Reader,

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming because: we ran the numbers! Below are the overall top scoring AOTD (Article of the Day) Winners of 2019, broken down into three lists: short, medium and long. Each list speaks for itself. This is some of the best free reading material you'll be able to find anywhere - the voice of a community of readers who vote with their attention. This is the fruit of our labor, readers. Now feast!

-Bill

Top 5 long articles (over 30 mins)

Wednesday 1/2/19
Elif Batuman in The New Yorker
52 min | 14 reads | 11 comments | Rating: 10 | Scout: geolina
Japan’s rent-a-family phenomenon.
Friday 5/24/19
nautil.us
44 min | 14 reads | 5 comments | Rating: 9.6 | Scout: bill
Have you ever been happy?” My girlfriend asked me that question, after work over drinks at some shiny Manhattan bar, after another…By Bob Henderson
Tuesday 12/24/19
harpers.org
45 min | 13 reads | 11 comments | Rating: 9.4 | Scout: bill
The cost of living in the Bay Area
Tuesday 9/17/19
Natalie Beach in The Cut
36 min | 14 reads | 7 comments | Rating: 10 | Scout: bill
Seven years after I met the infamous Instagram star, I’m ready to tell my side of the story.
Tuesday 7/23/19
Jane Mayer in The New Yorker
67 min | 8 reads | 7 comments | Rating: 9.8 | Scout: Jim
A close look at the accusations against the former senator.

Top 5 medium-length articles (15-30 mins)

Wednesday 11/13/19
Cyrus Grace Dunham in The New Yorker
22 min | 14 reads | 6 comments | Rating: 10 | Scout: bill
Was the problem gender—or me?
Saturday 12/14/19
Jia Tolentino in The New Yorker
21 min | 14 reads | 4 comments | Rating: 10 | Scout: Alexa
Jia Tolentino writes about how social media, FaceTune, and plastic surgery created a single, cyborgian look, known as Instagram Face, among celebrities during the past decade.
Wednesday 11/27/19
Longreads
24 min | 13 reads | 11 comments | Rating: 9.2 | Scout: bill
Laura Lippman, admittedly a rotten friend, is bummed by the ways in which friendships end as one gets older.
Wednesday 12/25/19
Rowan Jacobsen in Outside Online
17 min | 17 reads | 7 comments | Rating: 9.3 | Scout: bill
Current guidelines for sun exposure are unhealthy and unscientific, controversial new research suggests—and quite possibly even racist. How did we get it so wrong?
Saturday 3/23/19
Emilia Clarke in The New Yorker
20 min | 12 reads | 5 comments | Rating: 9.6 | Scout: bill
I had just finished filming Season 1 of “Game of Thrones.” Then I was struck with the first of two aneurysms.

Top 5 short articles (less than 15 mins)

Wednesday 8/7/19
Rowan Jacobsen in Outside Online
13 min | 22 reads | 10 comments | Rating: 9.6 | Scout: monstertuck
Alt meat isn't going to stay alt for long, and cattle are looking more and more like stranded assets
Sunday 3/31/19
Sidney Fussell in The Atlantic
11 min | 33 reads | 8 comments | Rating: 8.4 | Scout: bill
The home-rental start-up says it’s cracking down on hosts who record guests. Is it doing enough?
Thursday 9/12/19
Daniel Markovits in The Atlantic
13 min | 16 reads | 10 comments | Rating: 9.0 | Scout: tdsimpson90
Meritocracy prizes achievement above all else, making everyone—even the rich—miserable. Maybe there’s a way out.
Saturday 11/30/19
Raptitude.com
4 min | 28 reads | 11 comments | Rating: 8.7 | Scout: Pegeen
Years ago my mother introduced me to an extraordinary, out-of-print book on house cleaning, which has stuck in my mind ever since. It was a thin, battered paperback from the early 1990s called Speed Cleaning, and it tells you how to clean a whole house in 42 minutes. Both of us were so impressed with its clarity and confidence that
Wednesday 8/28/19
Chris Wright in Outside Online
14 min | 19 reads | 3 comments | Rating: 8.3 | Scout: bill
What happened when one writer looked beyond the open road, the staged snapshots, and the hashtag