The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Search results for “big magic”

Favorite Children’s Books of 2023
Favorite Children’s Books of 2023

Tender and poetic reckonings with friendship, fear, love, solitude, black holes, deep time, and the interconnectedness of life.

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Heroism and the Human Search for Meaning: Ernest Becker on the Hidden Root of Our Existential Longing
Heroism and the Human Search for Meaning: Ernest Becker on the Hidden Root of Our Existential Longing

“To become conscious of what one is doing to earn his feeling of heroism is the main self-analytic problem of life.”

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How to Grow Re-enchanted with the World: A Salve for the Sense of Existential Meaninglessness and Burnout
How to Grow Re-enchanted with the World: A Salve for the Sense of Existential Meaninglessness and Burnout

A shimmering reminder that “the magic is of our own conjuring.”

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The Poetic Science of the Aurora Borealis
The Poetic Science of the Aurora Borealis

“And now commenced a display which baffles all description.”

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Carrots and the Roots of Kindness, from Leo and Sophia Tolstoy to Ross Gay
Carrots and the Roots of Kindness, from Leo and Sophia Tolstoy to Ross Gay

A lovely reminder that “kindness and kin have the same mother.”

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Milan Kundera on the Power of Coincidences and the Musicality of How Chance Composes Our Lives
Milan Kundera on the Power of Coincidences and the Musicality of How Chance Composes Our Lives

“Human lives… are composed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a fortuitous occurrence… into a motif, which then assumes a permanent place in the composition of the individual’s life.”

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Nikolai Vavilov and the Living Library of Resilience: The Story of the World’s First Seed Bank and the Tragic Hero of Science Who Set Out to End Humanity’s Suffering
Nikolai Vavilov and the Living Library of Resilience: The Story of the World’s First Seed Bank and the Tragic Hero of Science Who Set Out to End Humanity’s Suffering

The most moving story of self-sacrifice in the history of science.

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Favorite Books of 2022
Favorite Books of 2022

From Rumi to Blake to Nick Cave, by way of trees, hummingbirds, grief, and music.

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Control for Surrender: Henry Miller’s Stunning Letter to Anaïs Nin About the Value of and the Antidote to Despair
Control for Surrender: Henry Miller’s Stunning Letter to Anaïs Nin About the Value of and the Antidote to Despair

“When you surrender, the problem ceases to exist. Try to solve it, or conquer it, and you only set up more resistance.”

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The Third Thing: Poet Donald Hall on the Secret to Lasting Love
The Third Thing: Poet Donald Hall on the Secret to Lasting Love

“Third things are essential to marriages, objects or practices or habits or arts or institutions or games or human beings that provide a site of joint rapture or contentment.”

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