Ensorcelled advance review copies are sneaking out into the wild. If you have a podcast, newsletter, or relevant audience and want to read one, email me.

And thank you for the flood of direct preorders. When my hand cramps from signing them all, I will bear the pain with gratitude, if not grace.

And now, a book I love that you might too:

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach is a beautiful fable about a seagull who wants to fly for the pure joy of flight, rather than simply to find food, as most gulls do. Ostracized from his flock for his eccentric behavior, Jonathan embarks on a quest for aerodynamic perfection that doubles as a moving spiritual allegory. You’ve never read a book quite like this one before, and it’ll stick with you long after you reach the end.

Things worth sharing:

• If I could travel back in time, I would send my younger self Kevin Kelly’s blog post sharing everything he’s learned about book publishing. I’ve recommended many of Kevin’s books in this newsletter—e.g. What Technology Wants, The Inevitable, and Excellent Advice for Living—and he’s been publishing books in many different ways for decades—trade books with large publishers, photo books on Kickstarter, self-publishing graphic novels, etc.—so he knows quite a bit about the subject and is characteristically generous with his insights. When writers ask me for advice, this is a resource I’ll point them to.

• All publishing is self-publishing.

• Short novels that punch above their weight: Train Dreams, This Is How You Lose the Time War, A Chess Story, Folding Beijing, Convenience Store Woman, Piranesi, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, Foster, and All Systems Red.

• Ada Palmer, Seven Surrenders: “It was an intense embrace, no awkwardness, no holding back, the kind of hug two people can only achieve after long intimacy, but anyone can give in an instant to a stuffed bear.”

• Kurzgesagt’s animated adaptation of Andy Weir’s short story The Egg is one of the best things on YouTube.

• It’s easy to conflate blogs and newsletters, but they are quite different formats, each with their own affordances. Subscribers have expectations, so newsletters demand a certain consistency in both frequency and content, whereas blogs lend themselves to publishing any idea worth sharing. Robin Sloan writes a blog that’s as interesting as his excellent newsletter, and each is a great example of its respective format.

• Counterintuitively, most externalities are solved by technology, not coordination.

• The Interval is my favorite bar in San Francisco. In fact, I like it so much that I wrote it into a novel (Reap3r), so I was delighted to hear that San Francisco Magazine just named it the best cocktail bar in the city.

• Borgesian technology.

• Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites: “She was already learning that if you ignore the rules people will, half the time, quietly rewrite them so that they don't apply to you.”

Thanks for reading. We all find our next favorite book because someone we trust recommends it. So when you fall in love with a story, tell your friends. Culture is a collective project in which we all have a stake and a voice.

Best, Eliot

Eliot Peper is the author of Ensorcelled, Foundry, Reap3r, Veil, Breach, Borderless, Bandwidth, Neon Fever Dream, Cumulus, Exit Strategy, Power Play, and Version 1.0. He also works on special projects.

“This book will devour your free time. It will ruin your sleep. It will infiltrate your mind. It will steal your heart. Buy it. Read it. You can thank me later.”
-David Cohen, cofounder of Techstars, on Foundry