The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads from 2014

Margaret Mead on the Root of Racism and the Liability of Law Enforcement
Margaret Mead on the Root of Racism and the Liability of Law Enforcement

“The more complex a society becomes, the more fully the law must take into account the diversity of the people who live in it… It is a matter in which the whole society is involved.”

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The Psychology of Flow: What Game Design Reveals about the Deliberate Tensions of Great Writing
The Psychology of Flow: What Game Design Reveals about the Deliberate Tensions of Great Writing

“The books that give us the most pleasure, the deepest pleasure, combine uncertainty and satisfaction, tension and release.”

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The Watcher: A Children’s Book about How Jane Goodall Became Jane Goodall
The Watcher: A Children’s Book about How Jane Goodall Became Jane Goodall

How a quiet little English girl became the world’s greatest advocate for animals.

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Vladimir Nabokov’s Passionate Love Letters to Véra and His Affectionate Bestiary of Nicknames for Her
Vladimir Nabokov’s Passionate Love Letters to Véra and His Affectionate Bestiary of Nicknames for Her

“You are the only person I can talk with about the shade of a cloud, about the song of a thought…”

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Legendary Cellist Pablo Casals, at Age 93, on Creative Vitality and How Working with Love Prolongs Your Life
Legendary Cellist Pablo Casals, at Age 93, on Creative Vitality and How Working with Love Prolongs Your Life

“The man who works and is never bored is never old. Work and interest in worthwhile things are the best remedy for age.”

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Vanessa Redgrave Reads Joan Didion’s Harrowing ‘Blue Nights’
Vanessa Redgrave Reads Joan Didion’s Harrowing ‘Blue Nights’

“Time passes. Memory fades, memory adjusts, memory conforms to what we think we remember.”

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The Knot in the Rosary: Rilke on How Difficulty Can Fuel Creativity and Why Feedback Poisons Art
The Knot in the Rosary: Rilke on How Difficulty Can Fuel Creativity and Why Feedback Poisons Art

“All art is the result of one’s having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, to where no one can go any further.”

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The Art of Quickness: Italo Calvino on Digression as a Hedge Against Death and the Key to Great Writing
The Art of Quickness: Italo Calvino on Digression as a Hedge Against Death and the Key to Great Writing

“Success consists in felicity of verbal expression, which every so often may result from a quick flash of inspiration but as a rule involves a patient search… for the sentence in which every word is unalterable.”

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Once Upon a Northern Night: A Loving Illustrated Lullaby of Winter’s Whimsy
Once Upon a Northern Night: A Loving Illustrated Lullaby of Winter’s Whimsy

A song of innocence and seasonal experience.

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Lynda Barry’s Illustrated Field Guide to Keeping a Visual Diary and Cultivating a Capacity for Creative Observation
Lynda Barry’s Illustrated Field Guide to Keeping a Visual Diary and Cultivating a Capacity for Creative Observation

How to master the infinitely rewarding art of “being present and seeing what’s there.”

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