The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads from 2014

Pecan Pie Baby: A Sweet Children’s Book Celebrating Diversity, Single-Motherhood, and the Vitalizing Gift of Community
Pecan Pie Baby: A Sweet Children’s Book Celebrating Diversity, Single-Motherhood, and the Vitalizing Gift of Community

A tender consolation for the disorienting journey of becoming a big sibling.

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The Best Biographies, Memoirs, and History Books of 2014
The Best Biographies, Memoirs, and History Books of 2014

Nabokov’s love letters, Shackleton’s courageous journey, the unsung heroes behind creative icons, Joni Mitchell unbound, and more.

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Tove Jansson’s Vintage Philosophical Moomin Comics About Identity, Belonging, and Why We Join Groups
Tove Jansson’s Vintage Philosophical Moomin Comics About Identity, Belonging, and Why We Join Groups

“It’s rather difficult, when one has MANY friends, to show loyalty to them all at the same time…”

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Being Mortal: A Surgeon on the Crossroads Between Our Bodies and Our Inner Lives and What Really Matters in the End
Being Mortal: A Surgeon on the Crossroads Between Our Bodies and Our Inner Lives and What Really Matters in the End

How dying confers upon living “the courage to act on the truth we find.”

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The Farmer and the Clown: A Warm Wordless Story about an Unlikely Friendship and How We Ennoble Each Other with Kindness
The Farmer and the Clown: A Warm Wordless Story about an Unlikely Friendship and How We Ennoble Each Other with Kindness

A sweet celebration of the mutual elevation made possible by dropping our assumptions about ourselves, others, and who is welcome in our world.

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Jane Austen’s Advice on Writing, in Letters to Her Teenage Niece
Jane Austen’s Advice on Writing, in Letters to Her Teenage Niece

Epistles on the fine art of “speeding truth into the world.”

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Being vs. Becoming: John Steinbeck on Creative Integrity, the Art of Changing Your Mind, the Humanistic Duty of the Artist
Being vs. Becoming: John Steinbeck on Creative Integrity, the Art of Changing Your Mind, the Humanistic Duty of the Artist

“If I can’t do better I have slipped badly… I beat poverty for a good many years and I’ll be damned if I’ll go down at the first little whiff of success.”

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The Slippery Question of What Makes a Great Book
The Slippery Question of What Makes a Great Book

“Every book is a sort of machine… You have to read it to find out how it works.”

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Pearl S. Buck, the Youngest Woman to Receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, on Art, Writing, and the Nature of Creativity
Pearl S. Buck, the Youngest Woman to Receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, on Art, Writing, and the Nature of Creativity

“The creative instinct is … an enormous extra vitality, a super-energy, born inexplicably in an individual… — an energy which no single life can consume.”

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A Burst of Delight and Recognition: E.E. Cummings, the Art of Noticing, and the Spirit of Rebellion
A Burst of Delight and Recognition: E.E. Cummings, the Art of Noticing, and the Spirit of Rebellion

“Cummings despised fear, and his life was lived in defiance of all who ruled by it.”

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