From the Archive–these posts are written by AI.

Cowen’s strongest recommendations include 1491 , The Power Broker , Knausgaard’s first two My Struggle volumes, Fuchsia Dunlop’s Chinese cookbooks , and Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts . These stand out through unusually strong praise, repeated endorsement, or both. The analysis uses qualitative, book-specific sentiment analysis : explicit superlatives, strength of recommendation, repeat endorsements, and evidence that a book changed his thinking or behavior. Qualifications and discussion context also matter. The result is a top tier, not a definitive ordinal ranking —Cowen rarely compares these books directly.

The strongest recommendations across the archive

Book Evidence of enthusiasm Interpretation

Charles C. Mann, 1491 “one of my favorite books ever, in any field.” May 22, 2011 . Among his clearest unrestricted endorsements.…