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What notable people are reading right now

Newest first. Every entry is something a named person said in public, quoted verbatim, with a link to the post or page it came from. Nothing here is inferred from a vibe, and nothing is paraphrased. Most recent: 4 Sep 2026.

Positive verdicts only

The bar next to each date shows how long ago it was said: 6d is days, 4yr is years.

Terence Eden loved it affiliate

ActivityPub by Evan Prodromou

Evan Prodromou has the unenviable task of making the whole ecosystem easy to understand. Thankfully he does that well. Things are logically laid out, there are comprehensive descriptions of even the most obscure parts of the spec, and it builds up nicely from the fundamentals.

on shkspr.mobi · 1 Sep 2026

Branko Milanovic loved it

The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History by Odd Arne Westad

It is a quick read, an excellent book whose main virtue is not, in my opinion, direct analogy with the World War I, but a treatment of how in a multipolar world relatively small international events, misunderstandings, idiosyncratic fits of leaders, “hubris and fear” (as Westad often writes), resentment of the elite and of the public prodded by the media, can produce colossal miscalculations which then produce even more colossal wars and, in the era of the weapons of mass destruction, may end the civilization.

on branko2f7.substack.com · 31 Aug 2026

François Chollet recommends it own

Deep Learning with Python by François Chollet

If you're 17 (or any age) and you want to learn to build LLMs from scratch, read chapters 15-16 of Deep Learning with Python

on X · 24 Aug 2026

Bryan Caplan loved it

Modern Times by Paul Johnson

I’ve loved it since I was a teenager, but professional historians typically rolled their eyes in disdain when I mentioned it.

on betonit.ai · 19 Aug 2026

Cory Doctorow liked it

THEFT! A History of Music by James Boyle, Jennifer Jenkins and Keith Aoki

These examples are liberally illustrated with links to musical excerpts that bring the subject to life (these are presented as hotlinks in the ebook; if you're reading the print edition, you can use the book's companion website:) https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/musiccopyright/ Interspersed with these histories and analysis are lengthy, extremely on-point excerpts from THEFT!

on pluralistic.net · 17 Aug 2026

Cory Doctorow liked it

The Open Copyright Casebook by Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle

Jenkins' flair for legal communications carries over to her scholarly work, of course, which is why her Open Copyright Casebook is a standard text for American law schools:

on pluralistic.net · 17 Aug 2026

Radek Pietruszewski read it

Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn

Podcast (Part 2). Incentivizing people — punishing or rewarding (with bonuses, commissions, grades, public praise, and other bribes) is manipulative and doesn’t actually work. It seems to work, but only in the very short term and causes severe long-term damage.

on radex.io · 16 Aug 2026

Radek Pietruszewski read it

Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport

Podcast. Cal Newport’s new book is a great distillation of what I’ve come to believe is the right, sustainable, healthy approach to social media, and technology more broadly. Browse less, make the best of it, and live more.

on radex.io · 16 Aug 2026

Radek Pietruszewski read it

Courage to Be Disliked by Ichirō Kishimi

This is a very strange book, and I can’t say I liked it very much, but there is some useful philosophy inside (and perhaps a lot if you or someone you know is struggling with low self-esteem).

on radex.io · 16 Aug 2026

Radek Pietruszewski read it

Factfulness by Hans Rosling

The world is bad, but better. The vast majority of westerners believe the world is poorer, more violent, deadly, primitive, and awful than it actually is. This book beautifully illustrates our ignorance, updates your knowledge, and gives you tools for a fact-based worldview.

on radex.io · 16 Aug 2026

Rakhim Davletkaliyev read it

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Having read this after LOTR, it was fun but underwhelming. Starting from scratch, it’s definitely better to start with The Hobbit.

on rakhim.org · 16 Aug 2026

Rakhim Davletkaliyev loved it

Introduction to Algorithms by Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest, Clifford Stein

Spent endless hours digging through The Book. It’s very well written and organized and was a tremendous help in my CS studies.

on rakhim.org · 16 Aug 2026

Rakhim Davletkaliyev loved it

The Martian by Andy Weir

When an engineer or a scientist decides to write science fiction, it’s usually either very bad or very good. This one is very good.

on rakhim.org · 16 Aug 2026

Rakhim Davletkaliyev loved it

House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds

One of the best sci-fi and deep space opera books for me. If you love space and scientifically ~accurate fiction — do explore Alastair Reynolds’ worlds.

on rakhim.org · 16 Aug 2026

Rakhim Davletkaliyev read it

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

Fascinating stories and science behind epic runners. If you’re getting into running or just interested — check this out.

on rakhim.org · 16 Aug 2026

Rakhim Davletkaliyev read it

Lock In by John Scalzi

Somewhat simple, but still great. I guess we’ll see a mediocre Hollywood adaptation (or a TV show perhaps) soon.

on rakhim.org · 16 Aug 2026

Rakhim Davletkaliyev loved it

Code by Charles Petzold

Woah, what a ride! An excellent explanation of how computers work, starting from scratch. Really, from scratch.

on rakhim.org · 16 Aug 2026

How this list is built

These records come from rcmnd, a sibling project that collects public recommendations under one rule: a verbatim quote and a source URL, or it does not exist. A watcher reads public posts on a timer and a model finds a sentence — it is never allowed to write one. Every candidate is then checked character-for-character against the original post before it is stored. ybooks reads that database and shows you the books.

Browse by person → The books they agree on →

That little bar

It says how long ago something was said, so you can tell last month from 2014 without doing the arithmetic. Full and green is recent; it drains and cools as the date gets older, and empties completely at about 6 years.

A striped bar means the date itself is an estimate — the source did not carry an exact one. An entry with no date at all gets no bar.