The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads from February 3, 2012

The Art of Medicine: Mapping the Body in 2,000 Years of Images and Imagination
The Art of Medicine: Mapping the Body in 2,000 Years of Images and Imagination

From ancient etchings to electron microscopes, or what aspirin has to do with visualizing consciousness.

read article

A Brief History of The Elements of Style and What Makes It Great
A Brief History of The Elements of Style and What Makes It Great

On depth in simplicity and beauty in plainness.

read article

This Is Your Brain on Comedy
This Is Your Brain on Comedy

The laugh track as cultural currency, or what David Letterman has to do with the dopamine circuit.

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.)