K E Y   P O I N T S

• The 12th Doctor’s final episode began in the South Pole, where he met his former self, the First Doctor, who was also reluctant to regenerate 
• A glitch in time left a Captain from WWI marooned with them
• The episode ended with his return to the battlefield for the Christmas truce of 1914
• Bill Potts returned and was revealed to be working for Testimony, a kind-hearted project that uses memories and time travel to “help the dead speak again” 
• A visit to Rusty, “the good dalek”, uncovered Bill’s secret role and it was up to her to persuade both Doctors to regenerate 
• The Captain (Mark Gatiss) was later revealed to be Archibald Hamish Lethbridge-Stewart, who must be a relative of Alistair Gordon, one of the Doctor’s greatest friends 
• Clara Oswald and Nardole (Jenna Coleman and Matt Lucas) reappeared to say goodbye to the 12th Doctor 
• The closing seconds saw Capaldi regenerate into the 13th Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker. 

S N A P   V ER D I C T

With the first ever female Doctor incoming, plenty of fresh eyes will have been on the Christmas special, but longtime fans weren’t forgotten.

An appearance from Rusty, goodbyes from former companions - “Hello, you stupid old man” - and The Captain’s identity added an extra layer of emotion for the show’s devotees, while the central story provided a reminder that it is Christmas after all.  

There were plenty of highlights, though these took the form of small comments and asides rather than spectacular battles. ‘Twice Upon A Time’ - to use the episode’s full title - was a fitting reminder of why Capaldi’s Doctor is one of the best as he swerved between dark-yet-humourous comments, contemplating the past and learning a final, vital lesson from Bill Potts. 

The Doctor also chastised his predecessor for sexist comments, with his rebuttals also sending a clear message to any viewers who remain uncomfortable with the fact a woman will take control of the TARDIS next year. 

And it isn’t just Capaldi who was taking his final bow either, as Pearl Mackie’s appearance as Bill was her last, though her Testimony role means there’s every chance we may see her again in the future.

Showrunner Steven Moffat handed over the reins at the exact moment the regeneration took place and will surely be delighted with his final decisions in the writer’s room. The countdown to series 11 can officially begin. 

B E S T   L I N E S

The 12th Doctor:  

Peter Capaldi’s final words: 

Jodie Whittaker’s first line:

W H A T ′ S   N E X T ?

Fans are in for a long wait before Jodie’s first full season of ‘Doctor Who’, as it’s not set to air until Autumn 2018. 

When the Doctor does return, she’ll have three companions alongside her in the TARDIS, played by Mandip Gill, Tosin Cole and Bradley Walsh.

The series will consist of one 60-minute instalment, followed by nine 50-minute episodes. 

When a group of baby elephants needed warmth during a cold front in Southeast Asia last week, they bundled up in donated crochet and knitted blankets.

Save Elephant Foundation was in need of provisions after an unusual bout of cold weather rolled into the area, threatening the youngest of its herd. The cold front came in from China and brought dangerously low temperatures to the Winga Baw elephant sanctuary in Myanmar. Thankfully, Blankets For Baby Rhinos, a “wildlife conservation craft group,” was prepared. 

Save Elephants Foundation thanked the organization for the “beautiful knitting blankets” in a Facebook post on Friday.

Save Elephants Foundation, based in Thailand and with centers in Myanmar and Cambodia, is an organization that rescues and houses elephants as a part of its mission to save them from extinction. Sangdeaun Lek Chailert, the organization’s founder, told The New York Times these were the coldest temperatures the region has seen in 40 years.

“We are doing our best to keep all of our animals warm, with fires being kept through the night,” Save Elephants Foundation wrote on Facebook.

Blankets For Baby Rhinos was founded last year by Sue Brown and Ella Best to create handmade blankets to help animals during freezing winter months. The group consists of 1,500 knitters and crocheters scattered around the globe, including the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe, according to The New York Times. 

Chailert told the Times that the elephants appeared to appreciate the blankets.

“All seven babies, they loved it.”

WASHINGTON ― The repeal of net neutrality isn’t great news for consumers. Giant internet service providers that control their own media empires will be able to push you toward their content while serving up their rivals’ content at molasses-slow speeds. Consumers could be driven into walled content gardens where what you read and watch will be partly determined by which company provides your internet service.

That’s probably bad for you. But it would be good for us. HuffPost is owned by a company called Oath, which in turn is owned by Verizon, one of the three largest internet service providers in the U.S. Oath was created after Verizon purchased AOL in 2015 and Yahoo in 2017 and combined them into one media corporation. It owns a wide range of media properties, including HuffPost, Yahoo News, TechCrunch, Engadget, Yahoo Sports and Tumblr. And now, absent the regulatory protection of net neutrality, Verizon and other internet service providers can favor our content while discriminating against the competition’s.

Verizon did not respond to a request for comment. The company wasn’t the first internet service provider to build a media empire, and it may not be the last — ISPs and tech companies have been acquiring content providers like HuffPost for decades.

“The television revolution that began half a century ago spawned a number of industries, including the manufacturing of TV sets, but the long-term winners were those who used the medium to deliver information and entertainment,” Microsoft CEO Bill Gates wrote in a 1996 essay published just after Microsoft and NBC joined together to create MSNBC. “Content,” Gates declared, “is king.”

The trend spread. Comcast purchased NBCUniversal in 2011. AT&T announced an $85 billion purchase of Time Warner in 2016 — a merger that is now being challenged by the Department of Justice.

AT&T was aiming to build an “empire,” The New York Times declared. More deals of similar size and scope could be on the horizon.

Because of this sort of consolidation, much more of the internet — and access to it — is dominated by just a handful of companies, less than even a few years ago. Soon those internet service providers that have vertically integrated media empires will be able to operate much like the old closed system of television — controlling both the production of media and the means of distributing it, warned Mitch Stoltz, a senior attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“What the customer is presented with is what’s convenient and easy to find,” Stoltz said. “And where your eyes and ears get steered comes more and more under control of the [internet service provider].”

In other words, major ISPs will be able to promote the media companies they own — like this one — while punishing competitors’ offerings. That will force consumers, who often have no choice in internet service providers, into walled gardens of content that the ISPs create.

Some Democrats are now questioning whether the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission need to step in and redefine the terms by which ISPs can own media companies. Prior to the FCC’s vote to kill net neutrality, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) asked the Justice Department to open an investigation into Comcast’s purchase of NBCUniversal in 2011 and consider “separating Comcast and NBCU in order to fully restore competition.” That merger came with specific conditions, set to expire in February, that included a promise to abide by the principles of net neutrality.

“[G]iven that the FCC is on the brink of reversing its Open Internet Order, it is all the more imperative for the Justice Department to ensure fair competition in this space,” Blumenthal wrote. “Without rules to protect consumers and govern how internet providers treat their competitors, Comcast-NBCU will be free to discriminate against online video distributors, which is exactly what DOJ is trying to avoid and is precisely what the merger conditions are meant to address.”

But even in the unlikely event that Blumenthal and his ilk succeed in breaking up vertically integrated ISPs or bringing back net neutrality, their victory won’t be complete. After all, the ISPs aren’t the only huge companies creating walled gardens: Silicon Valley giants followed Gates’ 1996 vision and created their own media empires, too. Today, Amazon has its own television and film studio, a distribution platform for its Prime Video offerings and hardware to deliver it in its Amazon Fire television device. Google owns YouTube, the largest online video platform, and manufactures Chromecast, streaming television hardware. Facebook has its own ambitions to produce video content for distribution through its platforms and apps. Apple has its Apple TV device and streaming video options available through iTunes.

These Silicon Valley firms are, even more than ISPs, “the most dangerous vertically integrated institutions,” argued Matt Stoller, a senior fellow at the Open Markets Institute, a nonprofit that backs vigorous antitrust enforcement. And like ISPs, these firms are likely to benefit from the repeal of net neutrality rules. Companies like Amazon are already hard-wired into the backbone of the internet at the service providers’ data centers, and it is likely that their market position will improve as competitors will find it even more difficult to challenge them.

This fact has been a convenient cudgel for net neutrality opponents. Since Amazon, Google and Facebook aren’t governed by net neutrality principles, Verizon, Comcast and AT&T shouldn’t be either, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a former Verizon lawyer and leading net neutrality foe, argued before the final vote to repeal the rules on Dec. 14.

Fortunately for net neutrality advocates, fighting the balkanization and walling-off of the internet doesn’t require picking between the ISPs and the Silicon Valley giants. Regulators and politicians could crack down on both. There’s some support for that idea, too: Soon-to-be former Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) called for net neutrality rules for companies like Facebook and Google just last month.

“No one company should have the power to pick and choose which content reaches consumers and which doesn’t,” Franken said. “Facebook, Google and Amazon, like ISPs, should be neutral in their treatment of the flow of lawful information and commerce on their platform.”

In the meantime, if you get your internet from Comcast, AT&T or Charter, we apologize in advance for the extra seconds it might soon take to load this website.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article mistakenly said AT&T announced an $85 million purchase of Time Warner. It’s $85 billion.

Days after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, he received a stark warning from America’s outgoing leader.

In their first and only meeting, Barack Obama told his successor that North Korea ― a volatile nation hellbent on nuclear proliferation ― would pose the biggest foreign challenge his administration would face.

Trump, who has dedicated much of his presidency to erasingObama’slegacy, seemed to heed this advice, briefly. After rarely mentioning North Korea during his election campaign, he swiftly elevated the issue to his primary foreign policy concern (and later declared an end to Obama’s “era of strategic patience” with the rogue state).

But under Trump’s leadership, the past year has seen brewing tensions between Washington and Pyongyang soar to unprecedented levels with a specter of nuclear war. Economic sanctions in response to a series of North Korean missile launches escalated into a direct exchange of heated insults and threats between Trump and Kim Jong Un, the hermit kingdom’s hostile dictator.

North Korea’s Nuclear Strides

The Pentagon’s efforts to stave off conflict with North Korea have been marred by a string of “decisive failures” this year, according to new analysis published this month from the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.

“The United States and [North Korea] have engaged in bellicose rhetorical brinksmanship, making war between the two states seem increasingly likely,” wrote Katy Collin, a post-doctoral fellow at the Brookings Foreign Policy program. “Public acceptance of the possibility of conflict within the United States has ballooned. Mechanisms to head off escalation caused by misunderstandings do not exist.”

North Korea made remarkable technological advances to its internationally condemned nuclear program throughout 2017. It conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 3, which the regime claimed was a hydrogen bomb loaded onto an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Subsequent analysis of seismic data revealed the test was approximately 17 times stronger than the blast that decimated the Japanese city of Hiroshima during World War II.

Pyongyang has also expanded the reach of its missiles this year: The entire continental U.S. is now believed to be within ICBM striking range. Experts have expressed concern at North Korea’s alarming progress, and worry that it is on track to outpace America’s abilities to defend itself and its allies in the region.

The regime’s most recent missile launch in late November exceeded 8,100 miles in range. As tested, such a rocket would be able to travel more than enough distance to reach Washington, D.C., or New York City, although it is unclear if it could transport a warhead that far.

“North Korea knows what they’re doing,” David Wright, a physicist and the co-director of the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told HuffPost at the time. “It’s hard to say if it’s six months or two years before they can deliver a nuclear warhead, but it’s heading in that direction.”

Donald Trump’s Fire And Fury

Yet Trump, undermining diplomatic efforts by his own Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, has repeatedly confronted North Korea’s provocations with aggravations of his own. He infamously vowed in August to meet the defiant country with “fire and fury,” prompting Pyongyang’s threat to launch a missile at the U.S. island territory of Guam. 

Months later, Trump said the U.S. would “totally destroy” North Korea, which is home to an estimated 25 million people, if provoked. “Rocketman is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime,” Trump said in his first speech before the United Nations General Assembly, referring to Kim.

In an extremely rare personal address, Kim responded by pledging to “tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire.” Soon after, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho said the regime might detonate an H-bomb in the Pacific Ocean.

As hostilities boiled over, experts urged the “America First” leader to “stick to the script” and avoid making incendiary comments about North Korea during his 12-day trip through Asia last month. But Trump couldn’t help himself:

The president’s taunts “create an incentive for the North Koreans to stage provocations to show him up,” Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear weapons expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, told HuffPost in November.

If the situation deteriorates into an acute crisis, such remarks from Trump could give North Korea the impression a military strike is imminent, Lewis added. “If that happens, my belief is the North Koreans would use their nuclear weapons first, in order to try to repel an invasion.”

A turbulent 2017 has stirred fears and uncertainty for the year ahead.

“Trump has been impatient with multilateral, diplomatic containment of nuclear proliferation,” Collin said. “While diplomacy, sanctions, and targeted engagement have been successful in preventing conflict on the Korean peninsula for decades, 2017 marks decisive failures in terms of North Korea’s nuclear capacities.”

To paraphrase Homer Simpson: “Dough!”

A Florida man has been charged with criminal mischief after he reportedly beat up a cash machine last month.

The reason: It gave him too much money.

Michael Joseph Oleksik, of Merritt Island, was arrested Thursday after a three-week investigation into a disturbance that took place Nov. 29 at a Wells Fargo branch in Cocoa.

Surveillance video shows Oleksik repeatedly punching the ATM’s touch screen, according to Florida Today.

Witnesses told police that Oleksik, 23, called the bank a short time later and told a manager he’d punched the ATM.

Oleksik reportedly said he was “angry the ATM was giving him too much money and he did not know what to do.”

He then apologized for damaging the ATM and said he was in a hurry for work.

Despite the apology, Wells Fargo chose to press charges against Oleksik, who was arrested Thursday and booked at the Brevard County Jail.

He was released a short time later after posting bond, according to the New York Daily News. 

The episode marks a continuation of the sometimes uneasy relationship between mankind and ATM-kind.

In July, a repairman working on an ATM in Corpus Christi, Texas, got stuck inside a room connected to the machine.

He was forced to scrawl a message on a slip of paper and stick it through the receipt slot.

As 2018 approaches, there’s a lot to look forward to: the end of a hellish 2017, the Winter Olympics, “The Bachelor: Winter Games,” 2017 being over, midterm elections, and 2017 finally drawing to a close. 

More than anything, though, we’re eagerly anticipating the flood of new 2018 books ― and the coming year’s literary crop looks bountiful.

We can’t wait to lose ourselves in new fiction from Meg Wolitzer, Laura van den Berg and Leni Zumas, and to absorb thoughtful essays about culture, gender, race and identity from Zadie Smith, Morgan Jerkins and Marilynne Robinson. We’re also excited for the books that don’t appear on this list ― books we don’t even know about yet, but which will end up surprising us with their power and beauty. 

Here are the 60 books we can’t wait to read in 2018:

JANUARY

Jan. 2

“The Nothing,” Hanif Kureishi (Faber & Faber)

An elderly filmmaker becomes obsessed with the fear that his younger wife is having an affair with a friend, and plots to expose them. Kureishi’s latest novel is a slim and focused tale of sex, vengeance and mortality.

Jan. 9

“The Immortalists,” Chloe Benjamin (Putnam)

If you’re a sucker for fantasy-tinged family sagas, “The Immortalists” should have you excited. In the summer of 1968, four young siblings visit a fortune-teller who tells them the day they’ll die ― a prediction that shapes the rest of their lives.

“The Afterlives,” Thomas Pierce (Riverhead)

There’s a cottage industry of Christian memoirs about heaven written by people who were revived after technically dying. Pierce’s novel explores the emotional fallout of the reverse scenario: A young man suffers a sudden heart attack, is resuscitated, and realizes, to his dismay, that he didn’t glimpse an afterlife.  

Jan. 16

“Everything Here Is Beautiful,” Mira T. Lee (Pamela Dorman)

Lee’s debut novel tells the story of two sisters ― the older one responsible and practical, the younger one impulsive and plagued by mental illness ― navigating a lonely adulthood after their mother dies. The narrative carries echoes of ”Sense and Sensibility,” but offers a wholly original exploration of sisterly bonds.

“Red Clocks,” Leni Zumas (Little, Brown)

Set in an America where embryos have been granted personhood rights and abortion has been outlawed, this chilling dystopia follows a handful of women whose lives are tightly circumscribed by these laws. Zumas’s incandescent prose promises to make ”Red Clocks” a particular treat.

Jan. 23 

“Brass,” Xhenet Aliu (Random House)

Aliu’s first novel arrives on a wave of glowing blurbs from some of our favorite writers of the past few years ― Celeste Ng, Cristina Henriquez, Kaitlyn Greenidge, and Laura van den Berg. In mordant, biting prose, she interweaves the stories of a mother and a daughter living in a fading Connecticut town they both hopelessly long to escape from.

“The Sky Is Yours,” Chandler Klang Smith (Hogarth)

Readers who love ambitious literary genre fiction should be on the lookout for Smith’s first novel, a vibrantly uncanny dystopia set on an island metropolis, in the shadow of dragons that swoop overhead, where income inequality and mass incarceration have spun out of control.

“Peach,” Emma Glass (Bloomsbury USA)

Even as the world confronts report after report of famous men who are sexual predators, we rarely confront the horrific pain that can result from sexual violence. In “Peach,” a stream-of-consciousness narrative about a girl reeling in the aftermath of a brutal rape, Glass confronts us with the bodily and psychological trauma left behind.

Jan. 30

“This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America,” Morgan Jerkins (Harper Perennial)

Jerkins’s buzzy essay collection revolves around identity, and what it has meant for her to live as a black woman in America. In essays about white cheerleaders, children’s books, traveling in Russia, going to therapy and much more, she unpacks her discovery of her own identity, and her struggle with the white, patriarchal American culture that surrounds her.

FEBRUARY 

Feb. 6

“Heart Berries,” Terese Marie Mailhot (Counterpoint)

“Heart Berries” is praised in press copy as a “poetic memoir.” But poetic is an oft-used descriptor of lovely writing, and this book seems to be something more striking than the word signifies: a memoir and a poem, a haunting and dazzlingly written narrative of Mailhot’s growing up on a reservation in the Pacific Northwest.

“Asymmetry,” Lisa Halliday (Simon & Schuster)

A Whiting Award winner, ”Asymmetry” tells two unexpectedly overlapping stories ― first, that of a love affair between a young woman and an aging, famous author; then the story of an Iraqi-American man who is targeted by immigration enforcement as he travels out of the country.  

“The Friend,” Sigrid Nunez (Riverhead)

In the acclaimed novelist’s latest book, two writers share a close, unconventional friendship; when one them dies suddenly, his widow asks the other to take in his Great Dane. As the narrator makes space in her apartment for the huge dog, she also sinks into her own overwhelming grief.

“Feel Free,” Zadie Smith (Penguin Press)

If you aren’t already looking forward to this new book of essays from the irreplaceable Smith, now’s the time to get jazzed. If there’s anything more absorbing to read than her novels, it might just be her essays, which are reflective, erudite yet inviting, and which always cut to the quick of her chosen subject. 

“An American Marriage,” Tayari Jones (Algonquin)

In Jones’s heart-wrenching new novel, a young and ambitious black couple find their lives derailed when the husband is arrested, convicted and sentenced to 12 years for a crime he didn’t commit. “An American Marriage” poses profound questions about what we owe each other, and what injustices we allow to persist.

“I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes With Death,” Maggie O’Farrell (Knopf)

A story of life, told in moments when death was nearest, is the award-winning novelist’s latest. O’Farrell’s memoir is told in highly charged vignettes ― distinct memories of near-death experiences.

Feb. 13

“The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore,” Kim Fu (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Five girls on the precipice of adolescence go on a kayaking trip, but find themselves left alone in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. Fu’s novel starts here, at Camp Forevermore, but follows the lives of these girls well into adulthood ― and shows how deeply marked they are by that fateful time at camp.

“Sadness Is a White Bird,” Moriel Rothman-Zecher (Atria)

In his novel, Rothman-Zecher, once a conscientious objector who refused to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces, explores the fraught politics of the region through the eyes of a young Israeli man and two Palestinian siblings he befriends.

“Freshwater,” Akwaeke Emezi (Grove)

This debut novel follows Ada as she is born, grows up and leaves Nigeria for America to go to college. Always a troubled girl, it becomes clear that she has multiple personalities struggling for dominance within her, and she must grapple with external trauma as well as her own self-destructive urges.

“White Houses,” Amy Bloom (Random House)

In this historical novel, Bloom dramatizes the love affair between Eleanor Roosevelt and journalist Lorena Hickok. Though Roosevelt is the more familiar woman, Hickok is the narrator and central figure in Bloom’s fictionalization of their complicated romance.

Feb. 20

“What Are We Doing Here?,” Marilynne Robinson (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

The title of Robinson’s latest book of essays ― many of which were given as lectures over the past few years ― should be read with a rueful sigh. In her measured but strongly argued pieces, she takes on American self-mythologizing, the role of faith and values in our history and the roots of our divided politics. 

MARCH

March 6

“Census,” Jesse Ball (Ecco)

Inspired by his own late brother, Ball’s atmospheric novel follows a widower who learns he’s dying and will soon leave his beloved son, who has Down syndrome, alone in the world. Desperate to make the most of their final days together, he takes a job traveling the country as a census taker.

“Girls Burn Brighter,” Shobha Rao (Flatiron)

The first novel from an award-winning short fiction writer, ”Girls Burn Brighter” tells the story of two young girls growing up in a small Indian village. They form a fast friendship, only to be torn apart. Rao’s novel should be a treat for Ferrante fans, exploring the bonds of friendship and how female ambition beats against the strictures of poverty and patriarchal societies.

“Awayland,” Ramona Ausubel (Riverhead)

Ausubel, known for her darkly whimsical fiction, is publishing her second short story collection. It will feature 11 stories, divided into four subsections: “Bay of Hungers,” “The Cape of Persistent Hope,” “The Lonesome Flats,” and “The Dream Isles.”

“Rainbirds,” Clarissa Goenawan (Soho Press)

Goenawan’s debut novel, a genre-bending tale of a young man who moves to a small town to put his sister’s affairs in order after she’s brutally murdered, has already garnered international praise for elegantly combining a suspenseful mystery with an eloquent meditation on love and loss. 

“Gun Love,” Jennifer Clement (Hogarth)

Clement turns her hypnotic pen to the story of America’s love affair with guns ― specifically, a nine-year-old girl and her mother, who live in a trailer park in central Florida. Their impoverished but happy life is disrupted by the mother’s romance with a gun-loving rascal.

March 13 

“The Sparsholt Affair,” Alan Hollinghurst (Knopf)

The latest novel from Hollinghurst, whom New Yorker critic James Wood once described as “one of the few contemporary writers who deserve” to be praised for “writing beautifully,” is a multigenerational saga that revolves around a man named David Sparsholt who arrives at Oxford in the midst of World War II.

“The Life to Come,” Michelle de Kretser (Catapult)

The acclaimed Australian writer’s fifth novel spans continents ― set in Australia, France and her native Sri Lanka ― and weaves together disparate narratives that raise uncomfortable questions about Australian society, self-satisfied liberalism and modern life.

“The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror,” Mallory Ortberg (Holt)

Toasties, assemble! The cofounder of the beloved, if short-lived, website The Toast has transformed one of the site’s literary humor columns, “Children’s Stories Made Horrific,” into a book of twisted tales inspired by classic fairy tales. We could not be more excited.

“Men and Apparitions,” Lynne Tillman (Soft Skull)

Tillman’s sixth novel ― her first in over a decade ― centers on an eccentric man with academic obsessions. She traces his mental perambulations as he immerses himself in family photographs and stories, studies modern masculinity and loses himself in his own circling thoughts and emotions.

March 20

“The Gunners,” Rebecca Kauffman (Counterpoint)

The Gunners are a tightknit group of neighborhood playmates ― until they come of age, and one friend stops associating with them. Years later, that long-estranged friend dies by suicide, and the remaining five gather again to untangle what went wrong, what secrets she was holding onto and what secrets are in their own pasts.

“Stray City,” Chelsea Johnson (Custom House)

Set in Portland in the late 1990s and the late 2000s, ”Stray City” follows a young woman who finds acceptance in the city’s lesbian community, far from her religious upbringing, only to end up having a baby after a fling with a man. Johnson’s debut promises to be an engaging, immersive saga of family, chosen and otherwise.

“The Italian Teacher,” Tom Rachman (Viking)

The author of ”The Imperfectionists” and ”The Rise and Fall of Great Powers” returns with a timely novel about a great artist whose failings as a father and a husband shape his family’s lives ― especially that of his son, also an artist, who lives in his father’s shadow.

March 27

“The Chandelier,” Clarice Lispector, translated by Benjamin Moser and Magdalena Edwards (New Directions)

Lispector, a Brazilian writer, died in 1977, but she’s enraptured a burgeoning American audience in recent years. A brilliantly artful novel of the interior life of a female sculptor, ”The Chandelier” will be released in English for the first time in March.

APRIL

April 3

“The Female Persuasion,” Meg Wolitzer (Riverhead)

The author of “The Interestings” once again takes on the optimistic pangs of new adulthood and female ambition in a novel about a college freshman who is shocked and thrilled to be taken under the wing of a feminist leader.  

“The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath,” Leslie Jamison (Little, Brown)

Jamison rocketed to fame with, of all things, the publication of an essay collection, “The Empathy Exams.” Her much-anticipated new book is a hefty full-length nonfiction work, a memoir and cultural history of addiction and recovery.

“See What Can Be Done,” Lorrie Moore (Knopf)

Best loved for her funny, sharp short stories, Moore will release a nonfiction collection of her criticism and essays this spring. 

April 10 

“Macbeth,” Jo Nesbø (Hogarth)

“Macbeth” might have been Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy, but there’s nothing short about Norwegian musician and crime novelist Joe Nesbø’s hefty modern adaptation. The latest in Hogarth’s Shakespeare series situates Macbeth as a beleaguered police inspector caught amid a violent drug war.

“Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion,” Michelle Dean (Grove)

Dean offers a new, women-centric perspective on 20th century American public thought in this history of 10 women whose writing influenced the culture profoundly, including Pauline Kael, Nora Ephron, Joan Didion, and Janet Malcolm.

“And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready” by Meaghan O’Connell (Little, Brown)

Mothers and non-mothers alike have been raving about O’Connell’s book, which grew from her experience keeping an accidental pregnancy in her early 20s and navigating the rigid expectations and bewildering challenges of motherhood.

“Heads of the Colored People,” Nafissa Thompson-Spires (Atria)

A debut collection of interrelated stories, “Heads of the Colored People” explores the lives of black ― especially middle-class ― people, with biting, vivid prose. Thompson-Spires plumbs the depths of black trauma, but also works in a comic mode, satirizing the way Americans think and talk about race, gender, class and more.

“You All Grow Up and Leave Me,” Piper Weiss (William Morrow)

The true-crime memoir genre is thriving, and Weiss’ offering looks particularly intriguing: She was 14 years old when her tennis coach, Gary Wilensky, tried to kidnap a young student, failed and then took his own life. In this book, Weiss looks back on her own youthful time with Wilensky, and reexamines the case itself.

 April 24

“You Think It, I’ll Say It,” Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House)

Sittenfeld, best known for her novels, which include ”Prep” and ”Eligible,” will publish her debut short fiction collection ― ten stories that promise to make good use of her wit and ability to draw deeply relatable characters interacting in deeply human ways.

MAY

May 1

“A Lucky Man,” Jamel Brinkley (Graywolf)

Brinkley’s debut collection, which explores young black men and boys coming of age and finding their places in the world, arrives loaded up with glowing blurbs from literary stars like Daniel Alarcón, Charles Baxter, Garth Greenwell, Paul Yoon and Laila Lalami.

“The Pisces,” Melissa Broder (Hogarth)

Broder is best known for her Twitter account and the essay collection that sprang from it, ”So Sad Today.” ”The Pisces,” her first novel, blends the fantastical with the all-too-relatable in the story of Lucy, a heartbroken, anxiety-ridden Ph.D. student who falls in love with a merman.

“Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture,” edited by Roxane Gay (Harper Perennial)

The only unfortunate thing about this new collection on rape culture, edited by Roxane Gay and featuring work from Gabrielle Union, Ally Sheedy, Lyz Lenz, and more, is that it’s not out until May. We’ve never needed a book like this more than we do at this cultural moment.

“Motherhood,” Sheila Heti (Henry Holt)

The author of the acclaimed novel-from-life “How Should a Person Be?,” Heti turns her attention away from the 20-something indulgences of friendship, casual sex, and single-minded artistry to the 30-something anxiety of whether, and when, to have kids.  

May 8

“That Kind of Mother,” Rumaan Alam (Ecco)

A white woman adopts a black infant after his mother, her own son’s beloved nanny, dies in childbirth. From this heartbreaking premise, Alam plumbs still more heartbreaking questions about the power and limitations of maternal love, and the implacable persistence of racial divides.

May 15

“The Ensemble,” Aja Gabel (Riverhead)

A string quartet, and the four young friends that form it, pursue musical success and personal happiness in a coming-of-age novel about four people coming to grips with themselves, the lives they want and their relationships with each other.

JUNE

June 5

“Florida,” Lauren Groff (Riverhead)

Florida is a state a lot of people have strong feelings about ― including, as it turns out, the author of ”Fates and Furies.” Her next book, a short story collection, centers on the state she calls home.

“Sick: A Life of Lyme, Love, Illness, and Addiction,” Porochista Khakpour (Harper Perennial)

Khakpour, a novelist and writer, suffered from a mysterious chronic illness for years before she got a diagnosis. Her memoir explores the exhausting, hope-sapping experience of navigating the health care system and searching for answers in the face of unremitting suffering.

June 12

“Who Is Vera Kelly?,” Rosalie Knecht (Tin House)

A classic spy novel with a modern, fully realized heroine, ”Who Is Vera Kelly?” follows the titular heroine from her turbulent youth to her time as a spy in Argentina during the Cold War.

JULY

July 10

“What We Were Promised,” Lucy Tan (Little, Brown)

A wealthy Chinese couple, both American-educated professionals, and their housekeeper struggle with their veiled dissatisfactions and existential crises in Tan’s debut novel.

AUGUST

Aug. 7

“The Third Hotel,” Laura van den Berg (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux)

In this dream-like novel, a woman travels to Havana for a film festival. The trip was planned by her recently deceased husband, but when she arrives, she finds him there ― not looking very dead. The reality-defying narrative explores inescapably real questions about the human condition.

“The Court Dancer,” Kyung-Sook Shin (Pegasus)

The acclaimed South Korean writer’s next novel takes place in the Joseon Court and in Paris in the late 19th century, as a beautiful court dancer navigates palace intrigue, the Parisian intellectual milieu and personal heartbreak.

Aug. 14

“Eleanor, or, The Rejection of the Progress of Love,” Anna Moschovakis   (Coffee House Books)

A woman loses her laptop, with all of her work inside. Her quest to recover her data shapes this complicated meta-novel, which untangles the creative process itself, in all of its contradictions, anxieties and hopes.

SEPTEMBER

“My Struggle: Book 6,” Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated by Don Bartlett   (Archipelago)

If you’re a Knausgaard fan, mark your calendar: His next installment of the autobiographical series that vaulted him to international fame will be arrive on American shores in September.

“Transcription,” Kate Atkinson (Transworld)

A young woman joins the Secret Service during the war, then heads to the BBC ― but her past continues to follow her, in the latest from Atkinson, the author of ”Life After Life.”

OCTOBER

“Mr. Occam’s Razor,” Barbara Kingsolver (Harper)

Kingsolver, the author of ”The Poisonwood Bible,” will publish a new novel this fall ― a cross-century saga about two families living in same New Jersey home, a one-time Utopian community, in very different eras.

“Drifts,” Kate Zambreno (Harper Perennial)

In an early 2017 interview, Zambreno, the author of “Green Girl,” said that her upcoming novel “deals a lot with friendships I have with other women writers, and about our conversations.”

“All You Can Ever Know,” Nicole Chung (Catapult)

The Catapult web editor and Toast alum has written, hauntingly, about her adoption and growing up in a white family before. Her long-awaited memoir promises to explore the subject more fully: her relationship with her adoptive family, her reconnection with her birth family, beginning her own family and how she’s worked to find a sense of belonging.

Three Femen activists disrupted Christmas worship services at the Vatican to protest what they believe is the oppression of women perpetuated by the Roman Catholic Church.

Inna Shevchenko, a Ukrainian activist who leads Femen, an anti-patriarchy organization known for staging topless protests to attract media attention, told HuffPost that this action was a way to stand in solidarity with the viral #MeToo social media movement against the sexual assault and harassment of women. 

“As feminists, FEMEN considers organized religions with their institutions and leadership to be one of the historical oppressors of women,” she wrote in an email. “The action [at the] Vatican is, if you want, an act of revenge: a historical victim (a woman) rises up against her historical oppressor.”

Vatican police detained one topless activist Monday as she tried to steal a statue of the baby Jesus from the Nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square, Reuters reported. The activist was identified on Femen’s website as the Ukrainian “sextremist” Alisa Vinogradova. The activist had the words “God is woman” painted on her body in English. The incident occurred two hours before Pope Francis delivered his Christmas message.

Two other Femen activists broke into the Vatican’s Nativity scene on Christmas Eve, according to HuffPost France. They had the phrases ”#MeToo” and “Assaulted by church” written on their bodies. 

Shevchenko compared the Femen activists to a “modern and free Virgin Mary.” Although Mary is the major female figure in Catholicism, Shevchenko believes she is portrayed as silent and passive. It’s that same sort of passiveness, she said, that is expected of women who experience sexual assault.

“Despite her significant role, Mary represents chastity, maternity and passiveness-all that is expected from women in patriarchal society. Moreover she is the woman with nor voice, neither sexuality,” Shevchenko told HuffPost. “The passiveness and silence of Mary is still often expected from women across the world as they get assaulted and attacked. As the #metoo campaign has shown, many women kept silence about their horrible experiences for years often under pressure, out of fear and insecurity. Nevertheless they have spoken, they broke the silence and shook the established system of dominance.”

“Similarly, our Mary, who is expected to be passive and quiet, now breaks the silence and points out ... the assaults of women by the Church.”

Among the grievances Femen has against the Catholic church are its “hostile” position against the LGBTQ community, its treatment of priests accused of pedophilia and its historic opposition to abortion.

Shevchenko also noted that Femen wants to criticize the patriarchal nature of organized religions.

“We decry the notion of the Father God as well as male leadership in religious institutions (as women are still officially banned from preaching),” she wrote. “We oppose religious scripture which often [portrays] women as inferior and weak creatures, their bodies as dirty and shameful, their souls as guilty.”

In contrast, the “Marys” who participated in the activism at the Vatican this year are in full control of their bodies and are, in fact, using them as political tools, she said. 

Femen, founded in Ukraine in 2008, is an atheist organization that believes in the separation of church and state. One of its stated goals is to work against religious institutions’ influence in the “civic, sex and reproductive lives of modern women.”

Femen’s tactics and firmly anti-religious stance have earned criticism from some fellow feminists, including Muslim women who accuse the group of promoting Islamophobic rhetoric. 

The Vatican has often been a target of Femen’s activism, including a similar protest at the Vatican’s Nativity scene on Christmas in 2014, Reuters reported.  

Two childhood friends from Hawaii received an extraordinary Christmas gift this year: They found out they’re brothers. 

Alan Robinson and Walter Macfarlane spent decades wondering about their biological families. Robinson was adopted, and Macfarlane never knew his father.

Both searched online for answers about their missing relatives, and DNA tests finally helped them realize that an important piece of the puzzle had been in front of them the entire time. 

“It was an overwhelming experience. It’s still overwhelming,” Robinson told the Hawaii-based news station KHON2. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take for me to get over this feeling.”

Robinson and Macfarlane were born 15 months apart in Hawaii. They met in the sixth grade, played on the same football team in high school, and have remained close friends for about 60 years. 

Macfarlane started searching online for answers about his father several years ago, but had no luck. Later, he and his children started using DNA-matching websites like Ancestry.com.

The top match for Macfarlane’s DNA turned out to be a user named Robi737, whose “X” chromosomes appeared to be identical to those of Macfarlane. As luck would have it, Robi737 was actually Robinson. 

The two men realized they have the same mother, and celebrated the discovery with a big gathering of family and friends on Saturday ― just in time for the holidays.

“This is the best Christmas present I could ever imagine having,” Robinson told KHON2.

They said they planned to spend more time catching up and traveling together during their retirement.

Macfarlane and Robinson weren’t the only ones to discover a special link this holiday season. Earlier this month, a student at Georgia’s Kennesaw State University used Ancestry.com to find his brother ― who was studying at the same college.

Companies like Ancestry.com and 23andMe have capitalized on advancements in DNA analysis by setting up services that promise to help customers learn more about their heritage and their genetic relatives. Ancestry.com has been online since 1996, but its DNA database launched in 2012. 

The company claims users have made “eight billion connections between their trees and other subscribers’ trees” since 2008. 

Oh we do love a period drama to lose ourselves in at Christmas time, and this year the BBC are treating us all to an absolute classic.

Here’s everything you need to know about ‘Little Women’.

When is it on?

The series opener in on BBC One on Boxing Day at 8pm and continues on 27 December at 8pm and 28 December at the slightly later time of 8.30pm.

What is it about?

The three-part period drama is based on Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 classic novel that follows the lives of the March sisters Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy on their journey from childhood to adulthood while their father is away at war.

Under the guidance of their mother Marmee, the girls navigate what it means to be a young woman: from gender roles to sibling rivalry, first love, loss and marriage.

Hang on a minute, haven’t I seen this on screen before?

Quite possibly. This isn’t the first time ‘Little Women’ has been adapted for the screen - both big and small.

There have been four movies – two silent films, one in the 1930s and another in the 1940s – as well as four TV series, including a Japanese anime and an American opera. But you’re probably most likely to know the 1994 movie, which starred Susan Sarandon, Winona Ryder and Christian Bale.

Who is in the cast of the latest adaptation?

The sisters are played by newcomer Maya Hawke, Willa Fitzgerald (MTV’s ’Scream’), Annes Elwy (‘King Arthur: Excalibur Rising’) and Kathryn Newton, who you might recognise from ‘Big Little Lies’, and also appears in next year’s much-hyped ‘Ladybird’.

They are supported by Dylan Baker, who plays their father and British actress Emily Watson, who was most recently seen in the BBC’s ‘Apple Tree Yard’.

Elsewhere, Jonah Hauer-King plays the charming next door neighbour Laurie, whilst screen legends Angela Lansbury (‘Murder She Wrote’) and Michael Gambon (‘Harry Potter’) also star.

Where was it filmed?

The three-parter was filmed in Ireland over the summer months.

Can I get a taster?

Step this way...

Why should I watch it?

As well as being a bona fide classic and boasting a fantastic cast, the novel has been adapted by ‘Call the Midwife’ creator, Heidi Thomas.

And If you really liked it…

Hold tight, because there is a big screen version of the story in the works, that puts the March sisters in modern times.

Artist and activist Rose McGowan on Saturday tweeted criticism of Meryl Streep, indicating the actress had been willing to work with producer Harvey Weinstein for years after he had gained a reputation for being a sexual predator and saying that the plan to protest sexual misconduct in Hollywood by wearing black to the Golden Globes rang hollow.

In the tweet, which has since been deleted, McGowan said, “Actresses, like Meryl Streep, who happily worked for The Pig Monster, are wearing black @goldenglobes in a silent protest. YOUR SILENCE is THE problem. You’ll accept a fake award breathlessly & affect no real chance. I despise your hypocrisy. Maybe you should all wear Marchesa.”

In a statement sent to HuffPost by her publicist, Leslee Dart, Streep said:

“It hurt to be attacked by Rose McGowan in banner headlines this weekend, but I want to let her know I did not know about Weinstein’s crimes, not in the 90s when he attacked her, or through subsequent decades when he proceeded to attack others.

I wasn’t deliberately silent. I didn’t know. I don’t tacitly approve of rape. I didn’t know.  I don’t like young women being assaulted. I didn’t know this was happening.

“I don’t know where Harvey lives, nor has he ever been to my home.

I have never in my life been invited to his hotel room.

I have been to his office once, for a meeting with Wes Craven for “Music of the Heart” in 1998.

HW distributed movies I made with other people.

HW was not a filmmaker; he was often a producer, primarily a marketer of films made by other people- some of them great, some not great. But not every actor, actress, and director who made films that HW distributed knew he abused women, or that he raped Rose in the 90s, other women before and others after, until they told us. We did not know that women’s silence was purchased by him and his enablers.

HW needed us not to know this, because our association with him bought him credibility, an ability to lure young, aspiring women into circumstances where they would be hurt.

He needed me much more than I needed him and he made sure I didn’t know. Apparently he hired ex Mossad operators to protect this information from becoming public. Rose and the scores of other victims of these powerful, moneyed, ruthless men face an adversary for whom Winning, at any and all costs, is the only acceptable outcome. That’s why a legal defense fund for victims is currently being assembled to which hundreds of good hearted people in our business will contribute, to bring down the bastards, and help victims fight this scourge within.

Rose assumed and broadcast something untrue about me, and I wanted to let her know the truth. Through friends who know her, I got my home phone number to her the minute I read the headlines. I sat by that phone all day yesterday and this morning, hoping to express both my deep respect for her and others’ bravery in exposing the monsters among us, and my sympathy for the untold, ongoing pain she suffers. No one can bring back what entitled bosses like Bill O’Reilly, Roger Ailes, and HW took from the women who endured attacks on their bodies and their ability to make a living.. And I hoped that she would give me a hearing. She did not, but I hope she reads this.

I am truly sorry she sees me as an adversary, because we are both, together with all the women in our business, standing in defiance of the same implacable foe: a status quo that wants so badly to return to the bad old days, the old ways where women were used, abused and refused entry into the decision-making, top levels of the industry. That’s where the cover-ups convene. Those rooms must be disinfected, and integrated, before anything even begins to change.”

Marchesa is the fashion line that Weinstein started with his wife, Georgina Chapman. Chapman has come under fire for what some say is complicit behavior, staying silent as dozens of women have come forward to accuse Weinstein of sexual misconduct, including rape.

“Star Wars: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi” was first at the box office this weekend, taking in $220 million in North America. It was the second-biggest domestic opening of all time, behind only 2015′s “The Force Awakens.”

The latest installment in the Star Wars franchise made $104.8 million on Friday alone, Variety reported.

Box Office Mojo predicts “The Last Jedi” will eventually take in between $750 and $830 million domestically, which would put it as high as No. 2 all-time (again, behind only “The Force Awakens”). 

Coming in at a distant second this weekend was the animated feature “Ferdinand” ($13.3 million), followed by “Coco” ($10 million), “Wonder” ($5.4 million) and “Justice League,” ($4.2 million). 

“The Last Jedi” also earned $230 million overseas, giving it a global box office of $450 million, according to comScore.

“The Force Awakens” earned $248 million domestically and $281 million overseas, for a combined haul of $529 million during its first weekend. It was the biggest global opening weekend of all time until earlier this year, when “The Fate Of The Furious” took in $541 million, including $98 million in North America, per Box Office Mojo.

The next installment in the “Star Wars” franchise will be “Solo: A Star Wars Story.” Set to open in May, the film tells the tale of a young Han Solo. “Star Wars: Episode IX,” which has not yet been given a full title, is scheduled to hit theaters Dec. 20, 2019.

There were times in 2017 when it felt like rage might burn me up from the inside out. At times, that anger felt paralyzing. When there is so much happening at once, how do you focus your energies?

During these moments, it was always reading that jolted me and my colleagues into action ― a piece about the Women’s March that made us get off our couches and show up, or a piece on a raucous summer blockbuster that made us remember that joy can be a radical act. So for thesixth time we’ve curated a list of pieces that had an effect on us as readers over the last calendar year.

To make the list, an article had to be (1) published in 2017, (2) written by a woman and (3) available online. Below are 28 of those pieces that moved us this year. They are a reminder that even in the darkest of times, storytelling matters.

“Your Reckoning. And Mine.”

Rebecca Traister, New York Magazine

In this extended moment of reckoning regarding sexual assault and harassment, we are all implicated, Rebecca Traister argues. Because when you’ve spent a lifetime both experiencing violations and being complicit in a system that allows them, the process of a collective reckoning is a difficult one. It brings painful self-reflection, anxiety over a brewing backlash (“A powerful white man losing a job is a death, and don’t be surprised if women wind up punished for the spate of killings”), and, potentially, the promise of catharsis and eventual equality. Some women, Traister points out, might realize they’ve waited their whole lives to tell stories they didn’t even know they carried.

“The Heart of Whiteness: Ijeoma Oluo Interviews Rachel Dolezal, the White Woman Who Identifies as Black”

Ijeoma Oluo, The Stranger

Ijeoma Oluo wanted to avoid Rachel Dolezal, the white woman who passed herself off as a black woman for a decade. But when that became impossible, she interviewed her instead. What followed is a striking piece of journalism, an interview that really digs into the core of what drives the relationship Dolezal has with blackness. As Oluo writes, “I couldn’t escape Rachel Dolezal because I can’t escape white supremacy. And it is white supremacy that told an unhappy and outcast white woman that black identity was hers for the taking.”

“Yes, This Is a Witch Hunt. I’m a Witch and I’m Hunting You.”

Lindy West,  The New York Times

This piece has one of the best headlines of the year. And it only gets better from there. As Lindy West outlined in the wake of the first round of Harvey Weinstein allegations, “The witches are coming, but not for your life. We’re coming for your legacy.” As 2017 comes to a close, the hunt continues.

“The Most American Terrorist: The Making of Dylann Roof”

Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, GQ

Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah’s stunning longread on Dylann Roof, the now 23-year-old man who murdered nine black parishioners at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, attempts to answer a big question: How did “one of the coldest killers of our time” come to be? Ghansah spoke to Roof’s teachers, classmates, friends and family members, concluding that Roof is a terrifying omen. He is “a child both of the white-supremacist Zeitgeist of the Internet and of his larger environment [...] It is possible that Dylann Roof is not an outlier at all, then, but rather emblematic of an approaching storm.”

“Every Parent Wants To Protect Their Child. I Never Got The Chance.”

Jenn Gann, The Cut

For Jenn Gann, fighting for justice for her beloved son who was born with cystic fibrosis means considering that he should never have been born. Gann’s exploration of “wrongful birth” cases ― in which the parents of a child with a congenital disease claim that medical professionals failed to properly warn them of their child’s condition before birth ― is deeply personal, raw and heart-wrenching. This story complicates the narrative people usually consider when discussing terms like “pro-life” and “pro-choice.” “After all this pain and humiliation and anger boiled down to records and money and who did what,” Gann writes, “the love I have for my son feels like the one thing that can’t be taken from me.”

“Y’all Don’t Deserve Black Women”

Ashley Nkadi, The Root

The headline says it all. “There will come a day when the same nation that stepped on black women will run, shouting, at our doors to save it,” Ashley Nkadi writes. “And we will whisper ‘no.’”

“Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades”

Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, The New York Times

This is the piece of journalism that set off a reckoning. Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey spent months reporting out this story about the years of sexual harassment and assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein. We will be sorting through the consequences of this stellar piece of journalism for years to come.

“Inside Hillary Clinton’s Surreal Post-Election Life”

Rebecca Traister, New York Magazine

There is so much to say about Hillary Clinton, the equal-parts-beloved-and-reviled woman who almost became president. Rebecca Traister draws a portrait of a candid, exhausted, powerful, funny, worried, determined and (understandably) angry woman, recovering from a grueling presidential campaign and looking toward an uncertain future for the nation she spent her life working for.

“An Algorithm Isn’t Always The Answer”

Maris Kreizman, The New York Times

In a moment when we often get our news, our life updates, our job opportunities and our dates via algorithm, sometimes it’s healthy ― and downright heartening ― to remember that “the best things in life are unquantifiable.”

“If Wonder Woman Can Do It, She Can Too”

Jessica Bennett, The New York Times

I cried the first time I saw “Wonder Woman.” Jessica Bennett, who saw the film in Brooklyn, surrounded by girls and women of all ages, gets to the root of why viewers like me had such an intense reaction to seeing the superhero on the big screen. “There was something deeply visceral about it: a depiction of a hero we never knew we needed, a hero whose gender was everything but also nothing.”

“The Spiritless Token”

Doreen St. Felix, MTV News

In January, Doreen St. Felix dove into the conundrum that is Omarosa’s public image, career and eventual position within the Trump administration. “She has not risen high enough to elicit any emotion besides pity,” St. Felix concluded. In December, knowing how Omarosa’s time in the White House ended, St. Felix’s assessment feels even more vital.

“Women Aren’t Just Nags ― We’re Fed Up”

Gemma Hartley, Harper’s Bazaar

There’s a reason that Gemma Hartley’s piece on emotional labor struck such a chord. Not only is it a perfect mix of personal essay and reporting, but it also defines a type of work that women have been doing without acknowledgment or much public discussion for years, for decades ... for forever.

“The Women I’m Thankful For”

Jennifer Weiner, The New York Times

In a year that was sometimes difficult to find anything to be grateful for, Jennifer Weiner’s beautiful love note to brave women is an editorial salve for the soul.

“Cardi B Was Made To Be This Famous”

Allison P. Davis, New York Magazine

Cardi B is a celebrity for our time: a bombastic rapper with raw talent and a powerful lack of shame about her body, her roots and her monetary success. Allison P. Davis’ profile of the artist is as fun a read as Cardi’s hit “Bodak Yellow” is a listen.

“It’s Crazy to Bring Kids Into This World. It’s Also Worth It.”

Lori Fradkin, Cosmopolitan

In the wake of the Manchester bombing, in which a bomber killed 22 people, many of them young women and girls, during an Ariana Grande concert in England, Lori Fradkin attempted to answer the question: “How do you bring children into this crazy world?” The answer she comes upon is both infuriating and simple: You just decide it’s worth it to.

“The Protection Racket”

Stassa Edwards, Jezebel

When an anonymously sourced “Shitty Media Men” list began circulating in October, it became ― as most things that circulate among journalists do ― a source of contention and think-piece generation. Of all those think pieces, Edwards’ is the best. “If the debate over Shitty Media Men revealed anything,” she wrote, “it’s that there is no way for a woman to level a sexual harassment or abuse allegation without having her methods and motives subjected to a detailed dissection.”

“Who Didn’t Go to the Women’s March Matters More Than Who Did”

Jenna Wortham, The New York Times Magazine

The Women’s March, held the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration, became the largest single-day protest in U.S. history. It was a galvanizing moment ― one that has proved to have staying power ― and the march’s national co-chairs, Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez and Bob Bland, have become recognizable public figures. But the crowds on Jan. 21, though diverse in many ways, were still overwhelmingly white. In the days following the march, Jenna Wortham beautifully breaks down the cracks that exist in American sisterhood. “While black women show up for white women to advance causes that benefit entire movements, the reciprocity is rarely shown,” she wrote. “The coalitions that formed on Saturday will have bigger questions to organize around, questions that will prove more urgent in the years to come. For whom are they marching? Is it only for themselves?”

“Reflecting on One Very Strange Year at Uber”

Susan J. Fowler, Her Own Blog

Months before Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey would begin to reveal the extent of Harvey Weinstein’s monstrous treatment of women, Susan J. Fowler drew the world’s attention to Uber’s treatment of women. It’s no coincidence that Time recognized her as one of 2017’s “silence breakers.”

“The Personal Essay Boom Is Over”

Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker

There was a time when it felt like you couldn’t frequent a women-centric digital publication without coming across a personal essay. From Jezebel to xoJane to HuffPost Women to The Cut, personal stories reigned supreme ― told with varying degrees of self-awareness, skill, editing and relevance. Jia Tolentino bids the era of the personal essay adieu with conflicted feelings: There is no mourning for this genre, but perhaps there is room to appreciate a type of writing that allowed people to “try to figure out if they had something to say.”

“Heather Heyer Was The Alt-Right’s Worst Nightmare”

Chloe Angyal, HuffPost

When Heather Heyer was killed in Charlottesville, Virginia, she died an anti-racist activist and feminist. She also died as a woman who asserted her opinions in public spaces, had never been married and didn’t have children. As Chloe Angyal explains, it was being single and childless that made her the perfect symbol of everything the alt-right disdains.

“Time Person Of The Year 2017: The Silence Breakers”

Stephanie Zacharek, Eliana Dockterman and Haley Sweetland Edwards, Time Magazine

In 2016, Donald Trump was Time’s Person of the Year. In 2017, his looming presence was replaced by a sea of women who dared to speak up and set off a reckoning. It was poetic justice in a magazine cover.

“Raising A Teenage Daughter”

Elizabeth Weil with annotations by Hannah W. Duane, The California Sunday Magazine

We so often hear about teenagers in the abstract ― what they’re buying, what they’re ruining, what they’re like, all told by adults who can hardly remember what it was like to be teens. (At the ripe old age of 30, I feel not so distant from my teenage years, and yet recalling the experience of being 13 or 15 or 17 with authenticity feels like a herculean task.) Weil and her teenage daughter, Duane, manage to put the duel perspectives of parenting a teen and being a teen into one beautiful piece. Weil wrote an essay, and Duane added notes and corrections. The result is simply brilliant.

“I’m Done With Not Being Believed”

Amber Tamblyn, The New York Times

When Amber Tamblyn tweeted about a time James Woods tried to pick her up when she was 16 years old, the older actor called her a liar. This public denial set off something inside of Tamblyn. She fired back in The New York Times with a clear message: No more. No more silence because the silence has become stifling and its costs too high. As Tamblyn wrote: “The women I know, myself included, are done [...] playing the credentials game. We are learning that the more we open our mouths, the more we become a choir.”

“Men of the World: You Are Not The Weather”

Alexandra Petri, The Washington Post

Alexandra Petri is fed up with discussing sexual harassment as though it is an inevitability. “Nothing about this was inevitable,” she writes, addressing men. “This was not weather. You are not the weather, and your buddy is not the weather.” Amen, amen, amen.

“All The Angry Ladies”

Megan Garber, The Atlantic

Women have spent decades burying, apologizing for and papering a forced smile over their rage. In 2017, the dam holding back that rage burst. As Megan Garber articulated: “It’s a truth that the witch-burners and the shrill-shamers over the centuries have known all too well: Rage will, inevitably, rise. It’s happening now.”

“‘Girls Trip’ Celebrates The Unapologetic Sexuality of Black Women”

Zeba Blay, HuffPost

“Girls Trip,” the riotous summer movie that brought in more than $130 million at the box office, became the first black-led film to do so. Not only was it a complete fucking delight to watch, but the movie put black women and black women’s sexuality front and center ― and celebrated it. As Zeba Blay puts it, “Girls Trip” reminds Hollywood that black women “can win at the box office with dramas and Civil Rights period pieces, but we can also win with raucous comedies that have absolutely no chill.”

“The End Of An Emo Era Is Breaking My Teenage Heart”

Shannon Keating, BuzzFeed

When Shannon Keating was a self-described “surly teen” facing the darkness teens so often face, Brand New’s music was her medicine. This year, the sexual misconduct allegations against Brand New frontman Jesse Lacey forced Keating to reexamine the band that got her through so much. “Even though we certainly know better by now, we’d hoped that men who could make us feel so much — who got us through the darkest times in our lives when nothing else could — might be the good guys,” Keating writes. “So much for that.”

“When Men Fear Women”

Leah Finnegan, The Outline 

“If there’s one thing to learn from the endless morass of emotions that has been the past few weeks it’s that it’s good to make men feel fear,” Leah Finnegan concludes, examining the “Weinstein Effect.” Women have an intimate relationship with fear, practically from birth. We make decisions around it and silence ourselves because of it. Finnegan makes an effective argument for letting men feel a bit of what we’ve always felt. Is this what the rocky, windy road to equality looks like?