The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “culture”

In Praise of the Telescopic Perspective: A Reflection on Living Through Turbulent Times
In Praise of the Telescopic Perspective: A Reflection on Living Through Turbulent Times

Perspective to lift the blinders of our cultural moment.

read article

Flatland Revisited: A Lovely New Edition of Edwin Abbott Abbott’s Classic 1884 Allegory of Expanding Our Perspective
Flatland Revisited: A Lovely New Edition of Edwin Abbott Abbott’s Classic 1884 Allegory of Expanding Our Perspective

On the absurdity of truth by consensus, and a gentle invitation to consider how our way of looking at the world limits our view of it.

read article

7 Favorite Science Books of 2017
7 Favorite Science Books of 2017

From trees to consciousness to black holes, an immersion into the glory of the knowable and the splendor of the unknown.

read article

The Heartening Illustrated Story of How Blues Pioneer Muddy Waters Transmuted Loss and Loneliness into Music That Changed History
The Heartening Illustrated Story of How Blues Pioneer Muddy Waters Transmuted Loss and Loneliness into Music That Changed History

“The guitar howled like a wolf: powerful, lonely, and proud.”

read article

The Songs of Trees: A Biologist’s Lyrical Ode to How Relationships Weave the Fabric of Life
The Songs of Trees: A Biologist’s Lyrical Ode to How Relationships Weave the Fabric of Life

“We cannot step outside life’s songs. This music made us; it is our nature.”

read article

Walt Whitman, Shortly After His Paralytic Stroke, on What Makes Life Worth Living
Walt Whitman, Shortly After His Paralytic Stroke, on What Makes Life Worth Living

“Tone your wants and tastes low down enough, and make much of negatives, and of mere daylight and the skies.”

read article

The 7 Loveliest Children’s Books of 2017
The 7 Loveliest Children’s Books of 2017

Profound and poetic illustrated celebrations of solitude, self-possession, friendship, and our place in the cosmos.

read article

Jad Abumrad Reads an Ode to the Glory of Tiny Creatures and Celebrates His Mother’s Scientific Persistence
Jad Abumrad Reads an Ode to the Glory of Tiny Creatures and Celebrates His Mother’s Scientific Persistence

In praise of the invisible heroisms and unglamorous triumphs of nature and the human spirit.

read article

Code Girls: The Untold Story of the Women Cryptographers Who Fought WWII at the Intersection of Language and Mathematics
Code Girls: The Untold Story of the Women Cryptographers Who Fought WWII at the Intersection of Language and Mathematics

“Virtually as soon as humans developed the ability to speak and write, somebody somewhere felt the desire to say something to somebody else that could not be understood by others.”

read article

The Dialogues: Illustrated Conversations About the Most Thrilling Frontiers of Science by Theoretical Physicist and Self-Taught Artist Clifford Johnson
The Dialogues: Illustrated Conversations About the Most Thrilling Frontiers of Science by Theoretical Physicist and Self-Taught Artist Clifford Johnson

From black holes to the multiverse, a cosmic comic celebrating the endangered art of human conversation.

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.)