Innholdsfortegnelse for October/November 2025 i Reader's Digest

Beyond the Call of Duty In the military, service members pair up as “battle buddies,” meaning the two are always looking out for each other on the battlefield. A veterans organization in northern Virginia called Hero’s Bridge (herosbridge.org), started by the daughter of a career Marine, carries this concept into civilian life by pairing younger veterans with older ones facing physical or mental health challenges. Younger vets might drive their buddies to doctor’s appointments, help them around the house, or simply keep them company. Jon Esse (above, left) is one of the organization’s 300-plus volunteers, and he sees his participation in the Battle Buddy Program as a natural continuation of his military service. “You’re going into battle with them,” he told the Washington Post, “and the battle is them living…

◆ On a recipe for London broil marinade Comment: We used Pepsi, so I’m not sure if that was why it was too sweet, but I think we will use regular soy sauce next time if I don’t have Coke. Reply: There isn’t any Coke or Pepsi in this recipe. ◆ For simple syrup Comment: It sounds delicious but way too much sugar. Reply: It’s a simple syrup, hon. It’s literally sugar. ◆ For pozole, a Mexican soup Comment: Recipe was easy to make but never ever put cloves in this recipe! That was a horrible taste! Reply: 3 cloves of GARLIC! ◆ For strawberry ice cream Comment: This sounds delicious, but I lowered my rating [to 3 stars] because, like many others, I am allergic to strawberries. Reply: Sometimes…

IN THE FALL of 1993, high school senior Jed Mottley seemed to have it all. He was the starting wide receiver on Chaparral High School’s varsity football team, in addition to playing soccer and running track. In his spare time, he hung out with friends and noodled around on his guitar, influenced by his musician older brother. But despite Jed’s big smile and outgoing personality, the Scottsdale, Arizona, teen was hiding parts of his home life from classmates. “I really enjoyed my high school experience,” the now-49-year-old says. “I loved my teammates. But I also grew up with a lot of kids whose parents had a lot of money, and I was kind of the poor kid. I was embarrassed about everything.” At home, Jed’s mom, Gerry Mottley, had been…

WHEN CHARLES BOEHM sat down last October in his Houston home to write his father’s obituary, he was stumped. “I’d never written an obituary before, so I decided to Google ‘What do you put in an obituary?’” he says. His father, Robert Boehm, had died at age 74 after falling and hitting his head in his Clarendon, Texas, apartment. Charles, 41, found the usual tips online about including a summary of the person’s life and a list of survivors. Then he stumbled upon an obituary for a man from Centerbrook, Connecticut, which began, “Joe Heller made his last undignified and largely irreverent gesture on Sept. 8, 2019, signing off on a life, in his words, ‘generally well-lived and with few regrets.’ When the doctors confronted his daughters with the news…

Eleanor the Great Directed by Scarlett Johansson Lovely coming-of-age films aren’t just for teenagers. Feisty heroine Eleanor Morgenstein (June Squibb) is searching for connection after the death of her best friend, Bessie (Rita Zohar). She accidentally joins a Holocaust survivors group, passing off Bessie’s experience in Nazi-occupied Poland as her own. College student Nina (Erin Kellyman), who just lost her mother, takes an interest, and the two bond over shared grief as Eleanor’s secret looms. In her directorial debut, Scarlett Johansson guides Squibb to a performance that lives up to the movie’s titular adjective. (In theaters Sept. 26) —MR Masters of the Game By Sam Smith and Phil Jackson A master class from an NBA duo as potent as Kobe and Shaq. Longtime sportswriter Sam Smith and legendary Chicago Bulls…

Each autumn, the changing leaves give the season its signature palette. And now even colorblind folks can enjoy it, thanks to corrective lenses that allow them to see a fuller spectrum of hues. Virginia has become the first state in the nation to offer viewfinders with these lenses at all its state parks. “Oh, wow, it’s a lot of different colors … that’s really incredible,” said one astonished viewer. “And everybody just sees that normally?” asked another. Ethan Howes, a Virginia state park ranger who spearheaded this initiative and is colorblind himself, told NBC News his first fall foliage experience was “a feast for the eyes.”…

IN JULY 1998, I was a young, single Navy SEAL, traveling the world, jumping out of airplanes, shooting guns and training with like-minded, highly capable young men. I decided to host a barbecue, and I invited platoon mates and friends from across SEAL teams. One of my platoon members said he looked forward to coming. I asked him if his wife was joining. He looked sheepish, paused and said, “No, I don’t think so. Things are not going so well.” A few months later, they were divorced. And so began a trend that I saw over my 21-year career. The divorce rate among Navy SEALs is extraordinarily high— more than 90%. A year later, I met Erica. I started our relationship by lying to her. SEALs often create cover stories…

BET YOU CAN’T name 800 board games. And yet, incredibly, that’s how many you can choose from at the Rook Room, the first board game cafe in Des Moines, Iowa, which opened earlier this year. Places like it are popping up all overthe country. Unlike coffee shops where the customers sit alone, absorbed in their screens, these cafes are abuzz with in-person interaction. Gamers Geekery & Tavern in Cary, North Carolina, hosts Connect 4 and Guess Who? tournaments for kids, while parents prefer party games like Werewolf or nostalgic classics like Monopoly. At 15% Board Game Cafe in Tacoma, Washington, you can even turn your drink order into a game by letting a roll of a die determine your coffee flavor.…

ADULTS TYPICALLY HAVE 206 bones and 350 joints, which are made of the bones plus the tissues that hold the bones together: cartilage, tendons, ligaments and nerves. With so many moving parts working hard every day, it's no wonder that many people experience pain, stiffness or soreness in one or more of these connections. The smallest joint in the body is in the ear, and while it plays a crucial role in hearing, most of us aren't even aware it's there. The largest joint is the knee. Knees and other large joints like hips, shoulders and elbows are the ones that tend to become painful. We’re oftten quick to blame joint pain or stiffness on getting older. But it’s not just older folks who experience joint pain. Athletes and just…

This year’s Nicest Places are all over the map, just as they always are. (Although we laugh every year at how the great state of Tennessee tends to be overrepresented—kudos to all you Volunteers!) The newest crop of finalists are starred on the map above. To revisit our previous Nicest Places, visit rd.com/nicest and start thinking about nice places to nominate for 2026, which will mark our 10th anniversary! OUR PAST WINNERS Gallatin, Tennessee, 2017 Yassin’s Falafel House in Knoxville, Tennessee, 2018 Columbiana, Ohio, 2019 Buchanan, Michigan, 2020 The Quality Inn in Kodak, Tennessee, 2021 Coulterville, California, 2022 Buffalo, New York, 2023 Provo, Utah, 2024 The Road to the Nicest Places It all starts with you. Ever since we introduced our annual contest in 2017, we’ve asked you all to…

"IT BEGINS WITH a nyeeerhhh, a steady buzz that reverberates off towering Alaskan timber—Sitka spruce, western hemlock. It’s a signal, but not one to be alarmed by. It’s less “Duck and cover,” more “Come and get it!” So you step outside your house, where there are few roads and fewer neighbors, and see it. A single-engine plane flies low—lower than you thought possible, just a few dozen feet off the ground if the area is clear enough, playing limbo with the tree line. The plane’s door whips open, and a black package is tossed out, plummeting to earth with an attached yellow tail streaming behind. It lands not with a boom or kapow, just a dull doink, or a muffled thwump if met by snow. Congratulations, you’ve just been turkey…

How afraid you are determines how brave you are. —Rita Moreno, ACTOR, ON THE PODCAST WISER THAN ME There’s no place for a salad at a Thanksgiving meal. … You eat turkey once, maybe twice a year at home. People eat salads at lunch at their desk. Why are you bringing that vibe into Thanksgiving? —Sam Sifton, FOOD EDITOR, ON THE WIRECUTQTER SHOW Drama and gossip can die. But greatness is hard to kill. —A’ja Wilson, BASKETBALL PLAYER, IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL To question what you know—what you think is true—is how the world advances. —Bill Gates, TECH ENTREPRENEUR, IN THE BOOK SOURCE CODE It’s never the pen. It’s the person who pushes the pen. —Mort Gerberg, CARTOONIST, IN THE NEW YORKER…

WHEN HURRICANE HELENE barreled toward Florida’s west coast on Sept. 26, 2024, authorities ordered the evacuation of the small community of Indian Rocks Beach, located on a barrier island just 7 to 10 feet above sea level. But with the Category 4 storm forecast to miss them by more than 100 miles, many residents, including surf instructor Marty Thomas, 52, stayed put. Then, just before nightfall, with the power to the island cut off, a massive storm surge breached the town’s seawalls, dumping water into the streets. Thomas watched it grow from nothing to ankle high in minutes. He rushed to warn his neighbors in the single-story, six-unit complex where he lived. Thomas’s neighbors Mike Moran and his girlfriend, Heather Boles, began loading their dog and three cats as well…

The happy trick-ortreater at my door filled his basket with candy and gave me a huge “Thank you!” As he walked away, he turned around, still beaming, to say, “And I like your costume.” I might have felt complimented … had I been wearing one. -MICHELLE GABRIEL San Ramon, CA I have a relative who loves idioms and proverbs. In fact, she improves upon them, albeit unwittingly. For example, instead of “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander” or “The shoe is on the other foot,” she’ll say, “The goose is on the other foot!” Other favorites: “You’re walking on thin eggs, buddy!” “We’ll have to pay an arm and a knuckle.” “The squeaky wheel gets the bacon.” “Don’t feed Peter to eat Paul.” And, of course,…

Lake Superior State University in Michigan puts out an annual list of phrases we should stop using. Here are some current offenders, along with the reasoning: Era: Unless you’re Taylor Swift, it might be time to leave “era” behind. Game changer: How many times can a game change before it’s unrecognizable? Sorry, not sorry: A half-hearted apology masquerading as bold honesty. 100%: Since when should a percentage be used to describe your agreement? Period: We understand your point-no need to verbally punctuate it. LSSU.EDU…

Is a co-worker retiring? Send them off with a speech they’ll never forget, no matter how hard they try. If you’re at a loss for words, How to Write a Funny Speech (Chronicle Books) by humorists Carol Leifer and Rick Mitchell offers some one-liners you can poach. ✦ She was old three hips ago. ✦ She still calls movies “talkies.” ✦ She went apple picking with Eve. ✦ Her version of a Caesar salad was actually sharing a salad with Julius Caesar. ✦ When she married her first husband, she said, “I doeth.” ✦ Her first honeymoon was in Pangaea.…

Lung Cancer Not Just for Smokers While smoking is still a major cause of lung cancer, up to 20% of lung cancer diagnoses in the United States now are for people who are deemed “never-smokers,” meaning they’ve smoked fewer than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime. (“Nonsmokers” can include people who used to smoke but quit.) While the reason for the cancer rise in never-smokers is not known for certain, researchers believe that one likely cause is air pollution. Adding credence to that theory is the latest State of the Air report released by the American Lung Association earlier this year. The new report finds that nearly half of all Americans now live in an area with a failing grade for air pollution. And, says the report, the air is getting…

AND THE TOP HONOR GOES TO … MOLLY AND MEHERWAN Irani took a leap of faith when they moved with their 3-year-old daughter, Aria, from San Francisco to Asheville, North Carolina. It was 2005, and relocating from a major international city to an Appalachian town seemed, Molly recalls, “a wild experiment.” But a few weeks after settling into their new home, they attended a downtown event called the Shindig on the Green, where local folk and bluegrass musicians entertained a motley mix of tourists and locals who lounged on picnic blankets or danced freely. Little Aria spotted another girl her age from across the field, ran to her and embraced her. “They spent the entire night dancing in each other’s arms,” Molly remembers. “And surrounding them was a community square…

LESLIE SHOGREN wanted to go to Semicolon Books in Chicago to celebrate her birthday, so she packed up her husband and four sons and came in from the suburbs. When she checked out that day in July 2020, she asked the woman at the register if she was Danielle Moore, the bookstore’s owner. “Yeah, are you Leslie?” Moore replied, flashing her signature bright smile. She slipped Shogren a birthday card signed by each staff member, thanking her for celebrating her birthday at the store. “Mom, that’s a real birthday card,” said one of her sons, looking surprised. Shogren was surprised too. Sure, she had messaged the store on Instagram, asking its hours and casually mentioning she’d be visiting for her birthday. But still. “Danielle didn’t need to do that,” she…

MITCH ALBOM Philanthropist, broadcaster and bestselling author of Tuesdays with Morrie, The Little Liar, Twice and more GREG HUDNALL Former associate superintendent of schools in Provo, Utah, 2024’s Nicest Place in America SANDRA CLARK Chief executive officer of StoryCorps, a nonprofit media organization that collects and shares people’s stories BONNIE KINTZER Former chief executive officer of Trusted Media Brands MÓNICA GUZMÁN Senior fellow at Braver Angels, a nonprofit working to depolarize America, and author of I Never Thought of It That Way AL ROKER Weatherman and anchor on NBC’s Today show…

Hound Couture My shelter dog, Eddie, was a muscular mix of Labrador retriever and pit bull, with very little body fat and lots of stamina. He loved to swim in the frigid Puget Sound. We’d have to drag him out even if it was snowing. His little body would shiver for hours, so when we were back at home, I’d warm him up with blankets right out of the dryer. Eventually, I got him a custom wetsuit made from sleek turquoise and black neoprene. He’d get excited as soon as I brought it out. After that, it was even harder to get him out of the water. —LINDA RENNER Round Hill, VA Eviction Notice There’s only one chair to watch TV in my small loft. Miss Kitty usually sits on…

When Shoji Morimoto was fired from his office job in 2018, his superior criticized him for “not doing anything.” Joke’s on him, because Morimoto has since spun a lucrative career out of exactly that. Known as the “do nothing” guy in Japan, Morimoto’s day job now involves lending himself out to strangers who seek someone’s company for almost anything at all. These requests can range from waiting for a marathon runner at the finish line to staying on a video call while a bored client cleans her room. Morimoto receives about 1,000 of these requests each year. Last year, they earned him $80,000. CNBC…

EASY How many words can you find within the 11-letter word below? Words must be at least three letters long and appear in the dictionary (we use Merriam-Webster) to count toward your score. Bonus The longest word we found within HARPISCHORD is nine letters long. Can you find it? (See answer below.) What's With This Game's Crazy Name? We first published "Warning: This Fruit May Orbisculate," about a family's made-up word, in our December 2021/January 2022 issue. Orbisculate means "when you dig your spoon into a grapefruit (or another fruit or vegetable), and it squirts juice directly in your eye." Soon after, reader Sue Mollineaux of Torrington, Connecticut, wrote us to say that residents of her senior community had put their heads together and found 223 words using the letters…

1. cogently adv. ('koh-juhnt-lee) A cautiously B collectively C convincingly 2. gratis adv. ('gra-tuhs) A free of charge B in appreciation of C with cheese 3. discreetly adv. (dih-'skreet-lee) A piece by piece B avoiding notice C at once 4. alfresco adv. (al-'freh-skoh) A freehand B altogether C outdoors 5. ostensibly adv. (ah-'sten-suh-blee) A supposedly B falsely C awkwardly 6. plumb adv. (pluhm) A on both sides B underfoot C in a vertical line 7. askance adv. (uh-'skans) A in a hurry B with distrust C upside down 8. blithely adv. ('blighth-lee) A cheerfully B inhumanely C mistakenly 9. in situ adv. (in-'sigh-too) A at first glance B by the book C in the original position 10. pell-mell adv. (pel-'mel) A so-so B wildly C neatly 11. eminently adv. ('eh-muh-nuhnt-lee) A highly B shortly C widely 12. asunder adv. (uh-'suhn-dr) A underground B second C apart 13. hitherto adv. ('hih-thr-too) A therefore B until now C farther 14. duly adv. ('doo-lee) A doubly B appropriately C plainly 15. prolifically adv. (pruh-'li-fik-lee) A wastefully B…

A lot of great writers hate adverbs, especially ones ending in ly. “The road to hell is paved with adverbs,” Stephen King once said. Mark Twain, Toni Morrison and Elmore Leonard also weren’t fans. Although too many adverbs clutter prose, they can be effective, as the famously terse Ernest Hemingway shows in The Sun Also Rises: “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.” Word Power ANSWERS 1. cogently (C) convincingly Students in debate club learn to argue cogently and respectfully. 2. gratis (A) free of charge “When you dine here on your birthday, we offer dessert gratis,” the maître d’ said. 3. discreetly (B) avoiding notice As the meeting dragged on, Siobhan discreetly checked her watch. 4. alfresco (C) outdoors What a…

Read More Books in Less Time Why choose between quality and quantity? With Reader’s Digest Fiction Favorites, you get both! We pick novels by acclaimed authors such as Lee Child and Michael Connelly, as well as exciting new writers, then streamline them so you can enjoy the stories in a fraction of the time. From romance to suspense, there’s something for everyone. Order now and get free shipping, plus a bonus puzzle book. Reserve at fictionfavorites.com/2502EP. FREE GIFT!…

WHERE, OH WHERE? (page 144) D. Gatlinburg, Tennessee BRAIN GAMES (pages 138-139) Just the Ticket 1. Yuma International in Yuma, Arizona, to Fresno Yosemite International (formerly Fresno Air Terminal) in Fresno, California; 2. Sioux Gateway in Sioux City, Iowa, to Gerald R. Ford International in Grand Rapids, Michigan; 3. Butler Memorial in Butler, Missouri, to Derby Field in Lovelock, Nevada. Diamonds in the Rough 15. ABCDEFHI, ABCD, CD, CDEFHI, HI, GEHK, IFLJ, DFJ, GEC, EC, DF, ACE, BDF, KHI, LIH Place Your Chips Locker Numbers 430. The small lockers go up by 2, the large by 3. Hashtag House…