Backpacking guide, writer and endurance athlete who has hiked 30,000+ miles; author of The Ultimate Hiker's Gear Guide.
likedaffiliate link
My wife Amanda is the real reader in our house, and last month she came home from the library with Dreams of El Dorado: A history of the American West, by H. W. Brands. I moved quickly through its 480 pages (with an occasional photo), and thought it was one of my more enjoyable recent reads.
Skurka's book review of a one-volume history of the American West.
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:
Hardware, services4 years
Software5 years
Podcasts, courses, other8 years
Books25 years
Stripes mean the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no shading.