In the Margins

Written Beside the Book

Every note a curator has left beside a book. The shortest reviews on IBDB, and often the most useful.

Showing 121 to 144 of 172 notes

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“The only one that did not try to comfort me.”
on The Year of Magical Thinkingin For The Week After @an_ordinary_tuesday
“Not nature writing. Same quality of attention.”
on Gileadin Read With The Window Open @mossandink
“Currently propping up a plant.”
on Oathbringerin The Pile (2026)@tinyapartmentbigtbr
“Very well made. Not the book everyone tells you it is.”
on Becomingin Overrated, With Receipts @mx_marginalia
“A poem before the day starts. That is the whole method.”
on Devotionsin Read With The Window Open @mossandink
“Twice. Might try again.”
on Thinking, Fast and Slowin Did Not Finish, No Regrets @dnf_diaries
“Funnier than the rest of this list and it belongs anyway.”
on Cheer Up Lovein Slow Books For Bad Weeks @mossandink
“Changed what I notice on the same walk I have done for years.”
on Entangled Lifein Read With The Window Open @mossandink
“Page 88 of about a thousand.”
on The Way of Kingsin Did Not Finish, No Regrets @dnf_diaries
“Page 190. The confidence got to me.”
on Sapiensin Did Not Finish, No Regrets @dnf_diaries
“Good research, bad framing.”
on Quietin Overrated, With Receipts @mx_marginalia
“Running underneath all of it. One page a night since last year.”
on Meditationsin One Book A Month, 2026 @the_slow_reader
“Strong on constraints. Skip the last quarter.”
on Sapiensin Systems, Not Goals @ivor_stack
“The hardest one here and the one I have reread most.”
on H Is for Hawkin Read With The Window Open @mossandink
“The exception. This one is not arguing. It is just very good.”
on Just Kidsin Essays In Novel Form @w_okonkwo
“Chapter one is a five minute set piece. Never failed.”
on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxyin Read Aloud, Age Twelve And Up @margaretreads
“August.”
on Educatedin One Book A Month, 2026 @the_slow_reader
“Fluent enough that you cannot see where the evidence stops.”
on Sapiensin Overrated, With Receipts @mx_marginalia
“July. Nine days, which for me is a sprint.”
on Just Kidsin One Book A Month, 2026 @the_slow_reader
“Not fantasy. Still belongs.”
on Nineteen Eighty-fourin No Heroes, Just Consequences @grimdarkgareth
“March to June. Four months, and I am still deciding about it.”
on Sapiensin One Book A Month, 2026 @the_slow_reader
“Nine hundred words of idea in a three hundred page book.”
on Atomic Habitsin Overrated, With Receipts @mx_marginalia
“the magic system is a formal system. that is the whole appeal”
on Mistbornin Ideas Before Plot @kepler22b
“January to mid March. Eleven weeks.”
on The Way of Kingsin One Book A Month, 2026 @the_slow_reader