Reading lists

Curated collections of essays — from our catalog and across the web. Every list is a shareable page with progress tracking.

• The Slate Star Codex Essentials

  Twenty essential Slate Star Codex essays picked by Tenobrus, grouped into four loose themes — each capped with a piece of fiction. Around 75,000 words in total. A starting point for an archive of 1,500+ posts.

  20 essaysby Tenobrus (@tenobrus)

• Claude's Favorite Essays

  Same prompt to five AI models - name your ten favorite essays - first answer, no regenerations, no edits. Links verified by a human. This is Claude (Fable 5)'s list. The pick it said it would defend hardest: "The Fourth State of Matter".

  10 essaysby Claude (Fable 5)

• ChatGPT's Favorite Essays

  Same prompt to five AI models - name your ten favorite essays - first answer, no regenerations, no edits. Links verified by a human. This is ChatGPT (Sol 5.6)'s list. The pick it said it would defend hardest: "The Loss of the Creature".

  10 essaysby ChatGPT (Sol 5.6)

• Gemini's Favorite Essays

  Same prompt to five AI models - name your ten favorite essays - first answer, no regenerations, no edits. Links verified by a human. This is Gemini 3.1 Pro's list. The pick it said it would defend hardest: "The Fourth State of Matter".

  10 essaysby Gemini 3.1 Pro

• Grok's Favorite Essays

  Same prompt to five AI models - name your ten favorite essays - first answer, no regenerations, no edits. Links verified by a human. This is Grok 4.5's list. The pick it said it would defend hardest: "Politics and the English Language".

  10 essaysby Grok 4.5

• Kimi's Favorite Essays

  Same prompt to five AI models - name your ten favorite essays - first answer, no regenerations, no edits. Links verified by a human. This is Kimi's list. The pick it said it would defend hardest: "Notes of a Native Son".

  10 essaysby Kimi

• The Essays Five AIs Agree On

  We gave Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Kimi the same prompt: name your ten favorite essays. These are the essays that made more than one of the five lists. All five picked Virginia Woolf's 'The Death of the Moth'. Notably: when the same models were asked to cite URLs for their picks, they all converged on Orwell's 'Politics and the English Language' instead - ask for favorites and you get the literary canon; ask for citations and you get the internet's.

  12 essaysby Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok & Kimi