The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads by Maria Popova

We Feel Fine: An Almanac of Human Emotion
We Feel Fine: An Almanac of Human Emotion

Four years and 12 million feelings later, a book that lives up to its grand expectations.

read article

Alphabet Books Rethought
Alphabet Books Rethought

Contortionists, negative space, and what Claymation has to do with the Kama Sutra.

read article

The Wall In My Head: Words & Art from the Fall of the Iron Curtain
The Wall In My Head: Words & Art from the Fall of the Iron Curtain

What fallen checkpoints have to do with a generation of artists.

read article

Interview with Illustrator Christina Tsevis
Interview with Illustrator Christina Tsevis

What Coldplay, Oscar Wilde and Plato have in common and why the commodification of art may be a good thing.

read article

Buy Nothing: No, Really, It’s For Sale
Buy Nothing: No, Really, It’s For Sale

What the hottest gift this holiday season is, or how to dodge your modern addictions.

read article

The History of Jazz, Animated in Shadow Art
The History of Jazz, Animated in Shadow Art

What five rooms and bleeding-edge software have to do with the cultural heritage of music.

read article

World AIDS Day Spotlight: Interview with Travis McCoy
World AIDS Day Spotlight: Interview with Travis McCoy

What a pair of sneakers has to do with a bridge in Manila and mobile cinema in South Africa.

read article

Carbon Sucker: CR5
Carbon Sucker: CR5

What carbon dioxide has to do with national security and a dog’s tail.

read article

The Jazz Loft Project
The Jazz Loft Project

Wired lofts, 1,447 rolls of film, and what pimps and Salvador Dalí have in common.

read article

Tim Burton’s MoMA Retrospective
Tim Burton’s MoMA Retrospective

What rotten eyeballs have to do with creative storytelling and the visual heritage of our era.

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.)