The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads from 2012

Andrew Zuckerman’s Extraordinary Portraits of Flowers
Andrew Zuckerman’s Extraordinary Portraits of Flowers

Blossoms like you’ve never seen them before.

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Eleanor Roosevelt on Happiness, Conformity, and Integrity
Eleanor Roosevelt on Happiness, Conformity, and Integrity

“When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else … you surrender your own integrity. You become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being.”

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Are We Nearing the Maximum Capacity of the Human Brain?
Are We Nearing the Maximum Capacity of the Human Brain?

How “the cleverest organ in the known universe could suddenly become one of the dumbest.”

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What Makes a Great City: A General Theory of Walkability
What Makes a Great City: A General Theory of Walkability

“City engineers have turned our downtowns into places that are easy to get to but not worth arriving at.”

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John Keats’s Porridge: The Favorite Recipes of Beloved Poets
John Keats’s Porridge: The Favorite Recipes of Beloved Poets

What simple dishes reveal about the complexities of poetry as a creative act of constant transformation.

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The Best Science Books of 2012
The Best Science Books of 2012

From cosmology to cosmic love, or what your biological clock has to do with diagraming evolution.

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How Thomas Jefferson Pioneered the Tomato, Championed Urban Farming, and Taught Americans to Make Coffee
How Thomas Jefferson Pioneered the Tomato, Championed Urban Farming, and Taught Americans to Make Coffee

The Founding Father’s lesser-known but monumental contributions to modern culture.

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Kurt Vonnegut: You’re Allowed To Be In Love Three Times In Your Life
Kurt Vonnegut: You’re Allowed To Be In Love Three Times In Your Life

An existential quota held in three long fingers.

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The Birth of Sound: Why the Big Bang Was Actually Silent
The Birth of Sound: Why the Big Bang Was Actually Silent

The science of why the wail of the baby Universe sounded like muffled highway traffic.

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An Illustrated Vintage Bicycle Safety Manual circa 1969
An Illustrated Vintage Bicycle Safety Manual circa 1969

Keep your head up, your speed down, and your hands on those handlebars — or else!

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