The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “books”

The Art of Self-Renewal: The Pioneering Social Scientist John Gardner on How to Keep Your Work and Your Spirit Alive Over the Long Run
The Art of Self-Renewal: The Pioneering Social Scientist John Gardner on How to Keep Your Work and Your Spirit Alive Over the Long Run

“The self-renewing man … looks forward to an endless and unpredictable dialogue between his potentialities an the claims of life – not only the claims he encounters but the claims he invents.”

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How the Bees Gave Earth Its Splendid Colors
How the Bees Gave Earth Its Splendid Colors

How a striped, winged, six-legged love machine sparked “the longest marketing campaign in history.”

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David Bowie Answers the Famous Proust Questionnaire
David Bowie Answers the Famous Proust Questionnaire

“Q: What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? A: Living in fear.”

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What Makes a Great City: E.B. White on the Poetics of New York
What Makes a Great City: E.B. White on the Poetics of New York

“A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning. The city is like poetry.”

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Bohemians: A Graphic History of Creative Mavericks
Bohemians: A Graphic History of Creative Mavericks

Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, Josephine Baker, Henry Miller, Gertrude Stein, Thelonious Monk, and other creative mavericks of semi-subversive status.

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Mocha Dick: The Story of the Real-Life Whale That Inspired Moby-Dick, Illustrated
Mocha Dick: The Story of the Real-Life Whale That Inspired Moby-Dick, Illustrated

“Some men sat stone-faced. Some shook.”

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Chinua Achebe on the Meaning of Life and the Writer’s Responsibility in the World
Chinua Achebe on the Meaning of Life and the Writer’s Responsibility in the World

The difference between blind optimism and the urge to improve the world’s imperfection.

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30 Days of “Quantum Poetry” Celebrating the Glory of Science
30 Days of “Quantum Poetry” Celebrating the Glory of Science

From black holes to DNA to butterfly metamorphosis, bewitching verses on the magic of nature.

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Visionary Neurologist Oliver Sacks on What Hallucinations Reveal about How the Mind Works
Visionary Neurologist Oliver Sacks on What Hallucinations Reveal about How the Mind Works

“We see with the eyes, but we see with the brain as well.”

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Thoreau on What Skunk-Cabbage Can Teach Us About Optimism and the Meaning of Human Life
Thoreau on What Skunk-Cabbage Can Teach Us About Optimism and the Meaning of Human Life

“There is no can’t nor cant to them. They see over the brow of winter’s hill. They see another summer ahead.”

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