It's time to narrow the 150 entries in the Book Review Contest to about a dozen finalists. I can't read 150 reviews alone, so I need your help.

You'll find the entries in six Google Docs (thanks to a reader for collating them):

• A - D

• E - I

• L - P

• R - S

• Th - The N

• The O - Y

Please pick as many as you have time for, read them, and rate them using this form.

Don’t read them in order! If you read them in order, I’ll have 1,000 votes on the first review, 500 on the second, and so on to none in the second half. Either pick a random review (thanks to AlexanderTheGrand and Taymon for making a random-review-chooser script here) or pick whichever seems most interesting to you. List of all books reviewed below.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/choose-book-review-finalists-2024

Suffering is part of the human condition, except when it isn't.

I met a man at an ACX meetup once who claimed he has never felt anxiety, not even the littlest bit. His father was the same way, so maybe it's genetic.

Some people feel more pain than others. The “more pain” category includes some big demographic groups like redheads, who seem to feel some types of pain more intensely and may need up to 20% more anaesthetic, though their exact processing differences are complicated. But there are also various lesser-known genetic conditions that can make bizarre things - water, light touch, mild temperature changes - excruciatingly painful. The most exotic cause of this syndrome has to be platypus venom, which is both painful in and of itself and also seems to increase the body’s overall capacity to feel pain; for years after a platypus scratch, every tiny scrape will hurt worse than usual.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/profile-the-far-out-initiative

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/mantic-monday-51324