Berlin, Longreads & The Premeditation of Evils

Forget that secret thing: apparently negative thinking can have real life positive consequences, too. Worrywarts everywhere, rejoice! But carefully.

The Millions and Longreads are really doing the year-end-best-of thing right. Longreads has short quips on the best long stories of the year, penned by the people who should know, like Doree Shafrir, Chris Jones, and David Grann. The Millions, of course, is still going strong with its Year in Reading Feature, including picks from Susan Orlean, Geoff Dyer, and at least one entry that doesn’t even recommend any books at all.

Email, guys. It’s such an amazing technology—a letter that can be sent immediately across even the vastest distance, for basically free!— and also, most days, one of modern work’s unending aggravations. This quick hit from the New Yorker technology blog on the fabled Inbox Zero approach is a surprisingly sweet meditation that doubles as a handy service piece.

Jessa Crispin is in Berlin, thinking about William James, feeling like a failure, even though she’s really killing it in this ex-pat essay.