Aceso Under Glass

Have you ever thought a book sounded interesting if true, but were unsure if you could trust it, or if it was even worth the time to find out?  Wouldn't it be great if someone marginally qualified investigated the first few chapters and wrote up the results, so you could make an informed judgement without spending much time on it?  I am that marginally qualified person.  I have a BA in biology and computer science, but mostly my qualification is "reading a lot".  For a demonstration, see my finished list on goodreads.  My other qualification is that, according to witnesses, it is quite fun to watch me yell at things.  I am only going to pick books I think will be valuable, this isn't going to be a rant-fest, but if I happen to pick a dud you will at least get some entertainment value out of it.  

What am I paying for?
I post a number of different things on my blog, not all of which are covered by this patreon.  Here's what's covered:

• Spot verification of claims in the early chapters of a non-fiction book.  Example: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.
• Full reviews or summaries of non-fiction books for which I did at least as much research as the above.  E.g. my 12 part series on Health At Every Size.
• Very occasionally: summaries of good ideas in poorly written books.  Interpretive Labor is the only one I've ever done, but it got cited in an academic paper so if I see another opportunity I'm going for it. 
• Reviews/summaries of books about people I consider to have dome something heroic.  E.g. Paul Farmer. 

Things I write which you will not be billed for:

•  1,900 words on the biology of a children's movie.
• Reviews of video games, fiction books, or non-fiction books that I did not research much.
• Long investigatory posts of specific charities.

Those charity posts seem like the hardest and more important thing you do, why aren't you charging for those?
Because Patreon is not very fine tuned and there's no single price that is fair for both the book investigations and the long form charity posts.  I spent months on that post on Tostan.  If I do decide to fundraise for harder posts will be via either commissions or impact certificates.  For details please email me at elizabeth-at-acesounderglass-dot-com

What kind of books will you investigate?
No promises on the specifics but here is a list of likely candidates.  The topics include:

• Economics
• Medicine
• Biology
• Psychology
• History/sociology/politics
• People I think someone should emulate.

How big will these blog posts be?
I will keep investigating until I've shown it to be correct enough that I trust it without further verification, or incorrect enough that it's not worth continuing.  If I continue, there might be a second post covering the big as a whole.  If the book ends up being very dumb very quickly I'll either relegate the review to goodreads or do a round-up post.