Cognoscenti's best stories of 2024We published 245 pieces of original writing in 2024, by nearly as many contributors. In Cog’s best stories of the year, our authors wrote about politics and heartbreak, mass transit,...Dec 20, 2024My mother’s jewelry, a tree and a new Christmas traditionWhen Christine Willmsen’s mother died, her strongest memories were about their troubled relationship. This year, though, her mother’s jewelry — and a small tree — led the way to a...Dec 19, 2024Time travel with us: The Cog 2024 playlistIn 2024, 27 Cog essays featured music. The right song, even just a few notes, can take us back in time to another version of ourselves. These songs are the...Dec 18, 2024Welcoming the light in this season of darknessHanukkah and Christmas fall on the same day in 2024, a calendar coincidence that's happened only nine times since 1900 and won't happen again until 2052. The light from both...Dec 18, 2024The sacred spirit of Christmas — at my local drug storeDr. Seuss’s Grinch found redemption in a simple insight: Maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store. But, writes Rich Barlow, each year my local pharmacist provides a Christmas meal —...Dec 17, 2024AdvertisementWhy I’ve come to appreciate snoring, sort ofAny pretense we had 25 years ago, about how we might need to contort ourselves to accommodate each other, has given way to understanding and a certain acceptance, writes Cloe...Resume03:49Dec 13, 2024Just the right mix of books for 2024As the co-owner of a bookstore, The Book Shop of Beverly Farms, Hannah Harlow reads for a living. These are the books that stuck with her in 2024. Dec 13, 2024Netflix’s ‘Joy’ tells the story of families like mineScience made me a mother, writes Jennifer Handt. And while nothing about the process felt particularly easy, natural or guaranteed, I never had to wonder whether it could work because...Dec 12, 2024The coat my mother never woreAfter her mother died, Karen Propp was determined to return the brand new coat her mother had never had a chance to wear. My mother was gone. I wanted something...Dec 11, 20243 things the U.S. climate movement must do differentlyA majority of American voters are concerned about the climate crisis, but almost nobody votes based on it, writes Nathaniel Stinnett. If we don’t embark on a crash course to...Dec 10, 2024The gift of marking timeWhat I’m trying to remember, in the blur of parenthood and work and change, is that while I can continue to try to record time as it passes me by,...Dec 8, 2024Some people keep a notebook. As a musician, I keep a very long listDavid Tanklefsky has been a performing musician for more than 20 years. He has a list of every show he’s played — all 900 of them — along with each...Resume04:13Dec 6, 2024Trump’s presidential immunity won’t protect the men and women who carry out his ordersPresident-elect Trump has vowed a mass deportation program that requires National Guardsmen to detain migrants and appears to be stacking his cabinet with poorly vetted loyalists. Under these troubling circumstances,...Dec 5, 2024Joe Biden and the precedent of preemptive pardonsPreemptive pardons are unusual, but legal, writes Amherst College political scientist Austin Sarat. President Biden's pardon of Hunter was partly motivated by a justifiable fear of what Trump’s Justice Department...Dec 4, 2024I found queer history in literature, and it changed my lifeIt brought me immense comfort to discover that many of the books I’d grown up reading proved queer people had existed for hundreds, even thousands of years, writes Hesse Phillips....Dec 3, 2024An unexpected life lesson from Garfield the catI wasn’t aware that anyone had been asking about Garfield’s feline parentage, writes Karen Wilfrid. But when—in the opening flashback—the dad leaves kitten Garfield alone in an alley, his innocent...Nov 29, 202432 years and counting: A love letter to my Michigan WolverinesIn the stadium, we ride an emotional roller coaster with tens of thousands of like-minded strangers, writes Laura McTaggart. Everyone knows it’s only a game and doesn’t really matter. We...Nov 27, 2024Our favorite Thanksgiving traditionsWe did a fun thing this week. We asked Cog readers – including many of you – to send in their favorite Thanksgiving recipes and traditions. Your Cog editors didn’t...Nov 24, 2024This year and every year: Your favorite Thanksgiving traditionsTurkey. Football. Toasts. Naps. Movies. Turkey trots. The Macy’s Day Parade. Expanding the table for “orphans.” These are just some of the cherished Thanksgiving traditions Cognoscenti readers shared with us...Nov 22, 2024On ‘Wicked,’ friendship and being changed for good“Wicked,” part one of the cinematic adaptation of Broadway’s best-selling show of all time, opens in theaters today. The director, Jon M. Chu, has said the story is, at its...Nov 22, 2024Next Page
Cognoscenti's best stories of 2024We published 245 pieces of original writing in 2024, by nearly as many contributors. In Cog’s best stories of the year, our authors wrote about politics and heartbreak, mass transit,...Dec 20, 2024
My mother’s jewelry, a tree and a new Christmas traditionWhen Christine Willmsen’s mother died, her strongest memories were about their troubled relationship. This year, though, her mother’s jewelry — and a small tree — led the way to a...Dec 19, 2024
Time travel with us: The Cog 2024 playlistIn 2024, 27 Cog essays featured music. The right song, even just a few notes, can take us back in time to another version of ourselves. These songs are the...Dec 18, 2024
Welcoming the light in this season of darknessHanukkah and Christmas fall on the same day in 2024, a calendar coincidence that's happened only nine times since 1900 and won't happen again until 2052. The light from both...Dec 18, 2024
The sacred spirit of Christmas — at my local drug storeDr. Seuss’s Grinch found redemption in a simple insight: Maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store. But, writes Rich Barlow, each year my local pharmacist provides a Christmas meal —...Dec 17, 2024
Why I’ve come to appreciate snoring, sort ofAny pretense we had 25 years ago, about how we might need to contort ourselves to accommodate each other, has given way to understanding and a certain acceptance, writes Cloe...Resume03:49Dec 13, 2024
Just the right mix of books for 2024As the co-owner of a bookstore, The Book Shop of Beverly Farms, Hannah Harlow reads for a living. These are the books that stuck with her in 2024. Dec 13, 2024
Netflix’s ‘Joy’ tells the story of families like mineScience made me a mother, writes Jennifer Handt. And while nothing about the process felt particularly easy, natural or guaranteed, I never had to wonder whether it could work because...Dec 12, 2024
The coat my mother never woreAfter her mother died, Karen Propp was determined to return the brand new coat her mother had never had a chance to wear. My mother was gone. I wanted something...Dec 11, 2024
3 things the U.S. climate movement must do differentlyA majority of American voters are concerned about the climate crisis, but almost nobody votes based on it, writes Nathaniel Stinnett. If we don’t embark on a crash course to...Dec 10, 2024
The gift of marking timeWhat I’m trying to remember, in the blur of parenthood and work and change, is that while I can continue to try to record time as it passes me by,...Dec 8, 2024
Some people keep a notebook. As a musician, I keep a very long listDavid Tanklefsky has been a performing musician for more than 20 years. He has a list of every show he’s played — all 900 of them — along with each...Resume04:13Dec 6, 2024
Trump’s presidential immunity won’t protect the men and women who carry out his ordersPresident-elect Trump has vowed a mass deportation program that requires National Guardsmen to detain migrants and appears to be stacking his cabinet with poorly vetted loyalists. Under these troubling circumstances,...Dec 5, 2024
Joe Biden and the precedent of preemptive pardonsPreemptive pardons are unusual, but legal, writes Amherst College political scientist Austin Sarat. President Biden's pardon of Hunter was partly motivated by a justifiable fear of what Trump’s Justice Department...Dec 4, 2024
I found queer history in literature, and it changed my lifeIt brought me immense comfort to discover that many of the books I’d grown up reading proved queer people had existed for hundreds, even thousands of years, writes Hesse Phillips....Dec 3, 2024
An unexpected life lesson from Garfield the catI wasn’t aware that anyone had been asking about Garfield’s feline parentage, writes Karen Wilfrid. But when—in the opening flashback—the dad leaves kitten Garfield alone in an alley, his innocent...Nov 29, 2024
32 years and counting: A love letter to my Michigan WolverinesIn the stadium, we ride an emotional roller coaster with tens of thousands of like-minded strangers, writes Laura McTaggart. Everyone knows it’s only a game and doesn’t really matter. We...Nov 27, 2024
Our favorite Thanksgiving traditionsWe did a fun thing this week. We asked Cog readers – including many of you – to send in their favorite Thanksgiving recipes and traditions. Your Cog editors didn’t...Nov 24, 2024
This year and every year: Your favorite Thanksgiving traditionsTurkey. Football. Toasts. Naps. Movies. Turkey trots. The Macy’s Day Parade. Expanding the table for “orphans.” These are just some of the cherished Thanksgiving traditions Cognoscenti readers shared with us...Nov 22, 2024
On ‘Wicked,’ friendship and being changed for good“Wicked,” part one of the cinematic adaptation of Broadway’s best-selling show of all time, opens in theaters today. The director, Jon M. Chu, has said the story is, at its...Nov 22, 2024