Must Read

Must Read is what Goodreads would be if it contained the books themselves — a curated, browsable, searchable library of original short-form literature you can read right here in the browser or pipe to your favorite TTS app.

Every piece is a 10-25 minute read spanning every major genre and subgenre of popular fiction and creative nonfiction.

The Combination Formula

Each work on Must Read is defined by a unique 4-element combination: the styles of two authors blended with the structural and thematic DNA of two canonical works from its genre. The formula is documented and visible on every piece.

This isn't random mixing — each combination is designed for productive tension: a minimalist paired with a maximalist, a literary voice applied to genre conventions, old sensibilities meeting new perspectives.

The Readers

Every genre has a pool of ~100 reader personas — distinctive fictional readers with consistent tastes, blind spots, and reviewing styles. Their reviews engage with specific elements of the text and reflect genuine taste variation, not uniform praise.

How It's Made

All works are generated by Claude Opus 4.6. Each piece goes through a multi-stage pipeline: generation from a combination spec, self-review against the style directive, revision, schema validation, quality review, and persona-driven review generation.

The entire project — every story, every review, every persona — is open source and version-controlled.