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The editor of The New Yorker, David Remnick—my boss—likes to say that what we do at the magazine is “weird.” What he means is that it can be hard to convey The New Yorker’s essence in an elevator pitch or on a PowerPoint slide. We’re not easy to categorize. We publish deeply reported investigative stories and dispatches from writers in war zones; on Election Day, we stationed reporters in battleground states across the country and maintained a live blog and map with precinct-level results. But we also publish cultural criticism, fiction, poetry, and cartoons––interspersed, in print and online, among thousands of words.
New Yorker writers reflect on the year’s highs and lows.
The most popular New Yorker stories of 2024, as measured by “engaged minutes”—the total time people spent reading them—reflects this breadth, and quirkiness. There are riveting narrative features by Patrick Radden Keefe, Rachel Aviv, and Eren Orbey. There’s a piece by Sam Knight about the British Conservative Party, a personal essay about the birth of a child and the death of a marriage by Leslie Jamison, and a story by D. T. Max about a woman who spent five hundred days in a cave. How exactly to characterize Ian Parker’s feature on Kanye West’s former home, designed by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando? It’s an exploration of celebrity, avant-garde design, and human folly. Perhaps it’s best simply to call it a great read.
Predictably, after one of the most tumultuous Presidential campaigns in memory, politics is amply represented: Evan Osnos’s Profile—pre-debate-meltdown—of Joe Biden; Clare Malone’s Profile of R.F.K., Jr., which included a memorable scoop about a dead bear; Jessica Winter’s piece about complications in the story that J. D. Vance tells about his grandparents; and Jane Mayer’s examination of Pete Hegseth’s troubled employment history. A recent piece, which has continued to climb the list right up to publication, is Jia Tolentino’s reflection on how the public reacted to the execution-style shooting of the UnitedHealthcare C.E.O.
Our hope is that readers use this list as they do our end-of-year lists of books, TV shows, music, podcasts, and the like. Consider them reading recommendations, a chance to dive into stories you missed or would like to revisit. They are a way to think about the year gone by and to catch a glimpse of what lies ahead.
By Patrick Radden Keefe
After Zac Brettler mysteriously plummeted into the Thames, his grieving parents discovered that he’d been posing as an oligarch’s son. Would the police help them solve the puzzle of his death?
By The New Yorker
Each week, our editors and critics recommend the most captivating, notable, brilliant, thought-provoking, and talked-about books. Now, as 2024 comes to an end, we’ve chosen a dozen essential reads in nonfiction and a dozen, too, in fiction and poetry.
By Rachel Aviv
Colleagues reportedly called Lucy Letby an “angel of death,” and the Prime Minister condemned her. But, in the rush to judgment, serious questions about the evidence were ignored.
