We’re using today’s newsletter to highlight a selection of the best Times Opinion coverage of the year, as chosen by the department’s editors.

As Katie Kingsbury, who runs Times Opinion, wrote to us:

What I’ve always admired about The Times’s readers is that they don’t expect our opinion journalism to tell them what to think. They’re not looking to have their views affirmed or their understanding reflected back to them. What readers want of us in Opinion is — as best we can — to surprise them, delight them, engage them and, ultimately, to help them to think for themselves.

We try to do that every day by inviting intelligent discussion by informed people. In 2023, it meant offering 100-plus years of experience covering the Middle East from columnists such as Tom Friedman and Bret Stephens. Closer to home, colleagues like Maureen Dowd, Carlos Lozada, Jamelle Bouie and David French challenged conventional wisdom on American politics and policy, while Lydia Polgreen, Charles Blow and David Brooks asked essential questions about what society values and how to live a full life. Penetrating essays, poignant films and startling visuals by outside contributors only bolstered the Opinion report this past year.

We hope you enjoy the selection.

Standout columns

Charles Blow on coming out late in life.

Jamelle Bouie on Chief Justice John Roberts’s polite disdain for Congress.

David Brooks on his friend’s suicide.

Gail Collins on using humor as a tool in the women’s movement.

Ross Douthat on identity shifts in left-wing and right-wing politics.

Maureen Dowd on President Biden’s seventh grandchild.

Thomas Friedman on Israel’s need to be smart as it fights Hamas.

David French on the wisdom of Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” speech.

Michelle Goldberg on George Santos’s expulsion from Congress.

Ezra Klein on artificial intelligence’s effects on relationships.

Nicholas Kristof on Mississippi’s success at teaching children to read.