This week at Cog #15
Six-seven, Nora Ephron’s lessons for doctors, ‘radical amazement,’ Cog’s 2025 playlist and our best stories of the year
It seems like everyone has an end-of-year list: Best albums, best songs, best movies, best shows, most read, most watched. (Don’t get me started on all the gift guides!)
We’ve got one more for you – and it’s eclectic, just like Cog. We published 227 original essays in 2025 on everything from KPop Demon Hunters to ICE, to a beloved Palestinian bakery in Somerville, Mass.
Revisit a favorite essay or discover one you missed. And definitely check out our 2025 playlist – it’s musical mayhem (think Lorde, John Prine and Oasis, all in one glorious 90-minute experience). We’re taking a break through the holidays, but will be back in your inboxes in early January. — CA
This week’s stories
If you encountered a single child in 2025, you likely heard the phrase six-seven, writes Robert Isenberg, a filmmaker and the father of an 11-year-old boy. As a parent it’s annoying. But as a writer, I’m grudgingly fond of six-seven. Especially for what it means — or doesn’t mean — to kids my son’s age.
A season of ‘radical amazement’
As Judy Bolton-Fasman watched her daughter, a medical student, care for homeless patients, she thought back to the baby she rocked to sleep with the same sense of awe and wonder she felt long ago.
What will you miss? What won’t you? The answers may surprise you
Nancy Rappaport MD teaches an elective course to Harvard Medical School students that uses literature to help make sense of the experiences they face as healers: pain, loss, fear, alienation, compassion. One of the readings includes excerpts from Nora Ephron’s “I Remember Nothing” -- reading it delights her every time.
Musical mayhem: The Cog 2025 playlist
Music reminds us of what we’ve lost and what we’ve found, writes Kate Neale Cooper. Where we’ve been, and where we’re going. These are the songs and artists Cog contributors wrote about this year.
Cognoscenti’s best stories of 2025
The 230-odd pieces Cog published this year were personal and political. We worked with new writers and bestselling authors, wrote dozens of newsletters, produced live events, dabbled in video and made radio. The thing about working in the news business is, we never know what’s going to happen -- that was never more true than in 2025.
Bonus content
A positive pregnancy test. BBQ potato chips. An eraser. The gifts that stay with us for a lifetime
What is the most memorable gift you’ve ever given or received? We asked. You answered. (From 2019)
‘I think almost everyone who works at The New Yorker is obsessed in some way’
And we’re obsessed with them. We can’t wait to snuggle up under a blanket and watch this documentary over the holidays.
‘Friendship takes a lot of work’
Yes, says Kate Baer. It is inconvenient to meet up after work and after the kids’ bedtime. But we should do it anyway.