💡 WiseUp! Vol. 43 — Which story are you thankful for this year?
This week, we're celebrating Thanksgiving with recs from our team, a very interesting article on the science of gratitude, and a Reader bundle by our Wisereads editor, Abi. We're also showing you how to tidy up your content using Filtered Views and exploring your highlights in chronological order.
On the app side, we’ve launched a new experimental feature called Themed Connections to help you find unexpected pathways between your saved highlights. We've also added horizontal pagination for tablets, and improved both PDF and EPUB loading. Read on for all the details or check out our log of weekly improvements.
And before we forget: Next week, seven members of our team will be at Dragonsteel Nexus. Stop by the Readwise lounge in Room 251 to chat all things Brandon Sanderson, and pick up some limited-edition swag :)
Before we get into the tips…
📍 Let's start with a reading recommendation
The true science of gratitude
In honor of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, Wisereads editor Abi is sharing a few favorite reads on gratitude, including this piece from Scarcity Brain author Michael Easter. “Being grateful isn’t the default setting for humans. If it were, researchers, religions, and cultural holidays wouldn’t need to remind us to be grateful. Humans are built to acquire. Once we get the thing we’re after, we get a brief hit of pleasure and quickly shift our focus to the next acquisition.”
Explore her whole collection here.
From the support inbox
Have questions about using Readwise or Reader in your workflow? We'd love to be your guide! Reply to this email with your question and you might be featured in an upcoming issue. Even if your question isn’t featured, we’ll respond to every message.
❓ A Readwise question from Torgrim S:
Is there a way to see all my highlights, in chronological order?
Checking your most recent highlights lets you review them close to when you captured them, which research shows is one of the strongest ways to improve retention. This naturally supports spaced repetition so your memory stays sharp over time. Review your latest highlights at https://readwise.io/latest.
❓ A Reader question from Jonah:
Can I import my reading history from the Matter app to Readwise?
You can import your Matter articles to Reader by generating an export inside the Matter app, which will send you an email with a link to download your data, and then forwarding that email to read@readwise.io. Reader will automatically follow the link and import your previously saved documents.
📖 New help doc of the week
Use filtered views to tidy up before the holiday chaos
Your kitchen may be a mess of turkey and cranberry sauce, but your Reader library doesn’t need to be! Filtered views can be a powerful way to organize your documents, but if you’re not sure where to start, our curated library of queries can help. Find queries to weed out YouTube shorts, clean out your old Feed articles, aggregate any long documents you still need to finish reading, and more.
🎬 New video of the week
Speaking of Brandon Sanderson…
We’re experimenting with an entirely new type of video content intended to help readers like you discover great books that are often overlooked by traditional algorithms.
For our inaugural video, we’ve partnered with one of our favorite fantasy reviewers, Michael Cronk, to introduce you to 10 books you might love if you loved Sanderson’s breakout novel Mistborn.
Because this is an experiment, we’d love any and all feedback you might have! Drop us a comment in YouTube or reply to this email with your thoughts :)
📰 Nov 15 - Nov 21 updates
What's new in Reader and Readwise
🖇️ NEW! Themed Connections — We launched a new experimental feature called Themed Connections. By default, you’ll receive a batch of highlights exploring a specific theme or idea each Saturday. This theme will be unique to your highlights and span multiple sources. Since starting Readwise, we’ve heard from thousands of you that one of the most delightful part of reviewing your highlights is the unexpected connections found across sources. This feature supercharges that process.
📖 NEW! Horizontal Pagination — Tablets have an experimental new two-column reading mode. Horizontal pagination also allows you to highlight onto the next page going to the right or left, instead of up or down like continuous and paged scroll modes.
🔗 NEW! Chat Document Links — Ghostreader chat responses now include links to relevant parts of the document, thanks to Ibai, Adam, and Tristan.
🚀 Faster EPUB Loading — Artem dug into EPUB performance and made some improvements to how we do certain safety checks. Most EPUBs should now open much faster.
✉️ Fixed PDF Loading — Tristan fixed a glitch preventing one of our Discover Document PDFs (the Berkshire, Inc. annual shareholder letter from Warren Buffet) from loading.
📤 Fixed PDF Exports — Arek fixed an issue with exporting PDFs with annotations on iOS. You can now download your highlighted PDFs.
🟡 Fixed Highlight Sensitivity — Mati fixed a bug where double-tapping to highlight text didn’t always trigger.
🎙️ Fixed Chat with Highlights — Piotr fixed a websocket connection glitch that prevented some users from chatting with their highlights using the desktop app or iPad Safari.
📊 Fixed Database Queries — Johannes fixed a bug that could cause crashes for users with (very) large libraries.
🎥 Fixed Video Speed — Mati fixed a bug where Reader wasn't remembering mobile video playback speed settings.
💳 Fixed Subscription Management — Ibai fixed a bug with Readwise’s manage subscription button on the account page. It should now properly launch the Stripe customer portal, without any overflowing text.
🔦 Fixed Keyboard Flickers — Arek fixed a bug in Readwise where highlights in list view would flicker after previewing the highlight and opening the keyboard on mobile.
👍 Thanksgiving featured finds
From the CX team 🦃
Something to read 📖
Romi is really enjoying Hamnet, a reminder of how family, creativity, and everyday moments can shape something timeless. It’s a celebration of connection both on and off the page.
Something to watch 🎥
If you’re in the mood for something absolutely unhinged to pair with your Thanksgiving food coma, Angie recommends the horror film Thanksgiving. It’s got a murderous pilgrim, questionable life choices, and just enough ridiculousness to make you feel better about your own holiday chaos. Enjoy the carnage!
Something to share 🥧
For Thanksgiving this year, Erin is making her favorite take on pumpkin pie. When it’s time to serve, she recommends sprinkling a tablespoon of sugar on each slice and brûléeing the top for added wow factor 🤩
Something to play 🎲
Abi recommends bringing Tapple to your family gathering for a high energy and casual game that’s easy to explain and unlikely to start fights 😂
💬 From the Readwise group chat
Friends, meet Ada
Among other things, we're very grateful to Hannes for sharing pictures of his pup Ada, named after Ada Lovelace. If you're like us, this cutie will bring a smile to your face!
(P.S.: Your pup pics are ALWAYS welcome!)
See you next week!
Warmly,
the Readwise customer support team