Trope Machine is a place for me to bundle together reads that I think go well together in ways that might not be spotted by The Algorithms. Additionally, this is essentially my attempt to make my excessive reading everyone else’s problem, thus reducing the burden on my closest friends, who previously had to hear 30,000 thoughts a day about what insane stuff the Riley Sager protagonist is doing or how Helen Macdonald’s goshawk training is going, or what Umberto Eco's monks are doing to each other (you really wouldn't believe what those guys are getting up to, for real). When you think about it, you’re really doing a public service by reading my thoughts so they don’t have to.