What people recommend, in their own words, with the receipt.
by Derek Thompson
3 people
Insightful essays on a wide variety of topics of considerable interest
Eric Topol's Substack recommendations page, where he lists newsletters he personally endorses with his own one-line blurb; page carries no per-item date (undated page)
The man who got me into op-ed writing, and one of the authors of Abundance!
Noah Smith's own recommendation blurb for the newsletter Derek Thompson, on their Substack's recommendations page.
noahpinion.blog ↗·2025-06-20
Derek writes brilliantly about the economy and is co-author of the best-selling book Abundance. I've been reading his work avidly for 15 years.
Timothy B. Lee's own recommendation blurb for the newsletter Derek Thompson, on their Substack's recommendations page.
understandingai.org ↗·2025-06-20
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 small bar beside a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.
The bar shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Full and green is recent. It drains, and turns amber and then grey, as the post gets older.
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 bar is empty after about:
A striped bar means the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no bar.