The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads by Maria Popova

Lichens and the Meaning of Life
Lichens and the Meaning of Life

“We are lichens on a grand scale.”

read article

From Cells to Souls: The Poetic Science of How the Brain Became
From Cells to Souls: The Poetic Science of How the Brain Became

The making of our densely networked crucible of thought and tenderness.

read article

In Praise of Being Wrong: Lewis Thomas on the Value of Generative Mistakes
In Praise of Being Wrong: Lewis Thomas on the Value of Generative Mistakes

In praise of our “property of error, spontaneous, uncontrolled, and rich in possibilities.”

read article

Stunning 200-Year-Old French Illustrations of Exotic, Endangered, and Extinct Birds
Stunning 200-Year-Old French Illustrations of Exotic, Endangered, and Extinct Birds

From peacocks to penguins, a winged menagerie of wonder.

read article

The Life of Trees: A Poem
The Life of Trees: A Poem

“I want to sleep and dream the life of trees, beings from the muted world…”

read article

An Introvert’s Field Guide to Friendship: Thoreau on the Challenges and Rewards of Candid Connection
An Introvert’s Field Guide to Friendship: Thoreau on the Challenges and Rewards of Candid Connection

“We only need to be as true to others as we are to ourselves that there may be ground enough for friendship.”

read article

O Sweet Spontaneous: E.E. Cummings’s Love-Poem to Earth and the Glory of Spring
O Sweet Spontaneous: E.E. Cummings’s Love-Poem to Earth and the Glory of Spring

The ultimate anthem of resistance to the assaults on life.

read article

May Sarton on How to Cultivate Your Talent
May Sarton on How to Cultivate Your Talent

“A talent grows by being used, and withers if it is not used.”

read article

The Transcendent Brain: The Poetic Physicist Alan Lightman on Spirituality for the Science-Spirited
The Transcendent Brain: The Poetic Physicist Alan Lightman on Spirituality for the Science-Spirited

A largehearted invitation to “stand on the precipice between the known and the unknown, without fear, without anxiety, but instead with awe and wonder at this strange and beautiful cosmos we find ourselves in.”

read article

2,000 Years of Kindness
2,000 Years of Kindness

From Marcus Aurelius to Einstein, poets and philosophers on the deepest wellspring of our humanity.

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.)