Tom MacWright (observable/Placemark) on books, typography, and why writing regularly sharpens how you read.
Key Takeaways
The World Beyond Your Head (Crawford) gave MacWright a structured philosophy of embodiment and technology, beyond Bret Victor-style craft thinking.
The Elements of Typographic Style (Bringhurst) drove concrete site changes: tabular numbers for post dates, proper ellipses, simplified punctuation. Matthew Butterick’s Practical Typography cited as more web-relevant.
MacWright moved all book reviews from Goodreads to his own site in 2017 and reviews every book he finishes, a completist policy that has drawn author complaints.
His reading-writing feedback loop thesis: writing regularly trains you to notice technique in others’ prose, the same way painting a master study changes how you see a painting.
For political economy: recommends Piketty’s Capital (700 pp) or Saez/Zucman’s The Triumph of Injustice (232 pp) as the accessible alternative.
