favorite reads
16 Life-Learnings from 16 Years of The Marginalian
Reflections on keeping the soul intact and alive and worthy of itself.
Trial, Triumph, and the Art of the Possible: The Remarkable Story Behind Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”
A hymn of rage, a hymn of redemption, and a timeless love letter to the possible.
Essential Life-Learnings from 14 Years of Brain Pickings
On the weight of the world and the weight of the sky.
Singularity: Marie Howe’s Ode to Stephen Hawking, Our Cosmic Belonging, and the Meaning of Home, in a Stunning Animated Short Film
“For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. Remember?”
Hannah Arendt on Love and How to Live with the Fundamental Fear of Loss
“Fearlessness is what love seeks… Such fearlessness exists only in the complete calm that can no longer be shaken by events expected of the future… Hence the only valid tense is the present, the Now.”
Rebecca Solnit’s Lovely Letter to Children About How Books Solace, Empower, and Transform Us
“Some books are toolkits you take up to fix things, from the most practical to the most mysterious, from your house to your heart… Some books are medicine, bitter but clarifying.”
In Praise of the Telescopic Perspective: A Reflection on Living Through Turbulent Times
Perspective to lift the blinders of our cultural moment.
The Courage to Be Yourself: E.E. Cummings on Art, Life, and Being Unafraid to Feel
“To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight.”
A Rap on Race: Margaret Mead and James Baldwin’s Rare Conversation on Forgiveness and the Difference Between Guilt and Responsibility
“We’ve got to be as clear-headed about human beings as possible, because we are still each other’s only hope.”
Mary Oliver on What Attention Really Means and Her Moving Elegy for Her Soul Mate
“Attention without feeling … is only a report.”
Bloom: The Evolution of Life on Earth and the Birth of Ecology (Joan As Police Woman Sings Emily Dickinson)
How flowers gave rise to life on Earth and made possible the human consciousness that came to see a world “thronged only with Music.”
Resolutions for a Life Worth Living: Attainable Aspirations Inspired by Great Humans of the Past
Life-tested wisdom on how to live from James Baldwin, Ursula K. Le Guin, Leo Tolstoy, Seneca, Toni Morrison, Walt Whitman, Viktor Frankl, Rachel Carson, and Hannah Arendt.
Emily Dickinson’s Electric Love Letters to Susan Gilbert
“Susie… come home… and be my own again, and kiss me as you used to… I hope for you so much, and feel so eager for you… that the expectation… makes me feel hot and feverish, and my heart beats so fast.”
How Kepler Invented Science Fiction and Defended His Mother in a Witchcraft Trial While Revolutionizing Our Understanding of the Universe
How many revolutions does the cog of culture make before a new truth about reality catches into gear?
The Cosmic Miracle of Trees: Astronaut Leland Melvin Reads Pablo Neruda’s Love Letter to Earth’s Forests
“Anyone who hasn’t been in the Chilean forest doesn’t know this planet. I have come out of that landscape, that mud, that silence, to roam, to go singing through the world.”
Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives
How to fine-tune the internal monologue that scores every aspect of our lives, from leadership to love.
A Stoic’s Key to Peace of Mind: Seneca on the Antidote to Anxiety
“There are more things … likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
The Story Behind “Silent Spring”: How Rachel Carson’s Countercultural Courage Catalyzed the Environmental Movement
“It is, in the deepest sense, a privilege as well as a duty to have the opportunity to speak out — to many thousands of people — on something so important.”
The Science of Stress and How Our Emotions Affect Our Susceptibility to Burnout and Disease
How your memories impact your immune system, why moving is one of the most stressful life-events, and what your parents have to do with your predisposition to PTSD.
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