A Few of Our Favorite Things from 2022

Issue 61: Revisiting some of our favorite books, podcasts, essays, and bits of pop culture from the past year

As the year rolls to an end, we (Jay, Dom, and our science communicator, Yvonne) thought we would revisit some of our favorite books, podcasts, essays, and bits of pop culture from 2022. These are some of the things we most enjoyed — many of which are, in one way or another, linked to our interests in groups and identity.

Jay’s Favorites: 

Show: The Rehearsal. This show was absolutely brilliant, totally original, and delightfully surreal. It involves placing people in elaborate replicas of their own life so they can practice challenging social situations before confronting them in real life. The creator, Nathan Fiedler, is a true social psychologist and the attention to detail is remarkable. My favorite episode is the first one, in which a man wants to reveal a small lie he has shared with a friend on his bar trivia team. But he’s very anxious about how she’ll react, so he spends weeks practicing his confession in a fake replica bar, preparing for every possible contingency, until he is…