your arches. They cushion your footfalls as you run up and down the stairs at 3 a.m. to get the other kind of bottle, because the baby doesn’t like that one kind. They will probably fall apart after a few months, just like your sleep-training plans, but they’re cheap, so it doesn’t really matter. Treat your feet and get these. — Olga Khazan, Staff Writer$23.99 - $24.99 on AmazonMarshmallow Pants Courtesy of Old Navy Apparently they are called “joggers.” I’ve jogged in them only once—down the driveway to get the Sunday paper. They are Sunday-paper sweatpants. You are not allowed to wear them anywhere but in your room. You are absolutely not allowed to take them off. They are not multipurpose; they do not belong on casual Fridays or work-from-home Tuesdays. If you try to work in them, they will disappear. They are skinny jeans made out of marshmallows. Their elastic is sourced from space materials and they will live forever, just like the avocado stain from your nine-month-old that has been firmly emblazoned on the butt. — Walt Hunter, Contributing Editor$39.99 on Old NavyA Level-Up for Travelers Courtesy of Antler Packing efficiently makes travel so much less stressful. Although packing cubes might not be the most glamorous present, they certainly are one of the most useful. (For maximum compression, buy the kind with double zips.) If your gift recipient travels a lot for work, then a travel steamer will stop them from having to rely on hotel irons to remove creases from businesswear. — Helen Lewis, Staff Writer$65 on AmazonStovetop Fryer Courtesy of Yoshikawa When my in-laws first gave my husband and me this pot, we thought it was silly. Then we used it to fry pork chops and spring rolls and sufganiyot and became true believers. This little workhorse is great for small spaces because it’s easy to store and easy to clean, and because it keeps oil from splattering all over undersize kitchens. — Rachel Gutman-Wei, Supervisory Senior Associate Editor$39 on AmazonOofos Sandals Courtesy of Oofos Do their knees hurt? Healing someone’s achy feet or knees is a high form of care. Please give your loved ones these Oofos sandals to wear around the house, or in public if their commitment to style is weaker than their commitment to comfort. Perhaps they look like they could spring someone into orbit, but bouncing around space isn’t hard on your knees, I bet. They’re called “recovery sandals” and are effective if you need to recover from things like walking or standing (but also useful after feats of fitness!). I recommend sizing down instead of sizing up. — Bhumika Tharoor, Managing Editor$79.95 on OofosDelicious Prints Courtesy of Tom Hovey This is for the Great British Bake Off lover in your life, and if there isn’t one, get some friends who know how to eat treats and relax! Tom Hovey, the illustrator who cooks up the darling little illustrations that pop up on the show to whet your appetite, is selling them. Who doesn’t want to gaze at a hand-raised pie or a “kneadapolitan” sculpture forever? Import the show’s deliciously calm vibes onto your walls! — Hanna Rosin, Senior Editor $18.95-$37.90 on Tom HoveyHow Italians Make Pasta Courtesy of Bialetti Industries My mother, born and raised in Italy, bought me one of these while I was in college, and I’ve been using it ever since. The pot’s oval size can hold longer pasta shapes in their entirety, and the lid saves you the cabinet space needed to store a colander. Just remember to save some cooking water! — Matteo Wong, Staff Writer$31.99 on AmazonSocks Courtesy of Le Bon Shoppe The purpose of a gift, in my view, is to give someone something they actually want. And everybody—everybody—always needs socks. Pick high-quality wool or even cashmere socks in sensible earth tones; maybe knee socks for women. Laugh all you want at this banal idea, but remember: No one will ever secretly take them back to the store or stuff them in the back of a closet. — Anne Applebaum, Staff Writer$10–$28 on Le Bon ShoppeBridging a Generation GapA Child’s Book of Art: Great Pictures, First Words Courtesy of Dorling Kindersley Publishing For me, a great way to bridge a generation gap when gift giving is to hunt down a used book, now out of print, that I’ve loved. I’m doubly happy if it’s one that I loved reading with my kids—a present for both young and old. In our family, we pored over A Child’s Book of Art: Great Pictures, First Words. Selected by Lucy Micklethwait, the art from museums around the world is stunning, and arranged with alluring beauty and wit. My kids still recall their delight over the 17th-century Dutch painting titled The Sense of Smell (one of several depictions of the “Five Senses”), showing a toddler’s bare rear end being wiped. And yes, looking at paintings still gives them real pleasure. — Ann Hulbert, Literary Editor$24.99 on AmazonLa Mer Advent Calendar Courtesy of La Mer “Skin-care, if you’re doing it right, means claiming a moment of tenderness in an abrasive world,” Paris Hilton wrote in her memoir last year. I’m constantly torn between my cynicism about the beauty-industrial complex and everything it does to women, and my gullible hope that a product out there will make me look and feel somehow … better. In the spirit of the season, I’m leaning toward the tenderness argument with this recommendation. Plus, if there’s one thing that brings even Zoomers and Boomers together right now, it’s the promise of overpriced face cream in an aesthetically pleasing box. This La Mer advent calendar has 12 days of antiaging gifts for either the seasoned beauty veteran in your life or the TikTok-tutored teenager with ludicrously expensive taste—or both. — Sophie Gilbert, Staff Writer$600 on Saks Fifth AvenueA Fresh Squeeze Courtesy of SMEG Here’s what you want from your citrus juicer: easily produced juice, the simplest cleanup imaginable, and styling that doesn’t look like a clunky collab between a wood chipper and a kitchen appliance. Smeg has delivered—quite beautifully (and it takes just 36 seconds to clean—I timed it). Should you give this to anyone with a toddler (speaking again from experience), you’re actually giving them two presents: juice and occupied little hands, because it’s so easy to use. What better way to show your loved ones how much you care than by helping them keep scurvy at bay with elegant Italian design? — Bhumika Tharoor, Managing Editor$199.95 on AmazonThe Complete Calvin and Hobbes Courtesy of Andrew McMeel Publishing “The hard part for us avant-garde post-modern artists is deciding whether or not to embrace commercialism,” 6-year-old Calvin admits to his best friend (and stuffed tiger), Hobbes. As an adult, I laugh at the comic strip’s punch line: “Oh, what the heck. I’ll do it,” says the child artist who works mostly in snow sculpture and sidewalk chalk. As a kid, grabbing skinny Calvin and Hobbes compilations off my parents’ bookshelves, I laughed just as hard, probably because I had a firm grasp of only about two-thirds of the funny-sounding words in the panels. The marriage of high and low, young and old, is what makes Bill Watterson’s strip work. An elementary schooler and his imaginary friend protest unfair bedtimes, play outside, and try to avoid eating vegetables … by citing unfavorable poll numbers for the elected position of “Dad,” acting out noirish private-eye fantasies, and ranting verbosely about the contemporary art world. When it’s time for my kids to read these strips, they’ll be pulling these heftier versions off the shelf. — Emma Sarappo, Associate Editor$148.80 paperback or $209.25 hardcover on BookshopField of Dreams Bourbon Courtesy of Field of Dreams Whiskey Field of Dreams—it’s a movie about fathers and sons, men and their heroes, seeing ghosts, plowing under your corn and freaking everyone out. Now a bunch of current and former baseball players are selling whiskey that is supposedly made from that very corn. (Presumably this just means corn from that general area of Iowa.) The fun part is that opening each bottle is kind of like opening a pack of baseball cards—the wooden cap has a famous baseball player carved into it and which player it is will be a little surprise. The other fun part is that it’s whiskey. — Kaitlyn Tiffany, Staff Writer$54.99 on Field of DreamsIt Takes Two Courtesy of EA Games I’ve always had fun playing board games and video games with my kids over the years, but so-called couch co-op video games have given us some of our best experiences. One recent game really stands out as far as creativity, gameplay, cooperative puzzle solving, and just plain fun: It Takes Two, available on several consoles and PC. You play as a mother and father trapped in a surreal world, trying to escape and rescue their relationship with each other and with their daughter. It was a real hit during one of our last family get-togethers—fun to both play and watch. — Alan Taylor, Senior EditorPrice varies, on EA Games Subscription to the Criterion Channel Courtesy of The Criterion Channel The Criterion Channel is the best streaming service for movies that are not only suitable for everyone but also genuinely timeless. Easy cross-generational entry points: PlayTime, The 400 Blows, The Graduate, and A Hard Day’s Night. Or, if no kids are around, you can go a little more adult—Frances Ha or A Woman Under the Influence, or try something wacky, such as House (Hausu). — Allegra Frank, Senior Editor$10.99 monthly, $99.99 annually on Criterion ChannelReadersHardcover Versions of Beloved Books Courtesy of Penguin RandomHouse Not every book gets read more than once, but in my house, the ones that do begin to accumulate dog ears, marginalia, stains, and beaten corners until their spines finally crack and split. When a favorite title has earned that distinction, it’s worth purchasing in a beautiful, thoughtfully designed hardcover edition that can stand up to further wear—something like the Penguin Vitae series from Penguin Classics, or an omnibus from Library of America. This is an old-fashioned but flawless gift: More than a decade after I first ripped my paperback volume of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy in half, its Everyman’s Library hardcover successor, with a ribbon bookmark sewn in, awaits my next visit. — Emma Sarappo, Associate Editor$79.05 on BookshopThe Warren Commission Report Courtesy of Burnside Rare Books Allen Dulles, the former CIA director who served on the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, thought it would be pointless to release to the public the 26 volumes of hearings and exhibits the commission compiled. “Nobody reads,” he said. “Don’t believe people read in this country.” But the government put them out anyway, in a set that weighs 54 pounds and contains more than 16,000 pages. New copies were mostly purchased by libraries and colleges; reportedly fewer than 6,000 sets were ever made. That means they’re rare. If you know someone who would be offended by Dulles’s characterization of the dull American public … maybe they would like one! They make for wild reading, and 54 pounds is a hilarious weight for a present. — Kaitlyn Tiffany, Staff Writer$2,750 on AbeBooksVintage Letterpress Book Courtesy of Hanuman Books Although a vintage Hanuman book is sometimes hard to get your hands on, little is more inspiring than receiving one. It almost doesn’t matter whether the author was Patti Smith or Candy Darling—these letterpress books were the brainchild of the art critic Raymond Foye and the artist Francesco Clemente. Printed in India and distributed from the Chelsea Hotel for about $5 apiece in the ’80s, each volume was edited and designed by the pair. They are more than books; they are little objects of art that transport you back to the old world of analog, New York cool. — Xochitl Gonzalez, Staff Writer$75.96 on AbeBooksInternational Book Membership Courtesy of Archipelago Books This monthly membership is perfect for a friend who’s read everything, or a father-in-law who likes to talk with you about books. Archipelago Books publishes fiction, poetry, and other genres in translation, with a genuinely global outlook. One month you might get the Italian postmodernist Antonio Tabucchi’s little masterpiece For Isabel: A Mandala; the next month, a new translation of Aimé Césaire’s Return to My Native Land. And if the books start piling up, the gorgeous square covers will tempt you to take a mental-health day during a slow week in February to work through the backlog. — Walt Hunter, Contributing Editor$15 or $25 monthly/$150 or $250 annually on Archipelago BooksLittle Free Library Courtesy of Little Free Library Recently my block in Brooklyn wanted to honor the memory of one of our neighbors who died, and we got one of these little lending libraries. It’s been a wonderful addition to our street, and it would make a perfect gift for someone in your life who accumulates books and is looking to share. The libraries, which are available in different sizes and colors, come already built. You just need to stake them in the ground, which is not hard, and you have an instant focal point for your community—plus an endless source of free reading material. — Gal Beckerman, Staff Writer$189.95–$479.95 on Little Free Library The Little Book Light Courtesy of Glocusent I like to read before bed, often much later than my wife does. A few years ago, this presented itself as a problem. See, I had to keep the lights on. She wanted the lights off. This is not the stuff of serious marital strife, but still, I needed a solution. Enter this wonderful little book light. It bends to different angles. It has a few brightness modes. It’s perfect for the reader in your life who doesn’t want to annoy their partner. — Gal Beckerman, Staff Writer$14.99 on AmazonThe Essential Book Accessory Courtesy of HIGHTIDESTORE DTLA Everyone needs a book stand (though few know that they do). The High Tide book stand is beautiful, affordable, and impressively engineered to hold your books open so you can read hands-free (great for reading while you eat) or (and this is how I use mine) to sit your books upright, face-out on a shelf or bookcase, thereby transforming these books and their covers into artworks. — Peter Mendelsund, Creative Director$17.90 on AmazonDoomscrollersFlip Phone Courtesy of Caterpillar Buying a nice flip phone is a lot harder these days than most people might realize. The options at your local mall are likely to be flimsy, ugly, unsatisfying. The best flip phone you can buy right now for someone who might actually really enjoy (or be in dire need of) the throwback lifestyle is the CAT S22 Flip Phone, which was designed for construction workers and the like. It’s heavy in the hand; it has that satisfying “thwack” when you open it; you can drop it from six feet up; supposedly you can even drop it in bleach. And it looks cool—very “retro,” “Y2K,” etc. — Kaitlyn Tiffany, Staff Writer$79.00 on AmazonSay Cheese, Then Wait Courtesy of Fujifilm The rise of smartphones ushered in a new camera age, a visually heady era when everyone became their own personal photographer. Predictably, though, people became disillusioned with their overflowing, memory-hogging camera rolls, sparking a trendy, retro-inspired instant-camera comeback in the 2010s. But both digital and instant cameras serve our modern-day impulse for immediate gratification. People looking to dampen their digital desires should consider the power of the disposable camera. Buy a Fujifilm QuickSnap Flash 400, take care in framing the limited number of exposures, and wait patiently for a local photo lab to develop the images. — Andrea Valdez, Managing Editor$17.40 on AmazonA Complex Candle Courtesy of Flamingo Estate I know, I know. It really is harder to read books these days. My phone has done a number on my attention span, and there are always just countless distractions. But one thing I’ve found helpful in focusing and really making a pleasant reading experience is lighting candles. I love a unique candle, and one of my favorites these days is the Night Blooming Jasmine & Damask Rose candle from Flamingo Estate. It’s unique, it’s complex, it’s transportive—and, most important, it helps me relax into a good reading session. — Vann R. Newkirk II, Senior Editor $60 on Flamingo EstateIdeas to Go Courtesy of Moleskin After growing up immersed in my father’s stories of adventure, I’ve recently begun sifting through his old journals. Each page reveals delicate, hand-drawn maps and meticulous notes in fine ballpoint pen, capturing the beauty he witnessed. His ability to document the world with such care deeply influenced my own love for photography and storytelling. Today, I carry on that tradition, always traveling with a pen and notebook. For those who embrace exploration, it’s a way to document their journey—a notebook and pen are essential for capturing fleeting moments and reflections on the road. — Lucy Murray Willis, Photo Editor$15.75 on AmazonBlooming Bulbs Courtesy of PlantGem Present these beauties early in the gift-giving season to allow time for your lucky friends to plant them—because there’s nothing a hardcore scroller needs more than a trip outside. — Elizabeth Bruenig, Staff Writer