favorite reads
The Best of Brain Pickings 2019
Love, poetry, friendship, solitude, and lots of trees.
Favorite Children’s Books of 2019
An emotional intelligence primer in the form of a tender illustrated poem, an empowered retelling of Cinderella, a meditation on what it means to have enough, a serenade to the art of listening as the gateway to self-understanding, and more.
13 Life-Learnings from 13 Years of Brain Pickings
More fluid reflections on keeping a solid center.
Emily Dickinson’s Electric Love Letters to Susan Gilbert
“Come with me this morning to the church within our hearts, where the bells are always ringing, and the preacher whose name is Love — shall intercede for us!”
A Brave and Startling Truth: Astrophysicist Janna Levin Reads Maya Angelou’s Stunning Humanist Poem That Flew to Space, Inspired by Carl Sagan
“Out of such chaos, of such contradiction / We learn that we are neither devils nor divines…”
In Praise of the Telescopic Perspective: A Reflection on Living Through Turbulent Times
Perspective to lift the blinders of our cultural moment.
The Courage to Be Yourself: E.E. Cummings on Art, Life, and Being Unafraid to Feel
“To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight.”
Timeless Advice on Writing: The Collected Wisdom of Great Writers
Hemingway, Didion, Baldwin, Fitzgerald, Sontag, Vonnegut, Bradbury, Morrison, Orwell, Le Guin, Woolf, and other titans of literature.
The Science of Stress and How Our Emotions Affect Our Susceptibility to Burnout and Disease
How your memories impact your immune system, why moving is one of the most stressful life-events, and what your parents have to do with your predisposition to PTSD.
Rebecca Solnit on Hope in Dark Times, Resisting the Defeatism of Easy Despair, and What Victory Really Means for Movements of Social Change
“This is an extraordinary time full of vital, transformative movements that could not be foreseen. It’s also a nightmarish time. Full engagement requires the ability to perceive both.”
Favorite Books of 2019
From the hidden universe beneath our feet to delight as a countercultural force of courage and resistance, by way of Patti Smith, Toni Morrison, and the Greek myths.
How Kepler Invented Science Fiction and Defended His Mother in a Witchcraft Trial While Revolutionizing Our Understanding of the Universe
How many revolutions does the cog of culture make before a new truth about reality catches into gear?
The More Loving One: Astrophysicist Janna Levin Reads W.H. Auden’s Sublime Ode to Our Unrequited Love for the Universe
“If equal affection cannot be, / Let the more loving one be me.”
Rebecca Solnit’s Lovely Letter to Children About How Books Solace, Empower, and Transform Us
“Some books are toolkits you take up to fix things, from the most practical to the most mysterious, from your house to your heart, or to make things, from cakes to ships. Some books are wings… Some books are medicine, bitter but clarifying.”
Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives
How to fine-tune the internal monologue that scores every aspect of our lives, from leadership to love.
A Stoic’s Key to Peace of Mind: Seneca on the Antidote to Anxiety
“There are more things … likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
The Writing of “Silent Spring”: Rachel Carson and the Culture-Shifting Courage to Speak Inconvenient Truth to Power
“It is, in the deepest sense, a privilege as well as a duty to have the opportunity to speak out — to many thousands of people — on something so important.”
A Rap on Race: Margaret Mead and James Baldwin’s Rare Conversation on Forgiveness and the Difference Between Guilt and Responsibility
“We’ve got to be as clear-headed about human beings as possible, because we are still each other’s only hope.”
Mary Oliver on What Attention Really Means and Her Moving Elegy for Her Soul Mate
“Attention without feeling … is only a report.”
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