rcmnd

A Swim in a Pond in the RainBook

by George Saunders

Who uses, recommends or left A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, in their own words: each a verbatim quote with a link to where it was said.

1 person

Co-founder and CEO of Every; writes the Chain of Thought column on working with AI tools and hosts the AI & I podcast.
recommended

Um, another good one is A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, which is by George Saunders. And that's a collection of Russian short stories that is also about writing.

Lenny's Podcast, "The AI-native startup: 5 products, 7-figure revenue, 100% AI-written code.", lightning round, asked for the books they recommend most; the guest's own spoken answer (YouTube captions).

2025-07-17·youtube.com ↗

Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.

The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.

A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.

The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.

The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.

What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:

Stripes mean the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no shading.