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CrossroadsBook

by Jonathan Franzen

Who uses, recommends or left Crossroads, in their own words: each a verbatim quote with a link to where it was said.

1 person

Ray Madoff
recommended

And the last book is a book of fiction, the book Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen. Uh fiction at any time and particularly in these times is just a a fantastic place to live, to explore other things than the world that we're living in and I'd say Jonathan Franzen better than almost anyone I know presents people's internal psychological dramas. You feel like you're watching a documentary.

Answering The Ezra Klein Show's closing question, three books to recommend, in “Our Tax System Should Make You Furious” (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/17/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-ray-madoff.html). Quoted from the episode's YouTube auto-captions.

2026-04-17·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.