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Fall’s Big Debate Settled! Is It OK to Eat an Apple Right Off the Tree, or Do You Need to Wash It First?

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6 Scientifically Backed Ways to Recover from a Bad Day When Things Just Aren’t Going Your Way

I recently had one of “those days.” You know the ones, where absolutely nothing goes your way and things just keep getting worse the further into it you get. After a crazy day, I forgot to pick up groceries, so I scrounged around my kitchen for something to eat, dropped an egg, and then turned around too quickly and knocked a favorite bowl to the floor, where it shattered into pieces. After quickly cleaning up, I later stepped on a rogue shard that had flown, unnoticed, out of the kitchen and onto my wood floor. Sheesh , I thought, ready to cocoon myself in bubble wrap. Can things get worse? I envisioned choking to death on my dinner, ingesting some other shard of ceramic or maybe slipping in the shower later that night and hitting my head. I wasn’t sure my evening could recover. It’s a thing, this downward spiral of doom. We all do it. But do we make it worse for ourselves? And do we have the power to turn our days around , or are we cursed once the spiral begi...

Watch The Reader’s Digest Escalator Interview with Author Min Jin Lee

What would you sacrifice to give your family a better life? That’s the question at the heart of New York Times bestselling author Min Jin Lee’s four-novel series about the Korean diaspora. Each book explores a different community and chapter of the Korean experience abroad. Her debut, Free Food for Millionaires , follows Casey Han, the daughter of Korean immigrants navigating class and ambition in New York City. Then came Pachinko , her sweeping bestseller about generations of a Korean family building a life in Japan, which became a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction. Now Lee is back with the third installment, American Hagwon , and this time, she’s exploring what happens when the pursuit of a better life gets tangled up with the pursuit of a better education. The novel follows John and Helen Koh and their three children after the 1997 Asian financial crisis and a personal betrayal shatter their middle-class life in Seoul. This sends the famil...

Is It Really Rude to Bring an Iced Coffee to a Job Interview?

It was the iced latte that broke the internet: In a now- infamous TikTok, recruiter Caitlin Wehniainen, said she’s noticed Gen Z job candidates showing up to interviews with an iced latte in hand—which, she argued, made it seem less like a professional career moment and more like stop No. 5 on the candidate’s errand list, somewhere between Starbucks and Target. The internet, naturally, lost its mind over this anecdote. The debate split pretty cleanly along generational lines . Older people saw the drink and thought, Pshaw! We used to go to interviews in our best suits, with our résumés printed on actual paper . Younger people saw the same coffee and thought, OK? And? Others pointed out that maybe the bigger story wasn’t the beverage but the job market, where getting an entry-level job increasingly feels like applying to become an astronaut. All of which raises the question: Is it actually rude to bring an iced coffee—or tea or water bottle...

The Nicest Moments of 2026—So Far! (Warning: You Might Get a Little Emotional)

If 2026 has taught us anything, it’s that life can be a lot. The headlines have been exhausting, and the world has felt especially heavy. But mixed in with all of that have been some beautiful, surprising moments that remind us there’s still plenty of good happening too. The  nicest moments have a habit of sneaking up on you like that, usually when you least expect them and sometimes when you need them most. So we wanted to give those moments the attention they deserve. From a flight attendant who helped a tired mom to runners who sacrificed their own finish times to astronauts who know the true meaning of friendship, the acts of kindness in this story will give you a little break from everything else going on—and help you remember that good people are still out there doing really good things. Read on for the heartwarming moments that have made 2026 a little brighter. Get  Reader’s Digest ’s  Read Up newsletter for more true stories, fun f...

5 Ways You Can Become a Morning Person (Yes, Even If You’re a Night Owl!)

It isn’t easy to wake up early. And if you’re not a morning person? That’s a whole other level of misery.  Now, let me put this out there first: If you’re a night owl, you’re not being lazy. Some of us just aren’t hardwired to be at our peak in the a.m. I’ll admit I need at least three cups of coffee in the morning for my brain to come online. And you’ll never catch me at the gym before work. So what makes someone an early bird (often called a morning lark) vs. a night owl? And how can a true night person become an up-and-at-’em type? It’s key info to know, living in our morning-oriented world. If you ever have to rise early for school, kids or your job, you may need to nudge your clock forward. To find out how to do just that, I consulted M. Taruj Ali, MD, a sleep medicine specialist in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and chief medical officer of SOMOS Health Precision Sleep & Metabolic Care, and Brian Gunia, PhD, a profes...