The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads from 2014

Amanda Palmer on the Art of Asking and What Thoreau Teaches Us about Accepting Love
Amanda Palmer on the Art of Asking and What Thoreau Teaches Us about Accepting Love

“You’re an artist when you say you are. And you’re a good artist when you make somebody else experience or feel something deep or unexpected.”

read article

Anne Lamott on the Greatest Gift of Friendship and the Uncomfortable Art of Letting Yourself Be Seen
Anne Lamott on the Greatest Gift of Friendship and the Uncomfortable Art of Letting Yourself Be Seen

“Trappings and charm wear off… Let people see you.”

read article

Leonard Cohen and the Art of Stillness: Pico Iyer on What the Monastic Musician Taught Him About Presence
Leonard Cohen and the Art of Stillness: Pico Iyer on What the Monastic Musician Taught Him About Presence

“Going nowhere … isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply.”

read article

What Book Changed Your Perception of Reality?
What Book Changed Your Perception of Reality?

An animated phone call about the love and life of literature.

read article

Someone Reading a Book is a Sign of Order in the World: Poet Mary Ruefle on Why We Read
Someone Reading a Book is a Sign of Order in the World: Poet Mary Ruefle on Why We Read

“We are all one question, and the best answer seems to be love — a connection between things.”

read article

The Day Dostoyevsky Discovered the Meaning of Life in a Dream
The Day Dostoyevsky Discovered the Meaning of Life in a Dream

“And it is so simple… You will instantly find how to live.”

read article

Artist Andrea Dezsö’s Enchanting Black-and-White Illustrations for the Little-Known Original Edition of the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales
Artist Andrea Dezsö’s Enchanting Black-and-White Illustrations for the Little-Known Original Edition of the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales

“Tales are powerful instruments and should be wielded skillfully.”

read article

Why “Psychological Androgyny” Is Essential for Creativity
Why “Psychological Androgyny” Is Essential for Creativity

“Creative individuals are more likely to have not only the strengths of their own gender but those of the other one, too.”

read article

Anaïs Nin on Inner Conflict, the Interconnectedness of All Things, and What Maturity Really Means
Anaïs Nin on Inner Conflict, the Interconnectedness of All Things, and What Maturity Really Means

“Any experience carried out deeply to its ultimate leads you beyond yourself into a larger relation to the experience of others.”

read article

Bill Nye Reads a Brilliant, Creationism-Busting Passage from His New Book on Evolution
Bill Nye Reads a Brilliant, Creationism-Busting Passage from His New Book on Evolution

An intelligent antidote to propaganda’s chronic line of unreasonable reasoning.

read article

View Full Site

The Marginalian participates in the Bookshop.org and Amazon.com affiliate programs, designed to provide a means for sites to earn commissions by linking to books. In more human terms, this means that whenever you buy a book from a link here, I receive a small percentage of its price, which goes straight back into my own colossal biblioexpenses. Privacy policy. (TLDR: You're safe — there are no nefarious "third parties" lurking on my watch or shedding crumbs of the "cookies" the rest of the internet uses.)