Our friends at n+1 are back with their annual pre-holiday offering. Bookmatch, the highly tailored literary quiz, pairs readers with a personalized syllabus built from answers to a dozen or so quirky questions.
Be advised: this isn’t BuzzFeed’s multiple‑choice format. In years past, Bookmatch has pitched philosophical softballs, for instance prompting you to choose how a book might affect you—whether it harms, soothes, seduces, or unsettles. Earlier prompts have leaned cheeky as well. In the 2023 edition, there was a prompt along the lines of “You are a finger. Which one?”
The responses you provide feed into a tailor-made ten‑book list, assembled by the broad web of n+1 contributors. For this cycle, the voices lending their support span cultural figures such as Susan Orlean, Tony Tulathimutte, Jia Tolentino, Vincenzo Latronico, Sarah Thankam Matthews, and Tavi Gevinson.
Participants in the quiz also gain a discount to purchase the recommended books through the beloved independent bookseller McNally Jackson.
Eh, but it’s just an internet quiz, you might protest. How could it possibly feel truly bespoke? A personal anecdote might help. Last year’s Bookmatch introduced me to several of my favorite reads of 2025, including Charlotte Shane’s An Honest Woman and the diaries of Helen Garner.
Remarkably, the selections also seemed to reveal facets of me I hadn’t expected—my inner Boomer surfaced through Ian MacDonald’s Revolution in the Head: The Beatles’ Records and the Sixties, while my inner Buddhist priest appeared through Yukio Mishima’s The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.
It’s a startling sensation to feel seen by something forged in code. Yet I’m convinced that a kinder, more thoughtful future remains within reach.
Or, as co-editor Dayna Tortorici puts it, the pleasure of a deliberately chosen, human‑curated recommendation remains very much alive. “There are powerful actors in the world trying to suppress what remains of the life of the mind,” she noted in a gleeful proclamation.
We live at a moment when billionaires press us to surrender our cognitive gears for convenience; AI narratives spin easy dopamine; obsequious chatbots cocoon us in layers of false certainty. It can feel as if we’ve slipped into a Pottersville version of It’s a Wonderful Life, surrounded by noise. This year, Bookmatch’s message is clear: slow down. pick up a book. then read ten books!
Delve into ten volumes chosen by real, living readers whose taste and intelligence have been earned and are utterly unique, forged in the furnace of their idiosyncratic minds. And take comfort in knowing you’ve reclaimed a little of what reactionary forces seek to steal from you—your peace, your pleasure, and those unproductive, contemplative hours that are part of the human experience.
Bookmatch runs through December 1st. All you need to do to become eligible for a journey that might skew, soothe, seduce, or startle is donate any dollar amount to the magazine.
