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Weekly essays on reading the world and reading in the world, plus personalized book recommendations based on the last five books you've read. Click to read The Biblioracle Recommends, by John Warner, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.

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352 from 25 Jul 2020 to 25 Oct 2026
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weekly (56 in the last year)
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2026 47

  1. Agreement on the Essential Human Capacities in the Age of AI
  2. Amy Fusselman Is on Cloud Six
  3. How Publishers Should Make Use of AI
  4. We’re Going to Win
  5. Recklessness Abounds
  6. Making America Read Again at the Texas Tribune Festival
  7. Resist, Renew, Explore
  8. If Nonfiction is Collapsing...
  9. Wendell Berry: Example, not Exemplar
  10. Maintaining Your Ignorance
  11. Experience and Epiphany
  12. Let's Try to Not Become Huge Dopes
  13. Refusing Suspicion
  14. Eh? Canada
  15. Dave Eggers on Writing, Art, and "Contrapposto"
  16. Covers and Covering
  17. The Pursuit of Happiness
  18. Step One: Get Elites to Stop Helping the Authoritarians and Oligarchs
  19. Restaurants, Life, and Getting Straight with Yourself with Kevin Boehm
  20. It Fell Apart
  21. Feedback: Human and Not
  22. What Our Youthful Book Typologies Say About Us
  23. The Worst Use Case for Generative AI is Writing
  24. Talking "Great Books" with Naomi Kanakia
  25. Taste Is Human
  26. The Fine Art of Lying with Alexandra Andrews
  27. About That Guardian List of 100 Best Novels
  28. Keepin' Your Head Above Water (Making a Wave When You Can)
  29. You Don't Need to Understand...
  30. Recommendation Extravaganza
  31. Infinite Patience Is Not Good for Education
  32. Readers and Nonfiction: What Makes a Book Connect?
  33. Writers Write
  34. The AI Novelty Cycle
  35. Too Many Books
  36. Talking Hockey with Ed Park
  37. In Appreciation of Unique Intelligences
  38. Against Maxxing
  39. How Humans Work (Or Sometimes Don't)
  40. Maybe Ilia Malinin Should Retire and Teach Swimming
  41. Can We Please Stop it with the AI Woo-Woo?
  42. Reese W. Is Here to Boost My Writing Career
  43. David Brooks Sucks. This is Who Should Replace Him
  44. Substack Is Not Your Liberator
  45. The Books People Are Reading
  46. The Lies Meant to Demoralize
  47. What Is This?

2025 63

  1. An End of Year Roundup and Gift for Readers
  2. It is Going to End
  3. Spectacle Alone Does Not Sell Books
  4. Distraction Free Writing
  5. Giving Thanks: The United States Postal Service
  6. Getting Recognized at the NCTE Convention
  7. That's Not What Lolita Is About
  8. Why I Won't be Reviewing Ann Patchett's Next Book
  9. The Limits of AI Research for Real Writers
  10. Independent Bookstores are for People
  11. Choose Common Sense Over Conventional Wisdom
  12. Books You Should Know About That I Haven't Been Able to Review
  13. Fighting Disorientation
  14. Bullsh*t Writing
  15. The Definitive, Entirely Subjective Rankings of Books That Became Movies Robert Redford Either Acted in or Directed.
  16. Taking on a literary legend. Jessica Francis Kane on Fonseca.
  17. Are Platforms Making Us Evil?
  18. An Annotated Essay 1st Published on the One-Year Anniversary of the 9/11 Attacks
  19. Paying Attention
  20. The Labor of Labor
  21. Experience vs. Alienation
  22. The Best Offense Is a Good Offense
  23. Talking Higher Ed, Trump's Authoritarian Project and Larry Summers
  24. Are We Cooked?
  25. An Involuntary Exhalation of Recognition
  26. Talking Donald Barthelme and Her New Novel with Hannah Pittard
  27. The Experience of Creativity
  28. Cribs: Giants of American Literature Who Lived in the Berkshires Episode
  29. The American Grotesque
  30. Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due
  31. Murder Takes a Vacation with Laura Lippman
  32. Against Optimization
  33. Shame Shame Shame
  34. When First (and Always) ChatGPT Practices to Deceive
  35. We're Not Going to Colonize Mars
  36. On Stories and Portals with Debbie Urbanski
  37. We Have Met the Enemy
  38. Award/Reward
  39. Addressing the Transactional Model of School
  40. Tell the Truth
  41. What's Happened to (Formerly) Leftist Media?
  42. Lists Can Reveal Who We Are
  43. Nope, Not Normal
  44. A New Book from Thomas Pynchon
  45. What Matters?
  46. What's Wrong With Men?
  47. Freedom's Just Another Word...
  48. Horrors and Hopes
  49. The Many Lives of Anne Frank
  50. Writers Who Have the "Juice"
  51. Understanding Colson Whitehead
  52. Introducing the Juicero, Only for Reading
  53. Who's Afraid of Black Genius?
  54. The Tournament of Books and the Ideal Book Review
  55. To Read or Not to Read Romantasy
  56. More Than Words Release Week Day 2
  57. Release Day for More Than Words
  58. AI Boosters Think You're Dumb...
  59. When Laws Fail, What Do You Have?
  60. "Humans relate to each other and understand themselves in the process."
  61. What's Your Point of View on Point of View?
  62. The Definitive, Entirely Subjective Ranking of Percival Everett's Novels
  63. Very Specific People Who Should Read My Book

2024 60

  1. Reflections and Resolutions
  2. What Does Resistance Look Like?
  3. Where Are the Literary Men?
  4. Run Toward, Not From
  5. Travel Broadens the Mind
  6. Q: Are We Not (Hu)Man?
  7. The Name of This Band is R.EM.
  8. Be Decent to Each Other
  9. We've Been Consumed
  10. Alternate Histories
  11. Echo Chambers of Our Own Devising
  12. Billionaires' Preemptive Surrender
  13. Love Stories
  14. Internet Personality? Thought Leader? Writer.
  15. My Favorite High School Book
  16. "Grief Tech" Wants to Eradicate the Pain of Loss
  17. I Like Sally Rooney's Novels
  18. Crime Novel? Women's Fiction? Literary Thriller?
  19. Stunned by Art
  20. What's your price for selling out?
  21. We Don't Have to Eat the Rich, But...
  22. What More Could Someone Ask For?
  23. Who's the Man?
  24. "Everybody is secretly grieving"
  25. Sustaining Work
  26. Are Novel Covers Alienating Male Readers?
  27. The Bear Botched the Narrative
  28. Observations Within Landscape
  29. Fascism Creeps in from Silicon Valley
  30. About That NYTimes Best Books List
  31. The Danger of Institutional Nostalgia
  32. Ideas Aren't Worth Anything
  33. Louisiana Stories
  34. Not a Fan
  35. Which Books Nail the Dystopia?
  36. An Unserious Book
  37. Teddy Wayne on writing and "The Winner"
  38. Escape
  39. Accomplishment vs. Achievement
  40. Pulitzer Prize Predictions
  41. Best TV Series Drawn from Novels
  42. Recommending: The Novels of Ryan Chapman
  43. Where'd The Postmodernists Go?
  44. Better to be Forgotten Than Disposable
  45. I miss my physical media
  46. Eavesdropping on experts
  47. Funny Novels
  48. What Is the Purpose of Education?
  49. Dog Books
  50. Inappropriate Books
  51. Out of Ideas
  52. Who Are They Going to Be?
  53. Genius vs. Expertise
  54. Wednesday Reading Recommendations
  55. Books Gave Me the World
  56. Wednesday Reading Recommendations
  57. Choosing Consideration, Not Consumption
  58. Wednesday Reading Recommendations
  59. You Gotta Have Taste
  60. A Book Better than the Movie?

2023 67

  1. [Corrected] Wrapping Up 2023. Looking Toward 2024
  2. This Year's Patronage
  3. The Books I Did NOT Read This Year
  4. The Best Book of the Year
  5. These Are the Books Students Should Read
  6. On the Passing of Gabe Hudson
  7. Book Recommendation Extravaganza
  8. GPT and the Writing Uncanny Valley
  9. Will We Kill the Humanities?
  10. Which Writers Will We Remember?
  11. Trying to Figure Out David Brooks's Deal
  12. The Road to the Road to Character
  13. Could We Have a Middle Class for Writers?
  14. A Book I Wish More People Knew About Vol. 11
  15. On Marketplaces and a National Literature
  16. Beyond Satire
  17. A Book I Wish More People Knew About Vol. 10
  18. Writing Is Thinking
  19. A Book I Wish More People Knew About Vol. 9
  20. On Not Being a Nihilist
  21. Craft and Anti-Craft
  22. A Young Person's Fantasy Series Better Than Harry Potter
  23. A Book I Wish More People Knew About Vol. 8
  24. We Need to Make More Readers
  25. "We Have to Teach Young People to Think"
  26. What Doesn't Make Me Interested in a Book
  27. Meet an Indie Publisher: Sarabande Books
  28. What's Really Wrong with Higher Education
  29. Meet an Indie Publisher: Heyday Books
  30. When Does the Past Become History?
  31. A Book I Wish More People Knew About Vol. 7
  32. Books in the World
  33. Meet an Indie Publisher: Belt
  34. A Book I Wish More People Knew About Vol. 6
  35. Traveling with Books
  36. Meet an Indie Publisher: Blair
  37. The Problem(s) with Men
  38. A Book I Wish More People Knew About Vol. 5
  39. The Biblioracle Recommends 2.0
  40. Building a Creative Practice
  41. Where Did Our Authorities Go?
  42. About that Reading "Crisis"
  43. "The Reader in Mind Is Me"
  44. Only Humans Make Sentences
  45. Speed and Efficiency are not Human Values
  46. AI's Big Hype
  47. Thinking Books
  48. Pulitzer Prizes, Personally Annotated
  49. Support the Writers of the WGA
  50. Unlikeable Characters
  51. What We've Done to Teachers
  52. The Deep Pleasures of Genre
  53. How to Read More Closely
  54. When Upmarket Fiction Doesn't Work (For Me)
  55. The Bosses Want You Back in the Office
  56. Negative Criticism
  57. Teen Mental Health Distress Didn't Start with the Phones
  58. A Taxonomy of Public Writers
  59. Tax the Rich
  60. What's So Funny?
  61. What I'm Doing About ChatGPT
  62. We All Want
  63. Engagement, Attention, Shining a Light
  64. Just When I Thought I Was Out...
  65. What Makes It So Hard to Write a Good Sports Novel?
  66. Before Literature Needed a Business Model
  67. The Book of the Moment

2022 55

  1. Wrapping up 2022
  2. A Book I Wish More People Knew About Vol. 4
  3. Jordan B. Peterson on Stuffing Live Weasels Down Your Pants
  4. ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving
  5. Rethinking the WMFUN (White Male F-Up Novel)
  6. When the National Book Award Couldn't Decide
  7. Not the Smartest Guys in the Room
  8. The Danger of Soothing Narratives
  9. A Book I Wish More People Knew About Vol. 3
  10. The Problem of Outrage
  11. To Be Not Forgotten
  12. Be Not Aggrieved
  13. The Business Books of America
  14. I Want, You Want, He Wants, She Wants
  15. What's the Most Harmful Airport Book?
  16. Letting Go the Folklore
  17. How Do You Like So Many Books?
  18. I Love Reading
  19. Judging Books by Their Covers
  20. It's Problematic
  21. Produce or Perish?
  22. A Book I Wish More People Knew About Vol. 2
  23. Consumers v. Patrons
  24. Stop the Merger
  25. Stop Thinking Like an Economist
  26. A Book I Wish More People Knew About Vol. 1
  27. Notes on "Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance"
  28. It's Funny Because It's True
  29. Power and Influence
  30. A Failure of Craft
  31. The Lives of Novelists
  32. Man vs. Machine
  33. What if...?
  34. Originality Is Undervalued
  35. Guardians of the Culture?
  36. Why People Plagiarize
  37. Books and Mothers
  38. What We Collect. What We Keep.
  39. Finding Comfort Where You Can
  40. Meet an Indie Publisher: Hub City
  41. Thinking About Good Bookstores
  42. What Literary Prizes Mean
  43. How Do You Know if a Book Is True?
  44. Almost Right Words, Right Words, Wrong Words
  45. Happy Anniversary...To Me
  46. No Backing Out: Melville House Hits 20 Years
  47. Disruption Isn't Always Progress
  48. Trusting Judgements
  49. Thinking About "We Need to Talk About Cosby"
  50. R.I.P. Entertainment Weekly
  51. About Those Censorship Attacks
  52. Does Talent Matter?
  53. Are We Our Traumas?
  54. Thank You and Please Send Your Reading Requests
  55. Help Me Keep Doing This

2021 57

  1. Christmas Books
  2. Does Social Media Sell Books?
  3. The Best Book(s)
  4. Vote for the Best Book
  5. What's Notable about the Notable Books?
  6. Welcome: Come for the Reading Recommendations
  7. My Favorite Graywolf Press Books
  8. Who Wins Literary Prizes?
  9. LinkedIn for Books? Really?
  10. Q: Who Should be Reviewing Certain Books?
  11. The Best Novel I've Read This Year: "The Trees"
  12. Giving Up on a Book: 10/17/21
  13. "Bad Art Friend" and the Writing Life: 10/10/2021
  14. "The Every" Makes a Stand for the Little Guy: 10/3/2021
  15. My Head is Too Full Edition: 9/26/2021
  16. Q&A with Eric Johnson of Open Books
  17. When the Book Review of Record Puts Their Thumb on the Scale
  18. Q&A with Jim Gavin (Lodge 49/Tiger Van Books)
  19. Recs 8/29/2021: Burnout v. Demoralization
  20. Recs 8/15/2021: What Books am I Going to Miss?
  21. Recs 8/15/2021: More to say about student debt
  22. Book Links: 8/11/21
  23. Recs 8/8/2021: Top (and Bottom) Book-to-TV Adaptations
  24. Recommendations 8/1/2021: The power of narrative.
  25. Recommendations 1/25/2021: Autofiction Ain't a New Thing
  26. Recommendations 7/17/2021: Your Go-To Writers
  27. Recommendations 7/11/2021: Tales of a Bookstore Tourist
  28. Recommendations 7/4/2021: Independence Day
  29. Bookstore Tourism
  30. Recommendations 6/20/2021: What Else Could We Do Here?
  31. Recommendations 6/13/2021: Some Things Don't Work Out
  32. Recommendations 6/6/2021: On "Meritocracies"
  33. Recommendations 5/30/2021: Holiday Links Edition
  34. Recommendations 5/23/2021: What Short Stories Should We Read?
  35. Recommendations 5/16/2021: Why You Should Shop at Indie Bookstores
  36. Recommendations 5/9/2021: Any Billionaires in the House?
  37. Recommendations 5/2/2021: To Re-Read or not to Re-Read
  38. Recommendations 4/25/2021: Post-Vaccine Life
  39. Recommendations 4/18/2021: Books on the Shelf
  40. Recommendations 4/11/2021: Your Reading Companions
  41. Recommendations 4/4/2021: Farewell Oscar
  42. Your favorite children's book covers
  43. Recommendations 3/28/2021: Beverly Cleary and Larry McMurtry, R.I.P.
  44. Recommendations 3/21/2021: Books You Love too Much to Recommend
  45. Recommendations 3/14/2021: Behind the Biblioracle Scenes
  46. Bonus Post: It's Tournament of Books Time!
  47. Recommendations 3/07/2021: I'm a Real Columnist This Week!
  48. Recommendations 2/28/2021: Game Changing Books
  49. Recommendations 2/21/2021: Growing Up
  50. Recommendations 2/14/2021: Love Stories
  51. Recommendations 2/7/2021: Critics and Enthusiasts
  52. Recommendations 1/31/2021: Paying attention
  53. Recommendations 1/24/2021: A "Lazy" Sunday
  54. Recommendations 1/20/2021
  55. Recommendations 1/10/2021
  56. Recommendations 1/5/2021
  57. Recommendations 1/1/2021

2020 3

  1. Recommendations: 12/27/2020
  2. Need a book recommendation?
  3. Want to know what to read next? Ask the Biblioracle.