The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Recommended by: Tayari Jones, author of Kin

Genre: Epistolary fiction

Books that let you peek into someone else’s correspondence are irresistible, aren’t they? If you agree, The Correspondent is for you. It follows 73-year-old Sybil Van Antwerp, who writes letters to friends, family and even famous writers as she reflects on the loves and secrets that have shaped her life. As her eyesight begins to fail, those letters become even more important. This is a warm, intimate read for anyone who loves getting deeply attached to a character and slowly discovering what made her who she is.

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Transcription by Ben Lerner

Recommended by: Mary H.K. Choi, author of Pool House

Genre: Literary fiction

A missing recording is at the center of this clever, slightly strange novel. When an interview disappears, the people involved have to reconstruct what was said from memory, and naturally, their versions don’t quite match. From there, Lerner plays with memory, language and the question of whether we can ever truly capture what someone else meant. It’s a good choice for readers who like their fiction a little brainy and enjoy finishing a chapter with something to puzzle over.

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Misery by Stephen King

Recommended by: Tia Williams, author of The Missed Connection

Genre: Psychological horror

Being a bestselling author sounds pretty great until your biggest fan kidnaps you. That’s exactly what happens to novelist Paul Sheldon after a car accident leaves him injured and recovering in the home of Annie Wilkes, a former nurse who is obsessed with his books. When Annie discovers he has killed off her beloved character Misery, she forces him to write a new story bringing her back. Paul is trapped and completely at her mercy. Williams’s note on this Stephen King classic? “This book raised me.”

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Famesick by Lena Dunham

Recommended by: Isaac Fitzgerald, author of American Rambler 

Genre: Nonfiction

Remember when Girls suddenly made Lena Dunham one of the most talked-about people in pop culture? Famesick takes you behind that whirlwind, from making the HBO series with Jenni Konner to dealing with fame, internet scrutiny, relationships, health struggles and burnout. Dunham also gets candid about her relationship with Jack Antonoff and the strange experience of having so much of her life play out in public. It’s a great pick for anyone who loves a juicy behind-the-scenes story but wants more honesty than celebrity gloss.

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We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Recommended by: Choi

Genre: Dystopian fiction

Before 1984 and The Hunger Games, there was We. D-503 lives in the One State, where people have numbers instead of names and every part of the day is carefully controlled. Then he meets I-330, a rebellious woman who drinks, smokes and has zero interest in following the rules. Suddenly, D-503 starts questioning everything he once believed. This one is for anyone who loves a dystopian world, a dangerous romance and a protagonist who has a very inconvenient awakening.

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Worship by Alice Winn

Recommended by: Jenny Jackson, author of The Shampoo Effect

Genre: Historical fiction

Camelot, knights and romance? Tell us more. Worship follows Princess Isode, who expects to marry the knight Palomides until Sir Tristam defeats him in a tournament and changes everything. Tristam has his sights set on joining King Arthur’s Round Table, but war soon throws him and Isode together. There’s danger, court intrigue and plenty of romantic tension. As Jackson puts it, “It’s all about knights at the Round Table, and it’s very romantic.”

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Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

Recommended by: Fitzgerald

Genre: Science-fiction fantasy

Nothing says cozy quite like an apocalypse, an alien game show and a talking cat. In Dungeon Crawler Carl, Carl survives the destruction of Earth and ends up battling through a deadly dungeon with Princess Donut, his ex-girlfriend’s pampered Persian cat who becomes intelligent after eating a magical biscuit. Their survival is broadcast across the galaxy for entertainment, so every monster fight comes with an audience. It’s wildly weird, genuinely funny and, according to Fitzgerald, one of his current comfort reads.

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On the Calculation of Volume by Solvej Balle

Recommended by: Jackson

Genre: Literary and philosophical fiction

Tara Selter is a rare-book dealer who discovers she’s stuck on Nov. 18. Everyone around her moves on to the next day, but Tara keeps waking up on the same date. She can travel and make changes, though, and some of those changes stick. Soon, she’s experimenting with just how much control she has over her strange new existence. Jackson calls this book “Groundhog Day as written by a woman” and says it’s “super cerebral.” She also compares it to the best parts of Canadian novelist Emily St. John Mandel’s work, but “tighter and smaller.”

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Self-Help by Lorrie Moore

Recommended by: Choi

Genre: Literary fiction

Dating the wrong person, navigating family drama and making questionable life choices are all fair game in Lorrie Moore’s Self-Help. The collection turns the familiar language of advice books into funny, sharp stories about women dealing with affairs, loneliness and complicated relationships. Moore has a knack for making everyday awkwardness feel hilarious and painfully familiar. Pick this up when you want something smart and funny that you can dip into one story at a time.

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The River by Peter Heller

Recommended by: Jackson

Genre: Thriller

Jack and Wynn head into the Canadian wilderness expecting a peaceful canoe trip. Instead, they spot a wildfire and hear a couple arguing somewhere nearby. They can’t see who the strangers are or what’s happening, but they know something is wrong. As the fire moves closer, the friends have to decide whether to keep going or get involved. Jackson considers this novel a “banger,” and it’s an easy pick for anyone who likes beautiful wilderness settings, fast-moving suspense and the creeping feeling that a relaxing vacation has gone very, very wrong.

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Land by Maggie O’Farrell

Recommended by: Choi

Genre: Historical fiction

Ireland in 1865 is the setting for this sweeping story about family, land and a country still recovering from the Great Hunger. Surveyor Tomás travels through Ireland with his young son, Liam, mapping the landscape for the British Ordnance Survey while encountering villages emptied by famine and families forced from their homes. Meanwhile, Liam is growing up surrounded by Irish folklore and stories about the land. It’s a strong choice for anyone who wants historical fiction with a big sense of place and a family story at its center.

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Never Let Me Go by Kazou Ishiguro

Recommended by: Jackson

Genre: Science fiction

Kathy, Ruth and Tommy grow up together at Hailsham, an English boarding school that seems idyllic until the three friends begin discovering what makes it so different from other schools. As they get older, they learn the disturbing truth about why they were raised there and what their futures hold. Their friendships and romantic entanglements become more complicated as that reality sinks in. Never Let Me Go is perfect for readers who love a quiet story with a devastating secret at its core.

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Why trust us

At Reader’s Digest, we’ve been sharing our favorite books for over 100 years. We’ve worked with bestselling authors including Susan Orlean, Janet Evanovich and Alex Haley, whose Pulitzer Prize–winning Roots grew out of a project funded by and originally published in the magazine. Through Fiction Favorites (formerly Select Editions and Condensed Books), Reader’s Digest has been publishing anthologies of abridged novels for decades. We’ve worked with some of the biggest names in fiction, including James Patterson, Ruth Ware, Kristin Hannah and more. The Reader’s Digest Book Club, helmed by Books Editor Tracey Neithercott, introduces readers to even more of today’s best fiction by upcoming, bestselling and award-winning authors. For this piece, Leigh Belz Ray interviewed various authors for The Reader’s Digest Escalator Interview series. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

The post We Asked Our Favorite Authors What to Read Before Summer Ends—Here’s What They Said appeared first on Reader's Digest.

After more than six years in the U.S., the pair is ready for a new chapter. And they’re doing that by moving. Again. Their new home base? It’s one that wasn’t on our bingo card—and we’re pretty sure it wasn’t on yours either. But the move is happening, and it’s apparently imminent. Like, before-the-kids-go-back-to-school imminent.

So where are they going, and why? Read on for the royal scoop.

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Where are Harry and Meghan moving?

The Sussexes are moving to the last place anyone would expect: the U.K. Yes, you read that right. According to The Telegraph and People magazine, Harry, Meghan and their kids will move continents within the next two weeks. It’s not clear yet where they plan to settle, but it will definitely not be one of the royals’ fancy palaces.

According to media reports, London has been ruled out, and they’ll likely live in the British countryside. The Cotswolds, less than two hours from the capital and one of the country’s most beautiful regions (known for its green hills and picturesque stone villages), has been rumored as an option. The couple’s close friend Ellen DeGeneres has a mansion there, as do the Beckhams, whom they once counted as friends before Harry and Meghan reportedly suspected them of leaking stories to the press.

Another option seems to be the Northampton area. Just north of the Cotswolds and close to Althorp Estate, it’s where Princess Diana grew up and is now buried. Harry and Meghan took their kids there to visit during their recent July trip.

Archie and Lilibet are already enrolled in British schools, ready to start their new lives in September. (More on that below.)

Hold on—didn’t they have huge problems in the U.K.?

They did, on multiple fronts.

After Harry and Meghan stepped back from royal life, the couple lost the taxpayer-funded police security that came as part of the deal, and Harry said he no longer felt safe in the U.K. He even filed a lawsuit (which he lost) against the Home Office and the Metropolitan police to get the protection back, then made multiple trips to London and the U.K. without his wife and kids over security concerns. He told the BBC, “I can’t see a world in which I would bring my wife and children back to the U.K. at this point.”

It remains to be seen how the security will be managed moving forward. Since Harry and Meghan remain non-working royals, they still won’t receive taxpayer-funded protection. Britain’s prime minister, Andy Burnham, has already called the arrangements a “private matter.”

Harry has also been a long-term critic of the British tabloids and paparazzi, accusing them of not only turning his mother’s life into a nightmare but also causing her death in Paris in August 1997. Harry feared that history would repeat itself with Meghan. In July 2026, the prince lost a court case against the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, which he’d accused of using unlawful methods to gather information about him.

Then, of course, there was all the family drama. In his memoir, Spare, and a now-infamous Oprah interview, Harry said he felt “let down” by King Charles and claimed the royals had disliked Meghan from day one. Meghan herself revealed an unpleasant conversation behind closed doors about Archie’s skin color and said that she struggled so much with her mental health at one point that she no longer wanted to be alive. Harry also addressed his complicated relationship with William, claiming his brother had physically attacked him. These revelations didn’t go over well with the royal family—who religiously live by their “Never complain, never explain” rule—or the British public.

What prompted this move back to the U.K.?

Harry is reportedly the driving force behind this move, according to royal insiders. “Everyone presumes that Meghan calls the shots in their relationship, but Harry just got everything he wanted,” says royal expert Dan Wakeford, the founder of Celebrity Intelligence and former editor-in-chief of People. “This is the exact arrangement people close to Harry described in April—a man who missed his family, his friends, his old life and who’d be content to downsize if it meant getting some of that back.”

During the Sussexes’ visit to the U.K. in July, Charles got to see his grandchildren Archie and Lilibet for the first time in four years. And it wasn’t just that Harry and crew had fun with him and other family members: Charles is still undergoing cancer treatments two years after his initial diagnosis, so Harry might just want to be closer to his dad.

Last but not least, Harry’s and Meghan’s business ventures in the U.S. haven’t quite worked out as planned. Their Netflix show was axed, and the partnership with Meghan’s lifestyle brand, As ever, ended. This could be a fresh start for them, even though they will reportedly keep their home in Montecito, California, along with their vacation home in Portugal.

Does this mean they’ll become working royals again?

No. Or at least not for the time being. According to reports, Charles has made it clear behind closed doors that the Sussexes will remain private citizens rather than working royals, while William, as the future king, is equally unlikely to propose a royal comeback considering their ongoing tensions.

So what will the couple actually do? Harry will likely spend more time with his U.K.-based charities, including WellChild, Scotty’s Little Soldiers and the Invictus community, while Meghan plans to keep running As ever from the family’s new home base. While some say this is proof that the pair has successfully navigated the “half in, half out” plan they initially proposed to Queen Elizabeth II (living an independent life while still representing the royal family), the British side of the family seems to have no interest in the arrangement. In reality, Harry and Meghan will most likely continue to pursue business ventures, but will do so strictly as private citizens and not representatives of the royal family.

Will Archie and Lilibet be going to school with their cousins?

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A post shared by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (@meghan)

Technically they could, but we believe it’s unlikely. For privacy reasons, it hasn’t been announced what school Archie and Lilibet will go to in the U.K. Kate’s and William’s kids Charlotte and Louis currently attend Lambrook School in Berkshire, a prep school about a 10-minute drive from their home in Windsor. And George, who just graduated from Lambrook, is about to start at Eton College, a nearby elite boarding school for boys aged 13 to 18—the same one William and Harry attended as teenagers.

What does this mean for Harry’s relationship with Charles, William and the rest of the family?

That remains to be seen. Last year, Harry confirmed on the BBC what we all knew: that the relationship with his family was frosty. But he also admitted openly that he “would love a reconciliation.” So could this be it?

British media outlets are reporting that Harry and Meghan informed King Charles about their move rather than made the decision together as a family. It also looks like there had been no mention of the plans when they visited him in Highgrove just a few weeks ago, so we can only imagine the monarch must have been as surprised as we are! Considering that Charles hadn’t seen his grandchildren for four years prior to the whirlwind visit, he will probably still be pleased that he might see more of his family in the future, despite all the drama in the past.

As for William, those fences won’t be mended overnight. After all, the brothers have always had a complicated relationship. And they fully fell out when Harry and Meghan quit The Firm and Harry publicly aired his issues with his big brother. As royal biographer Robert Jobson told Hello! magazine after the news dropped, “I feel that William must be slightly aghast by the whole thing. The prodigal son coming back will be difficult for him. Harry’s move puts pressure on him to act in a more pragmatic way.”

But they are brothers, and family has a way of coming back together over time. And hey, who wouldn’t love a happy ending for Diana’s boys?

Sources:

• The Telegraph: “Harry and Meghan plan move back to Britain”
• People: “Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to Make Shocking Move Back to the U.K. with Kids Archie and Lilibet (Exclusive)”
• BBC: “Harry and Meghan are experts in surprise – but why are they returning to UK now?”
• BBC: “Prince Harry will not be joined by Meghan and children on London trip”
• CBS: “Prince Harry: The 60 Minutes Interview Transcript”
• GBN: “Home Secretary will NOT make decision on Sussexes’ security amid bitter years-long feud over tax-funded police protection”
• Facebook: Dan Wakeford, founder of Celebrity Intelligence
• Sky: “The King meets with Prince Harry, Duchess of Sussex, Archie and Lilibet for first time in four years”
• Tatler: “A glimpse inside Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s poignant, private visit to Althorp, Princess Diana’s childhood home”
• Hello: “Prince William left ‘slightly aghast’ by Prince Harry’s decision to return to UK with his family”
• Spare by Prince Harry

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The post See Ya, California! Harry and Meghan Are Making a Surprising New Move—Here’s What’s Going On appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Now, not to be all “uphill both ways” about my limited choices as a youngster, but people today have it much better, at least when it comes to M&M’s. There are now more than 10 current varieties of the popular treat, and they all melt in your mouth, not in your hands. But which one rules the candy aisle where you live?

Coventry Direct, the insurance giant, wondered the same thing—and we have the results coming up. Are you an M&M’s purist, or do you prefer a quirkier, newer variety? Ahead, I’ll take you through the most popular M&M’s flavor in every state. Read on to see if your favorite made the cut where you live.

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How did the report determine the most popular M&M’s in the country?

Like so many personal preferences these days, our favorite M&M’s were determined by our search history. We’re not entirely sure why, but Coventry Direct decided to check Google Trends data between May 2025 and May 2026 to learn which varieties of M&M’s Americans were seeking out most.

Once you see some of these choices, you may be a little skeptical that, for example, a niche flavor like Caramel Cold Brew could really be the most popular M&M’s across an entire state. I mean, better than Peanut Butter, the greatest M&M’s of all time? (Ready to fight over this one.)

But it makes sense when you remember that these faves are based on internet searches, not actual purchases. So is it really all that surprising that residents of Oregon, the coffeehouse capital of the world, were curious about cold-brew-flavored M&M’s? I think not.

What is the most popular M&M’s flavor in each state?

The 50 states and District of Columbia demonstrated a surprising amount of variation in their search results, from old favorites like plain M&M’s, absolutely-nots like White Chocolate, and some so new I had no idea they were even M&M’s. (Fudge Brownie? I missed that one.)

Here are the top-searched M&M’s flavors broken out by state.

• Alabama: Dark Chocolate
• Alaska: Original
• Arizona: Dark Chocolate Peanut
• Arkansas: Peanut
• California: Dark Chocolate
• Colorado: Caramel
• Connecticut: Peanut
• Delaware: Original
• Florida: Fudge Brownie
• Georgia: Peanut
• Hawaii: Mega Peanut Butter
• Idaho: Original
• Illinois: Fudge Brownie
• Indiana: Caramel
• Iowa: Peanut Butter
• Kansas: Peanut Butter
• Kentucky: Crispy
• Louisiana: White Chocolate
• Maine: Original
• Maryland: Caramel
• Massachusetts: Dark Chocolate Peanut
• Michigan: Dark Chocolate
• Minnesota: Caramel
• Mississippi: Caramel
• Missouri: Caramel
• Montana: Original
• Nebraska: Crispy
• Nevada: Peanut
• New Hampshire: Peanut Butter Cinnamon Roll
• New Jersey: Dark Chocolate
• New Mexico: Original
• New York: Caramel
• North Carolina: Fudge Brownie
• North Dakota: Original
• Ohio: Caramel
• Oklahoma: Caramel
• Oregon: Caramel Cold Brew
• Pennsylvania: Fudge Brownie
• Rhode Island: Original
• South Carolina: Caramel
• South Dakota: Pretzel
• Tennessee: Caramel
• Texas: Peanut
• Utah: Peanut Butter
• Vermont: Original
• Virginia: Dark Chocolate Peanut
• Washington: Caramel
• Washington, D.C.: Original
• West Virginia: Peanut
• Wisconsin: Crispy
• Wyoming: Original

Which flavor earned the No. 1 spot in the most states?

Caramel M&M’s took home the prize, with 12 states searching for the young upstart more than any other flavor. It was a tight race between Caramel and the OG colorful candy, plain M&M’s, which came in second, with 11 states.

Caramel M&M’s debuted in May 2017 after years of work to get production difficulties hammered out. (It’s hard to get a soft caramel inside a hard candy shell, which is why caramels are usually sold in plastic-wrapped squares.) Clearly, consumers are happy with the result.

How did this break down regionally?

Looking at the map of states, the first voting bloc you notice is the northern Mountain West, which loves plain M&M’s. Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and the adjacent North Dakota dominate the map for original M&M’s. Add in Alaska and New Mexico, and plain M&M’s get more than half of their support from states west of the Mississippi.

The big winner, Caramel M&M’s, has a more scattered dispersal. Washington and Colorado rep the flavor out West, and then there’s a swath of Caramel M&M’s lovers across the central U.S. from Colorado to Ohio and from Mississippi to Minnesota. New Yorkers also love Caramel M&M’s, as do South Carolinians.

Peanut M&M’s won six states, including four in the South: Texas, Arkansas, West Virginia and Georgia, where peanuts are popular (and grown). Rounding out the six are Nevada and one lone New England state, Connecticut.

Were there any big surprises?

I was surprised anyone actually eats White Chocolate M&M’s, but Louisiana loves them. Or loves searching for them. Hawaii also had a dark-horse No. 1, Mega Peanut Butter M&M’s, which are just larger versions of the (already big) Peanut Butter M&M’s.

Then there’s New Hampshire. The Live Free or Die state went way out on a culinary limb and searched ravenously for Peanut Butter Cinnamon Roll M&M’s, a temporary offering that captures two flavors I had no idea went together. Has anyone seen these in the wild?

But the biggest surprise goes to Crispy M&M’s, which won three states despite being available on an on-again-off-again basis for the last 25 years. The light and crunchy confection launched in 1999 before being discontinued in 2005, reintroduced in 2015 and discontinued again in 2022. As of right now, you can buy them from online retailers, but you’d better stock up, because they might not last.

Sources:

• Coventry Direct: “The Most Popular M&M’s Across the U.S.”
• ESPN: “M&Ms Caramel debuts on the #18”
• M&M’s: “m&m’s candy flavors for every taste”
• Fandom: “Crispy M&M’s”

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The post This Is the Most Popular M&M’s Flavor in Each State—Did Your Favorite Take the Top Spot Where You Live? appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Sometimes, you just need more fluids. But while it’s easy to assume everyone is walking around at least a little dehydrated, hydration isn’t that simple to measure. The good news is that your body tends to leave clues. There are the obvious ones, like thirst, but plenty of others are easy to miss.

There’s also a surprisingly simple physical check you can do using your own skin, and it takes just a few seconds. Before you try it, though, there’s an important catch: It can give you useful information, but it shouldn’t be the only thing you use to decide whether you’re dehydrated.

Ahead, Mitchell Rosner, MD, a nephrologist who specializes in fluid and electrolyte disorders, and James Winger, MD, a sports medicine physician who studies how the body manages fluids during exercise, explain exactly what’s happening to your body when it’s dehydrated—and how to spot the symptoms right away. Read on to learn more and keep your body running properly.

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What happens to your body when it’s dehydrated?

As your body loses fluid, it has to make adjustments that affect circulation, temperature regulation and eventually organ function. Dr. Rosner says dehydration can reduce blood volume and lower blood pressure, forcing the heart to beat faster to keep blood circulating. Losing fluid and electrolytes can also contribute to muscle cramps and make it harder for the body to cool itself.

How serious that is depends heavily on the situation. Dr. Winger points out that some fluid loss during exercise is expected and should not automatically be treated as dangerous. In healthy people who are exercising, he says, the body has mechanisms designed to respond to those changes and encourage fluid replacement.

The concern is when fluid losses continue without adequate replacement. Dr. Rosner says severe dehydration can eventually affect the kidneys, brain and cardiovascular system.

What’s the 2-second test that can show you if you’re dehydrated?

It’s called the skin-turgor test or skin-pinch test. Skin turgor is basically a measure of your skin’s elasticity, and this simple test checks how quickly your skin returns to its normal position after you gently pinch and release it.

According to MedlinePlus, the consumer health-information service of the National Library of Medicine, you can check skin turgor by pinching the skin on the back of your hand, abdomen or upper chest for a few seconds and then letting go. Normally, the skin should quickly fall back into place. Mild dehydration may make the skin slightly slower to return, while poor skin turgor is more typical of moderate to severe fluid loss.

But despite the “2-second test” nickname, don’t get hung up on literally counting to two. What matters is how your skin behaves after you let go. When the body loses enough fluid, the skin can lose some of its normal elasticity. That’s why skin turgor is one physical sign health-care professionals may look at when assessing dehydration.

Who came up with the skin-pinch test?

There doesn’t appear to be one documented inventor of the skin-pinch test. Skin turgor has been used as a clinical sign for decades, and researchers were studying the relationship between skin elasticity and dehydration long before it became an internet health hack.

One early paper indexed by the National Library of Medicine dates to 1957, when researchers published a study in Pediatrics examining whether skin turgor could be quantitatively related to dehydration in rats. The study didn’t establish the modern bedside test, but it shows that scientists have been investigating the connection for nearly 70 years.

How reliable is it?

The skin-pinch test is definitely not a home version of a blood test, but it can be a useful tool. “The test is just one of many quick tests that can be used to determine dehydration,” Dr. Rosner says. “It is most useful in younger individuals but should be paired with other signs and symptoms.”

Dr. Rosner says the test becomes less reliable in adults over 65 because skin naturally loses elasticity as we age. That means someone’s skin can recoil slowly even when hydration isn’t the issue. Dr. Winger is more blunt. He calls the skin-pinch test “extremely unreliable,” noting that age, disease and the underlying condition of someone’s skin can all affect the result.

The bottom line? Try it if you’re curious, but pay attention to what else your body is telling you too.

What are the other signs of dehydration?

Dehydration can show up in multiple ways. The key is to look for a pattern instead of relying on one symptom. Here’s what to watch for:

• Thirst: This, of course, is one of your body’s built-in signals telling you it’s time to drink.
• Dry mouth: A dry or sticky mouth can be another clue that you need more fluids.
• Darker urine: More concentrated urine generally looks darker, though color can also be affected by medications, vitamins (like B-complex and carotene) and other factors.
• Urinating less often: If you’re going to the bathroom much less than usual, your body may be conserving fluid.
• Headache: Dehydration can trigger headaches, but, of course, a headache alone can mean approximately 900 other things—which is why context matters.
• Fatigue or trouble concentrating: Feeling unusually tired, foggy or unfocused can also show up with dehydration.
• Dizziness: Fluid loss can affect blood volume and blood pressure, leaving you lightheaded or dizzy.
• Rapid heartbeat, confusion or fainting: These can signal more significant dehydration and deserve immediate medical attention.

One note: Clear urine doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve achieved hydration perfection. Dr. Rosner calls that another misconception. “The color of urine is highly variable, and hydration levels are just one of these variables,” he says. So if your urine looks darker than usual, it’s worth noticing—but don’t assume dehydration is automatically the reason.

If you’re thirsty, are you already dehydrated?

Not necessarily. “Thirst kicks in early in the dehydration process and can be thought of as the body’s early warning system,” Dr. Rosner says. In other words, thirst is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do by prompting you to drink.

Dr. Winger explains that the body pays close attention to the concentration of fluid in the blood. When you sweat and lose water, that concentration rises. The hypothalamus senses the change and triggers hormonal responses that help the kidneys conserve water.

Those adjustments happen well before the body begins responding to a major drop in overall fluid volume, Dr. Winger says. “Healthy adults can safely rely on thirst to gauge their fluid needs,” he says, although in extreme heat, having a hydration plan may make sense. Dr. Rosner makes a similar point, calling thirst “a normal functional signal to drink” rather than a sign of a medical emergency.

Thirst may not work equally well for everyone, though. A 2023 review published in Nutrients found that older adults are especially vulnerable to dehydration, in part because aging can affect the systems that control thirst and fluid balance.

So when you’re thirsty, drink. You don’t need to interpret it as evidence that you’ve already failed some hydration test.

Is being chronically dehydrated a bigger problem than you may realize?

Consistently taking in less fluid than you lose may contribute to health problems over time, but “chronic dehydration” is harder to define than the phrase makes it sound.

“This is controversial, and [it’s] not clear that we can define chronic dehydration,” Dr. Rosner says. One way to think about it, he says, is when fluid intake “consistently falls short of fluid losses over an extended period of time.” Possible consequences include kidney problems, kidney stones, urinary tract infections, constipation, headaches, fatigue and brain fog.

Kidney stones are one area where the evidence is particularly convincing. A 2023 review published in Nutrients found that increasing fluid intake can help prevent a first kidney stone and reduce the risk of stones recurring in people who have already had them.

Hydration may affect how we age, but the research is evolving. In a 2023 study published in eBioMedicine, researchers analyzed health data from more than 11,000 adults and found that people with serum sodium levels toward the higher end of the normal range (which researchers used as a sign of hydration habits) were more likely to show signs of advanced biological aging and develop chronic diseases later in life. But the National Institutes of Health, which reported on the study, stressed that it found an association—not proof that better hydration slows aging or prevents disease.

Can you drink too much water?

Yes, and there’s a reason not to overcorrect: More water isn’t always better.

Dr. Rosner says drinking too much water can dilute sodium in the blood and cause hyponatremia, which can become life-threatening. He also says the familiar “eight glasses a day” rule doesn’t apply neatly to everyone because individual fluid needs vary.

Plus, not all of your fluid has to come from a glass. Rosner points out that water-rich foods, including fruits, contribute to your intake too.

What’s the biggest misconception you probably have about dehydration?

You may think that dehydration is strictly a hot-weather problem. The reality? “Dehydration can occur in any weather in which fluid losses are not adequately met with fluid replacement,” Dr. Winger says.

Heat certainly raises the stakes. According to the CDC, dehydration is an important risk factor for heat-related illness, and prolonged exercise in hot conditions can lead to substantial fluid losses through sweating. But cold weather doesn’t stop you from losing fluid through exercise, illness or everyday bodily functions.

What changes is how obvious the need to drink may feel. A scorching July day practically reminds you to reach for water. A chilly morning run or an unexpectedly warm fall afternoon may not. So temperature matters, but it isn’t the deciding factor. If you’re losing more fluid than you’re replacing, dehydration can happen in any season.

When does dehydration become serious enough to require medical attention?

“When dehydration progresses to the point that the body is not able to adequately pump enough blood to organs, those organs will start showing signs of dysfunction,” Dr. Winger says. This can affect the brain, heart, kidneys, liver, gut and more. Dr. Rosner says severe dehydration can lead to extreme sleepiness, kidney failure, seizures or low-blood-volume shock.

At that point, forget the skin-pinch test and get medical help. Signs to watch for include confusion, fainting, rapid heartbeat, rapid breathing, the inability to urinate, and shock, according to MedLine Plus. Shock symptoms can include pale skin, a weak pulse, cold hands and feet, sweating and loss of consciousness.

Sources:

• Mitchell Rosner, MD, MACP, FRCP, nephrologist with a clinical focus on fluid and electrolyte disorders; interviewed, August 2026
• James M. Winger, MD, family- and sports-medicine physician with an interest in fluid regulation during exercise; interviewed, August 2026
• MedlinePlus: “Skin turgor”
• Wound Management & Prevention: “Measures of Skin Turgor in Humans: A Systematic Review of the Literature”
• Pediatrics: “Skin turgor as a quantitative index of dehydration in rats”
• Sports Health: “Relationships Between WUT (Body Weight, Urine Color, and Thirst Level) Criteria and Urine Indices of Hydration Status”
• MedlinePlus: “Urine—abnormal color”
• Nutrients: “Hydration Status in Older Adults: Current Knowledge and Future Challenges”
• Nutrients: “Hydration for Adult Patients with Nephrolithiasis: Specificities and Current Recommendations”
• eBioMedicine: “Middle-age high normal serum sodium as a risk factor for accelerated biological aging, chronic diseases, and premature mortality”
• National Institutes of Health: “Link between hydration and aging”
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Heat and Cold Illness in Travelers”

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The post This 2-Second Test Can Instantly Tell You If You’re Dehydrated—Especially If You’re Also Exhibiting These Signs appeared first on Reader's Digest.

We did exactly that, and the answer is far more interesting than you’d expect. Those tennis balls don’t simply disappear after match point. They embark on a meaningful second act that’s good for communities, the environment and even a few unexpected recipients. Once you know their story, you’ll never look at a tennis ball the same way again.

Read on to discover what really happens to U.S. Open tennis balls after the tournament—and why almost none of them go to waste.

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How many tennis balls does the U.S. Open typically use?

Short answer? A lot! The U.S. Open, run by the United States Tennis Association (USTA), typically uses about 70,000 tennis balls over the course of the tournament.

That number starts to make sense when you realize just how much tennis is played. The Grand Slam features more than 800 matches across singles, doubles, mixed doubles, wheelchair and junior competitions. Every one of those matches needs a steady supply of fresh balls, and every court is stocked before play begins.

Fun fact: The official ball has been the Wilson U.S. Open Tennis Ball for more than 45 years, making it one of the longest-running equipment partnerships in professional sports. According to Wilson, the ball is specially designed for the tournament’s hard courts, with premium woven felt that delivers the speed and consistency players expect on one of tennis’ biggest stages.

How many times does a single ball get used during the tournament?

Not many. At the U.S. Open, tennis balls are replaced after the first seven games of a match. After that, they’re swapped out every nine games for brand-new ones, following official Grand Slam rules. That means the same ball is usually in play for just 30 to 45 minutes, depending on how long the games last.

Why do they get swapped out so often? Well, tennis pros are incredibly picky, and for good reason. Every serve, forehand and blistering rally causes the fuzzy felt to fluff up while the ball gradually loses pressure. As that happens, it flies slower, bounces differently and becomes less predictable. Fresh balls help ensure every player competes under the same conditions.

A typical match goes through six to eight dozen balls, though marathon five-set thrillers can burn through even more. Suddenly, 70,000 tennis balls doesn’t sound so outrageous.

What happens to U.S. Open tennis balls after they’ve been used?

Thankfully, they don’t all end up in a giant landfill. Most U.S. Open tennis balls go on to live surprisingly productive second lives. Here’s the scoop.

U.S. Open tennis balls are sold to fans

Some match-used balls are sold as official U.S. Open souvenirs. Fans can buy authentic balls that were actually used during tournament play, giving them a fun (and relatively affordable) piece of Grand Slam history.

U.S. Open tennis balls get donated and repurposed

Through the USTA’s Green Initiatives program—launched in 2008 and championed by tennis legend Billie Jean King—the tournament has made sustainability part of its game plan. In 2025 alone, the program reused and recycled more than 15,000 tennis balls, with many donated to schools, community organizations and youth tennis programs, where they continue bouncing on practice courts long after their time on the championship stage.

It’s a small change with a big environmental impact, especially since tennis balls aren’t biodegradable. They’re made from a rubber core covered in synthetic felt that’s difficult to recycle through traditional curbside programs. And with an estimated 330 million tennis balls produced worldwide each year, discarded balls can take more than 400 years to break down in a landfill. Others are sent to organizations like RecycleBalls, where they’re transformed into materials used for athletic court surfaces and other rubber products, helping keep millions of tennis balls out of landfills.

U.S. Open tennis balls become player autographs

Some tennis balls are set aside for player appearances, autograph sessions and special fan experiences. If you’ve ever seen a tennis pro sign a bright yellow ball after practice, chances are it came straight from tournament stock. The USTA also auctions signed tennis balls and other memorabilia to raise money for charity.

Are U.S. Open tennis balls worth any money?

Absolutely! While most official match-used U.S. Open tennis balls sell for a modest $10 to $20, certain balls have become prized collectibles worth hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. If one happens to be part of a historic moment, its value can skyrocket. Case in point: In September 2025, the tennis ball Carlos Alcaraz served on the championship point to defeat Jannik Sinner in the U.S. Open men’s final sold at Sotheby’s for a record $88,900.

Autographs don’t hurt either. Balls signed by legends like Serena Williams, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic have sold for hundreds—and sometimes thousands—of dollars, especially if they’re tied to a memorable match or milestone.

So the next time you see a fuzzy yellow tennis ball, remember: It might end up being worth a lot more than the three bucks you’d pay for one at your local sporting-goods store.

Sources:

• U.S. Open: “The Keepers of the Tennis Balls”
• U.S. Open: “Welcome to U.S. Open 101: A USOpen.org Guide to How Tennis Works”
• U.S. Open: “Our Courts May Be Blue, But We’re Thinking Green”
• Associated Press: “Tennis Ball Wasteland? Game Grapples with a Fuzzy Yellow Recycling Problem”
• Bleacher Report: “Carlos Alcaraz’s U.S. Open Final-Point Ball Sells for Record $88K at Auction After Win”

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And it usually did, but only after nursing a tomato-toned burn so painful, I couldn’t stand the weight of a T-shirt on my shoulders, and had to sleep naked, slathered in Noxzema (engulfed in that awful medicinal smell!), for at least two extremely uncomfortable days.

We know so much more today about what the sun does to our skin—from wrinkling and age spots to skin cancer. But knowing better doesn’t make us immune to the downsides of a forgotten sunscreen reapplication. In fact, the CDC’s most recent National Health Interview Survey found that an estimated 88.1 million U.S. adults had at least one sunburn during the previous year. Skin cancer, meanwhile, is the most common cancer in the country, with nearly 5 million people treated for it annually.

It raises the question: Can even one accidental sunburn cause skin cancer down the line? That question is trending on social media, where TikTok users are posting photos of their reddened, sometimes blistered skin, and others are flagging the burn as “life-changing,” urging them to see a dermatologist or start getting regular skin checks. The trend taps into a real fear: What if that one “oops” in the sun is the thing that quietly changes your health down the road? And, if not, how many sunburns is one too many?

To get real answers, I talked to two board-certified dermatologists about what’s actually happening when your skin burns, whether one severe sunburn can alter your cancer risk, and what you should do differently, if anything, once the redness fades. Read on to find out.

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What happens when you get a sunburn?

A sunburn isn’t really “damage” in the sense of an outside injury—it’s a visible reaction to injury that’s already happened inside your cells. “It’s your skin’s inflammatory response to damage caused by ultraviolet (UV) radiation,” explains Dendy Engelman, MD, a board-certified dermatologist at Shafer Clinic Fifth Avenue in New York City. “UV exposure can damage the DNA within skin cells, which is why the skin becomes red, warm and tender as the body responds to that injury.”

Even more surprising? You don’t have to burn at all for this damage to happen. Doris Day, MD, a clinical professor in the Ronald O. Perelman Department of Dermatology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, puts it bluntly: “The tan is evidence that damage occurred, not proof that you escaped it.”

In fact, Dr. Engelman adds, “A tan is actually a sign that the skin has been exposed to UV radiation and is producing more melanin in an attempt to protect itself. So while a tan may look healthy, from a dermatologic perspective, there is no such thing as a ‘safe’ UV tan.”

What qualifies as a “bad” sunburn?

Not all sunburns are created equal, and the difference matters more than just how uncomfortable you feel. A mild burn brings redness, warmth and tenderness, says Dr. Day. “A severe one brings intense pain, significant swelling and often blisters.” Sometimes systemic symptoms like fever, chills, nausea or dehydration can occur as well.

Blistering is the line dermatologists really pay attention to. According to Dr. Day, blistering means the damage has pushed past the surface layer of skin and sometimes into the upper dermis.

“That level of injury kills more cells, triggers a stronger inflammatory cascade and leaves more residual DNA damage that the body has to try to repair,” Dr. Day says. In short, the worse the burn, the more repair work your skin is quietly doing behind the scenes—and the greater the long-term risk.

Will one really bad burn lead to skin cancer?

This is the question everyone actually wants answered, and the honest response from both dermatologists is: Not automatically, but it does raise your risk, and the timing of that burn matters quite a bit.

“One severe sunburn does not mean that someone will develop skin cancer, but it does contribute to cumulative UV damage and can increase future risk,” Dr. Engelman says. She notes that dermatologists are especially concerned about intense, intermittent UV exposure and blistering burns during childhood and adolescence, though she’s quick to add that sun damage matters at every age. “It is never too early, or too late, to become diligent about sun protection.”

Dr. Day puts a number on it: One blistering sunburn during childhood or adolescence roughly doubles a person’s lifetime risk of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. “The skin is still developing then, and the immune system is less efficient at cleaning up damaged cells,” she explains. Those early-in-life burns carry particular weight because the mutated cells they leave behind have decades to accumulate further hits.

That said, adult burns aren’t a free pass. Repeated burns later in life still add to your cumulative risk. So if you had one bad burn as a kid at the pool, or one accidental burn on vacation as an adult despite years of careful sun habits, it’s not a diagnosis. It’s a risk factor added to a much longer list.

So what goes into factoring the risk?

Both dermatologists describe skin-cancer risk as something built up over time, from several directions at once, rather than caused by a single afternoon. “Skin-cancer risk is typically multifactorial,” Dr. Engelman says. Here’s what dermatologists actually weigh:

• Cumulative UV exposure over your lifetime: This is the starting point of any risk assessment, Dr. Engelman says. Total sun exposure adds up over decades, not just from any one bad day.
• Intense, intermittent sunburns: Dr. Day notes that the sunburns from a big vacation or a single unusually long day outside are strongly linked to melanoma specifically.
• Years of chronic, lower-level sun exposure: According to Dr. Day, this pattern is more closely tied to basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas, the more common (and generally more treatable) forms of skin cancer.
• Tanning habits, including indoor tanning: Tanning beds are particularly risky, since they deliver concentrated doses of UVA and UVB in a short window.
• How consistently you protect your skin: Sun-protection habits, not just exposure itself, factor into the equation, Dr. Engelman says.
• Skin type, mole count and family history: Fair skin, a lot of moles, atypical moles or a personal or family history of skin cancer all raise your baseline risk before UV exposure even enters the picture, Dr. Engelman says.
• Pigmentation: Fair skin, freckling, red or blond hair and a first-degree relative with melanoma all raise the baseline risk, Dr. Day says. But people with darker skin tones aren’t immune either; pigment offers some protection, not full protection.

What about skipping sunscreen for vitamin D?

In addition to the “life-changing” trend on TikTok, there’s been a lot of talk online about skipping sunscreen to be more “natural” or to get enough vitamin D. Dr. Engelman doesn’t mince words on this one. “I strongly discourage patients from intentionally exposing unprotected skin to UV radiation for vitamin D,” she says. “We have much safer ways to maintain adequate vitamin D levels through diet and, when appropriate, supplementation, without increasing the risk of premature skin aging and skin cancer.”

Dr. Day offers a practical middle ground: You can maintain healthy vitamin D levels with a combination of brief, limited unprotected exposure (think a few minutes on your arms or legs, a few times a week in summer), a vitamin D–rich diet and a supplement, if needed.

Importantly, sunscreen doesn’t block vitamin D production entirely; it just cuts down the excess UV responsible for DNA damage. Both doctors recommend a broad-spectrum SPF 30 or higher daily, plus hats, sunglasses, protective clothing and shade as backup.

What should you do if you get a bad sunburn?

So let’s say the damage is already done. You got too much sun and you’re dealing with a real burn. Here’s what to do:

• Get out of the sun immediately. The first priority is stopping additional UV exposure while your skin heals, Dr. Engelman says.
• Calm down the skin. Cool compresses, cool showers or a lukewarm bath can help soothe burned skin. Dr. Day also recommends an oatmeal bath to reduce inflammation and itching.
• Moisturize gently. Use a fragrance-free moisturizer or pure aloe to support your skin barrier as it recovers. Skip anything with alcohol, heavy fragrance or active ingredients.
• Stay hydrated. A severe burn pulls fluid to the skin’s surface, so drink extra water, and consider an anti-inflammatory like ibuprofen if you can tolerate it, Dr. Day says.
• Leave blisters alone. Don’t pick, peel or pop them. Intact blisters act as a sterile dressing, Dr. Day notes, and popping them raises your infection risk.
• Skip harsh products. Avoid exfoliants, retinoids and other potentially irritating skin-care ingredients until your skin has fully recovered.
• Know when to call a doctor. Seek medical attention if the burn is widespread or severely blistered, or if you develop fever, chills, dizziness, nausea, confusion or signs of dehydration or infection.

How can you keep your skin healthy moving forward?

Once the burn has healed, the smartest move is to change how you approach your dermatology care, not just wait for it to fade and move on.

• Tell your dermatologist. “A history of severe or blistering sunburns is something I want to know about as a dermatologist because it helps us understand a patient’s overall risk profile,” Dr. Engelman says.
• Consider more frequent skin checks. Depending on your history and other risk factors, your dermatologist may recommend more frequent professional skin exams, often yearly or every six months, Dr. Day says.
• Learn the ABCDE’s of melanoma. Watch for asymmetry, border irregularity, color variation, a diameter larger than a pencil eraser and evolving spots. Check your own skin monthly for anything new, changing or simply different from the rest.
• Don’t ignore anything that bleeds or won’t heal. Any lesion that bleeds, doesn’t heal or looks out of place should be evaluated promptly.
• Get serious about daily protection. “You cannot undo past UV exposure, but you can absolutely reduce additional damage,” Dr. Engelman says. That means daily broad-spectrum SPF 30 or higher, protective clothing and staying in the shade whenever possible.

The bottom line from both dermatologists: One bad sunburn, even a severe one, isn’t a guarantee that you’ll get skin cancer. But it’s not nothing either. It’s a real mark against you that adds up—alongside your genetics, your history and every other sunny day you’ve ever had.

The good news is that the burn you got yesterday, last summer or back in 1986 doesn’t have to define what happens to your skin tomorrow. What you do from here still counts.

Sources:

• Dendy Engelman, MD, board-certified dermatologist at Shafer Clinic Fifth Avenue in New York City; email interview, Aug. 11, 2026
• Doris Day, MD, clinical professor in the Ronald O. Perelman Department of Dermatology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine; email interview, Aug. 12, 2026
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Prevalence and Context of Sunburn Among U.S. Adults—United States, 2024”
• Department of Health and Human Services: “Surgeon General Call to Action to Prevent Skin Cancer: Exec Summary”

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A player can be down love-40 without romance entering the picture. A match can end in a walkover even though nobody walks anywhere. And a player can be seeded despite the distinct lack of gardening on the court. Then there are deuces, lets, bagels and breadsticks: terms that can leave newcomers wondering if they’re at a match or a bakery. Even if you’re familiar with these words, have you ever wondered why we use them—or where they came from in the first place?

With the 2026 U.S. Open just around the corner (Fan Week kicks off Aug. 23, and main-draw singles play begins Aug. 30), there’s no better time to decode some of tennis’s most head-scratching lingo.

To serve up some answers, I spoke with language expert Martha Barnette, longtime co-host of A Way with Words, who has spent years digging into the origins of the words and phrases we use every day. So grab your imaginary racket, and let’s take a swing at some tennis terminology.

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Love

What it means: Zero points

If a player hasn’t scored a point, their score is not zero but love. As for why zero is called love, that’s where things get murky.

You may have heard the theory that love comes from the French word l’œuf, meaning “egg,” because a zero looks like an egg. It’s an appealing story—and Barnette admits it’s “a charming, picturesque word origin.” There’s just one problem: “It’s one of those that’s almost too good to be true,” she says. “In fact, it probably is too good to be true.”

According to Barnette, “We just don’t have any evidence that love comes from the French word for egg.” In fact, if you attend a tennis match in France, she notes, “they just say zéro.” (Yep, zero.)

So where did love come from? Barnette suggests that it may have something to do with the idea of playing “for the love of the game.” In other words, playing even when you have no points or money at stake. But even that is only a theory.

15, 30, 40

What they mean: The first three point values in a standard tennis game: 15 for one point, 30 for two and 40 for three

And yes, this is probably the moment when a tennis newbie asks the obvious question: Um, why not 1, 2 and 3? Barnette says nobody has a definitive answer.

“We do know that this system goes back to very early versions of tennis in medieval France,” she says. Early records show scores of 15, 30 and 45, with 45 later becoming 40, and the strange scoring system has puzzled people for centuries. Barnette points to a 16th-century Flemish writer who questioned the practice: “Why is not one point given for one stroke and two for two strokes?”

One of the most popular explanations connects the scoring to the face of a clock: 15, 30, 45 and then 60, or game. But Barnette says etymologists have found problems with that theory. For starters, clocks displaying minutes developed relatively late compared with tennis, creating a chronology problem.

Another theory is that the unusual scoring comes from jeu de paume, an earlier French game in which players used their hands to hit the ball. According to this explanation, players moved 15 feet closer to the net after the first point, another 15 feet after the second, and 10 feet after the third—creating the 15–30–40 progression used in tennis today.

Still other theories connect the numbers to medieval numerical conventions or to the markings and dimensions of the court. That uncertainty is part of what makes etymology so fascinating. As Barnette puts it, an expert sometimes has to be “a party pooper” when a great story turns out not to be true. “People get really creative,” Barnette says. “But nobody’s come up with the real story.”

Deuce

What it means: A tie at 40–40, after which a player must win two consecutive points to win the game

Once a tennis game reaches deuce, winning one point isn’t enough. A player who wins the next point gets advantage; if that same player wins the following point, the game is over. If the opponent wins that following point, however, the score returns to deuce.

The word itself has a decidedly French connection, Barnette explains. Deuce comes from the French deux, meaning “two.” And the number makes sense: Once you’re at deuce, you need two points in a row to win the game. “If you lose that point,” Barnette adds, “then you go back.”

The terminology provides a reminder of tennis’s French roots. Early versions of the game were played in France, and the sport’s vocabulary contains plenty of French influence. Interestingly, though, a French tennis umpire doesn’t actually say deuce when the score reaches 40–40. Barnette recalls hearing égalité, meaning “equality,” at the French Open.

Grand Slam

What it means: A Grand Slam is the achievement of winning all four major tournaments—the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open—in the same calendar year; it can also refer to any one of those major competitions.

“Originally, Grand Slam was a card-playing term,” Barnette explains. It referred to winning all the tricks in a hand and dates to at least the early 1800s.

The phrase was eventually borrowed into sports, and tennis picked it up in 1933. That year, Australian player Jack Crawford had won the Australian and French championships and Wimbledon and was going for the U.S. title. He ultimately lost, but “while the suspense was building, sportswriters appropriated the term Grand Slam because he would be winning all the tricks, so to speak,” Barnette says.

The term stuck; five years later, American Don Budge became the first player to win all four major championships in a single calendar year. FYI: Winning four majors consecutively across two calendar years is generally called a non-calendar-year Grand Slam.

Walkover

What it means: When a player advances because an opponent withdraws before the match begins

There’s something delightfully literal about walkover, but this expression also comes from another sport.

“Walkover is borrowed from horse racing,” Barnette explains. Historically, if only one horse remained in a race, that horse still had to “walk over the entire course to claim the victory.” The term came to describe a contest won without opposition, even though the remaining competitor still had to go through the motions of completing the event.

Tennis uses the word in a similar way: If an opponent withdraws before the match begins, the other player receives a walkover and advances without playing. Barnette points out that this is part of a larger pattern in tennis vocabulary. “So many of these terms are borrowed from other sports,” she says, “or have that French influence because, of course, that’s where the early versions of tennis were played.”

Ace

What it means: A serve that lands “in” and isn’t touched by the receiver

An ace is one of the few tennis terms that seems almost perfectly suited to its meaning: It describes a serve so effective that the opponent can’t even get a racket on it.

The word ace dates to Middle English, when it referred to the one-pip (dot) side of a die and later to the playing card. Its sporting meaning developed over time; the sense of an ace as a point in racket sports dates to the 19th century, while the specific meaning of an unreturnable tennis serve appears by 1871, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).

“An ace in a deck of cards is the highest value, the most powerful card,” Barnette explains. In tennis, that same idea of superiority applies to the serve: An ace is the most powerful kind of shot because “it’s completely unreturnable.”

That association with excellence eventually carried into everyday English; you can have an ace up your sleeve, be an ace reporter or ace a test.

Seed

What it means: The position of a player who is ranked and placed in a tournament draw in a way designed to keep the strongest players from meeting in the earliest rounds

This tennis term comes from gardening. No, really.

Tournament organizers don’t want all the strongest players meeting in the first round and knocking each other out immediately. Instead, top players are distributed throughout the draw so they’re more likely to face one another in later rounds. “It’s figuratively scattering seeds in different places,” Barnette explains.

In tennis, seed was being used as a verb by the late 19th century, reflecting the idea of “spreading” strong players throughout a tournament draw rather than clustering them together. The sporting use dates to at least 1898, while the noun seed in this sense is documented by 1931, according to the OED.

The metaphor is a fitting one: Just as seeds are planted in different places, the tournament’s top players are strategically spread throughout the draw. If the favorites keep winning, they’ll eventually meet later in the tournament, when the stakes—and the excitement—are higher.

Note: A seed isn’t the same thing as a player’s world ranking. Rankings help determine seeding, but a tournament seed is a separate designation.

Let

What it means: A serve or point that is replayed rather than counted

The most familiar example is a serve that clips the net but still lands in the correct service box. That’s a let, and the server gets another try.

But the word has an easily overlooked history. Barnette notes that English has two definitions for let: one from the Old English lǣtan, meaning “to allow or permit,” and another meaning “to obstruct or hinder.”

“The obstructing one, as in when a serve hits the net, comes from Old English lettan, meaning ‘to hinder, delay, prevent,’” she explains. That second meaning survives in the legal phrase “without let or hindrance.”

In tennis, the idea is just as literal: The serve was hindered, so it’s replayed.

Bagel and breadstick

What they mean: A bagel is a 6–0 set; a breadstick is a 6–1 set

Finally, some tennis vocabulary that is just as silly as it sounds.

A 6–0 set is called a bagel because the zero resembles the round shape of a bagel. A bagel means a player won a set without dropping a single game. If a player loses 6–0, 6–0, they’ve been double bageled.

A 6–1 set, meanwhile, can be called a breadstick, presumably because the number one resembles the long, thin shape of that particular baked good.

These are informal terms rather than official tennis terminology, but they’re part of the playful language fans have developed around the sport.

Wild card

What it means: A tournament entry awarded to a player who wouldn’t otherwise qualify through the usual route

“In card games, a wild card, like the Joker, isn’t stuck with its ordinary value,” Barnette says. It can stand in for something else.

Tennis uses that same idea for a player who gets into a tournament outside the normal qualification process. Maybe it’s a returning champion (looking at you, Serena). Maybe it’s a hometown favorite. Maybe it’s a promising young player the tournament organizers want fans to see.

“If you have a player you really want in this tournament,” Barnette says, “and maybe they haven’t gone through all the different usual ways to get in, but there’s something special about them … then you’re gonna give them a wild card.”

The result is exactly what the phrase suggests: an unexpected element gets added to the mix.

The bottom line

Tennis vocabulary is more than a collection of strange and colorful terms. It’s a record of how the game has evolved—and how the language around it has traveled, changed and stuck.

As the U.S. Open gets underway, listen a little differently to the language of the game. From love to let to deuce, every term has a story—and together, they’re part of what makes tennis so fascinating.

Sources:

• Martha Barnette, language expert, co-host of A Way with Words and author of Friends with Words: Adventures in Languageland; phone interview, Aug. 11, 2026
• U.S.Open.com
• USTA.com: “Tennis Terms & Words to Know”
• Time: “Why Is Tennis Scored So Weirdly?”
• L’Equipe: “Questions you’ve never dared to ask about tennis (4/5): why do we count 15, 30, 40…?”
• Merriam-Webster: “Deuce”
• Oxford English Dictionary: “Ace”

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The post What’s with All the “Love” in Tennis? Here’s the History Behind the Sport’s Most Confusing Terms appeared first on Reader's Digest.

As of Aug. 18, more than 15,000 people have been officially sickened, and two people have died since the cyclospora outbreak began. The outbreak was linked to Taylor Farms’ iceberg lettuce grown in central Mexico, and the company issued a voluntary recall on July 17. Since then, we’ve all been riveted to the news to learn just when the summer cyclospora season will finally draw to a merciful close.

Well, we’re almost to the end of August. Does that mean the coast is clear? Can we officially rip into a bag of fresh lettuce or ask the Taco Bell chef to pile on the shreds? Ahead, I’m digging into the latest news about the seemingly never-ending cyclospora outbreak. Read on to learn more.

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Is the cyclospora outbreak officially over?

I hesitate to say it’s over over, because the CDC is still investigating cyclospora outbreaks around the country, including two with unknown sources. These outbreaks are considered “ongoing.”

But as far as the recalled iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms is concerned, the CDC and the company confirm that the expiration dates on all recalled products have passed. That means you should not find any of the recalled lettuce on store shelves or served to you in a restaurant.

You may continue to hear about new cases of cyclosporiasis, however, because of reporting delays between illness onset and the CDC learning about the case. The typical lag time is about six weeks.

Are cases still being reported?

Yes. As of the latest CDC update, which came out on Aug. 18, cases are still being added to the total tally of cyclosporiasis illnesses, which stands at 15,716 laboratory-confirmed cases. About 11,841 additional illnesses have yet to be confirmed by lab tests. There have been 828 hospitalizations and two deaths.

The typical cyclospora season (yes, that’s a thing) runs from May 1 through Aug. 31, so we can expect more cases as that six-week lag time runs its course.

Should you still take precautions when washing produce?

Yes, always. Most of the time, thoroughly washing leafy greens and other fruits and veggies is the No. 1 thing you can do to stay safe.

There’s one caveat, and that’s cyclospora and other parasites. Unfortunately, they don’t wash off. You have to cook produce to 158 degrees Fahrenheit to reduce your risk of getting sick. That’s fine if you’re boiling green beans, but for iceberg lettuce? No thanks. That’s why it’s so important to pay attention to recalls so you can discard produce that’s been implicated.

For other produce that’s not involved in an outbreak, run it under cool running water and scrub with your hands or a produce brush to reduce (but not eliminate) your risk of foodborne illness. Always wash your hands and utensils, and discard outer leaves so you don’t contaminate your cutting surfaces.

Is it our imagination, or has there been a huge uptick in foodborne illnesses lately?

It’s not you. From May 1 through mid-August, 15,716 cases of cyclosporiasis were reported to the CDC. That’s more than 10 times the number from last year, when just under 1,200 cases were reported between May 1 and Aug. 31, 2025. We’ve also seen outbreaks and recalls involving salmonella, listeria, E. coli and botulism. According to CNN, we haven’t had such a busy foodborne illness season in at least five years.

Experts pin the blame on a combination of factors. One is a particularly hot summer, which provides ideal conditions for microorganisms to thrive. The other is budget cuts. Under the Trump administration, the CDC has lost 25% of its staff, and the FDA about 20%, according to CBS News.

Susan Mayne, who ran the food-safety department of the FDA from 2015 to 2023 and is now an adjunct professor at the Yale School of Public Health, told CBS News that the country used to have a national advisory committee to help prevent microbial contamination in food. “That advisory committee was disbanded,” Mayne said. “We used to convene meetings with our Mexican counterparts on how we can work together to improve food safety. That entire team was let go.”

These cuts aren’t just general budget trimming either. They directly impact the tracking of food parasites like cyclospora. FoodNet, an early-warning surveillance program jointly operated by the FDA, the CDC and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, scaled back from tracking eight microbes to just two. And you guessed it: Cyclospora didn’t make the cut.

Sources:

• CDC: “Surveillance of Cyclosporiasis”
• CDC: “Investigations of Foodborne Illness Outbreaks”
• CDC: “FoodNet”
• CBS News: “How Trump admin cuts have compromised food safety”
• CNN: “It’s not just a gut feeling: Foodborne illness outbreaks are especially bad this summer”

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Apparently, the life of a royal is not always what it seems. Yes, Prince William could famously order ice cream whenever he fancied just by pressing a button when he was with his grandma (better known as Queen Elizabeth II to us commoners). But for others, including William’s eldest son, restrictions are part of the deal.

It turns out that Prince George will have to follow some very strict rules when he starts at Eton, his new boarding school, this September. And these rules include not having one thing that’s pretty much standard for any other boy his age today—your own kids included.

So what item is banned by George’s new school? Scroll down to find out!

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What is Eton, exactly?

Eton is one the most prestigious private boarding schools in the U.K. Located in Windsor, just a mile from Windsor Castle and about a 15-minute drive from Forest Lodge, where Kate, William and their kids have been living since 2025, Eton was founded by King Henry VI in 1440.

Originally, the school was established to educate 70 boys from disadvantaged backgrounds. Throughout the centuries, however, it has made a name for itself as the alma mater of royals and future politicians as well as world-famous actors, musicians, poets and scientists.

William and Harry both went to Eton, along with 20 former British prime ministers, including Boris Johnson and David Cameron. Actors Hugh Laurie, Tom Hiddleston and Eddie Redmayne and writers George Orwell and James Bond creator Ian Fleming also attended.

Despite the impressive alumni list—and the equally impressive fees of £65,673 ($88,700) per year—you don’t necessarily have to be wealthy to get into the elite school. According to its website, Eton currently teaches roughly 1,350 boys aged 13 to 18, and 18% of them received financial support during the 2023–2024 school year. Just under 100 students did not pay any fees at all.

What’s the one thing Prince George won’t be allowed to have there?

A smartphone.

Eton bans first-year students from having phones with internet access, according to the Telegraph. Instead, the students are given “brick phones,” similar to those old-school phones we all had back in the day, that can only send and receive text messages and calls. They’re mainly meant for students to stay in touch with their families during their time at the boarding school.

There are no exceptions to the rule, not even for George, the future king. The no-phone policy was implemented to protect the students, according to the college website. But the rule is also quite on trend, considering more and more people are longing for a digital detox these days (even though we’re not quite sure that includes a bunch of teenage boys).

Are students allowed any sort of online access?

Yes. Not having a smartphone doesn’t mean that Eton’s students are cut off from the outside world. Wi-Fi is available throughout the buildings, and there are desktop computers in the school’s library. Every student also receives an iPad at the beginning of the academic year.

That being said, there are still restrictions in place: The school’s network is filtered and monitored, and every pupil is required to attend lectures on e-safety and sign an Acceptable Use Agreement that governs their online activity at school.

Does Prince George have a phone?

Believe it or not, no. In an episode of The Reluctant Traveler with Eugene Levy, William confirmed that none of his kids have phones, saying that he and Kate were “very strict” about it. Yet, when visiting Brazil for the Earthshot Prize in 2025, he admitted he’d consider rethinking his own rule.

“It is really hard. Our children don’t have phones,” the Prince of Wales said, before adding that George will “maybe … have one with limited access” once he’s moved onto secondary school. William explained that he and Kate wanted to protect their kids from “seeing things on the internet that they shouldn’t,” but also acknowledged that they wouldn’t be able to shield them forever.

So a brick phone might be just the right compromise to start.

What else can George expect at Eton?

George’s new school prides itself on combining academics with tons of extracurricular activities, such as sports, drama and music. So who knows? The teenage royal, who plays hockey just like his mom, might soon be the new captain of a sports team. There are also more than 80 societies at Eton that he can join, ranging from the Environment Society to the Social Impact Society, plus a variety of sports and entrepreneurship groups.

Eton’s students live in 24 different boarding houses, each containing roughly 55 pupils and led by a house master. So while George’s school might be just a stone’s throw from his family home, he will still be required to sleep on-site like every other student. This will be quite a change for the teenage prince, we reckon. His former alma mater, Lambrook School in Berkshire, was a day school, meaning he spent the day there but went home to his parents in the evening.

That being said, as the third in line to the throne, George is used to change and heightened responsibility. Let’s remember for a second the morbid rule that kicked in when he turned 12.

What have William and Harry said about their time at Eton?

William is the most senior royal to date to have attended Eton. It was Princess Diana who decided to send him there in 1995. The move was surprisingly controversial, since both William’s father, Charles, and his grandfather, Prince Philip, had attended a boarding school in Gordonstoun, Scotland, and William was expected to follow in their footsteps.

However, it seems the young prince had a great time at his Windsor school, where he could enjoy a degree of normalcy. When William left Eton at the age of 18, he said in an interview, “I’ve really enjoyed being able to go about Eton as just another student.”

His brother, Harry, seems to have more mixed memories. In his book Spare, he called his first days at the boarding school a “profound shock.” He struggled to fit in with the other students, and he was upset that William avoided hanging out with him. But it wasn’t all bad for Harry. He did enjoy Eton’s sports programs, and he even took part in a Shakespearean play.

Sources:

• Eton College
• Spare by Prince Harry
• The Reluctant Traveler
• Telegraph: “Why Prince George is the best-prepared teenage heir in history”
• BBC: “Prince George to attend Eton College from September”
• BBC: “Eton set to give ‘brick’ phones to first years”
• Marie Claire: “William and Kate will be thrilled about one convenience Prince George won’t be allowed to have at Eton College”
• Town & Country: “Prince William broke with royal tradition to attend Eton”

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The post Prince George Won’t Be Allowed to Have This One Thing at Eton College appeared first on Reader's Digest.

A recent YouGov poll found that 71% of respondents typically eat dinner at 6 p.m. or later. And for years, a 5 p.m. dinner has been shorthand for early-bird specials, senior discounts and a restaurant so empty you basically had the place to yourself. It was the meal you teased your parents and grandparents about, not something you engaged in yourself.

But scroll TikTok right now and you’ll find young professionals proudly logging off work and sitting down to eat while the sun’s still up, posting it under #EarlyDinner. Recent OpenTable data backs up what your feed is telling you: 53% of Gen Zers and 51% of Millennials say they’re especially interested in earlier reservations, and in New York City, 5 p.m. bookings have jumped 20%. A Chase Travel report went so far as to declare that “5:30 p.m. is the new 8 p.m.”

So who’s right? Is it the retirement community sitting down to an early post-golf-game supper (and Gen Zers filming their 5 p.m. reservations), or the majority of Americans sticking to the OG version of dinnertime? We asked experts to settle this debate once and for all. Ahead, five medical professionals, including experts in sleep health, neuroscience and psychology, give us the the lowdown on the right time to eat dinner—and why it’s so important.

Read on to find out exactly when you should sit down to dine.

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Does it really matter what time you eat dinner?

Yes. The experts we spoke with kept coming back to one idea: Your body runs on a roughly 24-hour internal clock—your circadian rhythm—and it governs far more than when you feel alert or sleepy. It also shapes how you handle food.

“Melatonin secretion, which signals the body to prepare for sleep, is suppressed by both light and food intake,” explains Sarah Boss, MD, a psychiatrist and the clinical director at The Balance rehab clinic. In other words, getting the timing right between dinner and bedtime really makes a difference.

So what is the best time to eat dinner?

It depends on your bedtime, but the research points overwhelmingly in one direction: earlier, and finished well before you turn in. Yep, according to science, it turns out that Gen Z (and your grandma) have stumbled onto a genuine health upgrade with those dinners before 6 p.m.

“Late eating keeps insulin elevated and delays melatonin onset,” Dr. Boss says. Eat too late and you force your body to do two jobs at once—digesting a meal and managing blood sugar, exactly when it’s trying to wind down for sleep.

It’s more personal than a single number on the clock, but it is important to get the timing right based on your life and your sleep schedule. Here’s why.

You’ll sleep better

This is the big one. “The most consistent finding is that a large meal close to sleep, within about one to two hours, is more likely to impair sleep continuity,” says Avinesh Bhar, MD, a sleep physician and the founder of Sliiip.

If you lie down with a full stomach, your digestive system is working overtime when your body wants to power down. “Digestion raises blood sugar, insulin, metabolic activity and body temperature at a time when the body should be cooling down and preparing for sleep,” says Michael Breus, PhD, a clinical psychologist and sleep specialist known as the Sleep Doctor.

There’s also a hormonal handoff happening in the background. “At night, our cortisol levels want to start dropping so that [our brain] can favor the release of melatonin instead,” says Maj. Allison Brager, PhD, a neuroscientist and the U.S. Army’s leading sleep expert. When you’re not busy digesting, she explains, those daytime processes can go offline so your sleep systems can come online.

You’ll dodge the blood-sugar roller coaster

Your body is simply worse at handling sugar after dark. Insulin sensitivity peaks in the morning and dips in the evening, so the same plate of food spikes your blood sugar higher at night than it does at midday.

The proof is dramatic: Researchers at Johns Hopkins found that a 10 p.m. dinner raised post-meal glucose by about 18% compared with a 6 p.m. dinner of the identical meal. And a follow-up study from the same team found that staying up later didn’t reverse the effect, pinning the blame on circadian misalignment rather than simply eating too close to bedtime.

In other words, when it comes to blood sugar, the actual time on the clock matters—not just how long before bed you eat. “Eating during elevated melatonin can create circadian-metabolic misalignment and is associated with poorer glucose tolerance—particularly if dinner is within two hours of habitual bedtime,” says Dr. Bhar.

You may lose weight

An early dinner is not a magic weight-loss button—your total daily intake still matters most. But timing appears to tip the scales.

In a study conducted at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, researchers found that people who ate earlier in the day lost nearly 14 pounds, compared with about 9 pounds for those eating over a longer window. And a 2026 review of 41 randomized trials and more than 2,000 participants, published in BMJ Medicine, likewise found that earlier eating beat later eating for both weight loss and fasting insulin levels.

“Given the same amount of total daily calories, eating larger meals earlier in the day will result in putting on less fat than the same amount of calories later in the day,” says Jacob Teitelbaum, MD, author of From Fatigued to Fantastic. “Eating heavier meals early in the day also suppresses your appetite hormones so you don’t overeat at night.”

Bonus? Eating early also doubles as intermittent fasting—no willpower needed. “There’s this whole push now to support intermittent fasting, eating within a 12- to 14-hour window,” says Dr. Brager. “Eating dinner early supports this without intentionally trying to.” Finish dinner in the early evening, sleep seven or eight hours, and, as she puts it, “there’s your 12-hour window of fasting right there.”

You’ll reduce acid reflux

Gravity is doing more work than you think. “When lying down, gravity no longer helps keep stomach contents below the diaphragm,” says Dr. Bhar. “Sleep also reduces swallowing and esophageal clearance, so acid or non-acid reflux is more likely to cause discomfort, leading to micro-awakenings.”

One study from Japan’s Osaka City University found that people whose dinner-to-bed gap was under three hours had nearly 7.5 times the odds of reflux disease compared with those who ate four or more hours before bedtime.

You’ll stop fighting your biology

“Our bodies were designed to have most of our calories at midday around lunch,” says Dr. Teitelbaum. “This changed as we became industrialized and moved from farms to cities. Having the main meal at lunch with a nap after was inconvenient to factory owners.”

If you eat against that ancient rhythm, you pay for it. In fact, Dr. Brager notes that “shift work is highly associated with obesity, diabetes and ulcers, and a large part of it is because of eating at times of the day when we weren’t programmed to eat.” As she bluntly puts it, “our biology has not been programmed, nor will it ever be programmed, to eat at night.”

That’s not just a shift-worker problem. Researchers at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health found that eating your last meal after 9 p.m., versus before 8 p.m., was linked to a 13% higher risk of cardiovascular disease.

Won’t eating early just make you snack later?

Possibly, but done right, an earlier dinner can actually quiet nighttime hunger, because steadier blood sugar means fewer cravings. There’s often an adjustment curve too. “Nighttime hunger after shifting to earlier dinners is usually a two-week adjustment period, during which the body’s ghrelin patterns—the hunger hormones—recalibrate,” says Dr. Boss.

Counterintuitively, it’s the late meal that can leave you hungrier. “Poor or fragmented sleep can also increase the hunger hormone ghrelin and reduce leptin, the hormone that signals fullness,” says Dr. Breus. “Eating later can sometimes make you hungrier—not less hungry—the next morning.” In one Harvard study, eating meals about four hours later increased hunger and raised the ratio of ghrelin to leptin.

If you do need a bite before bed, choose wisely. You should aim for foods that are low in sugar and high in protein, like walnuts or almonds, says Dr. Brager—not a bowl of ice cream. Dr. Breus and Dr. Bhar also like this formula: a small snack, around 150 to 200 calories, comprised of a protein and a slow carb, such as Greek yogurt with a few berries, a banana with a little nut butter or a small bowl of oatmeal. The goal, Dr. Breus says, is “to quiet genuine hunger without asking your body to digest another meal while you sleep.”

How to design your day around an earlier dinner

Shifting dinner earlier works best when the rest of your day shifts with it. A few expert-backed tweaks:

• Front-load your calories. Make breakfast and lunch your bigger meals, and let dinner be the lightest. “Having a lighter, low-calorie meal in the evening, preferably high in proteins and complex carbohydrates and low in sugars and fats, supports deeper sleep,” says Dr. Teitelbaum.
• Actually sit down and eat. Don’t inhale dinner standing over the sink. Giving your body time to digest is the entire point.
• Cut off caffeine early. “You want to stop caffeine intake at least eight hours before bed,” says Dr. Brager, noting that “the half-life of caffeine is anywhere from four to six hours.”
• Rethink the nightcap. “The best time of day to drink is in the day,” says Dr. Brager, because “alcohol most impacts your ability to enter restorative sleep.” Dr. Breus draws the line at three to four hours before bed.
• Take a short after-dinner walk. Ten easy minutes helps blunt the blood-sugar rise after a meal.
• Stay hydrated—but taper at night. Big fluid volumes right before bed can send you to the bathroom and fragment your sleep.
• Ease into breakfast the next morning. An earlier, lighter dinner often means you wake up genuinely hungry—a good sign your metabolic clock is back in sync.

But what if you’re still at work at 6 p.m.?

Here’s the reassuring part: Every expert we spoke with agreed—it’s the gap that really counts, not the clock.

“Anchor the meal to your bedtime,” says Dr. Bhar. “Finishing a normal dinner about two to four hours before bed is a sensible starting range.” Dr. Brager puts the sweet spot at two to three hours before bed, adding simply, “the earlier, the better.” Dr. Boss frames it in a way that takes the pressure off entirely: “For someone going to sleep at midnight, eating at 9 p.m. is physiologically equivalent to a 6 p.m. dinner for someone sleeping at 9 p.m.”

What if your dinner genuinely can’t happen until 8 or 9 p.m. and you can’t stay up late to compensate? “Make the late dinner smaller,” says Dr. Breus. “Move more of your calories to breakfast and lunch, then choose a lighter dinner built around lean protein, vegetables and a modest portion of slower-digesting carbohydrates.” His pro move afterward: “Stay upright and take a gentle 10-minute walk afterward, rather than going directly from the dinner table to bed.”

The bottom line

Dr. Teitelbaum sums it up in a single guideline: “Basically, your digestive system should be sleeping while you are.” And no, you don’t have to be perfect. Eating early only some nights still counts.

“Your biology responds to patterns, not perfection—so four or five well-timed dinners each week still matter,” says Dr. Breus. So go ahead—book the 5:30 table. You’re not turning into your grandparents. You’re just finally listening to your body clock.

Sources:

• Maj. Allison Brager, PhD, neuroscientist and U.S. Army sleep expert; phone interview, Aug. 7, 2026
• Michael Breus, PhD, clinical psychologist and sleep specialist; email interview, Aug. 8, 2026
• Avinesh Bhar, MD, sleep physician and founder of Sliiip; email interview, Aug. 7, 2026
• Jacob Teitelbaum, MD, author of From Fatigued to Fantastic; email interview, Aug. 6, 2026
• Sarah Boss, MD, psychiatrist and clinical director at The Balance rehab clinic; email interview, Aug. 7, 2026
• Journal of the Endocrine Society: “Rationale and Design of the Dinner Time 2 Trial”
• Sleep: “Comparing Post-prandial Glycemia After Late Eating vs Late Sleep”
• Cell Metabolism: “Late Isocaloric Eating Increases Hunger, Decreases Energy Expenditure”
• BMJ Medicine: “Effects of Timing and Eating Duration of Time Restricted Eating on Metabolic Outcomes”
• Yahoo: “What Time’s Dinner? More People (and Gen Z-ers) Are Saying 5 p.m.”
• Fox News: “Early-Bird Dinners Aren’t Just for Seniors

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If seasonal decor is your weakness, consider this your sign to shop now before the good stuff vanishes. Find a mix of spooky yard decorations, Halloween-ready kitchen favorites, impossibly cute festive plushies—and more. We’ve rounded up our favorite items from top brands all across the internet.

Top Halloween collections in 2026

Le Creuset

Shop at Le Creuset

We all know and love Le Creuset’s iconic pumpkin cocotte, but the brand’s harvest collection has plenty more to tempt your spooky-season shopping list. Think adorable Halloween mini bowls, bat mugs and more, all serving up autumn vibes with a sprinkle of spookiness—and at prices that are a bit more wallet-friendly than the full-size cocotte.

Still craving that classic pumpkin look? Peep the new pumpkin serving bowl. This pretty piece will last you all the way through Thanksgiving.

Anthropologie

Shop at Anthropologie

Year after year, Anthropologie proves that Halloween can be spooky and sophisticated. We’re especially smitten with the bistro tiles stoneware. Our top pick is this gold-accented owl mug, which has even gotten the HydroJug treatment as a 40-ounce tumbler.

You can also give your front porch a little spooky garden magic with new finds from Terrain, like these skeleton hand pumpkin stakes and this dramatic black boughs wreath.

Jellycat

Shop at Jellycat

New and old Halloween Jellycat favorites are creeping back in! Celebrate spooky season early with the return of beloved Ooky Jack O Lantern and Broox Bat, plus new friends like Growlston Gargoyle, Ghost Bob and the Amuseables Vampop Drink.

The full Halloween line is available now, but if you have your eye on a favorite, don’t wait too long. Jellycat fans are famously quick to scoop up new drops.

My Texas House at Walmart

Shop at Walmart

Attention, My Texas House fans: The brand’s new Halloween collection just landed at Walmart. It’s bringing dark, moody vibes with a healthy dose of downhome charm.

The plum foliage wreath is an easy way to give your entryway or mantel a spooky-season makeover, while the matching arrangement adds a coordinating touch to your table. We’re also eyeing the indoor/outdoor black plaid layering rug and festive cotton-knit pumpkin throw.

Bouqs

Shop at Bouqs

If fresh flowers are more your speed, prepare to fall for these spooky-season stems. The Black Magic bouquet from Bouqs features 12, 24 or 36 black-dyed roses, and it’s perfect for anyone who loves dark and dramatic.

Looking for something a little less gothic? This white ranunculus and anemone arrangement brings its own seasonal charm, thanks to ghostly white petals and black centers.

IKEA

Shop at IKEA

Halloween decor doesn’t have to cost a fortune with IKEA’s new KUSTFYR collection. The family-friendly lineup is packed with playful, nostalgic finds, including Halloween lighting like this orange pumpkin lamp and ghost string lights.

We’re especially into this outdoor pumpkin pendant lamp, and it’s just $10. Hang a few of these black and orange lights at varying heights for a warm, glowing display that’s festive without going full haunted house.

Pottery Barn

Shop at Pottery Barn

If you remember Pottery Barn’s light-up porch ghosts from years past, you’ll be happy to see some new friends joining the lineup. These lit jack-o’-lantern ghosts are making their debut alongside the Scary Squad table runner and matching napkins.

And of course, Pottery Barn brought back plenty of Halloween classics, including festive seasonal pillows and handmade terracotta jack-o’-lanterns. It’s everything we love about PB Halloween with a few new tricks and treats.

Crate & Barrel

Shop at Crate & Barrel

Similar vibes, but with a little more rustic kitchen charm, Crate & Barrel’s Halloween collection is full of warm, cozy homewares. We’re eyeing these flickering flameless pumpkin candles and gingham-and-plaid organic cotton kitchen towels.

For a bigger splurge, we also love this faux mini berry wreath. It’s an easy way to give your front door a festive refresh without sacrificing color.

Lenox

Shop at Lenox

Missed out on the new Lenox Halloween Spice Village Set before it sold out? Don’t worry. There are still plenty of festive Lenox finds to bring some spooky charm to your dinner parties.

This vintage house haunt channels the whimsical spirit of the beloved Spice Village, while this black-lit take on the iconic Lenox Christmas tree figurine puts a delightfully spooky spin on a holiday classic.

Balsam Hill

Shop at Balsam Hill

We usually turn to Balsam Hill for some of the best Christmas trees, but the brand also has a surprisingly good Halloween collection. These adorable Halloween felt ornaments bring a handmade, crafty feel to your seasonal setup, while these floating light-up witch hats and candles cast a magical glow over a covered porch or doorway. Don’t wait, items from this collection tend to sell out annually.

TJ Maxx

Shop at TJ Maxx

From marble skulls and crocheted ghost placemats to festive wall art and outdoor witches, TJ Maxx has pretty much everything you need to host a Halloween-themed get-together.

The best part? You don’t have to brave the packed aisles or dig through endless racks to find the good stuff. Just shop TJ Maxx Halloween online and add your spooky finds straight to your cart.

Rifle Paper Co.

Shop at Rifle Paper Co.

Okay, we may have found our new favorite Halloween blanket. This woven ghosts blanket from Rifle Paper Co. is perfect for draping over the couch all season long and adding a little Halloween charm without going overboard. In fact, it’s our favorite decorative throw for its detailed design and 100% cotton composition.

We’re also swooning over this adorable pumpkin patch bow, made from printed jacquard ribbon with an attached alligator clip. And naturally, Rifle Paper’s porcelain mugs bring the heat, too. Just look at this bold-hued haunted house sipper.

Mud Pie

Shop at Mud Pie

Make your little ones’ spooky season extra sweet with Mud Pie’s lineup of beaded patterns, playful prints and Halloween-ready finds. Start with beaded Halloween buckets or hand-painted papier-mâché treat buckets, then keep the Halloween spirit going with glow-in-the-dark toddler pajamas and the cutest festive baby outfits.

Kohl’s

Shop at Kohl's

Clothes, housewares, accessories and decor—Kohl’s can be your one-stop shop for all things Halloween. Decorate outside with ghost garden stakes, then bring the spooky glow indoors with this nostalgic ghost duo.

And don’t forget the kiddos. From Halloween toys to festive books perfect for a boo basket, there’s a little something for everyone.

Hanna Andersson

Shop at Hanna Andersson

Find Halloween pajamas, last-minute costumes and everyday outfits at Hanna Andersson. The brand’s Halloween collection makes it easy to dress little ones for the season in comfort.

New Toy Story Costume HannaJams bring a playful twist to bedtime, while these ridiculously cute baby costume hats are begging for a photo op.

LEGO

Shop at LEGO

LEGO’s Halloween lineup is seriously impressive. Recreate iconic scenes from Stranger Things, Twilight and Harry Potter, or keep things classic with a light-up pumpkin lantern or dark flower arrangement.

Whether you’re shopping for a die-hard fan or just someone who loves a good building project, these spooky sets make fun seasonal gifts for all ages.

The post Spooky Season Is Already Here—Shop the Best Halloween Collections of 2026 appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Well, we think you deserve a little bit of that fun in your life. Below, you’ll find 10 brand-new summer reads that are absolutely perfect for you, just waiting to be unwrapped. There’s something here for everyone, from sweet romances to thrilling page-turners to high-concept historical fiction you won’t be able to stop thinking about. Your clues to finding your new favorite book are right on the unassuming, brown-paper-wrapped cover—the heart of the story and what makes it so wonderfully addictive. All you have to do is click through to find out what it is.

What are you waiting for? Read on for your new favorite book and the most fun you’ll have all week.

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Mystery Book #1

What happens when a tradwife influencer gets transported back to the era she’s been playing at online? Let’s just say that she’s not all that thrilled with 1855 when she has to live it. FYI, this doesn’t launch into an Outlander-esque romance but a deeper psychological journey that will keep you guessing. This one just got the green light for a buzzy adaptation with an A-list star, but you’ll definitely want to read the book first.

Mystery Book #2

A single mom heads home to help her aging dad and struggling brother. She’s the Ms. Fix-It of her family—something that extends to all parts of her life, including a chance encounter with a stressed-out, wealthy workaholic. After she helps him change a tire by the side of the road, he asks for another favor: a fake romance to help him secure a CEO position. Sure, you can see where this is going, but as this unlikely pair falls head over heels, you will too.

Mystery Book #3

What? Summer romances aren’t the only stories you can read on a beach! If you prefer books that get your heart racing in a whole different way, you’re in the right place. In a small Nebraska town, a serial killer strikes every May 1. Ten years after one teenager survives an attack and another’s mother is murdered, they work through their trauma and try to catch the killer. Addictive doesn’t even begin to describe this one.

Mystery Book #4

After their father’s death, two sisters embark on a road trip to find the recipient of a never-delivered love letter begging for a second chance—taking along the writer of said love letter. But will he get closure … or a second shot at love? If you love the idea of an opposites-attract romance grounded with family bonds and healing, this is the book for you.

Mystery Book #5

Four women volunteer for ethically questionable parapsychology experiments until one of them disappears and the program is shut down. Decades later, one of the women hires a caretaker, who ultimately helps her embark on a quest to find out what happened to her friends. If you’ve been missing Stranger Things, you’ll want to grab this brand-new novel from a former investigative journalist.

Mystery Book #6

Royal balls, glass slippers, Prince Charming and an evil stepmother. You know who the villain is in that tale, right? Not so fast. If you loved Wicked, you’ll be transfixed by this reimagined fairy tale told through the eyes of the alleged villain—and a feminist lens. Get ready for a new take on an old classic, along with some royal family secrets you never saw coming.

Mystery Book #7

If you’ve ever fantasized about ditching your life and starting over somewhere fabulous, you’ll get to live vicariously through the newly divorced protagonist of this novel. No, it’s not all smooth sailing for her, but it will make you want to hop a plane to Spain pronto … and maybe fall in love with a brooding stranger.

Mystery Book #8

To paraphrase Monty Python: And now, for something completely different … and we’re not kidding. A 20-something gamer gets a job “remote-controlling [a] dead dude across the country” via an AI chip that’s been implanted in his brain. Even worse? The man with the chip is in a vegetative state and semi-aware, stuck in a waking nightmare filled with grotesque visions as he tries to remember who he is. Get ready for some scathing societal commentary and an unsettling vibe delivered via high-concept sci-fi that will stay with you long after the final page.

Mystery Book #9

When an openly gay tennis player is suddenly the openly gay tennis player at the world’s biggest tournament, the pressure is on, and he’s feeling it. That’s when he meets his biggest competitor, a devastatingly handsome player who throws him even more off his game—maybe in the best way possible. Bonus: You can go all-in on your tennis obsession during this month’s U.S. Open.

Mystery Book #10

Two teens from opposite sides of the tracks in 1949 Florida fall hard for each other, but circumstances—and disapproving parents—tear them apart. A story about choice, class divide and miscommunication, it will send you down a rabbit hole of what-ifs and remind you how one choice can shape your entire life.

Why trust us

At Reader’s Digest, we’ve been sharing our favorite books for over 100 years. We’ve worked with bestselling authors including Susan Orlean, Janet Evanovich and Alex Haley, whose Pulitzer Prize–winning Roots grew out of a project funded by and originally published in the magazine. Through Fiction Favorites (formerly Select Editions and Condensed Books), Reader’s Digest has been publishing anthologies of abridged novels for decades. We’ve worked with some of the biggest names in fiction, including James Patterson, Ruth Ware, Kristin Hannah and more. The Reader’s Digest Book Club, helmed by Books Editor Tracey Neithercott, introduces readers to even more of today’s best fiction by upcoming, bestselling and award-winning authors. For this piece, Deputy Editor Dawn Yanek tapped her longtime experience as a journalist, writer and avid reader to ensure that all information is accurate and offers the best possible advice to readers. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

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Mine has always been fantasy. My childhood library checkouts were filled with Magic Tree House, Edward Eager’s Half Magic series, Percy Jackson and Eragon. These days, I’ve traded them for sprawling adult fantasy epics, but the feeling hasn’t changed.

As a health editor, that made me wonder: Why are some of us drawn to fantasy while others devour thrillers, memoirs or beach reads? And what, exactly, happens inside our brains when we become completely absorbed in a story? Is it different for my fantasy-obsessed brain than one that goes crazy for Stephen King or Elin Hilderbrand?

To get inside our heads, I spoke with two researchers who study the power of imagined experiences: Raymond A. Mar, PhD, a psychology professor at York University, and Melanie C. Green, PhD, a SUNY distinguished professor and the chair of communication at the University at Buffalo. Read on to find out what your favorite reads do to your brain—and why you keep coming back for more.

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What does reading do to our brains overall?

Reading is a major group project for the brain. A 2021 review published in the Annual Review of Vision Science describes how visual areas recognize letters, a region often called the visual word form area becomes tuned in to written words, and language networks connect those shapes with sounds and meaning. Attention keeps you focused on the words in front of you, while memory helps you connect them to everything that came before, whether that’s the first clue in a mystery or the tiny detail that suddenly makes the ending click.

Learning to read is itself an example of neuroplasticity. The brain strengthens coordination among systems that originally evolved for other purposes, gradually becoming faster and more efficient at turning marks on a page into language.

With fiction, those systems do something more: They help simulate an experience. Readers imagine a character’s situation and draw on their own memories and knowledge to bring it to life. Green calls this narrative transportation. “We have thoughts, we have emotions, we have mental imagery,” she says. “When you’re absorbed in the story, all of those are kind of getting focused on the same thing. They’re getting focused on making that story come to life.”

That is why fear, attraction or grief prompted by a book can affect us so much. “Those feelings still feel very real in the moment,” Green explains, “even if we don’t necessarily translate them to the same kind of behaviors that we would for an actual emotion prompted by a nonfictional event.”

Researchers are still working out whether repeatedly entering fictional worlds produces lasting cognitive benefits. A 2024 meta-analysis published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General reviewed 70 experiments and found small average benefits from reading fiction, with the clearest effects involving empathy and mentalizing, or inferring what another person may be thinking and feeling. Other studies have produced more mixed results, suggesting that the effects depend on factors such as the reader, the book and the depth of engagement.

Why are we drawn to certain genres?

“There are countless reasons why someone might prefer a book,” Mar says. Readers may be drawn to a particular setting, theme or type of protagonist, and those preferences can shift depending on where they are in life or even what is happening that day.

That said, Green notes that people higher in sensation-seeking may gravitate toward horror, action and adventure, while others might prefer calmer stories that offer comfort. We may also look for recognition in characters who share our identity or use fiction to explore a life far outside our own.

But genre is not a personality test. A cozy mystery and a serial-killer thriller share a bookstore section without creating the same psychological experience, just as a dark romance and a breezy beach read are not interchangeable.

What does each genre do to our brains?

Research has not produced a brain scan for every bookstore shelf. The studies cited below tend to isolate one ingredient, such as suspense, magical events, romantic love or humor, rather than comparing entire genres. Most use functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, which tracks changes in blood oxygen associated with brain activity. It can show which areas are more active during a task, but it does not directly measure whether reading released dopamine, adrenaline or another neurotransmitter.

Still, the findings offer clues about what different stories ask our minds to do and why those experiences can feel so compelling.

Mysteries and thrillers

Mysteries and thrillers invite readers to gather clues, make predictions and continually revise their theories as new information appears.

In a 2015 fMRI study published in PLOS ONE, 23 adults read a shortened version of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Sandman and rated their suspense during each section. As suspense rose, researchers saw more activity in regions involved in predicting what may happen next and tracking what characters know, want or fear. And your brain isn’t just waiting for the reveal. It’s building a theory, testing it against each new clue and deciding when the old explanation no longer fits. The study focused on one literary story, but it captures some of the mental work that makes suspense feel so active.

Green says mysteries can also be satisfying because they impose order on uncertainty. “Things make sense, and justice is restored,” she says, offering a kind of resolution that real life does not always provide.

Romance

Romance asks readers to interpret emotion, attraction, attachment and shifting relationship dynamics. Following the story often means tracking what each character wants, what they believe about the other person and whether those feelings are reciprocated.

A 2013 study published in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts found that greater lifetime exposure to romance fiction was associated with better performance on a measure of interpersonal sensitivity. Because the researchers looked at people’s existing reading habits, the finding leaves open whether romance sharpened that sensitivity or whether socially attuned readers were simply more drawn to the genre.

Either way, it challenges the stereotype of romance as little more than fluff. Beach reads, chick lit and romantasy can involve plenty of social tracking when relationships drive the plot. They also recreate some of the emotional rhythms of a crush: focused attention on one person, uncertainty about whether the feeling is mutual and anticipation of any sign that the relationship may move forward.

A 2024 review published in Neuropsychologia found that early-stage romantic love consistently engages regions within the brain’s reward and motivation system, including the ventral tegmental area and caudate nucleus. A foundational 2005 fMRI study published in the Journal of Neurophysiology found greater activity in those dopamine-rich regions when people who described themselves as intensely in love looked at a photo of their beloved. Romance novels have not been shown to reproduce that neural response, but they build on a familiar emotional pattern: Attention narrows to one desired person, uncertainty heightens the anticipation and every small step toward connection feels like a payoff. It is the literary equivalent of having a crush, with less personal risk and significantly better dialogue.

Fantasy

To follow a fantasy novel, readers must construct an unfamiliar world, learn its rules and notice when those rules are broken. A 2015 fMRI study published in PLOS ONE compared magical passages from the Harry Potter series with matched passages that contained no magic. The supernatural scenes produced stronger activity in regions involved in integrating unexpected information, attention and emotional response.

It was just one experiment using one fictional universe, but the finding captures a central challenge of fantasy: Readers must fit impossible events into a world that still feels internally consistent. Following a complicated fantasy epic can feel like learning a strategy-heavy game. You have to understand how the system works, hold its rules in mind and notice when an exception changes everything. Science fiction and dystopian novels pose technological, political and social “what ifs,” while romantasy layers relationship dynamics onto that world-building. Mar notes that a book like Dune can demand just as much strategic prediction and careful attention as a mystery, even if it asks different questions along the way.

Horror

Horror offers what researchers call recreational fear: the chance to seek out a frightening experience for enjoyment while remaining physically safe. A 2022 review published in Neuropsychopharmacology describes “threat processing” as a conversation among several brain regions. The amygdala helps identify and learn the significance of possible threats, while areas of the prefrontal cortex help interpret and regulate the response. Although that research extends beyond horror reading, it helps explain how fictional danger can grab us even when we know we are safe.

The appeal may depend on finding the right amount of fear. In a 2021 field study published in Psychological Science, researchers tracked the heart rates of 110 people moving through a haunted-house attraction. Enjoyment peaked at a middle ground: Too little fear was boring, while too much became unpleasant. A novel is less physically intense than a haunted house, but it offers the same useful boundary. The danger feels urgent while the reader remains safely outside it.

Regular exposure to frightening stories may also make the emotions of uncertainty feel more familiar. A 2021 study published in Personality and Individual Differences found that horror-film fans reported greater psychological resilience during the early COVID-19 pandemic, while fans of apocalyptic “prepper” films felt more prepared. The study found an association (rather than proof) between horror and that resilience, but it raises an intriguing possibility: Imagining terrible scenarios may make the emotions of real uncertainty feel more familiar.

Historical fiction

Historical fiction lets readers “really step in” to another time, Green says. Instead of memorizing names and dates, readers can imagine “what it would have been like to be living through that particular time.”

A 2023 study published in The Reading Teacher offers a small glimpse of that process. Children ages 9 to 12 listened to either excerpts from the historical novel Bud, Not Buddy or a nonfiction passage about the Great Depression containing the same factual information. Both groups learned a similar amount of history. But among the children who heard the novel, greater immersion was associated with perspective-taking, imagining themselves inside the story and wanting to help someone in need. Listening to short excerpts is not the same as an adult disappearing into a 400-page novel, but the study shows how narrative can surround historical facts with people, relationships and emotion without getting in the way of learning.

Memoirs

Memoirs invite readers into another person’s memories and experiences while encouraging us to compare the author’s life with our own. Have I felt something similar? Would I have made the same choice?

That instinct reflects the way we already use our own memories. A 2005 study published in Social Cognition found that people draw on autobiographical memories to maintain a sense of self, connect with others and let the past guide present decisions. A memoir can send us through a similar process, even though the memory on the page belongs to someone else.

The reader moves between two lives, following how the author interprets an experience while reconsidering something from their own past. As Green explains, memoir is nonfiction, but it can still create the deep personal connection of a compelling narrative.

Humor

Humor gives the brain two related jobs: figuring out why something is funny and enjoying the payoff once it clicks.

A 2023 fMRI study published in The Journal of Neuroscience examined humor comprehension and appreciation in 26 adults using written jokes and clips from Seinfeld. The dorsal striatum was involved in getting the joke, including holding information in mind, resolving ambiguity and reinterpreting a setup when the punchline changes its meaning. The ventral striatum, part of the brain’s reward circuitry, was involved in enjoying it.

The findings point to a two-step process when it comes to funny writing: First comes the mental shift that lets you understand the joke, followed by the pleasure of getting it. A joke is a tiny problem with a much more pleasant solution than most tiny problems.

What is the best genre to read?

There is no proven winner. Fiction may offer social simulation; nonfiction can expand knowledge; mysteries emphasize prediction; and fantasy asks readers to build and navigate unfamiliar worlds.

“The most beneficial book is the one that we enjoy and holds our attention,” Mar says. “It’s a bit like the saying that the best exercise for you is the one that you will do.”

He recommends simply reading what you enjoy—and reading a lot. So read what keeps you engaged, and occasionally wander beyond your usual shelf.

How can you maximize these neurological benefits?

No reading habit guarantees a particular benefit, but research supports several ways to protect your comprehension, remember more and engage more deeply with what you read.

Protect your attention

A story has a harder time transporting you when part of your mind keeps leaving the page. A 2022 meta-analysis published in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review examined 25 studies and found that more mind-wandering was associated with poorer reading comprehension.

The researchers studied drifting attention rather than phone notifications specifically, but silencing them removes one obvious invitation to check out. Put your phone out of reach, close unnecessary browser tabs or choose even a short stretch when the book is the only thing asking for your attention.

Make predictions

Part of the pleasure of reading is trying to stay one step ahead. Pause occasionally to ask what a character wants, what may happen next or which seemingly minor detail could matter later.

A 2021 review published in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review found that making a prediction before learning an answer can improve learning under certain conditions, particularly when the outcome is surprising. In a story, even a wrong guess keeps you engaged: When the author overturns your theory, you have to notice the new evidence and rebuild your understanding.

Retrieve the story

After a chapter or reading session, briefly recap what happened without looking back. Recalling the material asks more of your memory than simply seeing it again.

A 2024 study published in Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition used prose passages to examine retrieval practice across three experiments. Recalling an earlier passage helped participants remember information from passages they encountered later, compared with restudying or completing unrelated tasks.

For fiction, try recalling what changed, what each character currently wants and which questions remain unanswered. For nonfiction, explain the central idea and its supporting evidence in your own words. This does not have to turn pleasure reading into homework; even a brief mental recap makes you reconstruct the information rather than simply recognize it on the page.

Put it in your own words

Finishing the final sentence is not always the same as deciding what a book meant. Try explaining why you trusted one character, what you thought the ending meant or how a new idea connects with something you already knew.

A 2023 network meta-analysis published in Review of Educational Research found that effective reading-comprehension programs often combined strategies such as connecting text with prior knowledge, drawing inferences and checking understanding. The research focused on students with reading difficulties, but those same habits can happen informally in a book-club conversation, a voice note or a few written sentences.

Reread without guilt

Rereading is not wasted effort simply because you already know the ending. A 2022 study published in The Journal of Social Psychology assigned participants to reread a favorite novel, begin an appealing new one or read newspaper articles. Those who returned to a favorite book reported more nostalgia and social connectedness. The study captured an immediate emotional experience rather than a lasting cognitive change, but that may be exactly why rereading feels so good: Familiarity leaves more room to reconnect with the world and people inside the book.

You may also notice foreshadowing, patterns and emotional details that you missed when you were racing to find out what happened.

Why trust us

At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. For this piece on the neuroscience of reading, Miranda Manier tapped her longtime experience as a journalist and health editor to ensure that all information is accurate and offers the best possible advice to readers. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Raymond A. Mar, PhD, professor of psychology at York University; interviewed, July 2026
• Melanie C. Green, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of Communication at the University at Buffalo; interviewed, July 2026
• PLOS ONE: “Reading a Suspenseful Literary Text Activates Brain Areas Related to Social Cognition and Predictive Inference”
• Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts: “What You Read Matters: The Role of Fiction Genre in Predicting Interpersonal Sensitivity”
• Neuropsychologia: “Joyful growth vs. compulsive hedonism: A meta-analysis of brain activation on romantic love and addictive disorders”
• PLOS ONE: “The Magical Activation of Left Amygdala When Reading Harry Potter: An fMRI Study on How Descriptions of Supra-Natural Events Entertain and Enchant”
• Neuropsychopharmacology: “Prefrontal Cortex, Amygdala, and Threat Processing: Implications for PTSD”
• Personality and Individual Differences: “Pandemic Practice: Horror Fans and Morbidly Curious Individuals Are More Psychologically Resilient During the COVID-19 Pandemic”
• The Reading Teacher: “Fact from Fiction: The Learning Benefits of Listening to Historical Fiction”
• The Journal of Neuroscience: “Establishing the Roles of the Dorsal and Ventral Striatum in Humor Comprehension and Appreciation with fMRI”
• Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition: “Retrieval Practice Can Promote New Learning with Both Related and Unrelated Prose Materials”

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Yes, that’s the tagline for The X-Files, the ’90s television phenomenon that I have watched in its entirety more times than I care to admit. But it’s also a credo of sorts, not just for Fox Mulder, but for tons of people all over the world who have had a close encounter with an unidentified flying object (UFO), now known by the way-less-catchy “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” or UAP.

Have you seen one? I’m still waiting—as far as I know—but I’m not nearly as cranky about the idea as Agent Scully. Our current government is all over it: Since January 2026, they’ve released hundreds of files collected since 1950 under a new program called PURSUE, or the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters. The fifth bulk file release just dropped on Aug. 7.

Coming up, I’ll take you through what to do if (uh, when!) you see a UFO or UAP and tell you how you can report your sighting to authorities, the internet, Hollywood and anyone else who might find your story fascinating and totally worth investigating. Read on to learn the seven things you should do if you spot a UFO.

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How many UFO sightings are there annually in the United States?

It depends on who’s tracking the reports.

The official government repository is called the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), and their latest publicly available report, covering fiscal year 2025, lists 319 sightings—114 of which were “resolved,” meaning they turned out to be “prosaic objects such as balloons, satellites, birds, aircraft and unmanned aerial systems (UAS).”

If 319 sightings seems kind of low for a whole year, it’s good to stop here and mention that the AARO only takes reports from current or former government officials, service members and contractors. So my mother-in-law, who swears up and down that she’s seen a UAP—and can recount it in minute detail—is not counted among the number.

For regular people like her (and maybe you), the go-to repositories are the National UFO Reporting Center, aka NUFORC, which has been around since 1974, and the Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON, which has been investigating UFOs since 1969. Both have very detailed online databases that break down sightings by report date and location, as well as juicier categories like how dramatic the sightings are.

So far this year, NUFORC has received more than 1,800 reports of UAPs. In recent years, they’ve cited numbers ranging from a low of just under 4,000 reports (in 2018) to nearly 8,000 (in 2020). MUFON says they get between 500 and 1,000 reports per month.

So what should you do if you see an unidentified flying object?

In addition to NUFORC and MUFON, there are plenty of resources that collect and compile UAP sightings these days, but before you race to one of them with a video of your neighbor’s annoying but benign new drone, it’s worth figuring out what you might be seeing so you can report it to the right people—if at all.

Here’s what to do.

Stay calm

The vast majority of UAPs are not proof of alien visitors, or even particularly compelling evidence of them. Are you near an airport? Is it meteor season? Did Walmart start doing drone deliveries and ever since that godforsaken day you’ve heard nothing but the nonstop flight pattern over your house? (That’s probably just me.)

If none of those apply, grab your phone.

Document everything

Take photos or a video of the object. According to NASA, you should also note the following:

• Your local date and time
• Your location and perspective
• How long you observed the object
• How long it took to travel through the sky
• How fast it was going
• What direction it traveled
• Its brightness compared with other objects in the sky

Contact your local astronomy club

This might seem old school, but NASA’s Night Sky Network is a searchable database of astronomy clubs across the U.S., and the space agency says your next step should be to contact one of them. Astronomy clubs are filled with knowledgeable people who make it a habit of watching the skies, and one of them will be more than happy to discuss your sighting and offer plausible explanations based on their expertise.

Reconstruct the night sky

Figure out what the night sky should look like right above you using Stellarium, an app and website that reconstructs the sky based on your location and the time and date. See what stars and planets are visible, where the moon will be (or was) and the locations of other celestial bodies.

Check flight and satellite data

See what’s flying above you right now using free online tools and apps like FlightAware and Flightradar24, which offer live tracking of planes in the air all over the world. Satellite Tracker by Star Walk is a popular app that allows you to track Starlink and other satellites, the Hubble telescope, the International Space Station and tons of other space traffic.

Starlink satellites in particular leave a telltale (and very UFO-like) line of lights, often called a “satellite train,” when they are being positioned. Findstarlink.com tracks these trains and can be used to compare your sighting to known satellites.

Drop your video in a comparative sky tool

This is for more technologically advanced UFO sleuths. Siterec, which is short for “situational recreation,” is an app developed to analyze UAP videos taken by sailors in the U.S. Navy, but it’s now available for anyone to use.

Drop your UFO video into the app, and it recreates what was going on at the same place and time, including in the sky and any terrain in the shot (this recreation is called a “sitch”). Then, line up and compare the sitch with your UAP video to see if your sighting can be explained by known objects or phenomena.

Report your finding

If after all that work you still think your UAP could be a real UFO, it’s time to report it. If you happen to be a member of the military or a government worker or contractor, AARO’s handy online reporting tool is for you. For the rest of us, NUFORC and MUFON are the gold standards.

But newer players in UAP reporting are available too. Enigma is probably the most popular. It’s an online and app-based reporting tool that lets you upload photos and videos, record details of your sighting, search a map and database and get notifications about reported sightings.

OK, you’ve reported your UFO. Now what?

Most of the time, reporting the UAP will be its own reward. Congrats! You have just helped advance science and curiosity by uploading data that may help current and future citizens of planet Earth discover … well, we’re not quite sure what, just yet.

If you’re looking for someone to come investigate what you saw, give your report to MUFON. Each sighting is assigned a field investigator who will reach out to you to get more details about your UAP sighting.

If your video is compelling, you can always contact the media or post the vid on your socials. Who knows, maybe other people saw the same thing! Use this opportunity to meet and talk to other UAP enthusiasts, or join a local astronomy club to learn more about the cosmos. If it turns out that we are not alone, safety in numbers can’t hurt.

Sources:

• NASA: “Identifying UFOs and UAPs”
• National UFO Reporting Center: “The National UFO Reporting Center”
• Department of Defense: “Release 05”
• YouTube: “Media Briefing Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Report”
• Enigma: “The #1 Destination for UFO Sighting Alerts & Aerial Intelligence”
• AARO: “Submit a report”
• AARO: “Fiscal Year 2025 Consolidated Annual Report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena”
• FlightAware: “Live”
• Flightradar24: “Live air traffic”
• Stellarium: “Home”
• Siterec: “Getting started with Siterec”
• Mutual UFO Network: “Home”

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Safety is always front of mind—balancing the need to give your kids freedom as they hit their teens and making sure they’re shielded from harm, in real life and online. And that’s something William and Kate have taken very seriously, wanting George, Charlotte and Louis to have as “normal” an upbringing as possible, while understanding their situation is anything but normal.

However, there’s one issue above all others that’s worrying William and Kate, and parents everywhere will surely relate. Read on to learn their biggest concern as 13-year-old Prince George heads to Eton this fall.

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What is William and Kate’s biggest fear when it comes to Prince George?

It’s smartphones. William and Kate have been vocal about not letting their children have mobile phones, but once George follows in his father’s footsteps to the prestigious Eton boarding school in Berkshire, west of London, they may have to grapple with some modern realities.

“There are parental concerns, naturally, that he will be growing up in a digital age,” says royal editor Rebecca English in the Daily Mail. “The couple have refused to allow their children to have mobile phones, although admit that will change with their eldest at senior school.”

Does George have a phone?

No, not yet.

“Our children don’t have phones,” William told Brazilian TV host Luciano Huck last November. “I think when George moves on to secondary school, then maybe he might have a phone that has limited access,” adding that it’s a “tense” issue but that they’ve communicated to George why the internet in particular poses a problem.

Eton, which costs about $88,000 a year, has a no-smartphones policy for incoming Year 9 pupils like George, issuing them Nokia “brick phones” instead, which can’t access the internet. That’s probably reassuring for William and Kate.

“I think children can access too much stuff they don’t need to see online,” William told Huck. “And so having a phone and text message, the old sort of ‘brick phone’ as they call them, I think that’s fine.”

Why is it a particular concern right now?

There are two issues. One is that this is the first time George will be fully boarding away from home—and away from his parents’ watchful eyes. Even if he does only have a brick phone, he’ll have the freedom to text his friends as much as he wants.

The second issue is that his parents can’t control other boys’ or the public’s phone usage—in particular, their ability to take and circulate photos of George. Even if George is a great kid, and by all accounts he is, neither his parents nor the school can stop onlookers taking photos or videos of him in the street.

“The couple’s biggest worry now is not the paparazzi, but an entire generation armed with camera phones, instantly uploading snaps and videos for ‘clout and likes,’ ” English writes in the Daily Mail.

How much might a scandalous picture of George go for?

It could be $100,000 or more. Although the days of newspapers and magazines paying huge amounts for scandalous images is over, if someone did snap a compromising photo of George, they could expect to get a large payday through syndication online and in print.

California paparazzo Mark Karloff says on his Paparazzi Podcast that in the past, he’d regularly make “$50,000 to $100,000 off one photo,” but now, if something sold for $1,000 in the paparazzi heyday, he says it would fetch more like $50 today.

A snapshot is one thing, but today we have video fears too. A candid video of teenage Prince George would get big numbers on social media, earning ad revenue with every click. So, it’s all added stress for George and his parents. “It will be interesting to see how they navigate this challenge given how determined they have always been to ring-fence their family from the moment George and his siblings were born,” writes English.

What royal moments were caught on camera when William, Kate and the other royals were young?

Kate is particularly worried about keeping her kids out of the spotlight because she’s experienced paparazzi intrusion both as a young woman and a mother.

Back in 2015, when George was a toddler, Kate was on a beach in Norfolk when she noticed they were being followed by two photographers. “She had to grab him and go, and was deeply upset about the whole thing,” English writes in the Daily Mail. “It wasn’t the first time this had happened, but she was really unhappy and very, very worried.”

Other candid photos of the young royals include:

• William at Eton: A smiling 13-year-old William was snapped walking down the street with his fellow pupils on his first day at Eton in 1995. After the death of Diana two years later, the British press stayed away from unauthorized images of the schoolboy.
• Kate’s see-through dress: As a student at St. Andrews University in 2002, Catherine modeled a sheer dress and underwear on the catwalk at a university fashion show. Though not a paparazzi shot, the dress—and the runway photo—went down in history.
• Harry’s Nazi costume: In 2005, Prince Harry attended a friend’s fancy-dress party in a Nazi uniform. A partygoer sold a photo of him to the Sun newspaper, which ran it with the headline, “Harry the Nazi.” He was forced to apologize at the time, but in his 2023 memoir, Spare, Harry blamed it on William and Catherine, who, he says, encouraged him to wear it.
• Kate’s topless photos: In 2012, the newlyweds were on holiday in Provence, France, in a private property, when a paparazzi snapped topless photos of Catherine sunbathing. The images appeared in French Closer and Italian Chi magazines. The couple sued and French authorities ruled it an invasion of privacy.
• Harry’s naked party pics: Also in 2012, Harry, still in his wild period, played strip pool with friends and others in a Las Vegas hotel suite. One of the women in attendance took a photo on her phone, which was obtained by TMZ. Harry again apologized but blamed it on the women. “I had counted on those dodgy girls showing some basic decency, and now I was going to pay the price forever,” he wrote in Spare. “These photos would never go away.”

Will the palace have a deal with the media to keep George’s life as private as possible?

Yes, there’s an ongoing agreement with the palace and the British press, meaning George and his siblings will be left alone at school, and private photos will not be published. This rule goes all the way back to when William and Harry were young.

It’s also certain that parents of children at Eton will be told not to publish images of the prince—a great rule for all parents to follow regarding children and their classmates, but even more pertinent in this case.

The wild card is, of course, the general public and social media. If anyone gets footage of George around town, it will be difficult to keep them from posting.

Sources:

• Daily Mail: “The Real Prince George …”
• Standard: “Prince George not being allowed a smartphone a ‘tense issue’ – William”
• Paparazzi Podcast: “Good Old Days”
• BBC: “Six on trial over topless photos of Duchess of Cambridge”
• BBC: “Harry says sorry for Nazi costume”
• BBC: “Prince Harry ‘let down family’ over Vegas photos”
• Guardian: “The Princes and the press: full statement”
• Spare by Prince Harry

The Sweet Way Elizabeth Indulged William

Diana Convinced Charles to Get Rid of His Dog

Who Each of the Royal Kids Looks Like

The post This Is Prince William and Kate Middleton’s Biggest Fear for Prince George appeared first on Reader's Digest.

So, which grocery store has earned shoppers’ trust the most? With so many options—from major chains like Aldi, Costco, Trader Joe’s and one of my personal go-to’s, Whole Foods—choosing where to fill your cart isn’t always easy. Luckily, there’s a new ranking that helps narrow it down.

Newsweek and the research firm BrandSpark International teamed up to reveal the results of the 2026 BrandSpark Most Trusted Awards, an annual ranking recognizing the brands Americans trust most. When it comes to grocery stores, one retailer came out on top.

Read on to find out America’s most trusted grocery store for 2026—and why shoppers keep putting their trust in it.

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How did this report determine the most trusted grocery stores of 2026?

Newsweek and BrandSpark went straight to the people who know grocery stores best: the folks actually shopping in them. They surveyed a whopping 35,215 American shoppers to find out which brands—including grocery stores—they trust most across different categories and regions. (Because if anyone knows whether a supermarket deserves our hard-earned grocery money, it’s us!)

And this isn’t some brand-new survey, either. BrandSpark’s annual consumer study has been running continuously since 2013, meaning shoppers have had a chance to weigh in on the names they use and trust for 13 years and counting.

So what is the most trusted grocery store right now?

Walmart takes the crown, and it didn’t exactly squeak by.

In the 2026 BrandSpark Most Trusted Awards, shoppers put Walmart at the top in a seriously impressive range of grocery categories. It also dominated the superstore category across all four U.S. regions.

Here’s where Walmart ranked No. 1:

• Conventional supermarket: South region
• Discount supermarket (tie): West region, tied with Grocery Outlet
• Grocery store for customer service: Overall winner
• Grocery store for low prices/affordability: South and West regions
• Grocery store for store-brand/private-label products: Overall winner
• Supermarket for quick and easy shopping: Overall winner
• Supermarket for sales and promotions: Overall winner
• Superstore/hypermarket: Midwest, Northeast, South and West regions
• Grocery pickup and delivery: Overall winner

Walmart also showed up near the top in plenty of other grocery categories, including No. 2 for conventional supermarkets in the Midwest, Northeast and West, as well as No. 2 for low prices in the Midwest and Northeast. It even tied for No. 2 in natural and organic foods.

Which other grocery stores earned top honors?

Walmart wasn’t the only grocer collecting bragging rights. Here are the other familiar supermarket names that took top honors.

• Aldi: The discount darling secured the second-highest number of wins overall and dominated categories tied to affordability and convenient, smaller-format shopping. Aldi ranked No. 1 for discount supermarket in the Midwest, Northeast and South; No. 1 for low prices/affordability in the Midwest and Northeast; and No. 1 for small-format grocery store across the Midwest, Northeast and South.
• Kroger: Loyalty paid off for Kroger, which earned the No. 1 grocery loyalty program spot and was also named the No. 1 conventional supermarket (non-discount) in the Midwest.
• Whole Foods: For shoppers who prioritize organic and natural foods, Whole Foods came out on top as the No. 1 grocery store for natural/organic foods.
• Trader Joe’s: The fan-favorite grocer, Trader Joe’s proved that good things can come in smaller packages, earning the No. 1 spot for small-format grocery store in the West.
• ShopRite: A Northeast staple, ShopRite ranked No. 1 for conventional supermarket (non-discount) in the Northeast.
• Safeway: Out West, Safeway took the crown as the No. 1 conventional supermarket (non-discount).
• Grocery Outlet: Grocery Outlet tied with Walmart for the No. 1 discount supermarket in the West.

Were there any big surprises here?

Plenty! Walmart delivered the biggest plot twists, knocking some longtime favorites out of the top spots, while discount grocers continued gaining ground. Here are some of the most shocking changes from 2025.

• Walmart won more categories: Walmart jumped from eight wins to twelve. Most surprisingly, it took the No. 1 spot for store-brand/private-label products from H-E-B and the No. 1 spot for customer service from Publix, which has long been known for its standout service.
• Walmart shook up the South: Walmart also overtook Kroger and Publix in conventional supermarkets.
• Aldi strengthened its dominance: It ranked No. 1 for low prices in the Midwest and Northeast and No. 1 for discount and small-format grocery stores in the Midwest, Northeast and South.
• The study got bigger: 35,215 shoppers participated in 2026, up from 29,420 in 2025.

Sources:

What's the Cheapest Grocery Store in the U.S.?

The Real Reason Grocery Stores Play Music

The Truth About Cold Air in Grocery Stores

The post New Report: This Is America’s Most Trusted Grocery Store in 2026 appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Fast forward to today: I’m sitting in an airport writing about books, carrying a heavy print book in my bag, with an e-book and an audiobook ready to go on my devices. What about you? Maybe you devour print novels, catch yourself squinting at e-books in the darkness of night, space out listening to audiobooks somewhere—or end up doing all three, like me. However you like to approach it, I like to think there is a path to books for everyone.

But even the most ardent book lovers know that we have those moments where our book stack is hitting the ceiling while we’re crashing out on the floor. I know that feeling well, and that’s why I’m excited to ask today: Have you ever tried immersive reading? That’s when you read a book while listening to the audiobook at the same time, and it’s a huge trend on Booktok and Bookstagram. If you haven’t yet, it may just be the key you’ve been searching for.

Ahead, I talked with three reading educators and an award-winning audiobook narrator and producer to learn more about immersive reading and all its benefits. I’ve loved immersive reading long before it trended on social media (and I still do), so if you’re ready for a new way to lose yourself in a book, I’ve got you!

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What is immersive reading?

You could say that immersive reading is reading, leveled up. It’s certainly a multimodal experience. Immersive reading occurs when you combine reading a printed book, e-book or digital text with listening to that same text played in tandem. It’s an audio-visual bookish feast. All you have to do is read a passage on the page (or screen) at the same time as you listen to it being read aloud by someone else (recorded or live).

Immersive reading emerged as a trend in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, but variations of it have been around much, much longer. So long, in fact, that my fellow vinyl fans can find books on record from the early 1970s that came with accompanying illustrated storybooks. Just one example: a Flintstones album released by Peter Pan Records, where a recorded storyteller “reads the book to the child word for word, with music and sound effects,” which “creates the desire to read as it entertains the child.”

Is immersive reading a “real” reading experience?

“Of course it is real!” says Tavia Gilbert, an award-winning audiobook narrator and producer who is the CEO of audio consultancy Talkbox Productions. “And it’s not just my opinion,” she says. “There’s a wealth of evidence that reading and listening activate the same processing centers of the brain.” Significant research out there backs this up, with places like the Gaab Lab at Harvard diving deep into the neuroscience behind reading and language.

Erin Bailey, an educator and vice president of Reading Is Fundamental’s Literacy Programs and Research, says it “depends on how you define reading and what your objective is.” Immersive reading can be a “fantastic method” for teaching language fluency, but for phonics it’s better as a supportive tool only. (We’ll get to more benefits ahead.)

But, she adds, “Most people would agree that the end goal of reading is to make meaning with the text, think critically and engage with what you’re reading,” Bailey says. “Certainly, immersive reading accomplishes all these things.”

What are the benefits of immersive reading?

“Whatever connects people with literature and ideas and inspires more attention to them is excellent,” Gilbert says, and I agree. The more people who enjoy books, the better, and if immersive reading is the new pathway to falling in love with books and reading, then it’s already golden.

BookTok and Bookstagram are full of bookish types readily testing the trend and assessing the benefits of immersive reading. Most come as no surprise to me, and all of them made me smile. Here’s how immersive reading can help you, according to social media, the experts and yours truly:

It helps you lock in and focus

We are so used to the short sound bites and quick reels of social media that sitting down with a single analog input, such as a book, can feel excruciating sometimes. That’s one reason I love audiobooks: I can listen while walking, driving, doing chores or even making art. It’s a hands-free activity that brings out my inner multitasking monster.

But with immersive reading, you’ll quickly discover that … there is no multitasking possible. You have to simply be present, in the moment, with the book in your hands, the text in your vision and the sound in your ear. Personally, I find this to be one of the biggest challenges. But I also think it has a great benefit for improving focus. I’m not the only one, either.

“I get distracted so freaking easily,” says Bookstagrammer @klub.kaylah, who has ADHD and says immersive reading helps her concentrate and also retain more of the book. “It just creates such a better overall experience,” she says. “I feel I’m in the movie. I’m in the scene.”

It encourages “unplugged” bedtime rituals

Immersive reading is a wonderful alternative to nighttime doomscrolling. Retired Baltimore public schools librarian Lauren Magnusen says she struggles with sleep issues and reads until “my eyes are so heavy I almost drop the book,” but if you’re not ready to ditch the digital input just yet, that’s OK. Now you can settle into bed, switch on an audiobook and crack open a book or e-reader to enjoy a relaxing, immersive reading experience until you’re ready to slip into dreamland.

Magnusen says the immersive reading trend makes her heart happy because kids are realizing “that doom-scrolling, playing endless games, all of that, does not enrich their lives and that there’s more to life than just that.” Even better to her is the idea that young people are pairing reading with “something that works for them” and adding a new modality for reading. “I think that’s fabulous,” she says.

Now, if you have a hyper imagination and vivid dreams like me, maybe skip the horror in your nighttime immersive reading ritual—but see what works for you! Either way, immersive reading can help you spend an evening mostly unplugged, bluescreen-free and immersed in a story instead of zombie-scrolling. You might still drop a book on your face, but consider it a well-won bruise.

It can actually help you write better

You may worry that immersive reading negatively affects basic writing skills, like spelling. But “the spelling one in particular is a misconception,” Bailey says, especially when it comes to irregularly spelled words. “When you hear the word pronounced and see the spelling at the same time, you are mapping the sound-spelling connection in your brain,” she says. “This is a good thing.”

Magnusen agrees, saying that “when you are reading print, you are absorbing grammatical structures and sentences and things that you don’t get when you’re only listening to an audiobook.” The former teacher and librarian says immersive reading can really help with writing and grammar, two skills that are so necessary to be successful, “and it’s sort of on steroids, because you’re getting that advantage of hearing it and also seeing it.”

It’s a new “exam cram” method

Got an exam coming up? Perhaps the most unexpected benefit of immersive reading is when it’s applied to academic content. I can listen to a research paper on three times the normal speed while following along in the text. Yes, really.

According to Gilbert, who has recorded more than 1,000 audiobooks in addition to producing them, listening to anything over 1.2 or 1.3 times normal speed “really loses the nuance of the performance and becomes just information dissemination,” which can feel stressful instead of enjoyable. But if you’re a student or researcher just trying to get information into your head, listening at very high speed while simultaneously speed-reading the text in front of you can prove quite beneficial.

Speed reading while listening your way through a book can also help you get through a less-interesting chapter or read when your schedule is crazy tight. Use it to hit your reading goals or show up to book club with the chapters already read.

It helps you avoid those embarrassing pronunciation faux pas

I don’t know about you, but I am all too familiar with the painful awkwardness of saying a word aloud that I’d only ever seen written in text (hello, respite) and managing to pronounce it wrong. Magnusen has seen this in action.

In her career, she found that kids sometimes “had no clue” what a word was when they first read it. “But if I said it out loud, they were like, ‘Oh, I know that word, I know what that means.’ So it helps a lot with vocabulary development.” I have to agree, and speaking from personal experience, it’s such a relief to both see a word and hear how it should be pronounced at the same time.

It’s a great way to learn a new language, or level up an existing one

As a Caribbean-born girl on an island that constantly code-switched between four languages, I think immersive reading is one of the best ways to learn a new language or improve your skills in one. It’s certainly helped me over the years.

Sarah Ellis, who teaches English as a foreign language (EFL) in Europe and Asia, says she learned about immersive reading “ages ago” when she was in training at university. It turns out some languages are easier to learn because the pronunciation has a clear pattern, but English? Not so much. “It depends on, for example, which word you want to stress, and that can change the meaning of a sentence: It was him. It was him. That kind of thing,” she says.

That’s where immersive reading really helps, because “when you’re listening and reading books, you can hear emotion,” Ellis says. “So you know if somebody’s angry, happy or sad.” Immersive reading can also help with comprehension and vocabulary, since “you hear it right and remember it, and it sticks in your head a little bit more,” she says.

Bailey, who previously taught English as a second language (ESL), confirmed that immersive reading is an excellent strategy for multilingual or ESL learners. It’s great for learning idioms, and “the fluency and expression of the reader helps support understanding, particularly when meanings are not literal,” Ellis says. “Finally, it’s great for building confidence and enjoyment!”

You get a deeper connection to the book

If you happen to get your hands on an audiobook that the author narrates, there’s an additional benefit: “It creates a deeper sense of connection with the author and, therefore, the text itself,” Bailey says.

I agree. There’s just something about reading along with what the authors themselves created, or hearing a cast member or team and production crew who have worked so hard to break down the language, the context, the feelings and the meaning for you—and are performing with so much heart.

Gilbert fell in love with audiobooks while studying theater, when she realized that “it was a beautiful combination of elements I loved: reading, literature, storytelling, musicality, acting and emotion.” With immersive reading, you might be alone doing your reading, but you are in such beautiful company.

Can immersive reading work for people who are neurodivergent?

Yes. As a member of the “neurospicy” club, I absolutely think that immersive reading can be a wonderful gift, no matter what kind of brain you live your life with.

“Not everyone can see pictures in their head and visualize scenes (something called aphantasia) or hear the voices of characters,” Magnusen says of the diverse body of students she’s taught over 40 years. “That audio part often really helps with that.” She herself doesn’t get strong visuals, “so hearing character voices from an audiobook as I read has made for a richer reading experience, because they feel like more well-rounded characters than I might have imagined in my head.”

Bailey says she first noticed immersive reading becoming more common in children’s literacy and education spaces around 2016, when the school she was teaching at adopted the Learning Ally app, which offers human-narrated audiobooks so students identified with disabilities can access in-class reading materials. This helped them participate in class discussions and comprehension activities.

It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution, of course. My neurodivergent sister found immersive reading frustrating, since she was locked into the narrator’s pace, and hearing someone else read while reading along herself felt too loud, scratchy and painful in her brain. “There’s so much we don’t know about brains, and the older I get, the more I realize how different all our brains are,” Magnusen says. “Reading is so different for different people.”

How do you read immersively?

There’s not really a right or wrong way to read immersively, though you do need to buy or check out a book and also get the audio version in order to try it. It can be as basic as:

1. Play an audiobook
2. Read along with the print version

Here are a few more tips to get set up:

• The easiest option is to use Audible’s new Immersion Reading feature. As long as you already have both an audio and a Kindle version of the book, you can read and listen to them at the same time. (You do need both an Audible and Kindle account.)
• No Audible or Kindle? No problem! Besides buying from a local bookshop, you can also use your library card to check out an audiobook and a text-based version of the same book, in person or through the Libby app. Then you can easily read and play it from your device at the same time, no matter where you are.
• Check out children’s book publishers for immersive reading options. Penguin Random House, for example, has a library of YouTube videos featuring the book being read aloud as the pages are turned on screen.
• Struggling readers of any age can use the Learning Ally reading app. It has more than 80,000 e-books with audio, and setting up an account takes only a few minutes. You can opt to pay for a family membership, apply for a special-needs fee waiver or, if you’re a student, see if Learning Ally is already available through your local school.
• If you are having trouble finding both versions of a book you want to read at the library, you can find free audiobooks at Spotify and other places around the web.

So what was my immersive reading experience like?

In some ways, it feels like immersive reading was literally designed for someone like me, and I’ve been doing a version of it for years—even before it became today’s trend. Here’s what my experiences have looked like.

As a Millennial, the OG books-to-records predate me, but I had books on cassette. In the one-room library on my island homeland, I vividly recall zipper bags on hooks containing picture books with narrating cassette tapes. Even when I was home in bed sick, I remember feeling happy listening to an adaptation of Swiss Family Robinson as I read along in the accompanying book.

Later, while working in New York in the 2010s, I checked out all seven Harry Potter books and audiobooks from my local library, curled up in my cozy little nook on my second-floor enclosed balcony-turned-bedroom strung with multi-colored fairy lights and reread each book while listening to Jim Dale narrate them. I think this may have been my first time doing immersive reading as an adult, and I loved every second of it.

And during my Girlboss era in Washington, DC, recovering from my own ambitions and degree-driven “book burnout,” I set one goal for 2019: read a book per week. (Mission accomplished—and then some!) I achieved my goal with a combination of text-based reading, audio reading and what we now call immersive reading.

Even today, I still enjoy sitting down for an occasional immersive reading experience. Now that I’m learning another language and using an immersive reading approach daily to build a completely different vocabulary and grammatical world, I mostly stick to enjoying lighter audiobooks on their own. But on my next holiday, I’ll probably settle in for a cozy immersive reading experience with a novel or two in hand (and ear) again.

Is immersive reading actually worth it?

There is no question in my mind that immersive reading is worth trying. Whether you love it will depend on the type of reader you are, but for many it may open new avenues to enjoying reading again—especially for anyone facing burnout or dealing with capacity limits. “It is different from independent reading because you are reducing the cognitive load of decoding the words but still have the ability to think critically and comprehend,” Bailey says.

I think that’s really significant. When cracking a book open feels physically exhausting, or the words of the book just won’t register correctly in our mind’s eye, or the language itself seems to make the whole story inaccessible somehow, immersive reading works wonders. It gives me a way to still enjoy the weight of the pages, the feel of the paper and that classic book scent without feeling overwhelmed by having to do all the mental decoding work alone.

Immersive reading is such a unique experience. As long as you read the text yourself while hearing someone read it aloud to you, the story turns multi-sensory and unfolds wherever you are, right in your eye, washing in gentle sound waves around you.

How epic is that? Definitely enough to try at least once.

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At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

Sources:

• Erin Bailey, Ed.D., vice president of literacy programs and research at Reading Is Fundamental; email interview, May 20, 2026
• Lauren Magnusen, retired educator; phone interview, May 20, 2026
• Sarah Ellis, literature and academic English lecturer at CamEd Business School in Cambodia; in-person interview, May 19, 2026
• Tavia Gilbert, founder and CEO of Talkbox Productions; email interview, May 20, 2026
• Audible: “Audible Launches Immersion Reading for Deeper Engagement with Books”
• University of Michigan Dyslexia Help: “Audio Books vs. Reading”
• Medium: “Struggling Readers, Dyslexia and The Power of Immersion Reading Technology”
• Time: “Are Audiobooks As Good For You As Reading? Here’s What Experts Say”
• Harvard Gazette: “Audiobooks don’t really count as reading? Think again.”
• Cleveland Clinic: “Aphantasia”
• @klub.kaylah on Instagram
• When It Was Cool: “Online Entertainment-When It Was Cool: Part 1: Book and Record Sets”

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The post Immersive Reading Is the Genius Hack That Helped Me Connect with Books on a Deeper Level appeared first on Reader's Digest.

For many of us, our jobs and other responsibilities require us to be indoors a lot. And even if you love being out in nature, like I do, the increasing cost of living and demands of our modern lives often force us to prioritize work and obligations over our health and hobbies. I’ve been so chained to my desk lately, I didn’t make it to the ocean for several months—and it’s only two blocks away. All that work indoors, combined with no quality time outside, impacted my health so much that I landed in the hospital. (The consequences are real!)

“I think schools and workplaces don’t appreciate that interacting with nature is important, so they don’t build it into the schedule,” says Marc Berman, the director of the Environmental Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Chicago Neuroscience Institute and author of Nature and the Mind: The Science of How Nature Improves Cognitive, Physical, and Social Well-Being. “It seems like an amenity and not a necessity.”

If we’re not making it a priority, how can we ensure we’re getting outdoors more and reaping the benefits? Most of us don’t have the luxury of not working. The 20-5-3 rule is a great place to start, and summer is the perfect time to try it. Ahead, I’ll break down the 20-5-3 rule and how you can easily implement it in your life, plus share insights from Berman and board-certified physician Suzanne Hackenmiller, MD, about the benefits of spending time outside. Keep reading to find out more.

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What is the 20-5-3 rule, exactly?

The 20-5-3 rule is a term coined by Michael Easter in his 2021 New York Times bestselling book, The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self. The rule provides recommended “dosages” of time outdoors to lower stress and improve your health:

• 20 minutes outdoors, three times per week
• 5 hours in semi-wild environments, once per month
• 3 days off the grid, immersed in nature, once per year

The 20-5-3 rule is essentially a simplified version of the nature pyramid, a tiered blueprint (yes, in a similar style to the food pyramid we learned as kids) developed by researchers at the University of Virginia that suggests quantities, frequencies and locations for outdoor experiences that can help you lead a healthy life.

How do these components change your brain and body?

Each piece of the 20-5-3 rule can positively contribute to your health by reducing stress, boosting your immune system, improving your mood and cognitive function and more.

20 minutes outdoors, 3 times per week

“The benefits of time outside kick in faster than most people expect,” says Dr. Hackenmiller, who is also the chief medical advisor for AllTrails, a popular outdoor navigation app. “Just 20 minutes in a green space measurably improves mood, memory and cognitive function.” Researchers at the University of Utah studied the effects of a 15- to 25-minute walk (with and without phones) and found that the no-phone group performed significantly better on memory tasks following the walk, suggesting that even a short reset can improve cognitive function.

How can this happen so quickly? The natural environment fosters mindfulness in a gentle way rather than demanding something from you. So, for example, instead of your attention being drawn to your to-do list or unread emails, it shifts to the greens of the trees, the sweet smell of a flower or the song of a bird. “Your brain shifts out of the effortful ‘directed attention’ mode it runs on all day and into a gentle, restorative state,” Dr. Hackenmiller explains. “Cortisol drops, blood pressure eases and your nervous system gets a real break.”

And you don’t have to trek deep into a forest for these 20-minute moments. “You can experience these benefits on a neighborhood trail or in a local park,” Dr. Hackenmiller says. In fact, a recent joint study by researchers at Harvard University and Stanford University found that urban green spaces are key to improving mental health and mitigating depression and anxiety.

But do aim for multiple times per week: A study in Finland revealed that a higher frequency of green space visits was linked to a lower frequency of use of asthma, antihypertensive and psychotropic medications.

5 hours in a semi-wild place, once per month

Going further afield to a forest, national park or other natural environment, and staying longer, can increase the positive impact. “Wild spaces offer a deep level of restoration,” Dr. Hackenmiller says. More nature, more benefits—so try to get in at least one five-hour experience per month. (Though five hours is a guideline, even researchers don’t agree on a specific number. It’s just a good place to start, so don’t get hung up on that.)

And if you’re not a hardcore hiker, don’t worry. Sure, movement is healthy, but you can reap natural benefits without moving much at all. In fact, that recent study by Harvard and Stanford revealed that “static activities in nature were more effective than physical activities in reducing negative mental health outcomes, with significant reductions in anxiety, fatigue, confusion and depression.” That’s right, you can hang out among the trees and benefit just by breathing!

“By spending time in wild spaces, you get meaningful exposure to phytoncides—the natural compounds emitted by trees—which research has linked to measurable immune system benefits,” Dr. Hackenmiller says.

No trees to shower you with phytoncides? Wild environments that spark a sense of awe, such as deserts and volcanoes, can be beneficial too. Research shows that experiencing moments of awe decreases stress and increases positive emotions. I can attest to this: I have had numerous calming, healing and uplifting moments spent among Jordan’s ancient rock formations and in the volcanic landscapes of Hawaii and Costa Rica.

3 days immersed in nature, once per year

“Spending multiple days off the grid is one way to fully reset,” Dr. Hackenmiller says. Try to really get away and unplug. Bring your phone for safety purposes, but put it away and allow your mind and body to relax and tune into the natural elements around you.

“Research suggests that multi-day nature immersion can significantly improve creative thinking and problem-solving,” she adds. One study found that a group of hikers who spent four days immersed in nature and disconnected from technology experienced a 50% performance increase on a creativity and problem-solving task.

Again, don’t get stuck on the exact number of days. The bottom line is that research shows that dedicated, extended time immersed in nature, sans devices and daily demands, is good for you.

These numbers seem really manageable—are people really falling short regularly?

Yep. People aren’t getting a regular dose of nature for a number of reasons, including lack of access, work and other obligations, disabilities and modern distractions. “It’s just not easy in modern society,” Berman says.

Some of the obstacles to getting outdoors are self-imposed. Berman says people are addicted to their devices, so much so that they may not make time for anything else. He and Dr. Hackenmiller also point out that some people are missing out because of their own preconceived ideas. “Sometimes people don’t realize how quickly they can experience the benefits of time outside,” Dr. Hackenmiller says. They assume they’ll need a huge chunk of time they don’t have, so they just write it off completely rather than at least getting in those 20-minute moments.

Others might not consider themselves outdoorsy, so it’s not even on their radar. Berman points to a 2011 study in Psychological Science that “suggests that people underestimate how much they will like a walk in nature.”

Unfortunately, even those who are willing to put down their phone, move past their preconceived ideas and get outside might not be able to for multiple days. Many of us live in cities (some with limited green space) and may not have transportation, time or money to travel to a forest or national park. “It might be hard for people to access nature easily, especially for people who have jobs where there is not a lot of flexibility,” Berman says.

What are some easy ways to achieve these numbers?

Fitting something else into your schedule or starting a new habit might sound challenging, but the rewards of getting outdoors are worth the effort. And this doesn’t require much; remember, you can benefit from just sitting quietly in nature for a few minutes! Here are some expert tips to get you started.

• Put down your phone. “Try to monitor your screen time,” Berman suggests. “See if you can replace some of that screen time with nature time.” If you’re feeling irritable or having trouble focusing, resist the urge to scroll. “Try to interact with nature in some way, and don’t reach for your phone,” he adds. “Maybe it’s looking at a window to nature, or looking at pictures of nature or listening to nature sounds.” Heading outdoors? Leave your phone behind (or at least silence it and tuck it away) and don’t wear earbuds, he says. “Just let your attention be captured by nature.”
• Look locally. Find out what green spaces are nearby. “You might be surprised what’s minutes from your door,” Dr. Hackenmiller says. You can ask in local neighborhood groups or use outdoor platforms like AllTrails, which provides maps, user reviews and photos for more than 500,000 trails, including walks in almost every major city.
• Use tech for good. Our devices can be both harmful and helpful. Use them mindfully and to your advantage. “Add reminders to your calendar,” Dr. Hackenmiller says. I also use the AnyList app to put “sunset walk” on my to-do list during the week. On a hectic day, I sometimes set an alarm. It might seem silly, but the day can get away from you. Setting reminders can keep you on track.
• Start small, but just start. We often get overwhelmed when trying to create new habits, and then give up. Make it achievable by making it “tiny,” as BJ Fogg, a behavior scientist and the author of Tiny Habits told me when I spoke with him for a previous story. “I often encourage my patients to find a routine that works for them, even if it’s a short walk in the neighborhood park, because that’s how time outside becomes a sustainable habit,” Dr. Hackenmiller says. “Use your lunch break—even 20 minutes outside at midday improves afternoon focus.”
• Bring nature in. Can’t get outdoors as often as you’d like? “You can also try to bring more nature indoors with plants,” Berman says. Of course, the impact is not as powerful as being immersed in natural greenery, but Berman and other researchers found that you can get some benefits. “Even fake plants can have some positive impacts. Gardening also has benefits,” he says. “Any amount can help, but more is probably better.”

How can you ensure that you stick with this outdoor plan?

Deciding to create your new nature habit is the first step. Now, how do you stick to it? Don’t worry, the experts have advice for that too.

• Make it an add-on. “The behaviors most likely to stick are the ones that are easy, rewarding and attached to something already in your routine,” Dr. Hackenmiller says. “For the 20-minute component, remove friction by attaching it to a task you already do regularly, like picking up groceries or stepping out for lunch. The brain loves a pattern, and so does a habit.” This is one of the ways I get outside: I run my errands by combining a trip to the store with a walk in the park or a sunset jog by the beach.
• Reframe it. Do the five-hour and three-day components seem a bit much? They don’t have to be. “For the five-hour component, think of it as one or two half-day outings per month, not a major expedition,” Dr. Hackenmiller says. “For the three days, there’s no one way to do it—camping, a cabin rental or a long weekend at a national park all count.”
• Schedule it. Commit to your three-day getaway. “Put a date on the calendar now, even before the details are figured out,” Dr. Hackenmiller suggests. “Dates make it real.” So do reservations and deposits. Planning in advance gives you time to research specific trails or outdoor adventures you want to pursue, things to pack and any gear you might need.
• Team up. You don’t have to go it alone. (Unless, of course, you prefer solo travel.) “Make it social,” Dr. Hackenmiller says. “You’re far more likely to follow through if someone else is coming with you.”
• Don’t overthink it. The 20-5-3 rule is meant to relieve stress, not cause it! Look at it as a framework to get you started. The most important thing is to incorporate more nature into your life ASAP, even if that’s putting some plants in your home and going on one walk per week. “Even when you can’t commit to a multi-day trip off-grid, there are many ways to immerse yourself in nature,” Dr. Hackenmiller says. “Whether it’s forest bathing, gardening or a trail run, try finding a quiet place outside and fully being present to the environment around you.”

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Sources:

• Marc G. Berman, director of the Environmental Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Chicago Neuroscience Institute and author of Nature and the Mind: The Science of How Nature Improves Cognitive, Physical, and Social Well-Being; interviewed, June 2026
• Suzanne Hackenmiller, MD, chief medical advisor for AllTrails and author of The Outdoor Adventurer’s Guide to Forest Bathing; interviewed, June 2026
• United States Environmental Protection Agency: “What are the trends in indoor air quality and their effects on human health?”
• Psychological Science: “The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting with Nature”
• Men’s Health: “The ’20-5-3′ Rule Prescribes How Much Time to Spend Outside”
• Psychology Today: “The ‘Nature Pyramid’: A Blueprint for Health and Well-Being”
• Nature Cities: “Acute mental health benefits of urban nature”
• Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health: “For city dwellers, even 15 minutes in nature can improve mental health”
• Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine: “Effects of Forest Bathing on Cardiovascular and Metabolic Parameters in Middle-Aged Males”
• Pharmacological Research—Natural Products: “Phytoncides and immunity from forest to facility: A systematic review and meta-analysis”
• Psychological Science: “The cognitive benefits of interacting with nature”

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Dr. Fauci, who was called before the committee to talk about the alleged origins of the novel coronavirus that caused millions of deaths around the world starting in 2020, finished the day without answering any questions and has since been cited for contempt of Congress. Yes, really.

How did we get here? And what happens next? I follow politics like a religion, watch legal dramas like they’re going out of style and have one (admittedly rather inauspicious) year of law school under my belt, and even I am scratching my head at this confounding turn of events. What is contempt of Congress? Could Dr. Fauci go to jail?

Ahead, I dig into the latest news and historical precedents behind this very busy week on Capitol Hill. Read on to learn exactly what’s going on with Dr. Fauci and what might be coming next.

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Why was Dr. Fauci charged with contempt of Congress after his testimony?

He refused to answer questions posed to him by the committee. Instead, Dr. Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination. You may have heard this expressed as “taking the Fifth” or “pleading the Fifth,” and the action is a protected right under the U.S. Constitution.

But even though the right is protected, and many people have invoked this right over the years, Dr. Fauci’s situation is a little unique. On Jan. 19, 2025, he was given a full and unconditional pardon by President Biden for actions taken in multiple advisory roles between Jan. 1, 2014, and the date of the pardon.

Republicans on the committee, including chairman Sen. Rand Paul, argue that because Dr. Fauci is already immune from prosecution, he should be required to answer the committee’s questions. Legal experts point out that the pardon would not cover anything after January 2025, including statements made to the committee, and it would not extend to any state charges (several states have already issued subpoenas to Dr. Fauci).

“Fauci is under no obligation to answer questions even though he has a pardon,” Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor, told AP News. Sen. Paul has said publicly that he wants to see Dr. Fauci “behind bars,” so it appears that the doctor’s lawyers advised him to err on the side of caution.

What does being in contempt of Congress mean, exactly?

Contempt of Congress is a broad term for disobeying or disrespecting the legal authority of the U.S. legislative branch. People can be held in contempt for a number of things, from bribing committee members to disrupting the proceedings of Congress. But most of the time, people are held in contempt for refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas.

Contempt of Congress is similar to contempt of court, a threat you’ve no doubt heard judges wield on countless episodes of Law and Order. The difference comes down to who enforces the contempt citation. In a regular court proceeding, the judge can mete out swift justice by issuing a fine or even holding someone in jail until they comply.

For congressional contempt, the process is a little different, which we’ll explore next.

After being charged with this, what happens?

Because the legislative branch does not have law enforcement powers under our Constitution, once someone is held in contempt of Congress, it’s up to the Department of Justice (DOJ) to take the case to a grand jury and eventually a trial for adjudication. But a few things have to happen first.

Usually, after a committee recommends a contempt citation, it goes to the full chamber for a vote. In the Senate, the resolution must get 60 votes to pass—a threshold that will not be met under the current makeup of the Senate. So Sen. Paul is bypassing the full vote and sending it directly to the DOJ, a move that legal experts say might complicate getting a conviction at trial.

Stanley Brand, a lawyer who represented Peter Navarro, a former Trump administration official who was jailed for contempt of Congress in 2024, told the Washington Post that skipping the full Senate will be “fatal” to the case. Amanda Vaughn, who prosecuted Navarro, was more equivocal: “But there’s not a lot of case law on it, as to whether bypassing the full Senate would be okay.”

What can happen to you if you’re found in contempt of Congress?

Penalties for criminal contempt of Congress include a fine of up to $100,000 and between one and 12 months in jail. But it’s unlikely that Dr. Fauci will face these penalties, not in small part because of the politically charged nature of such a move.

Barbara McQuade was a U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan from 2010 to 2017. When asked by Wired whether it’s likely that Dr. Fauci will go to jail, she said: “The answer is no.”

Has anyone ever been found in contempt of Congress?

Yes, many times. Here are the highlights from history and more recent proceedings.

• Robert Randal: In 1796, Randal was held in contempt of Congress and subsequently jailed for attempting to bribe members over a land deal.
• William Duane: A newspaper editor, Duane was charged with publishing libelous material in 1800, but he was held in contempt over his failure to appear before the Senate, not for the material itself.
• John Anderson: This case, in 1821, upheld Congress’s implied powers to hold people in contempt but limited its ability to punish them.
• Dalton Trumbo: In 1947, Trumbo, the celebrated screenwriter of Roman Holiday and Spartacus, refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and was convicted, jailed and blacklisted.
• Ring Lardner Jr.: Another victim of the HUAC era, Lardner, who won an Oscar for his 1970 screenplay for M*A*S*H*, was jailed for a year and had to write under a pseudonym for a time.
• Eric Holder: The former Obama attorney general refused to give Congress documents about the so-called Fast and Furious scandal in 2012. He was held in contempt, but the DOJ did not prosecute.
• Steve Bannon: The former adviser to President Trump was held in contempt and jailed for four months in 2024 following his refusal to testify and turn over documents related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In 1974, Congress was poised to hold President Richard Nixon in contempt for refusing to testify over the Watergate scandal, but he resigned instead.

When will things start rolling with Fauci’s case?

For now, we wait and see. Sen. Paul has sent the criminal contempt referral directly to the DOJ, which will decide whether to prosecute. Todd Blanche was just confirmed as Attorney General on Aug. 6, 2026, and we do not yet know what he will do.

If the DOJ decides Dr. Fauci improperly invoked his Fifth Amendment right, the case will likely proceed to a grand jury and then on to a trial. Whether a jury will convict is another matter altogether.

Sources:

• PBS News: “Why was Fauci held in contempt for pleading the 5th, and what happens next?”
• AP News: “Senate committee votes to hold Fauci in contempt for refusing to answer COVID questions”
• Justice.gov: “Executive Grant of Clemency”
• Cornell Law: “Taking the Fifth”
• Find Law: “Contempt of Congress: Process and Penalties”
• CBS News: “Senate committee votes to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress, seeking to bypass floor vote with DOJ referral”
• Congress.gov: “Criminal Contempt of Congress: Frequently Asked Questions”
• Washington Post: “Why a prosecution of Anthony Fauci could face challenges in court”
• Wired: “Can Republicans Actually Send Anthony Fauci to Jail?”
• Congress.gov: “Congress’s Contempt Power and the Enforcement of Congressional Subpoenas: Law, History, Practice, and Procedure”
• Levin Center: “Bannon Contempt of Congress Conviction”
• Politico: “Holder held in contempt”

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Many of our favorite merchants, including Anthropologie, Pottery Barn and IKEA, have already debuted their spooky season lineups for 2026—and now beloved plush brand Jellycat is getting in on the fun, too. Here’s everything you need to know about the Halloween Jellycat collection, including when it drops.

Halloween Jellycats 2026

From a life-size garlic bulb to the sweetest wizard puppy, check out some of the top Halloween toys of 2026.

Shop on Jellycat

What is the 2026 Halloween Jellycat collection?

Like many seasonal Jellycat releases, the Halloween drop includes both new and returning favorites. You’ll find a mix of friends that are seriously sweet and a little bit spooky. Plus, each plush is made of high-quality fabrics under ethical working conditions.

The new friends for 2026 include:

• Amuseables Garlic
• Amuseables Vampop Drink
• Amuseables Glazespun Doughnut
• Amuseables Flickerty Candle
• Rufferty Puppy ‘Wizard’
• Growlston Gargoyle
• Ghost Bob

And, if you missed out during the 2025 Jellycat Halloween drop, the following cuties are making a reappearance:

• Ooky Jack O Lantern
• Broox Bat
• Amuseables Peanut ‘Cat’

My top picks

As an avid Jellycat collector who’s been covering the brand for over a year, my biggest piece of advice is to shop early. Especially if there’s a new pal you (or your kiddo) have to have. These plush toys almost never go on sale, but the sell-out risk is high. Here’s what I’m hoping to snag from the Halloween collection.

Amuseables Garlic

Shop on Jellycat

At the top of my list is this hilariously adorable garlic plush. As a garlic girl who measures cloves with her heart, this life-size bulb will be a fun addition to my veggie Jellycat collection. Plus, his knit exterior and corduroy legs bring all the fall vibes.

Rufferty Puppy 'Wizard'

Shop on Jellycat

I’m excited to see a classic Jellycat, Rufferty Puppy, get a Halloween makeover. This enchanting wizard dog plush is something my 9-year-old (and Harry Potter-obsessed self) would have adored. His eye-catching velvet and star-dusted cloak, with a matching wizard hat, is the perfect nod to spooky season without being scary.

Amuseables Vampop Drink

Shop on Jellycat

There’s no denying that Jellycat brings to life some of the most creative stuffed animal designs—and this Amuseables Vampop Drink is a great example. Part blood orange soda, part vampire, this plush cutie is the definition of Halloween whimsy.

Amuseables Peanut ‘Cat’

Shop on Jellycat

Jellycat’s most mischievous icon shows off his Halloween spirit in the form of a cat costume. I missed out on the Amuseables Peanut ‘Cat’ last year, so I’m glad to see him return. Priced at $28, he’s also one of the most affordable options.

Where to buy

New and returning Halloween Jellycats debut on the brand’s official website on August 11. You can also shop at other official retailers that stock Jellycats, such as Nordstrom and The Paper Store, but selection may vary.

The post Halloween Jellycats Are Here: And Yes, I’m Spending $30 on a Stuffed Garlic Plush appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Well, every tradition has an origin story, and the history of s’mores is one of the most interesting and fun ones! How did graham crackers, chocolate and toasted marshmallows become the ultimate campfire combo? And after more than 100 years of gooey goodness, is the humble s’more finally getting a modern makeover? With International S’mores Day landing on Aug. 10, there’s no better excuse to find out and celebrate America’s favorite campfire dessert.

Read on for the sweet, sticky story behind the dessert that’s been bringing people together for generations.

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When were s’mores invented?

If you’ve ever balanced a marshmallow over a campfire while praying it doesn’t burst into flames, you have the Girl Scouts to thank. (Well, mostly.)

The earliest known published recipe for s’mores appeared in 1927 in Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts, a handbook created to help troop leaders organize camping trips and outdoor activities. According to the guide, the recipe was called “Some More,” a fitting name considering no one stops at just one. The handbook credited Loretta Scott Crew, who made them for Girl Scouts by the campfire, with the recipe’s creation.

And the recipe was (and still is) wonderfully simple. On page 71, the original instructions read: “Toast two marshmallows over the coals to a crisp gooey state and then put them inside a graham cracker and chocolate bar sandwich. The heat of the marshmallow between the halves of the chocolate bar will melt the chocolate a bit. Though it tastes like ‘some more,’ one is really enough.”

Nearly 100 years later, not much has changed, although spoiler alert: The last part didn’t exactly age well.

When did this concept really take off?

Like the best trends, s’mores didn’t explode overnight—they slowly caught fire. (Pun fully intended.) The 1927 Girl Scout handbook introduced the recipe to campers across the country, but it was the post–World War II camping boom that transformed s’mores from a niche campfire snack into a national obsession. As families embraced road trips, national parks, summer camps and backyard cookouts throughout the 1940s and 1950s, millions of Americans were suddenly spending evenings around campfires with all the right ingredients nearby.

The rise of packaged graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate bars also made the dessert incredibly easy to recreate. Companies like Hershey’s and Kraft promoted these ingredients as camping staples, while summer camps helped create generations of lifelong s’mores fans. By the late 20th century, s’mores had become less of a recipe and more of an American tradition.

Fast-forward to today, and more than 2.5 million Americans enjoy s’mores each year, according to the latest Hershey’s S’mores Heated Debate Report. What began as a simple campfire treat has become a full-blown flavor phenomenon, inspiring everything from cereal and Pop-Tarts to cookies, ice cream, coffee creamers and even s’mores chocolate mousse.

Was there anything similar to s’mores before this?

As iconic as s’mores are, the idea of pairing marshmallows with chocolate wasn’t entirely new. One of the closest predecessors arrived in 1913, when Nabisco introduced Mallomars. These chocolate-coated cookies combined a graham cracker–style cookie base with fluffy marshmallow, creating a very familiar flavor combination. The biggest difference? No campfire required.

There were also chocolate-covered marshmallow candies and homemade marshmallow desserts floating around in the early 1900s. Graham crackers had already been popular for decades, and chocolate was becoming increasingly affordable and accessible. The Girl Scouts simply combined three beloved ingredients into one brilliantly simple dessert.

Why are s’mores a uniquely American treat?

S’mores may be one of the most American desserts ever created—not just because they were invented here, but because they’re practically a culinary melting pot. Here’s a historical rundown.

Graham crackers

Believe it or not, graham crackers weren’t created with dessert in mind. They were invented in the 1830s by American Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham, who believed a simple diet centered around whole grains would encourage healthier—and more virtuous—living. Sweet treats definitely weren’t the goal.

Ironically, the mildly sweet cracker he inspired became the foundation for one of America’s most indulgent desserts. Sorry, Reverend Graham. We don’t think this is what you had in mind.

Marshmallows

Marshmallows have one of the oldest origin stories of any s’mores ingredient. More than 2,000 years ago, ancient Egyptians mixed sap from the marshmallow plant with honey to create a chewy confection that was typically reserved for royalty and religious ceremonies. The plant was also prized for its medicinal properties and used to soothe sore throats and other ailments.

The pillowy marshmallows we roast today didn’t appear until French confectioners reinvented the candy in the 1800s, replacing the labor-intensive plant sap with whipped sugar mixtures and naming it pâte de guimauve. Thankfully for campers everywhere, they also became much easier, and cheaper, to make.

Chocolate

Chocolate’s journey started thousands of years ago with the Maya and Aztec peoples, who revered cacao and drank it as a rich, often bitter beverage long before it became dessert.

The game-changing moment came in 1875, when Swiss chocolatier Daniel Peter figured out how to blend milk with chocolate, creating the first successful milk chocolate bar. After partnering with Henri Nestlé, milk chocolate quickly exploded in popularity, inspiring companies like Cadbury and Hershey to create their own versions. By the early 1900s, affordable milk chocolate bars had become an everyday treat in American households—and eventually the perfect partner for a toasted marshmallow.

Put those three stories together, throw in America’s love affair with the great outdoors and you get something that’s far more than just dessert.

Are s’mores changing anytime soon?

Classic s’mores aren’t going anywhere. There’s something about the original trio of graham cracker, chocolate and toasted marshmallow that’s hard to improve upon.

That said, we certainly aren’t afraid to experiment! Peanut butter cups regularly replace plain chocolate bars, gourmet marshmallows come in flavors from salted caramel to espresso, and people swap graham crackers for cookies, waffles or even doughnuts. Personally, I’ve swapped milk chocolate with cookies and cream, white chocolate, and Tony’s Chocolonely’s dark milk chocolate pretzel toffee. (Give it a try and let me know what you think!)

Still, after nearly a century, the original recipe remains the gold standard. Some traditions are worth keeping exactly as they are. After all, if it isn’t broken, or deliciously gooey, why fix it?

Sources:

• Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts
• The National Confectioners Association: “Marshmallows”
• The Hershey Company: “Hershey’s and Patrick Renna Spark Nationwide Debate Over How to Make the Perfect S’more”
• Time: “A Brief History of the S’more, America’s Favorite Campfire Snack”

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Well, there’s another thing that’s probably not on your mind but absolutely should be. The “right” bathing-suit color should go beyond faves and flattering choices. In fact, choosing wisely can increase your safety in the water, something that’s doubly true if you have children, while choosing poorly can do the opposite.

How, exactly? And is this more of a factor in pools, lakes or the vast ocean with its rip currents and (gulp!) sharks? To find out, we examined the latest data and talked to Tom Griffiths, a decades-long aquatic safety expert and consultant, and Lisa Zarda, executive director of the U.S. Swim School Association (USSSA). You’ll definitely want to read this before you head back into the water.

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What is the main danger when it comes to water activities?

Drowning. It’s the No. 1 cause of death for children ages 1 to 4, according to the CDC, and it remains a leading cause of death for children as they age into adulthood. Zarda notes that 40% of drownings among children 5 to 14 occur in natural water (versus all sources, which includes swimming pools, hot tubs and bathtubs). And, of course, drowning is not limited to children. The CDC also reports that there are more than 4,500 unintentional fatal adult drownings each year in the U.S., plus an additional 8,000 nonfatal incidents that bring people to the emergency room.

Proper swim safety mostly entails taking swimming lessons, wearing a Coast Guard–approved life vest when appropriate, staying within lifeguard zones, swimming in groups and paying attention to important signs. The experts I spoke with emphasize those protocols most of all. But beyond that, the color of your swimsuit can make a difference. This is more than just an interesting fact: This simple choice can increase your visibility in the water, which can make a critical difference when you’re in trouble and time is of the essence. And while an increase in visibility shouldn’t be confused with a decrease in drowning, it can be a powerful tool in managing potential risks by using all of the options at your disposal.

What are the most dangerous bathing suit colors?

Light colors, like greens, blues and white, as well as “water” colors, like darker blues and blacks. That’s because these colors either reflect the surrounding colors or have low surface visibility and don’t create enough of a contrast with water. In other words, they blend into water environments more than others, which can decrease their visibility—and, as a result, yours.

In 2019, water-safety consulting company Alive Solutions produced an often-cited report suggesting these palettes are the most difficult to discern from your surroundings, regardless of the underlying pool, lake, ocean or river color, and regardless of whether they’re on the surface of the water or beneath it. That means a lifeguard, family member or bystander may not notice anything is amiss until it’s too late.

What are the safest bathing suit colors?

To increase your visibility in the water, go bright! Neon colors, especially orange and yellow, can be the easiest to spot in different aquatic settings. And increasing visibility can “make a difference [when] seconds count,” according to Zarda.

In Alive Solutions’ report, the group looked at three different conditions: light-bottomed swimming pools, dark-bottomed swimming pools and open water. It concluded that neon oranges and yellows were the most visible colors in all the different settings.

However, add in some rough water or ripples and almost any color can become very difficult to see under the surface of the water. Alive Solutions looked at both the surface visibility of the different colors and the visibility at 18 inches below the water. Even in calm water, it’s extremely difficult to see colors at the 18-inch depth, says Griffiths, who compares wavelets in water to an “obscuring bathroom glass door or an obscuring bathroom window.” The same is true of a white-bottomed pool, he adds, noting it’s very difficult to see bright colors under the water when there is any turbulence. So, again, this shouldn’t be your only line of defense when it comes to drowning—for you or your kids.

Still, says Zarda, “it is a good idea to wear a bright neon colored swimsuit. It can be easier to see kids underwater if they are wearing bright neon colors that don’t blend in with the pool bottom or light colors that could get lost in water reflections.”

And don’t forget a life jacket for kids. Griffiths remains firm on that point. “We absolutely urge the use of Coast Guard–approved life jackets,” he says. “Life jackets don’t fail, but parents and lifeguards fail because they see what they want to see, they see what they expect to see, and we don’t get any practice at detecting drowning victims.”

Hold on—isn’t “yum-yum yellow” really attractive to sharks?

Let’s do some myth-busting! Although there’s a widely held belief that bright colors attract sharks because of their high visibility in the ocean to human eyes, wearing a yellow suit does not actually increase your risk of a shark attack.

According to the BBC, the idea that “yum-yum yellow” is a shark favorite probably got its start sometime in World War II, when the U.S. Navy dealt with its fair share of shark attacks. These men came to believe that the oranges and yellows associated with life preservers increased their comrades’ chances of being targeted by sharks. This anecdotal evidence led to some pretty deep scientific inquiry into the makeup of sharks’ eyes over the next few decades, and the truth is that there isn’t really a “yum-yum yellow” phenomenon. Instead, it’s more likely that the yellow worn by some of the men created more visual contrast for sharks. And contrast, it turns out, is the critical factor to avoid when it comes to these toothy sea dwellers.

And yes, that means there are certain kinds of suits you should avoid for ocean swimming. They just might not all be yellow.

What is the most dangerous bathing suit color when it comes to shark bites?

To decrease attention from sharks, skip the high-contrast, highly patterned suits. Stripes may be cute, but avoid patterns that alternate light and dark striping. The same goes for the sweet white patterns—like gingham—on darker backgrounds. Cool for the pool, but maybe a little too attractive to a shark.

The thing is, many species of sharks are colorblind. But being colorblind doesn’t mean they can’t see color contrast. In fact, they can be extremely good at that! Beyond choosing a low-contrast suit, experts also recommend leaving your jewelry and watches on the sand. In the ocean, these shiny objects can reflect light the same way fish scales do, creating more of a danger when it comes to sharks.

We should also note that your risk of being attacked by a shark is extremely low. Still, this is another piece of information that can make it just a little safer to go back in the water.

Sources:

• Tom Griffiths, PhD, water-safety consultant for the Aquatic Safety Research Group and professor emeritus; phone interview, July 14, 2026
• Lisa Zarda, executive director of the United States Swim School Association; email interview, July 15, 2026
• Lehigh Valley Health Network: “Shopping for Children’s Swimsuits? Keep Color in Mind”
• BBC: “‘Yum-yum yellow’: Could your swimwear attract sharks?”
• Alive Solutions: “All Things Aquatic + Water Safety”
• Florida Museum: “Yearly Worldwide Shark Attack Summary”
• Florida Museum: “Advice to Swimmers”
• Florida Museum: “Color of Apparel”

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The post This Is the Most Dangerous Bathing Suit Color to Wear While Swimming—And It’s Probably Not the One You’re Thinking appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Odysseus, the Greek king played by Matt Damon, who is trying to make it home to his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and their son, encounters many strange creatures on his decades-long journey. However, the Cyclops stands out for his size and the frightening scene in which the soldiers slip out of the cave camouflaged as a herd of sheep as the monster sleeps.

But how was the creature created? That’s an interesting story all by itself.

A puppet and a real actor brought the Cyclops to life

According to NBC News, Nolan used a 60-foot puppet to create the Cyclops, whose formal name is Polyphemus in Greek mythology. Actor Bill Irwin, who previously played the robot in Nolan’s Interstellar, brought the Cyclops to life. The filmmakers created the fiction that the Cyclops was interacting with soldiers by also filming footage of Irwin at Nestor’s Cave, a limestone cavern with ties to ancient mythology in Messenia, Greece.

Nolan avoided using CGI or a green screen. Instead, he used animatronics, puppetry and computer graphics. He wanted the monster to have complexity and seem realistic, so it was also important to him to have a real actor play the character.

Nolan revealed that creating the Cyclops was one of the toughest things he’s done as a director.

Nolan says he didn’t want the monster to be a cartoon

Nolan didn’t want the Cyclops to seem like a cartoon.

“Everything about the Cyclops sequence is aimed at trying to imagine: What would this be like in real life?” Nolan told Empire. “Not approaching it from a storybook or cartoony point of view, but really trying to be in there with Odysseus and his men. It’s a horrifying situation.”

Damon revealed in the interview with Empire that shooting the scene was difficult because thousands of bees hovered at the cave door. The filmmakers used 40 real sheep to film the scene, and Nolan explained that it felt more realistic to film the scene in a real cave.

Nolan told podcaster Jake Stakes that he was trying to give people a “reason to believe” the character was real. He said going to real places was key to making Cyclops come to life.

“We used every trick in the book,” Nolan said.

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Sources:

• NBC News: “How They Made the Cyclops in The Odyssey”
• Huffington Post UK: “Christopher Nolan Opens Up About ‘Terrifying’ Task Of Creating The Odyssey’s Cyclops”
• Empire: “The Odyssey Cyclops Scene Used 60-Foot ‘Contraption’ On Set: ‘What Would This Be Like In Real Life?’”
• @jakestakes on Instagram

The post You Won’t Believe How They Made the Cyclops in <i>The Odyssey</i> (Hint: It Involved a 60-Foot Puppet) appeared first on Reader's Digest.

It sounds ridiculous, and it is a bit uncommon, but speed limits expressed in decimals definitely do exist. To explain what’s going on, Reader’s Digest reached out to Michael Knodler, PhD, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the director of the UMass Transportation Center. Read on to find out the purpose behind these unusual speed limits and whether they might soon appear on a road near you.

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How long have we had speed limits?

Speed restrictions date all the way back to the days of non-motorized transportation, though they were a little more loosely defined. As far back as 1652, officials in what was then known as New Amsterdam—now New York City—declared that no wagons, carts or sleighs “shall be run, rode or driven at a gallop,” according to History.com.

With the arrival and proliferation of the automobile in America in the late 19th century, formal speed limits soon followed. Connecticut is widely credited as the first state to enact an official automobile speed limit in May 1901, setting a maximum speed of 12 mph in cities and 15 mph on country roads. The most important provision? Drivers had to slow down or even stop when encountering horse-drawn vehicles so that they wouldn’t startle the horses.

Automobiles continued to improve and become faster as time wore on, but there were no official national speed limits in the United States until much later. In January 1974, President Richard Nixon, responding to the oil crisis and skyrocketing fuel costs, signed legislation that established 55 mph as the maximum speed allowed nationwide. That federal limit stood until 1995, when authority for setting speed limits was returned to states and local jurisdictions.

Today, speed limits vary from place to place. The Federal Highway Administration notes that some common limits include 25 mph in residential or school districts, 55 mph on rural highways and 65 to 70 mph on rural interstate highways. The highest posted speed limit in the country is 85 mph, found on a stretch of Texas State Highway 130.

Why do some speed limit signs have decimal points?

There are two main reasons jurisdictions or property owners might post odd speed limits like this, according to Knodler.

• It stands out. “Seeing a nonstandard limit captures your attention, given its uniqueness,” he says.
• It seems important. He also says adding a decimal place “implies a level of specificity that might make it appear really accurate or important.”

The idea gained attention when drivers in Appleton, Wisconsin, were recently greeted with a 17.3 mph speed limit at the Outagamie Country Recycling and Solid Waste Facility. According to a Facebook post introducing the new speed limit and sign to the public, safety was the No. 1 reason for the new eye-catching speed limit.

How effective has this been at lowering the number of accidents?

The effectiveness of these types of speed limits remains a bit of a question mark, according to Knodler.

Most research on unique speed limits hasn’t focused on those with decimal points, in part because they are not technically supposed to be used on public roads. “The evidence to date would be mostly anecdotal, but it would be easy enough to study if there was interest,” he says.

One thing that is clear, however: Any measure that encourages drivers to pay closer attention behind the wheel can be a positive step in the direction of creating safer roads.

Where are you likely to find these quirky signs?

Official statements about decimal speed limits are scarce, but signs with unusual speed limits are often found in semi-private residential developments, private properties and other areas where property owners may install their own traffic signs, even if they don’t necessarily comply with roadway standards.

“It’s really a bit of a gray area,” Knodler says, explaining that the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices is the federal standard and requires speed limits posted on roads that “are inviting of the public”—including some seemingly private areas such as condominium complexes—need to meet certain requirements. They must be based upon an engineering study, be in increments of 5 mph and be displayed on a white regulatory sign with black letters.

So why do these signs continue to appear in places when they don’t meet those requirements? “There are plenty of examples of noncompliant traffic control devices everywhere,” Knodler says. “I joke that I give my students an assignment every year to go out and find a noncompliant TCD, and it is the easiest assignment because they all get 100%.”

Are we going to see more of them across the country?

For now, these signs remain a curiosity more than anything. Official traffic signs are strictly regulated, and the likelihood of widespread adoption is slim. Still, says Knodler, “they are fun, and, as mentioned, attention grabbing.”

Sources:

• Michael Knodler, PhD, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, director of the UMass Transportation Center and director of New England University Transportation Center; email interview, July 2026
• History.com: “Connecticut Enacts First Speed-Limit Law”
• Federal Highway Administration: “Speed Limit Basics”
• Independent: “Decimal Point Added to Speed Limit Sign to Stop Drivers from Going into ‘Autopilot’”
• Facebook: “Outagamie County Recycling and Solid Waste New Speed Limit”

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The post No, You’re Not Hallucinating—There’s a Decimal Point on That Speed Limit Sign. Here’s Why appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Well, a man in Texas named Jake Perry appears to have discovered the secret to cat longevity. He came up with a special diet for his cats, along with some other quirky tricks we’ll get to in a minute, and two of them lived to be more than 30 years old. Most domestic cats only live to about 13 to 17 years of age, although some can live past 20 with good nutrition.

But over 30? It’s almost unheard of. And incredibly, not just one but two of Perry’s cats landed in the Guinness World Records.

The oldest cat in the world was named Creme Puff

The cat currently holding the Guinness age record was named Creme Puff. She was a mixed tabby born on Aug. 3, 1967, and she lived until Aug. 6, 2005, which made Creme Puff 38 years and three days old when she died.

There is some dispute over this title, as there was a Welsh cat named Lucky who supposedly lived to age 39. However, that cat’s age lacks documentation, so Guinness honors Creme Puff. Perry, a plumber, owned Creme Puff as well as the previous record holder, a cat named Granpa Rexs Allen, who lived to be 34.

Why did Perry’s cats live so long?

Looking for the secret to cat longevity, Atlas Obscura went to Perry’s home back in 2015 to find out why his cats enjoyed such long lives. Then 85, he attributed it to three main things:

• Diet: Perry fed his cats dry cat food, which he supplemented with eggs, turkey bacon and broccoli. He also, controversially, fed them small amounts of red wine and coffee with cream. He believed the wine would “circulate the arteries,” but the American College of Veterinary Pharmacists says caffeine can be toxic to cats and should be avoided. (Dairy products are also not recommended.)
• Habitat: Perry kept his cats in a garage where he constantly played nature documentaries for them. He even built them their own home theater with real seats!
• Love: Perry believed that his cats lived so long because he showered them with loving affection, remembering every single one of their birthdays.

We’re not saying that your cats will live as long as Creme Puff and Granpa (and we’re not endorsing their diets!), but we can definitely get behind showering your feline companions with love.

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Sources:

• Guinness World Records: “Oldest Cat Ever”
• Pet MD: “How Long Do Cats Live? Here’s What to Expect”
• Atlas Obscura: “How to Raise a 165-Year-Old Cat”
• American College of Veterinary Pharmacists: “Caffeine”
• Discover Magazine: “Faithful Companions: Meet the World’s Oldest Cats and Dogs Still Alive Today”

The post You Won’t Believe How Long the Oldest Cat in History Lived—And the Longevity Tricks His Owner Swore By appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Well, the countdown is officially on. Starbucks has announced when the pumpkin spice latte—and the rest of its fan-favorite fall lineup—will return this month. We’re not revealing the date just yet (where’s the fun in that?), but let’s just say your pumpkin cravings won’t have to wait much longer.

Keep reading to find out exactly when the PSL returns, what additional fall drinks will be on the menu and which other coffee chains are joining the pumpkin party this fall.

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What signifies the start of PSL season?

The short answer? Starbucks says so. For millions of coffee lovers (including me!), fall doesn’t officially begin when the leaves start changing or the weather finally cools off. It begins the second Starbucks announces the pumpkin spice latte is back.

PSL burst onto the scene in 2003, when Starbucks beverage developer Peter Dukes and his team created the now-iconic drink inside the company’s secretive Seattle “Liquid Lab.” Fun fact: It was tested under a different name—fall harvest latte—before the pumpkin spice latte won out. The drink debuted on Oct. 10, 2003, in just 100 stores, and the rest is pumpkin-spiced history.

Fast-forward to today, and Starbucks has sold more than 424 million PSLs worldwide since the drink’s inception. That little latte has also inspired pumpkin cold brews, chai drinks, bakery treats and more—some of it appearing way earlier in the season than you might think. And it’s not your imagination: Starbucks has steadily moved the release earlier over the years, from September to late August, fueling the unofficial “pumpkin season” race.

So when does PSL season officially start?

Starbucks officially confirmed that its 2026 fall menu, including the beloved pumpkin spice latte, returns on Tuesday, Aug. 25.

What else will be on the fall Starbucks menu?

The pumpkin spice latte may be the star of the show, but it’s far from the only fall favorite making a comeback. Starbucks is serving up an entire lineup of pumpkin-packed drinks—plus one beloved pecan pick—when the seasonal menu returns on Aug. 25. Here’s what to expect:

• Iced pumpkin cream shaken espresso (new): This fresh twist on the classic shaken espresso has a cozy pumpkin flavor.
• Pumpkin spice chai (new): Pumpkin spice meets chai for what could be this year’s breakout fall drink.
• Iced pumpkin cream matcha (new): Matcha lovers can finally get in on the pumpkin craze.
• Pumpkin cream cold brew (returning): This fan-favorite cold coffee is topped with silky pumpkin cream cold foam.
• Iced pumpkin cream chai (returning): This fall staple that combines spiced chai with pumpkin cream cold foam.
• Pumpkin spice frappuccino (returning): Consider this the blended version of the iconic PSL for those who like their pumpkin icy.
• Pecan crunch oatmilk latte (returning): Not feeling pumpkin? This nutty seasonal favorite is also back for another year.

Who else is getting into the PSL spirit, and when?

Of course, Starbucks isn’t the only chain preparing for PSL season. Here’s what to expect from other popular coffeehouses this fall.

• Dunkin’: Dunkin’s fall menu returns on Aug. 19, bringing back its signature pumpkin spice latte, pumpkin-flavored coffee and more.
• Peet’s Coffee: The chain usually launches its fall menu in late August, often with pumpkin lattes, pumpkin cold brews and pumpkin bakery treats.
• Dutch Bros: Dutch Bros typically rolls out its fall lineup in late August. You’ll want to try the caramel pumpkin brûlée breve.
• Caribou Coffee: This coffeehouse is known for its pumpkin latte, pumpkin white mocha and pumpkin baked goods that typically arrive in late August.
• 7 Brew: While the menu varies by location, its seasonal pumpkin drinks generally arrive in late August or early September.

Sources:

• Starbucks: “Starbucks Announces the Return of Pumpkin Spice Latte (PSL) Aug. 25, New Chaider and More Fall Favorites”
• CBS News: “The ‘Father’ of Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte Says ‘It Was the Flavor That Almost Wasn’t'”

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The post The Wait Is Almost Over! Here’s When Pumpkin Spice Season Officially Arrives at Starbucks appeared first on Reader's Digest.

In an exclusive interview with Reader’s Digest, Ciara opened up about the lessons she’s learned over the course of her two decades in the spotlight—from the confidence that comes with age to the everyday habits that help her feel her best. She also shared details about an exciting new partnership with a well-known off-price retailer, proving you don’t need a luxury budget to have fun with fashion.

And, of course, we had to revisit one of the most iconic eras of her career. Does she ever get tired of hearing “1, 2 Step”? Do her kids know the choreography? And what advice does she wish she could give her younger self? Read on for Ciara’s candid answers, a little behind-the-scenes nostalgia and a few surprises along the way.

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This interview took place on July 9, 2026, and has been edited for length and clarity.

Reader’s Digest: You recently partnered with Ross Dress for Less for their new creative campaign, Ross World, that’s all about celebrating style and self-expression. What made this collaboration feel like a natural fit for you?

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Ciara: Our family is a big fan of Ross. We proudly have our kid brand, 3BRAND, in Ross stores, so there was an organic connection already out the gate. I was super excited when I got together with the team to talk about the vision. It wasn’t a little cute, goofy idea. It was like, let’s be bold, let’s make some noise and let’s think outside the box.

Reader’s Digest: It’s great to be able to work with a brand that you can relate to. As you mentioned, Ross is very bold and expressive—qualities your style represents. What does your closet look like?

Ciara: My closet depends on the day. When organized, it’s like walking into a store because I like to be able to see all of the pieces and key pieces I need to grab—especially being a mom, because you’re always on the go.

I really do love organizing my shoes by category. There’s a section for my sneakers. There’s a section for my strappy heels, my platforms—like, there are sections that are specific to the actual item, which also helps me as well.

Reader’s Digest: When I think of your high-fashion looks, two that stand out to me the most are your 2026 Met Gala golden outfit and your iconic baby bump outfit at the Color Purple premiere in 2023. How has experiencing new seasons of your life changed the way you approach fashion, and which style choices have made you feel the most like yourself?

Ciara: The fun thing about fashion that I learned, especially when I entered motherhood, is that there’s no limitation to fashion. One of the best ways that we express ourselves in our everyday lives is through what we wear. It can tell a lot about your mood. It can tell a lot about the noise you want to make in the room or the noise you want to make on stage.

For me, that was such a fun challenge, entering motherhood. Just because you become a mom doesn’t mean that you’re older. It doesn’t mean that you have to dress a specific way. You can still be who you are through every chapter and phase of your life. Sometimes I’ll be really into oversized clothing, which I’m kind of always expecting. I’m a tomboy, you know? Or, I’d do more of a feminine silhouette, because [even though] I am a tomboy, I’m gonna challenge myself to soften it up a bit but still keep my edge.

Reader’s Digest: You’ve had an amazing career. When you look back at the younger Ciara who first entered the music industry, what would you say is the biggest way that you’ve changed, and what part of her do you think is exactly the same?

Ciara: When I first entered the industry, I think I was definitely fearless and confident, but there was also a part of me that was trying to take on as much as I could, as fast as I could, and trying to figure it all out. When you do that, there’s definitely a lot of trial and error. The beginning stages of things are sort of your best stages because you get to learn a lot about yourself, and you get to form wisdom over time through the good and the bad.

It’s been 22 years since my first album. I don’t feel quite as young, but I feel pretty close to my youthful-woman phases. I still love living young. Having my babies and my family helps. I’m also a cougar. My husband is younger than me. I have all these factors that help me live young, but also I’m able to use my wits at the same time. I like where I am mentally and holistically.

Reader’s Digest: One of your most iconic throwback songs of the 2000s, “1, 2 Step,” is still everywhere. It’s on TikTok. It’s definitely on people’s playlists. What’s it like to see people who weren’t even born when it came out still dancing to that song?

Ciara: I think it’s so motivating, and it makes me so proud to know that I have a catalog of songs that move with time. “1, 2 Step,” for me, is almost like my “All I Want for Christmas” by Mariah Carey. It’s a song the DJ will always play and sing. Same with my [other] songs like “Level Up,” which I’m proud of because that was my first independent release. It’s such a gift when people use your music—and when the younger generation uses it like it’s a new song all over again.

Reader’s Digest: Do your kids know the steps for “1, 2 Step” and “Level Up”?

Ciara: One of my daughters actually requested “Level Up” on the way to camp. She was telling her brother and sister to dance with her, and I thought that was so cute. It’s funny because I don’t play my music in the house like that. It’s so weird. Maybe I should start doing it a little bit more because my babies probably should know mommy’s music.

Reader’s Digest: It’s never too late! Do you have a favorite memory from when you and Missy mastered some of those moves?

Ciara: I think the special moment would be meeting Missy for the first time on set. We bonded, and ever since then, she’s been like a sister to me. When we started our scene together, on the set of the actual music video, I would start doing this step, and she would join right in with me.

It was really fun being in my hometown and shooting that video in Cascade Skating Rink. There was nostalgia for me because I came up dancing in the skating rinks, and to have an icon like Missy on set with me was really special. We’ve always been in sync with each other.

Reader’s Digest: It’s amazing to know that your friendship with Missy has been so long-lasting. When it comes to your past and most recent music, summer matches your energy. What’s a family tradition or summer activity that you and your family always look forward to?

Ciara: This summer’s been incredibly hot. But when it comes to summer traditions for my family and I, we travel some, which is always fun. We haven’t traveled as much this summer, which is kind of cool because just watching my kids run around, play in the backyard and just be kids is one of the sweetest things. Playing games like Uno is always fun too. It never gets old.

Reader’s Digest: What’s next for you, musically, creatively or personally?

Ciara: I’m super pumped about my latest release. The song is called “Yay,” and it’s such a good track produced by Thom Bridges and co-written by myself, Courtlin Jabrae, Rachel West and a few other amazing writers. I’m super pumped about this song because it’s super feel-good. It’s right on time for summer.

I’ll be traveling to Poland next month for the first time for the BitterSweet Festival. That should be really cool, and there are a couple of other fun things in my bag that I can’t quite share yet. That’s probably the overall theme: staying moving and trying to be my best at everything I do.

Rapid response with Ciara

Reader’s Digest: Let’s do some rapid-response questions. First up: Dogs or cats?

Ciara: Dogs.

Reader’s Digest: Mornings or nights?

Ciara: Nights.

Reader’s Digest: Aisle seat or window?

Ciara: Window.

Reader’s Digest: What’s your favorite book?

Ciara: I haven’t read this book in a long time, but I like The 48 Laws of Power.

*Editor’s note: Reader’s Digest does not endorse any specific products or services. 

Why trust us

At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. For this interview with Ciara, Reader’s Digest Associate Editor Mariah Thomas tapped her experiences as a celebrity interviewer, writer and editor. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

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The post EXCLUSIVE! Grammy Winner Ciara Talks Fashion, Her Favorite Throwback Song and Why She Loves “Living Young” appeared first on Reader's Digest.

Royal watchers are over the moon at the latest announcement from the palace. Yep, there’s a new baby in town, and wow, is she cute! Well, at least the part we can see is cute. In her first official photograph, the new arrival is clad in a pink onesie with just a peek of red cheek and cute little earlobe visible. But we’ll take it.

It’s been more than a year since we’ve had a royal baby gracing the palace grounds, when Princess Beatrice and husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi welcomed baby Athena in January 2025. Read on to learn all about the latest royal family member, and join us as we say welcome to the world, baby girl!

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Which royals just welcomed a baby girl?

Princess Eugenie and her husband, Jack Brooksbank. The newest member of the royal family was born on Aug. 3 at a hospital in Lisbon, Portugal, where her parents have split their time since 2022. The royal family shared on its official Instagram account that the baby arrived safely at 6:20 p.m. local time and weighed 6 pounds, 9 ounces.

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A post shared by The Royal Family (@theroyalfamily)

What’s her name?

That’s a great question, and we’ll be the first to update you when we find out.

Hopefully, we won’t have to wait long. The typical wait for a royal baby name announcement runs anywhere from a couple of days (as with Kate and William’s children, George, Charlotte and Louis), to a week, like with Eugenie herself. Occasionally, though, the wait stretches longer: Back in 1948, the public had to wait more than a month to learn what Charles’s name would be!

Is this the couple’s first baby?

Nope, but it is their first girl. Eugenie and Jack also have two sons, August Philip Hawke Brooksbank (nicknamed Augie) and Ernest George Ronnie Brooksbank. Augie is now 6 years old, and little Ernest is 3.

The two boys made the social media rounds in May when Eugenie announced her pregnancy. In a sweet photo, Augie and Ernest were seen holding an ultrasound picture of their now-arrived baby sister.

The new baby lands at 15th in the line of succession to the British throne. Her mother, Eugenie, is 12th, and her brothers are 13th and 14th. (Dad Jack is not included in the lineup.)

Why did this announcement come as a bit of a surprise?

Eugenie is the daughter of the disgraced former prince Andrew and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, who have both seen their status fall in recent years after their involvement with Jeffrey Epstein came to light. Since the revelations, Eugenie and her family have mostly taken a backseat at royal engagements.

In June, Eugenie and her sister, Beatrice, were invited to Princess Anne’s son Peter Phillips’s wedding, but royal insiders reported that William and Kate gave them the cold shoulder. The sisters also did not attend the royal Easter celebration this year, although the palace said at the time that they would likely be invited to future events.

New babies do have a way of bringing people together, so perhaps this latest announcement (which came on the official royal family Instagram account, after all) means a return to normalcy for the beleaguered royal sisters.

Sources:

• People: “All About Princess Eugenie’s 3 Kids: August, Ernest and Her Baby on the Way”
• Cosmopolitan: “Prince William and Kate Middleton Fully Avoided Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie at a Family Wedding”
• @theroyalfamily on Instagram
• People: “Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie Will Not Attend Royal Family’s Easter Outing Amid York Family Scandal”
• Time: “Here’s Why We Have to Wait to Find Out Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Royal Baby Boy’s Name”

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The post Royal Baby Alert! The Monarchy’s Newest Family Member Just Made Her Big Debut—And We Have All the Details appeared first on Reader's Digest.

The translator did have some good things to say about the film, and clearly the public is plowing ahead to the theater regardless. The Odyssey is the biggest hit of the summer, reviews are generally fantastic, and it’s grossed over $700 million globally in less than two weeks. But it brings up an interesting discussion about movies based on beloved works of art. Homer’s 3,000-year-old poem has inspired countless movies, TV shows and literary analyses, and every single one of them will speak to people differently.

Have you seen it? What did you think? If you were already familiar with the poem, do the changes and artistic license bother you? Ahead, I’m taking you through five differences between the epic poem and the epic movie that are being debated at proverbial water coolers everywhere. Read on to see what people are saying.

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Gods and goddesses are sidelined in the movie

In Homer’s epic, powerful and sometimes vengeful deities are front and center, casting judgment, deciding fates and punishing humans who dare to defy them. (Think of all those old Hollywood movies that portrayed Greek gods as toga-wearing judges sitting on Mount Olympus.) Nolan takes a different approach, telling a decidedly human-centered tale.

We do have Athena, played by Zendaya, whom Odysseus turns to throughout the film. But that’s basically it. Other gods, from Poseidon to Zeus, manifest themselves as the sea and the storms and other natural phenomena that plague Odysseus and his men—not to mention everyone else in the film—instead of as physical beings. And that’s by design.

“For me, what was important was that we view the gods the way that people at the time might have viewed them,” Nolan told Time. “So they’re seeing evidence of the gods in nature. They’re seeking and finding gods and the influence of gods in the people around them.”

The Trojan Horse is barely mentioned in Homer’s original tale

The story of the Trojan Horse is one of the most famous in all of Greek mythology, and it plays a huge role in the movie. Right at the outset, we see a giant wooden horse buried in the sand outside the castle walls of Troy, which the Greek army has been fruitlessly trying to invade for nearly 10 years.

As the movie continues its nonlinear narrative, we eventually get the entire story of the world’s most famous deception: Odysseus’s men hide inside the horse and trick the Trojans into dragging them into Troy, where they (surprise!) pop out and destroy the city. But the horse gets only three minor mentions in Homer’s poem. And it’s not in The Iliad, the other major Homeric poem from this time period, at all. It’s actually in Virgil’s Aeneid, which was written hundreds of years later.

Historians have long debated whether the Trojan War even happened, at least as described by these three epic poems. Current scholarship comes down on the side of yes, some kind of Trojan War (or several) did occur in the Late Bronze Age. And certainly the ancient Greeks believed in the story. So is the Trojan Horse faithful to the poem? No, but without Odysseus’s deceit, which sets the stage for his struggle to return home, we wouldn’t have much of a movie at all.

Nolan’s Cyclops didn’t get to hear Odysseus’s joke

Who knew Odysseus had a sense of humor? He’s pretty dour in the movie, which … of course he is. He’s responsible for the deaths of many of his men, and he’s been away from his home and family for 20 years. (He’s also plenty adrift metaphorically as well.)

But Homer’s Odysseus is a clever one, and there’s one very famous pun that didn’t make the final cut of the film. It happens when Odysseus and his men have a terrifying encounter with the Cyclops, a one-eyed giant shepherd who traps the group in his lair.

In the poem, Odysseus tells the Cyclops his name is Nobody. I think you can see where this is going: When Odysseus eventually gouges the Cyclops’s eye with a red-hot stake that Odysseus had been heating up over the fire, the monster’s fellow Cyclopes run over and ask him who is attacking him.

“Nobody!” the Cyclops screams. And since they’re not the smartest bunch of monsters, they leave. Nolan said he just couldn’t make the 3,000-year-old pun work, so it ended up on the cutting-room floor.

Circe has completely different motivations

In just 10 minutes, Samantha Morton runs away with this film, and I’d bet my house she’ll be giving plenty of speeches this awards season. She plays Circe, a sorceress who turns Odysseus’s men into pigs when they land on her island home after escaping from the cannibalistic Laestrygonians (more on them coming up).

In the poem, Circe is a seductress who toys with the men and their leader. Lonely and isolated, she sings and weaves at her loom in a parallel to Penelope, Odysseus’s wife, before drugging the whole lot. But when Odysseus doesn’t succumb to her potion (he had taken a protective antidote), she falls in love with him, and they all end up staying with her for a year. She then helps the men continue on their journey.

In the movie, Morton plays the role as more world-weary and self-preserving. And rather frightening, to be honest. She’s on screen for mere minutes, and I spent several of them with my eyes covered. Over the millennia, Circe has been described as both a dangerous femme fatale and a modern symbol of female empowerment. In this movie, she’s definitely more of the latter.

The movie reimagines the cannibals and sirens

Those cannibals that Odysseus and his men are running from when they meet up with Circe? In the poem, they are literal giants called the Laestrygonians (or Laestrygones), who hurl boulders at Odysseus’s ships, destroying 11 of them before dragging the sailors ashore and eating them. Only Odysseus’s ship is spared. In Nolan’s retelling, the cannibals are more like large knights with armor, giving off a militaristic energy that isn’t present in Book 10 of The Odyssey, where they appear.

The sirens, similarly, take on a new form in the movie. In Greek mythology, sirens lure sailors to their peril with their beautiful voices—hence the phrase “siren’s song.” Though Homer’s poem doesn’t actually go into what form the sirens take when Odysseus and his men sail through their rocky home, historically they are depicted as being kind of a bird-woman hybrid (the woman part is on top, of course).

In Nolan’s telling, the sirens are barely visible on the rocky bluffs as Odysseus, lashed to the mast of his ship to resist temptation, and his men, who have wax in their ears to block out the sound, navigate the rocky shoals. Wilson derisively calls them seal-ladies, and over the years, they have been portrayed as more mermaid-like than birdlike. Whether they look like traditional artistic renderings or take a new form, the end result is the same: The men make it through.

So how much does all of this matter?

Honestly? Not much. Audiences love the film, and art is always subject to interpretation and critique. The overarching themes of homecoming and the ancient Greek concept of xenia, aka hospitality, which Nolan’s film calls Zeus’s Law, are present and compelling. It’s also a gorgeous film, shot entirely on IMAX, and with so many big-name stars, it’s a great way for people who don’t know much about Greek mythology to tiptoe into the genre.

And people are doing more than tiptoeing (remember that $700 million haul so far). Reviews are overwhelmingly favorable, with the film snagging a 94% fresh critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. And some big names in the literary world are taking issue with Wilson’s panning of the script.

Joyce Carol Oates, the Pulitzer Prize–nominated author, has stepped up to defend Nolan’s interpretation. “One would expect a translator, of all people, beholden to a text, in service to a text, to be just a wee bit more thoughtful & respectful of others who are acting in good faith just as (she would claim) she is,” Oates wrote on X.

I can’t pretend to be as knowledgeable as any of these scholars, filmmakers and authors, but I did like the movie and the fact that it’s introducing this type of literature and history to a whole new audience. And in the end, isn’t that what it’s all about?

Sources:

• New Yorker: “Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ Leaves the Gods in the Outtakes”
• History: “What Inspired the Cyclops, Sirens and Other ‘Odyssey’ Monsters?”
• Time: “Christopher Nolan on Helen, Athena, and His New Ending for The Odyssey”
• Hollywood Reporter: “Why Christopher Nolan Cut a 3,000-Year-Old Joke from ‘The Odyssey’”
• NPR: “‘Odyssey’ translator Emily Wilson says Nolan shouldn’t have written the movie himself”
• Vanity Fair: “A Horse of a Different Color: Christopher Nolan’s 10 Biggest Odyssey Updates”
• Los Angeles Times: “8 ways that Christopher Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’ changes Homer’s epic”
• Variety: “Samantha Morton on Her Electrifying Performance as Circe in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’: ‘It Felt Like a Rebirth’”
• Decider: “Who Were the Giant Soldiers in ‘The Odyssey’? All About The Laestrygonians”
• Rotten Tomatoes: “The Odyssey”
• Los Angeles Times: “Joyce Carol Oates goes to battle for ‘Odyssey,’ takes aim at translator Emily Wilson’s viral review”

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The post Just How Different Is <i>The Odyssey</i> from Homer’s Epic? Here Are 5 Plot Points That People Are Calling Out appeared first on Reader's Digest.

• Why did the book go to the chiropractor?
  Someone cracked its spine.
• What did the thesaurus order at the bakery?
  A synonym roll.
• What’s a snake’s favorite genre?
  Hiss-torical fiction.
• What do books wear in the winter?
  Dust jackets.
• Why did the two books become best friends?
  They were always on the same page.
• What did the library book say when it was feeling frisky?
  “Talk Dewey to me.”
• What did the library book say to its anxious neighbor?
  “Get your shelf together!”
• What did the confident book say at the checkout desk?
  “Go ahead—judge me by my cover.”
• Why was the textbook nervous at the hospital?
  It was there to have its appendix removed.
• Why do novels make terrible secret keepers?
  Because they’re open books.
• Why did the cookbook get invited to every party?
  It really knew how to spice things up.
• What did the prologue say to the epilogue?
  “Long time, no see!”
• What’s a pirate’s favorite part of a book?
  The arrrr-c of the story.
• What’s a frog’s favorite kind of book?
  Anything with a hoppy ending.
• Why did the tomato blush in the middle of the novel?
  It got to the juicy part.
• What did the flirty book say to the guy she met in the library?
  “Check me out.”
• What do you call a book that brags all the time?
  Full of itshelf!

Library jokes

• What’s a librarian’s favorite dinner?
  Shhh-kabobs!
• Why did the burglar skip robbing the library?
  He knew they’d throw the book at him.
• Why did the librarian bring a ladder to work?
  To reach the higher education section.
• Why did the ghost haunt the library?
  It heard the place had the best boo-ks in town.
• Why did the skeleton get a library card?
  He wanted to bone up on his reading.
• What did the librarian say when the book was returned?
  “Tome sweet tome.”
• What’s the quietest pet in the library?
  A hush puppy.
• What section does a vampire visit first at the library?
  The one with the best circulation.
• Why did the wizard love the library?
  Every shelf was full of spellbinding reads.
• Why did the librarian turn down the invitation?
  Her schedule was totally booked.
• What did the sign say during the library renovation?
  “Pardon our dust jackets!”
• What did the library books say to the bookshelf?
  “Thanks for the support!”
• What did the librarian say to her BFF on girls’ night?
  “Prose before bros!”
• Why did the library cat get promoted?
  It was purr-fect at catching bookworms.
• Why don’t libraries host rock concerts?
  The books already have plenty of volumes.

Novel jokes

1. • Why couldn’t Captain Ahab ever relax?
     He always had a whale of a problem.
   • What’s Moby-Dick’s favorite dinner?
     Fish and ships.
   • What happened to the bookworm’s balloons on a windy day?
     One blew over the cuckoo’s nest.
   • Why did Odysseus owe the biggest late fee in history?
     His library book was 20 years overdue.
   • What’s Mr. Darcy’s favorite exercise?
     Swallowing his pride.
   • What’s Jay Gatsby’s favorite flower?
     A Daisy, old sport.
   • What is a Minion’s favorite book?
     Banana Karenina.
   • Why did Dorothy start a book club in Oz?
     To prove there’s no place like tome!
   • Why did the Old Man and the Sea never give up on his book?
     He was hooked on the ending.
   • Why did Dr. Jekyll carry two library cards?
     Mr. Hyde kept racking up late fees.
   • What did critics say about A Tale of Two Cities?
     It was the best of reads, it was the worst of reads.
   • What’s the Ghostbusters’ favorite Russian novel?
     Slime and Punishment.
   • What’s 1984‘s favorite singer?
     Boy George Orwell.
   • What’s a horror lover’s favorite crustacean?
     Steven King Crab.
   • What’s Alexandre Dumas’s favorite candy bar?
     Milky Way. (I bet you thought I was going to say Three Musketeers. He hates Three Musketeers!)

Reading jokes

• What did the reader order at the campfire?
  S’more chapters!
• Why did the bookworm feel sick?
  Something he read didn’t digest well.
• How did the speed reader win the race?
  She always skipped ahead.
• Why is a TBR pile like laundry?
  It multiplies every time you look away.
• What’s a bookworm’s favorite cuisine?
  Text-Mex.
• Why did the bookstore hire a barista?
  So customers could espresso their love of reading.
• What’s a reader’s cardio?
  Running out of shelf space.
• What kind of books do skunks read?
  Best-smellers!
• What kind of books do cows read?
  Moo-vels.
• What kind of books do owls read?
  Hoot-dunits.
• What kind of books do mountain climbers read?
  Cliff-hangers.
• How do readers stay healthy?
  They practice shelf-care.
• What did the tea lover say to the book lover?
  Read it and steep.

Why trust us

Reader’s Digest has been telling jokes for more than 100 years, curated and reviewed over the last 20 years by Senior Features Editor Andy Simmons, a humor editor formerly of National Lampoon and the author of Now That’s Funny. We’ve earned prestigious ASME awards for our humor—including comical quips, pranks, puns, cartoons, one-liners, knock-knock jokes, riddles, memes, tweets and stories in laugh-out-loud magazine columns such as “Life in These United States,” “All in a Day’s Work,” “Laughter, the Best Medicine” and “Humor in Uniform,” as well as online collections such as short jokes, dad jokes and bad jokes so bad, they’re great. You can find a century of humor in our 2022 compendium, Reader’s Digest: Laughter, the Best Medicine. For this story on book jokes, Laura Beck tapped her 15-plus years of experience as a professional humor writer for TV shows and magazines. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.

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