The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads from 2015

The Best of Brain Pickings 2015
The Best of Brain Pickings 2015

The paradoxical psychology of why we fall in love, what maturity really means, how our emotions affect our immune system, the transformative power of solitude, and a year’s worth more.

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The Problem of Shakespeare’s Sister: Virginia Woolf on Gender in Creative Culture
The Problem of Shakespeare’s Sister: Virginia Woolf on Gender in Creative Culture

“To write a work of genius is almost always a feat of prodigious difficulty. Everything is against the likelihood that it will come from the writer’s mind whole and entire.”

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Albert Camus on Strength of Character and How to Save Our Sanity in Difficult Times
Albert Camus on Strength of Character and How to Save Our Sanity in Difficult Times

“In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

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The Lost Mariner: A Beautiful Animated Short Film About Memory, Inspired by Oliver Sacks
The Lost Mariner: A Beautiful Animated Short Film About Memory, Inspired by Oliver Sacks

“You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives.”

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Genius at Play: A Brilliant Mathematician on Tinkering, Thinkering, and the Art of Being a Professional Nonunderstander
Genius at Play: A Brilliant Mathematician on Tinkering, Thinkering, and the Art of Being a Professional Nonunderstander

Anatomy of thought at the fault line of invention and discovery.

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Hope in the Dark: Rebecca Solnit on the Redemptive Radiance of the World’s Invisible Revolutionaries
Hope in the Dark: Rebecca Solnit on the Redemptive Radiance of the World’s Invisible Revolutionaries

“The grounds for hope are in the shadows, in the people who are inventing the world while no one looks, who themselves don’t know yet whether they will have any effect…”

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Kierkegaard on Ideals, Happiness, and the False Allure of the Extraordinary
Kierkegaard on Ideals, Happiness, and the False Allure of the Extraordinary

“The Highest is not to comprehend the Highest, but to do it, and note this well, including all the burdens it involves.”

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A Nonbeliever’s Case for the Bible: How a Secular Reading of Scripture Enlarges Our Experience of Beauty, Morality, and Transcendence
A Nonbeliever’s Case for the Bible: How a Secular Reading of Scripture Enlarges Our Experience of Beauty, Morality, and Transcendence

From Blake to Bach, why the ancient text long stripped of fact remains essential to our grasp of poetic truth.

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Bob Dylan Reads “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”
Bob Dylan Reads “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”

“Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…”

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A Cultural History of Santa: Margaret Mead’s Fictional Interview with the Jolly Gift-Giver Celebrating Generosity and the Universal Spirit of Giving
A Cultural History of Santa: Margaret Mead’s Fictional Interview with the Jolly Gift-Giver Celebrating Generosity and the Universal Spirit of Giving

“Giving is itself a kind of thank offering.”

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