The year in fiction: Our favorite 2018 novels

The year in fiction. Peruse our favorite 76 novels from the past year at the 2019 Tournament of Books long list.

The Morning News
A cross-section of hell, circa 1855, and some other "persuasive maps."
↩︎ Cornell University Library 16h
Analysis of thousands of questions posed to Dear Abby identifies some common concerns. Top among them, sex and religion.
↩︎ The Pudding 16h
The agriculture industry's latest answer to a diminishing supply of immigrant labor: robots.
↩︎ The New York Times 18h
Catalogs from a 19th-century Japanese fireworks manufacturer.
↩︎ Spoon & Tamago 20h
A small bookstore celebrates selling a book that had been sitting on a shelf for nearly three decades.
↩︎ My Modern Met 20h

Even if it might feel like it, there is not one segment of American society in which white people are disadvantaged because of their race.

Conservatives think Americans disagree about what racism means. What they don’t realize: racism is a white problem.
↩︎ The Root
20h
Your weekly white paper: A deep-learning algorithm can predict age and gender from retinal photographs.
↩︎ Nature 20h
Members of Saudi Arabia's ruling family and senior US officials are pushing for the crown prince's brother to become king.
↩︎ Al Jazeera 21h
Turnout in the 2018 midterms looks to be 49.3% of the voting eligible population—the highest midterms turnout in over 100 years.
↩︎ The Po!nt 21h

“They’ve figured out a market that nobody else really knows exists. They’re exploiting a market in a way that is definitely taking advantage of something they discovered. They’re businessmen, really.”

An introduction to “courtsiding,” the practice of quickly transmitting data from a tennis match for purposes related to gambling.
↩︎ Longreads
21h
California-style conservatism—being against everything liberal, but not really for anything—has taken over conservative ideology.
↩︎ Vox 21h

In 2002, David Lynch made a show called Rabbits, "perhaps the most bizarre and arguably literal sitcom imaginable."

It's since been used by clinical psychologists to make study participants "feel unpleasantly uncomfortable."

21h
A former FBI lawyer draws parallels between the Watergate road map and Trump's attempts to control the Russia investigation.
↩︎ The Atlantic 1d
How to cook Thanksgiving dinner: You’ve got less than two days—are you ready? Sage advice from Leslie Harpold.
↩︎ The Morning News 1d
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↩︎ TMN Membership 1d
How to protect the future from radioactive waste: Bioengineer Geiger-counter cats and introduce myths about them.
↩︎ The Ray Cat Solution 1d
The share of Americans who believe in the devil is up more than 8% since 1990.
↩︎ The Atlantic 1d
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The Editors' Longreads Picks
A database of American political campaign logos reveals a sea of sameness—with occasional bursts of weird.
↩︎ Politics and Design 1d

As a parent, you want to give your kids so much. You want to give them all that you have and all that you can get. You want to give them the world, and a better world than the one you’ve got. It’s terrifying to look up in the sky and think about what they’ll inherit.

Mat Honan looks at the fires, and into the future of California.
↩︎ BuzzFeed News
1d
The latest in Russian hacking news: A long-dormant, but highly effective phishing group is showing signs of activity.
↩︎ WIRED 1d