Recommendations you can check.
Writer of the blog Putanumonit, on rationality, dating, probability and book reviews; based in New York.
5 things
Seven SurrendersBook Ada Palmer
As with movies, it's very rare for a book sequel to be so much better than the original. Seven Surrenders is rated 0.34 points higher on Goodreads than Lightning, which is the gap between an average book and "best of" lists.
Three-book review post covering Ada Palmer's Seven Surrenders, Lauren Beukes, and Paul Murray's The Mark and the Void.
2017-09-09·putanumonit.com ↗
The Mark and the VoidBook Paul Murray
The Mark and the Void is my favorite of the three novels but this review will be the shortest because it would superfluous. This review by Slate magazine is excellent, covers all the bases, and it's what has gotten me to read the book to begin with. I'll just focus on the magic.
Three-book review post covering Ada Palmer's Seven Surrenders, Lauren Beukes, and Paul Murray's The Mark and the Void.
2017-09-09·putanumonit.com ↗
Being YouBook Anil Seth
I highly recommend that you read Being You, and then that you spend a good while thinking about it.
A long review of Anil Seth's Being You and its predictive-processing account of consciousness.
2023-08-19·putanumonit.com ↗
Galileo's Middle FingerBook Alice Dreger
This is ultimately why Galileo's Middle Finger is a vitally important work, and why I recommend that people read it in spite of its flaws.
A critical but favourable review of Alice Dreger's Galileo's Middle Finger.
2018-02-17·putanumonit.com ↗
Too Like the LightningBook Ada Palmer
This preamble is very pertinent to Lightning. The best facets of the novel are really good, and the worst parts are really bad.
Review of Ada Palmer's Too Like the Lightning, opening a short series on speculative fiction he had been reading.
2017-04-21·putanumonit.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.