How we choose the books
Not the bestsellers, not the canon, not what we happened to read. A book earns a brief when the argument around it is worth fifteen minutes.
By Briefs
The rule
A book gets a brief when a reader who has not opened it could still get something out of the thinking around it. That rules out plenty of very good books. A novel whose whole value is in the prose does not condense; the brief would be a plot summary with adjectives, and we do not publish those.
It also rules in plenty of books we would not recommend. Antifragile is a brief we ended with “selectively”, and it is one of the most useful briefs on the vertical. The concepts transfer. The book is twice as long as it needs to be. Both facts belong in a fifteen-minute answer.
Two lists
Every candidate is checked against two lists before it is scheduled.
The argument list. Can the book’s main idea be stated in one line, defended in three chapters, and disagreed with? If the idea cannot be stated, there is no dek. If it cannot be disagreed with, there is no verdict.
The reader list. Is there someone for whom this book is the right next thing, and someone for whom it is a waste of a weekend? The verdict block names both, so both have to exist. A book that is fine for everyone and essential for no one does not get a brief.
What does not decide it
Sales do not. Age does not: the vertical runs from Marcus Aurelius to last year. Whether we liked it does not. The nearest thing to a bias is a preference for books that people argue about, because those are the ones where a straight verdict saves the most time.
Reading lists
Curated lists on the vertical are the other half of selection. A brief answers “is this book worth it”; a list answers “which three of these should I start with”. Lists are short on purpose and ordered on purpose. If a list needs ten titles, it is two lists.