Table of contents for September 2024 in Reader's Digest

MY JOB COMES with an unusual occupational hazard: endless reading! Good thing I can't imagine reading too much. Throughout my career as an editor, I've been required to read a lot for my job: articles we might want to reprint, writers' essays, books for potential excerpt. There's really no end to all the prospects. So what happens when you make your hobby—in my case, reading—a job requirement? For me, fortunately, it hasn't ruined my enjoyment of my favorite activity. I only read nonfiction for work, so novels are always a good escape. I love to talk (and swap) books with friends, including all of you who have joined our RD Book Club. (Haven't signed up yet? Learn how at RD.com/bookclub.) But I do have to balance things out, which is…

IT WAS around 6:30 on a June morning in 2023, and a Facebook post caught Boyd Jordan's eye. Shell Isle Mercantile, a floating store that sold beachgoing fare—sunglasses, inflatables, food, umbrellas—had been ripped from its moorings on Shell Island, just offFlorida's northern Gulf Coast, by a storm the night before and had floated 3 miles across the bay to Panama City. Jordan, a boat repairman by trade, called his buddy Chris Bourque, the store's owner, and offered to help corral the pink one-room shack and tow it back. Jordan borrowed a friend's motorboat, while Bourque manned a less muscular pontoon boat. The skies were clear with a light breeze when Jordan, his friend Tamara Chagnon, and Chris Bourque and his wife, Sarah Bourque, reached the shop—still atop its floating dock—and…

A customer in an Italian restaurant is so pleased with his meal that he insists on telling the chef personally. The owner proudly leads him into the kitchen. “Your pizza is superb,” the customer tells the chef. “I just spent a month in Italy, and yours is better than any I ever had over there.” “Naturally,” the chef says. “Over there, they use domestic cheese. Ours is imported!” —NMGASTRONOME.COM Where were bobble-heads created? In the land of nod. — Submitted by RODNEY JURGENSEN Yankton, SD On a caving expedition, a man falls into a hole. His partner calls to him, “Are you hurt?” He yells back, “No!” “How could you fall down that hole and not be hurt?” “Because I'm still falliiiiiiiiiing!” — Submitted by GARY KATZ Long Grove, IL…

WHEN VIKTORIA KOSKENOJA was in college, she sat in the hospital at the bedside of her mother, who lay dying of leukemia, and studied for her medical school entrance exams. She was determined to one day speak the language of the doctors who swooped in and out of the room discussing the case. Later, in medical school and then in residency, Koskenoja found herself drawn to emergency medicine, with its unpredictability, its tapestry of characters, and its imperative to establish immediate trust with the constant stream of brand-new patients coming through the door. She had found her calling. Her first position out of residency was her dream job, working in a Level 2 trauma center at a hospital in rural Michigan, where she'd grown up. And at first it truly…

I admit it, when it comes to food, I have some eeew-inducing practices, like skimming mold off old cheddar and feeding the rest to my unsuspecting family. We're still alive, so how bad can it be? Because our gross human habits fall somewhere along the spectrum from mildly cringeworthy to full-on repulsive, I reached out to experts to find out where some common behaviors land on the gross-o-meter. EATING OLD FOOD ▶ The stamped expiration date—and its confusing cousins “use by” and “best before”—should be but one tool in your hmm-should-I-eat-this? toolbox. “With the exception of infant formula, food labels aren't standardized or regulated,” says nutritionist Marie Spiker, an assistant professor at the University of Washington. “Few are related to biology or food safety—just peak freshness.” And so, she says,…

“The most important consideration is variety,” says Reader's Digest puzzle editor Emily Goodman, of composing our reader-favorite Brain Games section, “with puzzles that involve a mix of math, logic, pattern recognition, spatial reasoning and more, because different solvers enjoy different types of puzzles.” Her favorite? Logic puzzles in which you figure who did what where (like the “Roommates?” puzzle on page 107). “They remind me of my favorite board game, Clue, and I love that you often pick up new insights on the second read-through,” she says. If you typically turn right to Word Power and the other games, visit RD.com/BrainGames for more fun puzzles, brainteasers and quizzes. “As an avid (but often struggling) gardener, I enjoyed the helpful hints in “Get a Green(er) Thumb” (May 2024). Other novice horticulturists…

The Organ Trail Although she suffered from liver failure, Julia Harlin forbade any of her adult children from donating a piece of their healthy liver to her. She didn't want them to endure the procedure. But as Harlin grew sicker waiting for a donor, her daughter Eileen got tested behind her mother's back. She was a match! The operation in 2022 was a success. Then last year, Julia's kidneys began to fail, a result of her previous liver disease. She was low on the donor list because of her age, and things looked bleak. But Eileen came through again, becoming only the 14th person in the United States to donate a portion of her liver and a kidney to the same recipient on different dates. An awed Julia told the…

FROM THE WASHINGTON POST DO I THINK the sky is falling? Sort of. My husband and I were recently in Egypt, where the temperature reached 113 degrees, a bit warm for my tiny princess self. Medic, medic! We left Egypt one day before the war broke out in Israel and Gaza. Back home, my dearest friends struggled with health stuff, with family craziness, with damaged children both young and grown. The game of life is hard, and a lot of us are playing hurt. I ache for the world but naturally I'm mostly watching the “me” movie, where balance and strength are beginning to ebb and, on the surface, things are descending into grandma pudding. (One morning 10 years ago, my young grandchild asked, “Nana, can I take a shower…

WELLNESS FROM THEHEALTHY.COM “YOU'VE LOST ABOUT 60% of your hearing in your right ear and it's permanent.” “What?!” I stared at the audiologist. So he repeated himself, louder this time. He thought I couldn't hear him, which I suppose makes sense given that his entire job is assessing hearing problems. But I had heard him. I was just in shock. I was relatively young—45 years old—and healthy. I am a fitness instructor. A wife, and mom of five kids. How had this happened? How am I supposed to live my life with one ear? I burst into tears. Losing my hearing overnight Right before Thanksgiving 2023, I got what I thought was a minor head cold. No fever, no pain, no cough—just some congestion and stuness that made my right…

Classics: My poor knowledge of Greek mythology has always been my Achilles' elbow. History: No one should have been surprised by the rise of the USSR after World War II. There were red flags everywhere. Chemistry: I was reading a book on helium. I couldn't put it down. English: A cliche walks into a bar—fresh as a daisy, cute as a button and sharp as a tack. Not wishing to see her, a synonym walks into a tavern. Religion: Too bad that Islam, Christianity and Judaism have been fighting each other for centuries. Hindus, on the other hand, never had any beef. Applied Mathematics: A statistician drowned crossing a river. Strange, since it was only 3 feet deep on average. Meteorology: Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius died in 1744 at age…

IN THE SUMMER of 2023, on a warm afternoon in Chelan, Washington, a beaming young woman named Ivy Jacobsen stood ready to walk down the aisle toward her husband-to-be. Her blond hair was in a loose bun, and her long white gown was simple and sleek, with just a hint of a ruffle at the back. Waiting for Ivy at the altar was the love of her life, Tristen Jurgensen, who was 28 years old like Ivy and a sheriff's deputy, wearing a blue-gray suit and tearing up with emotion at the sight of his bride. More than 300 guests had gathered for the wedding ceremony, held in a backyard venue framed by rocky mountains and tall pine trees. From the green grass under Ivy's feet to the blue sky…

Living with bladder leaks can be challenging, but finding the right incontinence underwear can make a big difference in your comfort and confidence. Here are 5 tips that our experts always look for when shopping for better bladder protection: 1. Absorbency: If you tend to have higher absorbency needs, look for “overnight” underwear, whether you plan to use them day or night. Because Market's Overnight Underwear holds up to 6 cups of liquid, the equivalent of nearly 2 bottles of wine. 2. Leak guards: Leak guards are additional pieces of absorbent material that surround the leg cuffs to prevent unwanted leaks. Always look for products with reinforced leak guards. 3. Skin-friendly materials: Some incontinence underwear can cause irritation and discomfort, especially for those with sensitive skin. Look for latex-free underwear…

TV A gripping family epic spanning four generations and half the globe—from colonized 1920s Korea to booming 1980s Japan and New York—returns. Sunja (Youn Yuh-jung), a Korean mother in Japan during WWII, must contend with hard decisions like leaving home and the wealthy Korean man she thought she loved for somewhere with scarcely be…er treatment. Color-coded subtitles identify languages spoken: English, Korean and Japanese. (Season 2 premieres Aug. 23 on Apple TV+) —Connie Lee BOOKS The Life Impossible By Matt Haig Literary hitmaker Matt Haig (The Midnight Library) hits the mark once more with The Life Impossible. A letter from a former student prompts retired math teacher Grace Winters to recount the seemingly innocuous act of kindness she extended to a music teacher decades earlier. The good deed nearly forgotten…

I BEAT SOME OF THE TOP PLAYERS I really admired—by aiming right at their strengths. Before, I would run away from their strengths. If a guy had strong forehand, I would try to hit his backhand. But now … I would try to go after his forehand. I tried to beat baseliners from the baseline. I tried to beat the attackers by attacking. I tried to beat the net rushers from the net. I took a chance by doing that. So why did I do it? To amplify my game and expand my options. You need a whole arsenal of strengths, so if one of them breaks down, you've got something left. When your game is clicking like that, winning is easy—relatively. Then there are days when you just feel…

AS THE MANAGER of Utah's Springville Senior Center, Tori Eaton's goal was to get seniors out of their homes and engaging with others. Since jigsaw puzzles were a popular draw, she decided to up their game by purchasing one of the largest puzzles ever made: a 60,000-piece map titled “What a Wonderful World.” It took 50 seniors—laughing, chatting and working together—more than four months to complete, but in January they unveiled the result: an 8-by-29-foot creation spread atop 16 tables. “Loneliness is a terrible thing for older people,” Eaton told the Washington Post. “Getting together to work for a couple of hours on a puzzle can make a huge difference in their day.”…

ARGUABLY THE MOST classic New Orleans dish, gumbo is the chicken, sausage and/or seafood stew steeped in regional pride and family nostalgia. It's also a complex intersection of three cultures: West African, Native American and European. The word gumbo comes from the West African ki ngombo, which means “okra,” a classic gumbo ingredient that lends a comforting texture and deep, grassy notes. Choctaw Indians introduced filé powder (ground sassafras leaves), originally used to add body to the broth, now favored as a condiment at the table. The French contribution is roux—a mixture of browned fat and flour that thickens and flavors the dish. Gumbo starts with a roux, which is cooked slowly (sometimes for more than an hour) and gives the dish a lovely nutty flavor. Also into the pot…

GENIUS! FROM THE BOOK IS MATH REAL? WHY DOES one plus one equal two? One possible answer is “It just does!” That is really a variation on “Because I said so!”—an answer that has been frustrating children for generations. It is quite right to feel frustrated by that idea. Math can seem like a world of rules you just have to follow, which makes it seem rigid and boring. Whereas my love of math is somewhat driven by my love of breaking rules, or at least pushing against them. Both of those impulses play an important role in advancing human understanding, and in particular mathematical understanding. So rather than think about why one plus one is two, let's go a little further and question whether it's even true all the…

10,000 Steps? What is the ideal number of steps to take each day for optimum health? While several recent studies came up with differing results, all show benefits of moving: ♦ Fewer than 10,000: In one study, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, scientists analyzed data from a dozen studies involving more than 110,000 people. They found that while taking more steps is generally better, walking about 7,000 steps a day can help protect the heart, and walking 8,000 steps decreases the risk of premature death from all causes. And University of Buffalo researchers (along with scientists from other universities) followed nearly 6,000 American women in their 60s through 90s. The women who averaged just 3,600 steps a day, moving at an average pace, reduced their…

No Birdbrains Here I should've known our cockatiel, Sara Lee, was special when we introduced her to our new baby and the bird immediately began speaking in a gentle baby voice rather than her usual booming squawks. In the coming days, Sara Lee would squawk every day in the late afternoon. I checked the door and found no one. Then, five minutes later, I'd hear my daughter stir. After several days of this, whenever Sara Lee squawked, I went to check the baby instead of the door. Sure enough, our bird was letting me know that the baby was beginning to wake up from her nap. I loved getting to be there as my daughter woke up each afternoon. Sara Lee was the best babysitter a mom could ask for.…

1. affogato n. (ah-foh-'gah-toh) A vanilla syrup B soy cappuccino C espresso over ice cream 2. caddy n. ('ka-dee) A tea chest B copper kettle C sugar bowl 3. vivify v. ('vi-vuh-fy) A pep up B dust with cinnamon C brew in cold water 4. kaffeeklatsch n. ('kaw-fee-klach) A German cafe B informal gathering C wooden stirrer 5. artisanal adj. (ar-'ti-zuh-nuhl) A made traditionally B certified organic C fair-trade 6. demitasse n. ('de-mee-tahs) A French press B finger sandwich C tiny mug 7. a la carte adj. (ah luh 'kart) A with milk B to-go C priced separately 8. boba n. ('boh-buh) A spicy hot chocolate B bubble tea C fruit infusion 9. biscotto n. (bi-'skah-toh) A junior barista B outdoor seating area C crisp cookie 10. percolate v. ('per-kuh-layt) A trickle B grind C caffeinate 11. schmear n. (shmeer) A afternoon slump B spreadable layer C used grounds 12. matcha n. ('mah-chuh) A triangular tea bag B powdered green tea C chai latte 13. frappé adj.…