The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads from 2015

The 15 Best Books of 2015
The 15 Best Books of 2015

Rewarding reflections on time, love, loss, courage, creativity, and other transformations of the heart.

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Bruce Lee on Self-Actualization and the Crucial Difference Between Pride and Self-Esteem
Bruce Lee on Self-Actualization and the Crucial Difference Between Pride and Self-Esteem

“The less promise and potency in the self, the more imperative is the need for pride. The core of pride is self-rejection.”

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The Outsider with the Public Voice: How Joan Didion Mirrored Us Back to Ourselves
The Outsider with the Public Voice: How Joan Didion Mirrored Us Back to Ourselves

“From the first, her work insisted that a single life contained the life of our times.”

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H Is for Hawk: Helen Macdonald on Love, Loss, Time, and Our Improbable Allies in Healing
H Is for Hawk: Helen Macdonald on Love, Loss, Time, and Our Improbable Allies in Healing

“The world is full of signs and wonders that come, and go, and if you are lucky you might be alive to see them.”

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The Best Children’s Books of 2015
The Best Children’s Books of 2015

From power-hungry sheep to power-hungry tigers, by way of ghosts, E.E. Cummings, and the unseen Dr. Seuss.

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A Love Letter to Winter: Adam Gopnik’s Ardent Case for the Cold Season’s Splendor and Significance
A Love Letter to Winter: Adam Gopnik’s Ardent Case for the Cold Season’s Splendor and Significance

“If we didn’t remember winter in spring, it wouldn’t be as lovely… half of the keyboard of life would be missing. We would be playing life with no flats or sharps, on a piano with no black keys.”

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A Year Without Mom: A Gorgeous Graphic Novel About Separation and Reunion, the End of Childhood, and the Tradeoffs of Happiness
A Year Without Mom: A Gorgeous Graphic Novel About Separation and Reunion, the End of Childhood, and the Tradeoffs of Happiness

From the universals of first love to the complexities of geopolitical history, a tender tale of becoming.

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A Different Kind of Progress: The Poetry and Philosophy of Rilke, Rumi, Mary Oliver, and Tagore, Set to Song
A Different Kind of Progress: The Poetry and Philosophy of Rilke, Rumi, Mary Oliver, and Tagore, Set to Song

A beautiful musical homage to the eternal dance of life and death.

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Jane Austen’s Advice on Love, Marriage, and How to Rebuff a Suitor with Clarity and Kindness
Jane Austen’s Advice on Love, Marriage, and How to Rebuff a Suitor with Clarity and Kindness

“Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without affection.”

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Marilynne Robinson on the Humanities, the Limits of Neuroscience, and the Usefulness of the Soul as a Sensemaking Mechanism for Reality
Marilynne Robinson on the Humanities, the Limits of Neuroscience, and the Usefulness of the Soul as a Sensemaking Mechanism for Reality

“A great deal depends, perhaps our humanity depends, on our sensing and acknowledging that quality in our kind we call the soul.”

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