Book stacks
Short lists of books, built around one idea.
A stack gathers a handful of books around one theme or one feeling, never a genre. Some are picked by hand, one person, start to finish; others take shape as readers vote on their books. And each one leads you to the next.
What a stack looks like
A title that promises something, every book keeps it, and the books they share lead you to the next stack.
The problem
"100 books you have to read" recommends nothing.
You've seen it a thousand times. Endless lists, no reason behind them, and almost always the same books. In the end you don't know where to start, so you go back to what you already knew.
The usual list
Endless, and says little
- A hundred titles and no reason. It never says why they're there or who for.
- Always the same ones: the classics from school and this year's bestsellers.
- Sorted by genre, as if "fantasy" told you anything about how it would feel to read.
A stack
Short, and every book earns its place
- Just a few books. Enough that you actually want to read all of them.
- One idea in the title, and every book keeps it.
- There's room for the odd book that never makes any other list.
Fewer books, and more reason to read each one.
Beyond genre
Genres aren't everything. A theme runs through all of literature.
A shop sorts books by genre because that's how they fit on the shelves. But nobody closes a book thinking "what a great crime novel." You think about what it left you with, or about how it was told.
An unreliable narrator doesn't stay in one aisle. You'll find one in Susanna Clarke's fantasy, in Iain Banks's science fiction, in Lolita. A stack puts them together because they do the same thing to you, even if the shop keeps them on different floors.
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FantasyPiranesi
Susanna Clarke
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Science fictionUse of Weapons
Iain Banks
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MysteryThe Girl on the Train
Paula Hawkins
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ThrillerGone Girl
Gillian Flynn
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ClassicsLolita
Vladimir Nabokov
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Historical fictionTrust
Hernán Díaz
Two kinds of stack
Some are picked by one person. Others we make together.
A recommendation with a name attached
Twists that send you back to page one
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1
Gone Girl
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2
Atonement
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3
Shutter Island
You'll be able to make hand-picked stacks once you reach the Custodian rank.
An idea that gets better with every vote
To walk through grief
Your vote-
1
The Year of Magical Thinking
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2
The Long Goodbye
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3
Levels of Life
Anyone with an account can vote for books and suggest new ones.
Open stacks
An open stack doesn't grow forever.
Every new book has to earn its spot, and the longer the stack gets, the harder that is. The first ones get in fast. After that, each new spot asks for a lot more votes than the last.
The ones that don't make it don't disappear: they wait as candidates, and get in as soon as readers vote them above the last book on the stack. That's why an open stack gets better over time, instead of just getting longer.
Books in the stack
Votes
And any stack you like, open or hand-picked, you save to your shelf.
One stack leads to another
Connections between stacks are how you discover.
Every stack connects to the ones that share books with it. There's always another door at the end of one.
You start on unreliable narrators and, through Piranesi, end up on a stack of magical realism. That's real discovery: not searching for the book you already knew, but arriving at the one you didn't know you wanted to read.
The search
Search for what's on your mind, even if it isn't a title.
Stacks
Twists that send you back to page one
Hand-picked · 7 books
Thrillers with twists you'll be the next to spoil
Open · 10 books
Indie, dark psychological thrillers with twists that will leave you reeling
Open · 3 books
Recommend
That book you recommend to everyone? Give it a stack.
You don't need a hundred books. One clear idea and three books that live up to it already beat any endless list. And if the stack already exists, suggest yours in an open one.
Start with a theme.
One that's been on your mind. Chances are somebody has already made a stack for it, and that stack leads to another.
Search a theme, a trope, or a book Or browse every stack