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Maggie Appleton

Design engineer and illustrator; makes visual essays on programming, anthropology and language models

5 things

YesteryearBook Caro Claire Burke

loved

Yesteryear and loved it, just like everyone else. Strong recommend.

Entry in the 'August 2026' section of her personal 'Now' log page, where she logs what she's reading

maggieappleton.com ↗·2026-08-01

The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st CenturyBook Steven Pinker

loved

On Writing ” – both excellent. The former for grounded advice on non-fiction communication, the latter for an extraordinary account of persistently writing through double-shift minimum wage jobs and a raging alcohol and drug problem.

Entry in the 'September 2023' section, praising Steven Pinker's The Sense of Style and Stephen King's On Writing together as writing-craft books she was working through

maggieappleton.com ↗·2023-09-01

On Writing: A Memoir of the CraftBook Stephen King

loved

On Writing ” – both excellent. The former for grounded advice on non-fiction communication, the latter for an extraordinary account of persistently writing through double-shift minimum wage jobs and a raging alcohol and drug problem.

Entry in the 'September 2023' section, praising Steven Pinker's The Sense of Style and Stephen King's On Writing together as writing-craft books she was working through

maggieappleton.com ↗·2023-09-01

Working in PublicBook Nadia Eghbal

read

Reading Working In Public Working in Public by Nadia Eghbal

Entry in the 'September 2020' section of her personal 'Now' log page

maggieappleton.com ↗·2020-09-01

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.