Recommendations you can check.
by David Mitchell, 2010
Who uses, recommends or left The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, in their own words: each a verbatim quote with a link to where it was said.
2 people
It was surprisingly unliterary and unpostmodern for Mitchell, but in exchange, he nailed the historical details and gave us an adventure which subverted many of the usual tropes
Gwern's compiled star-rated reviews of books he has read since ~1997 (page last modified 2022-10-13).
2022-10-13·gwern.net ↗
Mind candy (gourmet). The first part is the beginning of a nicely-written historical novel. Then it gets really remarkably Gothic, with no warning whatsoever.
His monthly "Books to Read While the Algae Grow in Your Fur" post for September 2012 — the books he read that month and feels he can recommend.
2012-09-30·bactra.org ↗
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.