The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads from 2020

Figuring Forward in an Uncertain World
Figuring Forward in an Uncertain World

Consolations from the cosmic scheme.

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Today, Another Universe: Jane Hirshfield’s Stunning Poem of Perspective and Consolation
Today, Another Universe: Jane Hirshfield’s Stunning Poem of Perspective and Consolation

Steadying solace for those times when we “go to sleep in one world and wake in another.”

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Josh Groban Reads Auden’s “After Reading a Child’s Guide to Modern Physics” and Tells the Inspiring Story of His Rebel Astronomer Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather
Josh Groban Reads Auden’s “After Reading a Child’s Guide to Modern Physics” and Tells the Inspiring Story of His Rebel Astronomer Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather

“Marriage is rarely bliss / But, surely it would be worse / As particles to pelt / At thousands of miles per sec / About a universe / Wherein a lover’s kiss / Would either not be felt / Or break the loved one’s neck.”

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Cephalopod Atlas: Stunning, Sensual Illustrations from the World’s First Encyclopedia of Octopus and Squid Wonders from the Ocean Depths
Cephalopod Atlas: Stunning, Sensual Illustrations from the World’s First Encyclopedia of Octopus and Squid Wonders from the Ocean Depths

Ravishing otherworldly wonders of the cosmos beneath the surface, from the first expedition to prove that life exists in the depths.

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Bloom: A Touching Animated Short Film about Depression and What It Takes to Recover the Light of Being
Bloom: A Touching Animated Short Film about Depression and What It Takes to Recover the Light of Being

How the warm rays of hope and healing enter the dark inner chamber of leaden loneliness through the unexpected cracks of kindness.

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Against Aloneness in the Web of Life: Ernst Haeckel, Charles Darwin, and the Art of Turning Personal Tragedy into a Portal to Transcendence
Against Aloneness in the Web of Life: Ernst Haeckel, Charles Darwin, and the Art of Turning Personal Tragedy into a Portal to Transcendence

An antidote to isolation by way of tiny marine creatures and a broken Romantic heart.

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The Psychology of Social Rule: Pioneering Sociologist Elsie Clews Parsons’s Prophetic Century-Old Study of Power, the Rise of Divisiveness, and Why We Classify Ourselves and Others
The Psychology of Social Rule: Pioneering Sociologist Elsie Clews Parsons’s Prophetic Century-Old Study of Power, the Rise of Divisiveness, and Why We Classify Ourselves and Others

“Classification is nine-tenths of subjection.”

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The Body Politic Electric: Walt Whitman on Women’s Centrality to Democracy
The Body Politic Electric: Walt Whitman on Women’s Centrality to Democracy

“Have I not said that womanhood involves all? Have I not told how the universe has nothing better than the best womanhood?”

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Life, Death, Chance, and Freeman Dyson
Life, Death, Chance, and Freeman Dyson

“These matters are in the hands of a blind fate whose decrees it is perhaps well that we cannot foresee.”

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Between the Body and the Soul: Neri Oxman Reads Walt Whitman
Between the Body and the Soul: Neri Oxman Reads Walt Whitman

A timeless song of praise for our belonging with “Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees,” with “night of the large few stars.”

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