The Curious Engineer

The Marginalian

2014–2015

1,248 posts

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2015 547

December 2015

  1. The Best of Brain Pickings 2015
  2. Hope in the Dark: Rebecca Solnit on the Redemptive Radiance of the World’s Invisible Revolutionaries
  3. The Problem of Shakespeare’s Sister: Virginia Woolf on Gender in Creative Culture
  4. Kierkegaard on Ideals, Happiness, and the False Allure of the Extraordinary
  5. A Nonbeliever’s Case for the Bible: How a Secular Reading of Scripture Enlarges Our Experience of Beauty, Morality, and Transcendence
  6. The Lost Mariner: A Beautiful Animated Short Film About Memory, Inspired by Oliver Sacks
  7. Bob Dylan Reads “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”
  8. Genius at Play: A Brilliant Mathematician on Tinkering, Thinkering, and the Art of Being a Professional Nonunderstander
  9. A Cultural History of Santa: Margaret Mead’s Fictional Interview with the Jolly Gift-Giver Celebrating Generosity and the Universal Spirit of Giving
  10. The 15 Best Books of 2015
  11. A Love Letter to Winter: Adam Gopnik’s Ardent Case for the Cold Season’s Splendor and Significance
  12. Albert Camus on the Source of Strength and How to Save Our Sanity in Trying Times
  13. Bruce Lee on Self-Actualization and the Crucial Difference Between Pride and Self-Esteem
  14. A Year Without Mom: A Gorgeous Graphic Novel About Separation and Reunion, the End of Childhood, and the Tradeoffs of Happiness
  15. The Outsider with the Public Voice: How Joan Didion Mirrored Us Back to Ourselves
  16. A Different Kind of Progress: The Poetry and Philosophy of Rilke, Rumi, Mary Oliver, and Tagore, Set to Song
  17. H Is for Hawk: Helen Macdonald on Love, Loss, Time, and Our Improbable Allies in Healing
  18. Jane Austen’s Advice on Love, Marriage, and How to Rebuff a Suitor with Clarity and Kindness
  19. The Best Children’s Books of 2015
  20. Marilynne Robinson on the Humanities, the Limits of Neuroscience, and the Usefulness of the Soul as a Sensemaking Mechanism for Reality
  21. The Soul of an Octopus: How One of Earth’s Most Alien Creatures Illuminates the Wonders of Consciousness
  22. Henry Beston on Whimsicality, the Limits of Knowledge, and What Science Is and Isn’t
  23. Leo: A Ghost Story Subverting Cultural Stereotypes
  24. The Best Science Books of 2015
  25. Nikki Giovanni’s Wonderful Poems Celebrating Libraries and Librarians
  26. The Art of Discovering and Combining: Ada Lovelace on the Nature of the Imagination and Its Two Core Faculties
  27. The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate That Changed Our Understanding of Time
  28. The Menino: An Illustrated Love Letter to the Mysterious and Mystifying Creature That Is a New Baby
  29. The Best Art Books of 2015
  30. James Thurber on Longing, Unrequited Love, and the Power of a Kiss
  31. Willa Cather on Productivity vs. Creativity and the Life-Changing Advice That Made Her a Writer
  32. Alexander von Humboldt and the Invention of Nature: How One of the Last True Polymaths Pioneered the Cosmos of Connections
  33. Rilke on the Rewards of Reading and What Books Do for Our Inner Lives
  34. Susan Orlean on the Strange Serendipities That Shape Our Lives
  35. Creative Magic and What Makes a Great Writer: Joseph Conrad’s Beautiful Tribute to Henry James
  36. Hannah Arendt on Time, Space, and the Location of Our Thoughts
  37. Thomas Wolfe on Ambition, Gratitude, and the True Measure of Success, in Letters to His Mother
  38. The Science of Why We Cry and the Three Types of Tears

November 2015

  1. Love of Life: Albert Camus on Happiness and Despair
  2. Margaret Mead’s Beautiful Letter of Advice to Her Younger Sister on Starting a Family in an Uncertain World
  3. Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs: Harvard Physicist Lisa Randall on the Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe
  4. The Art of Self-Culture and the Crucial Difference Between Being Educated and Being Cultured: John Cowper Powys’s Forgotten Wisdom from 1929
  5. How the Clouds Got Their Names
  6. Oliver Sacks on Gratitude, the Measure of Living, and the Dignity of Dying
  7. We’re Breaking Up: Rebecca Solnit on How Modern Noncommunication Is Changing Our Experience of Time, Solitude, and Communion
  8. The Silent Friends: A Beautiful Short Film Celebrating Our Abiding Bond with Trees
  9. Tchaikovsky on Depression and Finding Beauty Amid the Wreckage of the Soul
  10. James Baldwin and Margaret Mead on Religion
  11. Marcus Aurelius on Mortality and the Key to Living Fully
  12. The Still Point of the Turning World: T.S. Eliot Reads His Timeless Ode to the Nature of Time in a Rare Recording
  13. Gustav Mahler’s Love Letters to His Wife
  14. Henry Beston’s Beautiful 1948 Manifesto for Reclaiming Our Humanity by Breaking the Tyranny of Technology and Relearning to Be Nurtured by Nature
  15. What Higher Consciousness Really Means, How We Attain It, and What It Does for the Human Spirit
  16. Men, Women, and Our Limiting Mythology of Success
  17. The Intelligence of Emotions: Philosopher Martha Nussbaum on How Storytelling Rewires Us and Why Befriending Our Neediness Is Essential for Happiness
  18. Tallulah Bankhead Reads “A Telephone Call,” Dorothy Parker’s Brilliant Satire of How Infatuation Drives Us Mad
  19. Norman Rockwell’s Rare Illustrations for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
  20. Keep the Keyhole Clean: Kafka on Appearance vs. Reality and How the Media Commodify Truth
  21. Ray Bradbury Reads His Poem “If Only We Had Taller Been” in a Rare 1971 Recording
  22. The Tiger Who Would Be King: James Thurber’s Poignant 1927 Parable of the Destructive Hunger for Power, Reimagined in Stunning New Illustrations
  23. Adam Gopnik on Darwin’s Brilliant Strategy for Preempting Criticism and the True Mark of Genius
  24. Kurt Vonnegut’s Lost NYU Lecture on What It Takes to Be a Writer, Animated
  25. Cézanne’s Only Known Love Letter
  26. Nicole Krauss’s Beautiful Letter to Van Gogh on Fear, Bravery, and How to Break the Loop of Our Destructive Patterns
  27. Thunder & Lightning: An Extraordinary Illustrated Celebration of the Weather and Its Role in the Human Experience
  28. Carl Sagan on Humility, Science as a Tool of Democracy, and the Value of Uncertainty
  29. Ursula K. Le Guin on the Sacredness of Public Libraries
  30. The Yin-Yang of Fortune and Misfortune: Alan Watts on the Art of Learning Not to Think in Terms of Gain and Loss
  31. David Foster Wallace on Why You Should Use a Dictionary, How to Write a Great Opener, and the Measure of Good Writing
  32. Sex Is a Funny Word: An Intelligent and Inclusive Illustrated Primer on Sexuality
  33. The Great French Artist Eugène Delacroix on Self-Doubt, Idea-Ambivalence, and the Cure for Procrastination
  34. The Quiet Noisy Book: A Little-Known Vintage Gem by Margaret Wise Brown
  35. Charles M. Schulz, Civil Rights, and the Previously Unseen Art of Peanuts
  36. Vincent van Gogh on Fear, Taking Risks, and How Inspired Mistakes Propel Us Forward
  37. Patti Smith on the Two Kinds of Masterpieces and Her Fifty Favorite Books

October 2015

  1. The Tea Party in the Woods: A Tender Modernist Fairy Tale by Japanese Artist Akiko Miyakoshi
  2. Order, Disorder, and Oneself: French Polymath Paul Valéry on How to Never Misplace Anything
  3. Beloved Dog: Maira Kalman’s Illustrated Love Letter to Our Canine Companions
  4. Erich Fromm on Love and How to Get Out of Our Own Way to It
  5. Gloria Steinem on the Road as a Medium of Listening in a Culture Deafened by Speaking
  6. The Poetics of Smell as a Mode of Knowledge
  7. Sylvia Plath on Free Will, the Pillars of Personhood, and What Makes Us Who We Are
  8. David Hume on Human Nature, the Myth of Selfishness, and Why Vanity Is Proof of Virtue Rather Than Vice
  9. How Sitting Is Harming Your Body and What You Can Do to Counter Its Perils
  10. Philosopher Alain Badiou on Why We Fall and How We Stay in Love
  11. The 12th-Century Jewish Philosopher Moses Maimonides on Truth, Doubt, and How to Read Intelligently
  12. 9 Learnings from 9 Years of Brain Pickings
  13. A New and Sweeping Utopia of Life: Gabriel García Márquez’s Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
  14. Telling Is Listening: Ursula K. Le Guin on the Magic of Real Human Conversation
  15. Kafka on Love and Patience
  16. Ben Hecht on Greatness, the Radiance of Realness, and the Rewards of Keeping in Touch with the Soul of Your Childhood
  17. The Art of Not-Having-to-Ask, from Buddhist Monks to Amanda Palmer by Way of Thoreau
  18. Mary Oliver on Love and Its Necessary Wildness
  19. John Dewey on How to Find Your Calling, the Key to a Fulfilling Vocation, and Why Diverse Interests Are Essential for Excellence in Any Field
  20. Physicist Lisa Randall on the Sublime and the Crucial Differences Between How Art, Science, and Religion Explain the Universe
  21. Harry Clarke’s Beautiful and Haunting 1925 Illustrations for Goethe’s Faust
  22. Patti Smith on Time, Transformation, and How the Radiance of Love Redeems the Rupture of Loss
  23. How Do We Know What We Want: Milan Kundera on the Central Ambivalences of Life and Love
  24. Trailblazing Astronomer Vera Rubin on Obsessiveness, Minimizing Obstacles, and How the Thrill of Accidental Discovery Redeems the Terror of Uncertainty
  25. Nietzsche on the Journey of Becoming and What It Means to Be a Free Spirit
  26. Italo Calvino on Photography and the Art of Presence
  27. Louis I, King of the Sheep: An Illustrated Parable of How Power Changes Those in Power
  28. Hannah Arendt on Being vs. Appearing and Our Impulse for Self-Display
  29. John Steinbeck’s Prophetic Dream About How the Commercial Media Machine Is Killing Creative Culture
  30. What to Think About Machines That Think: Leading Thinkers on Artificial Intelligence and What It Means to Be Human
  31. Immortal Beloved: Beethoven’s Passionate Love Letters
  32. John Lennon’s Impassioned Letters on the Value of Meditation
  33. How to Disagree: Amin Maalouf on the Key to Intelligent Dissent and Effective Criticism
  34. The Transfiguration of Aloneness: David Whyte on Longing and Silence
  35. Galileo on Critical Thinking and the Folly of Believing Our Preconceptions
  36. Stress and the Social Self: How Relationships Affect Our Immune System
  37. Know Your Clouds: A 1966 Animated Morphology of the Skies
  38. Alice Walker on What Her Father Taught Her About Lying and the Love-Expanding Capacity of Telling the Truth
  39. How a Zen Master Responds to Hate Mail
  40. Why We Fall in Love: The Paradoxical Psychology of Romance and Why Frustration Is Necessary for Satisfaction
  41. Psychologist Barry Schwartz on What Motivates Us to Work, Why Incentives Fail, and How Our Ideas About Human Nature Shape Who We Become
  42. Virginia Woolf on the Past and How to Live More Fully in the Present
  43. Martha Graham on the Life-Force of Creativity and the Divine Dissatisfaction of Being an Artist
  44. Gustave Doré’s Hauntingly Beautiful Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno
  45. Pioneering Psychologist Jerome Bruner on the Act of Discovery and the Key to True Learning

September 2015

  1. Nietzsche on How to Find Yourself and the True Value of Education
  2. For Seamus: A Cinematic Homage to Beloved Poet Seamus Heaney
  3. Physicist David Bohm and Philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti on Love, Intelligence, and How to Transcend the Wall of Being
  4. The Science of Why We Sleep and What Happens Inside Our Brains When We Do
  5. Uncertainty and Our Search for Meaning: Legendary Psychiatrist Irvin D. Yalom on How We Glean Our Sense of Purpose
  6. The Five Life-Stages of Happiness: How Our Definition of Contentment Changes Over the Course of Our Lifetime
  7. The Mountain View of the Mind: Simone Weil on the Purest and Most Fertile Form of Thought
  8. Barbara Walters on How to Be There for the Newly Bereaved and Heartbroken
  9. William Faulkner on Creativity and the Power of Beginner’s Mind
  10. Big Magic: Elizabeth Gilbert on Creative Courage and the Art of Living in a State of Uninterrupted Marvel
  11. A State of Wonder: Margaret Atwood on How Technology Shapes Storytelling While Obeying Its Eternal Constants
  12. Michael Faraday on Mental Discipline and How to Cure Our Propensity for Self-Deception
  13. Trailblazing Physicist David Bohm and Buddhist Monk Matthieu Ricard on How We Shape What We Call Reality
  14. John O’Donohue on Beauty, Why We Fall in Love, and How the Life-Force of Desire Vitalizes Us
  15. The Four Desires Driving All Human Behavior: Bertrand Russell’s Magnificent Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
  16. Nietzsche on the Power of Music
  17. The Story of Mrs. Lovewright and Purrless Her Cat: A Sweet Vintage Parable of Loneliness, Love, and Letting Go
  18. I Work Like a Gardener: Joan Miró on Art and the Proper Pace for Creative Work
  19. Mister and Lady Day: The Illustrated Story of Billie Holiday and the Dog Who Loved Her
  20. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Reimagined by Artist Andrea D’Aquino
  21. Thoreau on How Silence Ennobles Speech and the Ideal Space for Conversation
  22. John Cage on Human Nature, Constructive Anarchy, and How Silence Helps Us Amplify Each Other’s Goodness
  23. Poet Jane Kenyon’s Advice on Writing: Some of the Wisest Words to Create and Live By
  24. Pride, Prejudice, and the Provisions of Privilege: Margo Jefferson on Race, Depression, and How We Define Ourselves
  25. Infinity and Me: A Lovely Picture-Book at the Nexus of Science, Philosophy, and Love
  26. The Rise of Networkism: A Visual History of Human Knowledge, from Aristotle to the Algorithm
  27. Oliver Sacks on 9/11 and the Paradoxical Power of Music to Bring Solace by Making Room for Our Pain
  28. Theodor Adorno on Work, Pleasure, and How the Cult of Efficiency Limits Our Happiness
  29. Jared Diamond on the Root of Inequality and How the Mixed Blessings of “Civilization” Warped Our Relationship to Daily Risk
  30. Mary Oliver on How Differences Make Couples Stronger
  31. Virginia Woolf on Creativity
  32. Patti Smith on Prayer, the Love of Books, and How Illness Expands the Field of Creative Awareness
  33. Janis Joplin on Music, Emotion, and the Courage to Be Yourself: A 1968 Conversation with Studs Terkel
  34. Why Some People Are Left-Handed
  35. Teaching and the Consecration of Truth: Parker Palmer on Education as a Spiritual Practice
  36. The New Age of Wonder: Freeman Dyson on the Future of Science and Why Biologists Are the New Poets
  37. Grace Paley on the Art of Growing Older
  38. Tiny Creatures: The Marvelous World of Microbes, in an Illustrated Children’s Book
  39. Rising Strong: Brené Brown on the Physics of Vulnerability and What Resilient People Have in Common
  40. Bruce Lee on the Power of Repose and Yielding as an Act of Strength
  41. David Byrne’s Lending Library
  42. Lucille Clifton Reads “Won’t You Celebrate With Me”

August 2015

  1. The Silent Music of the Mind: Remembering Oliver Sacks
  2. Love, Kindness, and the Song of the Universe: The Night Jack Kerouac Kept a Young Woman from Taking Her Own Life
  3. The American Scholar: Emerson’s Superb Speech on the Life of the Mind, the Art of Creative Reading, and the Building Blocks of Genius
  4. Goethe on Beginner’s Mind and the Importance of Having Disciplined Discernment in Your Media Diet
  5. The Iron Giant: The 1968 Classic Celebrating Humanity’s Capacity for Harmony, Reimagined in Gorgeous Illustrations by Artist Laura Carlin
  6. Hegel on Knowledge, Impatience, the Peril of Fixed Opinions, and the True Task of the Human Mind
  7. Amanda Palmer’s Extraordinary BBC Open Letter on the Choice to Have a Child as a Working Artist
  8. Willa Cather on Happiness
  9. Mad About Monkeys: A Loving Illustrated Encyclopedia of Weird and Wonderful Kindred Creatures
  10. Michael Rosen’s Sad Book: A Beautiful Anatomy of Loss, Illustrated by Quentin Blake
  11. August 25, 1944: Picasso, the Liberation of Paris, and the Meaning of Heroism
  12. Borges on Public Opinion, Literature vs. the Other Arts, and the True Measure of Success
  13. Every Person in New York, Illustrated
  14. Simone Weil on the Paradox of Friendship and Separation
  15. The Magic of the “Trim Tab”: Buckminster Fuller on the Greatest Key to Transformation and Growth
  16. Three Animators Bring to Life Three Beautiful Readings of Walt Whitman’s “A Noiseless Patient Spider”
  17. The Genes of the Soul: Amin Maalouf on Belonging, Conflict, and How We Inhabit Our Identity
  18. The Scared Is Scared: A Six-Year-Old’s Advice on Overcoming Fear
  19. Simone Weil on Attention and Grace
  20. The Rabbit Box: A Most Unusual Vintage Children’s Book for Grownups Celebrating the Mystery of Life and the Magic of Love
  21. The Inner Light of Creativity: Vivian Gornick on How You Blossom into Being an Artist
  22. An Illustrated Tour of New York City from a Dog’s Point of View
  23. Louise Bourgeois on Art, Integrity, the Trap of False Humility, and the Key to Creative Confidence
  24. In Praise of Missing Out: Psychoanalyst Adam Phillips on the Paradoxical Value of Our Unlived Lives
  25. Micromegas: Voltaire’s Trailblazing Sci-Fi Philosophical Homage to Newton and the Human Condition, in a Rare Vintage Children’s Book
  26. Vacation and the Art of Presence: Anaïs Nin on How to Truly Unplug and Reconnect with Your Senses
  27. Marianne Moore and the Crowning Curio: How a Poem Saved One of the World’s Rarest and Most Majestic Trees
  28. Marcus Aurelius on How to Begin Each Day: The Stoic Recipe for Unassailable Sanity and Inner Peace
  29. Sylvia Plath’s First Job: How the Beloved Poet’s Formative Experience as a Farm Worker Shaped Her Writing
  30. Anam Cara and the Essence of True Friendship: Poet and Philosopher John O’Donohue on the Beautiful Ancient Celtic Notion of Soul-Friend
  31. Design and Violence: An Intelligent Invitation to Nuanced Discourse in a Culture of Black-and-White Binaries
  32. The Amoebae and the Secret of Love: Nikki Giovanni’s Poetic Meditation on the Human Condition
  33. Leisure, the Basis of Culture: An Obscure German Philosopher’s Timely 1948 Manifesto for Reclaiming Our Human Dignity in a Culture of Workaholism
  34. The Little Gardener: A Tender Illustrated Parable of Purpose and the Power of Working with Love
  35. The Six Pillars of the Wholehearted Life: Parker Palmer’s Spectacular Naropa University Commencement Address
  36. If Librarians Were Honest
  37. Oliver Button Is a Sissy: A Sweet Vintage Celebration of Difference and the Courage to Withstand Stereotypes
  38. Tolkien Reads from “The Hobbit” in Rare Archival Audio from His First Encounter with a Tape Recorder
  39. Diane Ackerman on the Secret Life of the Senses and the Measure of Our Aliveness
  40. Gustave Doré’s Hauntingly Beautiful 1883 Illustrations for Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”
  41. Neil Armstrong’s Heartbeat and the Sound of Venus in a Beautiful Cover of Lennon’s “Oh My Love”
  42. Nobel Laureate André Gide on What It Really Means to Be Original and Goethe’s Paradoxical Model of Creativity
  43. Blair Sets Emily Dickinson’s “Farewell” to Song Shortly Before His Death
  44. Simone Weil on True Genius and the Crushing Illusion of Inferiority
  45. Two Nine-Year-Olds’ Magnificent Open Letter to Disney About Racial and Gender Stereotypes
  46. Bukowski on Writing, Art, and the Courage to Create Outside Society’s Forms of Approval

July 2015

  1. Michelangelo on Struggle and Creative Integrity
  2. Behind the Trees: Neil Gaiman’s Philosophical Dream, Animated
  3. Art as a Form of Active Prayer and What Writers Really Labor For
  4. Hunter S. Thompson on Violence, Vengeance, and the Only True Fix for Our Destructive Impulses
  5. Elizabeth Alexander on What Poetry Does for the Human Spirit
  6. What Pet Should I Get? Dr. Seuss’s Previously Unseen Illustrated Wink at the Paradox of Choice and the Fear of Missing Out
  7. Beatrix Potter, Mycologist: The Beloved Children’s Book Author’s Little-Known Scientific Studies and Illustrations of Mushrooms
  8. How to Hold Death and Carry Life: A Zen Master Explains Existence to a Child and Outlines the Three Essential Principles of Zen Mind
  9. Albert Einstein’s Love Letters
  10. The World We Live In: An Extraordinary Reality-Check
  11. Amelia Earhart on Sticking Up for Yourself, in a Remarkable Letter of Advice to Her Younger Sister
  12. Poet Robert Graves on What Love Really Means
  13. How Naming Confers Dignity Upon Life and Gives Meaning to Existence
  14. The Rebellious and Revolutionary Life of Galileo, Illustrated
  15. The Divine Within: Aldous Huxley on Mind-Body Integration and How We Become Who We Are
  16. An Illustrated Meditation on Memory and Its Imperfections, Inspired by Borges
  17. Toni Morrison on How to Be Your Own Story and Reap the Rewards of Adulthood in a Culture That Fetishizes Youth
  18. Neuroscientist Sam Harris Selects 12 Books Everyone Should Read
  19. The Science of Stress and How Our Emotions Affect Our Susceptibility to Burnout and Disease
  20. The Most Beautiful Illustrations from 200 Years of Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales
  21. The Illustrated Life of Trailblazing Journalist Nellie Bly, Who Paved the Way for Women in Media
  22. The Paradox of Identical Twins and What It Reveals About the Psychology of Personal Identity and the Cult of Personality
  23. Umberto Eco’s Advice to Writers
  24. The Science of How the Universe Will End, in a Poetic Animation
  25. 35-Year-Old Emerson’s Extraordinary Harvard Divinity School Address on the Divine Transcendence of Nature
  26. Beloved Poet Nikki Giovanni on Love, Friendship, and Loneliness
  27. How a Dream Came True: Young Jane Goodall’s Exuberant Letters and Diary Entries from Africa
  28. Little Red Riding Hood, Reimagined in Beautiful Laser-Cut Illustrations
  29. How Kindness Became Our Forbidden Pleasure
  30. Wild Ideas: The Creative Problem-Solving Strategies of Different Animals, in Illustrated Dioramas
  31. Neil deGrasse Tyson on the Transcendence of the Universe, Adapted in Jazz for Kids Based on “Saint James Infirmary”
  32. When Woman Is Boss: Nikola Tesla on Gender Equality and How Technology Will Unleash Women’s True Potential
  33. Art and the Mind’s Eye: How Drawing Trains You to See the World More Clearly and to Live with a Deeper Sense of Presence
  34. Musicked Down the Mountain: How Oliver Sacks Saved His Own Life by Literature and Song
  35. Flannery O’Connor on Art, Integrity, and the Writer’s Responsibility to Their Talent
  36. Mr. Gauguin’s Heart: The Beautiful and Bittersweet True Story of How Paul Gauguin Became an Artist
  37. Why the Sky Enchants Us: Our Longing for Transcendence and How Myths Elevate Human Life
  38. How the Clouds Got Their Names and How Goethe Popularized Them with His Science-Inspired Poems
  39. Declaration of the Independence of the Mind: An Extraordinary 1919 Manifesto Signed by Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Jane Addams, and Other Luminaries
  40. The Aesthetic of Silence: Susan Sontag on Art as a Form of Spirituality and the Paradoxical Role of Silence in Creative Culture
  41. The Art of Biophilia: Extraordinary Mosaics Incorporating Earth’s Most Colorful Creatures
  42. A Living Obituary: Faulkner’s Beautiful Epitaph for Himself
  43. Teenage Sylvia Plath’s First Great Poem, with a Touching Remembrance by Her Mother
  44. The Central Mystery of Quantum Mechanics, Animated
  45. The Magic Box: A Whimsical Vintage Children’s Book for Grownups About Life, Death, and How To Be More Alive Every Day
  46. A Poem for Those Days When You Feel “Ill-Equipped for the Privilege of Living”
  47. Thomas Mann’s Moving Tribute for His Dear Friend Hermann Hesse’s Sixtieth Birthday
  48. An Experiment in Love: Martin Luther King, Jr. on the Six Pillars of Nonviolent Resistance and the Ancient Greek Notion of ‘Agape’
  49. Legendary Victorian Art Critic John Ruskin on the Value of Imperfection and How Manual Labor Confers Dignity Upon Creative Work

June 2015

  1. The Art of Constructive Criticism: Trailblazing Feminist Margaret Fuller Rejects Young Thoreau and Helps Him Improve His Writing
  2. Where Children Play: Photographs of Playgrounds Around the World
  3. Joseph Campbell on Why Perfectionism Kills Love and the Pathway to Bliss in Romantic Relationships
  4. The Value of Not Understanding Everything: Grace Paley’s Advice to Aspiring Writers
  5. Poet and Philosopher David Whyte on Belonging and How to Be at Home in Yourself
  6. Emerson on What Beauty Really Means, How to Cultivate Its True Hallmarks, and Why It Bewitches the Human Imagination
  7. Proust on What Art Does for the Soul and How to Stop Letting Habit Blunt Our Aliveness
  8. Why Dogs Have Wet Noses: An Irreverent Illustrated Reimagining of Noah’s Ark
  9. The One That Got Away: The Bittersweet Story of George Orwell and His Childhood Sweetheart
  10. Simone Weil on Science, Quantum Theory, and Our Spiritual Values
  11. The John Lennon Sketchbook: A Weird and Wonderful Vintage Animated Film About the Beloved Beatle’s Life, Music, and Philosophy
  12. Beloved Composer Leonard Bernstein on the Importance of Believing in Each Other and How Art Fortifies Our Mutual Dignity
  13. John Waters’s Spectacular RISD Commencement Address on Creative Rebellion and the Artist’s Task to Cause Constructive Chaos
  14. Desert Solitaire: An Uncommonly Beautiful Love Letter to Solitude and the Spiritual Rewards of Getting Lost
  15. Welcome, Stranger, To This Place: William Blake Set to Song
  16. How to Own Your Story: Vivian Gornick on the Art of Personal Narrative and Nuanced Storytelling
  17. Blaise Pascal on the Intuitive vs. the Logical Mind and How We Come to Know Truth
  18. Oliver Sacks on Storytelling, the Curious Psychology of Writing, and What His Poet Friend Taught Him About the Nature of Creativity
  19. Pool: A Tender Illustrated Celebration of Quiet Curiosity and How We Find Our Kindred Spirits
  20. MoMA Acquires the Rainbow Flag as a Design Icon: A Conversation with the Artist Who Made It
  21. Our Luminous Humanity: What Earth’s Nocturnal Selfie from Space Reveals About Who We Are
  22. Legendary Designer Charles Eames on Creativity, the Value of the Arts in Education, and His Advice to Students
  23. A Stop-Motion Love Letter to the Power of Curiosity
  24. Neil Gaiman on How Stories Last
  25. Adam Smith’s Underappreciated Wisdom on Benevolence, Happiness, and Kindness
  26. The Subterranean River of Emotion: Cheryl Strayed on Writing, the Art of Living with Opposing Truths, and the Three Ancient Motifs in All Great Storytelling
  27. How Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage Invented the World’s First Computer: An Illustrated Adventure in Footnotes and Friendship
  28. William James on the Psychology of the Second Wind and What Enables Us to Transcend Our Limits
  29. Elizabeth Gilbert on Inspiration, What Tom Waits Taught Her About Creativity, and the Most Dangerous Myth for Artists to Believe
  30. Einstein’s Divorce Agreement and the Nuanced Messiness of the Human Heart
  31. 24-Year-Old William Styron on Happiness, Presence, and the True Measure of Maturity, in a Letter to His Father
  32. What Trees Teach Us About Human Nature, Relationships, and the Secret to Lasting Love: Wisdom from a 17th-Century Gardener
  33. The Blue Whale: A Loving Science Lullaby for Our Planet’s Largest-Hearted Creature
  34. Saul Bellow’s Spectacular Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech on How Art and Literature Ennoble the Human Spirit
  35. Oliver Jeffers on the Paradox of Ownership and the Allure of Duality
  36. The Dalai Lama’s Daily Routine and Information Diet
  37. On Being Too Much for Ourselves: Psychoanalyst Adam Phillips on Balance and the Necessary Excesses of Life
  38. The Beauty of Uncertainty: How Heisenberg Invented Quantum Mechanics, Told in Jazz
  39. Love, Forgiveness, the Pride of the Protest, and What Makes a Compelling Heroine: Dostoyevsky’s Beautiful Eulogy for George Sand
  40. Teenage Sylvia Plath’s Letters to Her Mother on the Joy of Living and Writing as Salvation and Sustenance for the Spirit
  41. The Value of a Compassionate Lie
  42. The Big Green Book: Robert Graves and Maurice Sendak’s Little-Known and Lovely Vintage Children’s Book About the Magic of Reading
  43. In Praise of Darkness: Henry Beston on How the Beauty of Night Nourishes the Human Spirit
  44. Wanderlust: Rebecca Solnit on Walking and the Mind
  45. I, Pencil: A Brilliant Vintage Allegory of How Everything Is Connected
  46. The Midwifery of Creativity: Beloved Poet Denise Levertov on How a Great Work of Art Is Born
  47. The Boy Who Loved Math: The Illustrated Story of Eccentric Genius and Lovable Oddball Paul Erdős
  48. The Light of the World: Elizabeth Alexander on Love, Loss, and the Boundaries of the Soul
  49. Gaston Bachelard on the Meditative Magic of Housework and How It Increases the Human Dignity of Everyday Objects
  50. The Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales, Reimagined in Uncommonly Soulful Illustrations by Austrian Artist Lisbeth Zwerger

May 2015

  1. Rothko on Beauty, Friendship, and How the Emotional Exaltation of Art Mirrors Human Relationships
  2. Gorgeous 19th-Century Illustrations of Owls and Ospreys
  3. Consider the Octopus: A Little Boy’s Moving Case Against Eating Animals
  4. Keeping Quiet: Sylvia Boorstein Reads Pablo Neruda’s Beautiful Ode to Silence
  5. In Praise of Shadows: Ancient Japanese Aesthetics and Why Every Technology Is a Technology of Thought
  6. An Animating Presence: Dani Shapiro on the Quest for a Connected Consciousness
  7. The Art of Science Communication: William Zinsser on How to Write Well About Science
  8. A Biologist-Turned-Buddhist and His Philosopher Father on the Nature of the Self and the True Measure of Personal Strength
  9. The Power of Unconditional Love: How Oliver Sacks’s Beloved Aunt Shaped His Life and Inspired His Courageous Dance with Death
  10. Emerson on Small Mercies, the True Measure of Wisdom, and How to Live with Maximum Aliveness
  11. The Brothers Grimm in Three Transcendent Dimensions: Shaun Tan’s Breathtaking Sculptural Illustrations for the Beloved Tales
  12. Spineless: Susan Middleton’s Mesmerizing Photographs of Marine Invertebrates
  13. Body, Soul, and the Elusive Seedbed of Our Identity: Lewis Carroll on the Material and Immaterial Forces of Life, in a Letter to a Little Girl
  14. Project 1 in 4: Drawings Illuminating the Everyday Realities of Life with Mental Illness
  15. Montaigne on “Curation,” the Illusion of Originality, and How We Form Our Opinions
  16. Anne Sexton’s Sensual Love Poem “Song for a Lady,” in an Animation Inspired by Oliver Sacks
  17. How to Change Minds: Blaise Pascal on the Art of Persuasion
  18. Arts of the Possible: Adrienne Rich on Writing, Capitalism, Freedom, and How Silence Fertilizes the Human Imagination
  19. Beware the Rise of the Pseudo-Intellectual: Tom Wolfe’s Boston University Commencement Address
  20. The Key to the Good Life: Bertrand Russell on Love and How to Stop Limiting Your Happiness
  21. Love, Lunacy, and a Life Fully Lived: Oliver Sacks, the Science of Seeing, and the Art of Being Seen
  22. Nine Podcasts for a Fuller Life
  23. Poet and Philosopher David Whyte on Anger, Forgiveness, and What Maturity Really Means
  24. Ralph Steadman’s Rare and Rapturous Illustrations for Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”
  25. The Diffusion of Useful Ignorance: Thoreau on the Hubris of Our Knowledge and the Transcendent Humility of Not-Knowing
  26. The Heart and the Bottle: A Tender Illustrated Fable of What Happens When We Deny Our Difficult Emotions
  27. Charlotte Brontë on Faith and Atheism
  28. The Magic of Moss and What It Teaches Us About the Art of Attentiveness to Life at All Scales
  29. From Dream to Nightmare: John Steinbeck on the Perils of Publicity and the Dark Side of Success
  30. Wendell Berry on How to Be a Poet and a Complete Human Being
  31. Bright Sky, Starry City: An Illustrated Love Letter to Our Communion with the Cosmos, Celebrating Women Astronomers
  32. Simone Weil on How to Make Use of Your Suffering
  33. Richard Feynman on Science vs. Religion and Why Uncertainty Is Central to Morality
  34. Celebrated Writers on the Culturally Controversial Choice Not to Have Children
  35. The Encounter: How Young Vladimir Nabokov Met the Love of His Life and Won Her Heart with a Poem
  36. A Lovely Illustrated Children’s Book Celebrating Trailblazing Jazz Pianist and Composer Mary Lou Williams
  37. Einstein, Gödel, and Our Strange Experience of Time: Rebecca Goldstein on How Relativity Rattled the Flow of Existence
  38. Ray Bradbury on Storytelling, Friendship, and Why He Never Learned to Drive: A Lost Vintage Interview, Found and Animated
  39. Dante and the Eternal Quest for Nonreligious Divinity: Physicist Margaret Wertheim on Science and God
  40. James Baldwin and Margaret Mead on Reimagining Democracy for a Post-Consumerist Culture
  41. The Antarctic Book of Cooking and Cleaning: The Extraordinary Edible Record of Two Women Explorers’ Journey to the End of the World
  42. Kierkegaard on Popular Opinion, the Petty Jealousies of Criticism, and the Only Cure for Embitterment in Creative Work
  43. The Crossroads of Should and Must: An Intelligent Illustrated Field Guide to Finding Your Bliss
  44. The Great Zen Buddhist Teacher Thich Nhat Hanh on How to Do “Hugging Meditation”
  45. Virginia Woolf on the Elasticity of Time
  46. Love Is Love: Maria Bello on Resisting the Labels We Are Given and Redefining Those We Give Ourselves
  47. JFK on Poetry, Power, and the Artist’s Role in Society: His Eulogy for Robert Frost, One of the Greatest Speeches of All Time
  48. Our Microbes, Ourselves: How the Trillions of Tiny Organisms Living Inside Us Are Redefining What It Means to Be Human
  49. E.B. White on Creativity and the Two Sides of Discipline

April 2015

  1. The Miraculous in the Mundane: Annie Dillard on Reclaiming Our Capacity for Joy and Wonder
  2. An Adventure in Paris with Pussy and Lovey: Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein Become Babysitters
  3. Poet and Philosopher David Whyte on the Deeper Meanings of Friendship, Love, and Heartbreak
  4. Where the Wild Things Really Are: Maurice Sendak Illustrates the Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm
  5. What Makes a Hero: Joseph Campbell’s Seminal Monomyth Model for the Eleven Stages of the Hero’s Journey, Animated
  6. Delacroix’s Rare Illustrations for Goethe’s Faust
  7. The Common Language of Science: Einstein’s Clarion Call to Divided Humanity in a Rare 1941 Recording
  8. The Workhorse and the Butterfly: Ann Patchett on Writing and Why Self-Forgiveness Is the Most Important Ingredient of Great Art
  9. Turning Trauma into Power: Marina Abramović on How Her Harrowing Childhood Became the Raw Material for Her Art
  10. This I Believe: Thomas Mann on Time and the Meaning of Our Existence
  11. What Power Really Means: Cheryl Strayed Reads Adrienne Rich’s Homage to Marie Curie
  12. Tell Me What to Dream About: An Illustrated Ode to Where We Go When We Go to Sleep
  13. Thoreau on the Sacredness of Libraries and His Ideal Sanctuary for Books
  14. Beastly Verse: Beloved Poems About Animals, Illustrated
  15. Wendell Berry on the Grandeur of Small Places and the Perils of Our “Rugged Individualism”
  16. Love After Love: Derek Walcott’s Poetic Ode to Relearning to Be at Home in Ourselves After Heartbreak
  17. The Road to Character: David Brooks on the Art of Stumbling, “Résumé Virtues” vs. “Eulogy Virtues,” and the Humility Code of Living a Meaningful Life
  18. Charlotte Brontë’s Beautiful and Heartbreaking Love Letters of Unrequited Affection
  19. North Brother Island: Haunting Photographs of the Last Unknown Place in New York City
  20. In Defense of the Wandering Heart: How Crushes Fortify Your Primary Relationship
  21. The Sea: A Sweet Wordless Story about Pursuit and Surrender, Dread and Desire, Disappointment and Triumph
  22. Young Delacroix on the Importance of Solitude in Creative Work and How to Resist Social Distractions
  23. The Storm Whale: A Tender Illustrated Story of Loneliness, Loss, Single-Parenting, and the Redemptive Power of Love
  24. A Questionnaire for the Immodest and Curious: Clever Puzzles, Riddles, and Word Games from Nabokov’s Love Letters to His Wife
  25. Non-human Animals and the Human Imagination: Thinking with Other Beings, from Aesop to Darwin to YouTube
  26. Creation: Ancient Indian Origin Myths, Brought to Life in a Breathtaking Illustrated Cosmogony
  27. Virginia Woolf on Why the Best Mind Is the Nonbinary Mind
  28. How We Elevate Each Other: Viktor Frankl on the Human Spirit and Why Idealism Is the Best Realism
  29. Outstanding in the Rain: A Die-Cut Adventure in Words and Meaning
  30. Chinua Achebe Reads His Little-Known Poems
  31. The Art of Motherfuckitude: Cheryl Strayed’s Advice to an Aspiring Writer on Faith and Humility
  32. Creative Courage for Young Hearts: 15 Emboldening Picture Books Celebrating the Lives of Great Artists, Writers, and Scientists
  33. The Power of One True Believer: Samuel Beckett’s Beautiful Homage to His Greatest Champion
  34. Change the Narrative, Change Your Destiny: How James Baldwin Read His Way from Harlem to the Literary Pantheon
  35. How Do You Know You Exist? A Mind-Bending Animated Homage to Descartes Exploring the Conundrum of Reality
  36. The Illustrated Story of Harvey Milk, Humanitarian Martyr for Love
  37. How to Find Your Bliss: Joseph Campbell on What It Takes to Have a Fulfilling Life
  38. John Steinbeck’s Pen: How the Joy of Handwriting Helps Us Draft the Meaning of Life
  39. The Power of Aesthetic Force: Anna Deavere Smith and Sarah Lewis on Beauty as a Tool of Justice and a Catalyst for “Nonselfing”
  40. Stunning Cyanotypes of Sea Algae by the Self-Taught Victorian Botanist Anna Atkins, the First Woman Photographer and a Pioneer of Scientific Illustration
  41. Hurry Up and Wait: Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman’s Whimsical Children’s Book for Grownups about Presence in the Age of Productivity
  42. Simone Weil on Temptation, the Key to Discipline, and How to Be a Complete Human Being
  43. Gabriel García Márquez’s Formative Reading List: 24 Books That Shaped One of Humanity’s Greatest Writers
  44. Richard Feynman on How His Father Taught Him about What Is Most Important
  45. When Leaving Becomes Arriving: Poet and Philosopher David Whyte on Ending Relationships
  46. Teenage James Joyce’s Beautiful Letter to Ibsen, His Great Hero
  47. R. Crumb Illustrates Kafka
  48. Grandmother’s Glass Eye: Elizabeth Bishop on How Poetry Pretends Life into Reality

March 2015

  1. How to Love: Legendary Zen Buddhist Teacher Thich Nhat Hanh on Mastering the Art of “Interbeing”
  2. Ongoingness: Sarah Manguso on Time, Memory, Beginnings and Endings, and the True Measure of Aliveness
  3. How Music Heals the Soul: A Beautiful Conversation with Singer-Songwriter and Peace Activist Morley
  4. Enormous Smallness: The Sweet Illustrated Story of E. E. Cummings and His Creative Bravery
  5. Susan Sontag on Storytelling, What It Means to Be a Good Human Being, and Her Advice to Writers
  6. A Seizure of Happiness: Mary Oliver on Finding Magic in Life’s Unremarkable Moments
  7. Why Consciousness Exists: Douglas Rushkoff on Science, God, and the Purpose of Reality
  8. Margaret Mead and James Baldwin on Identity, Race, the Immigrant Experience, and Why the “Melting Pot” Is a Problematic Metaphor
  9. Sense of Nonsense: Alan Watts on How We Find Meaning by Surrendering to Meaninglessness
  10. Viva Frida: A Beautiful and Unusual Children’s Book Celebrating Frida Kahlo’s Story and Spirit
  11. Reinventing the Secular Sermon: Remarkable Commencement Addresses by Nora Ephron, David Foster Wallace, Ira Glass, and More
  12. Umberto Eco’s Antilibrary: Why Unread Books Are More Valuable to Our Lives than Read Ones
  13. Jane Goodall Tells Her Remarkable Life-Story, Animated
  14. Consolation for Life’s Darkest Hours: 7 Unusual and Wonderful Books that Help Children Grieve and Make Sense of Death
  15. Better than Before: A Psychological Field Guide to Harnessing the Transformative Power of Habit
  16. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Animated: History’s Greatest Parable Exploring the Nature of Reality
  17. Thoreau on What It Really Means to Be Awake
  18. The Illustrated Story of Persian Polymath Ibn Sina and How He Shaped the Course of Medicine
  19. Dear Data: Two Designers Visualize the Mundane Details of Daily Life in Magical Illustrated Postcards Mailed Across the Atlantic
  20. A Rap on Race: Margaret Mead and James Baldwin’s Forgotten Conversation about Forgiveness and the Difference Between Guilt and Responsibility
  21. Possibilities: Nobel Laureate Wisława Szymborska’s Ode to the Choices That Make Us Who We Are
  22. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Justice and the Four Steps to Successful Nonviolent Resistance
  23. Sidewalk Flowers: An Illustrated Ode to Presence and the Everyday Art of Noticing in a Culture of Obsessive Distracted Productivity
  24. Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer on Freedom and What Status Really Means for a Writer
  25. Mark Strand on Dreams: A Lyrical Love Letter to Where We Go When We Go to Sleep
  26. 200 Years of Great Minds on the Creative and Spiritual Value of Boredom
  27. André Gide on Sincerity, Being vs. Appearing, and What It Really Means to Be Yourself
  28. When I Have a Little Girl / When I Have a Little Boy: A Vintage Illustrated Daydream about Life without Unimaginative Rules
  29. Jack Kerouac on How to Meditate
  30. Radiant Fatherhood: A Playful and Profound 1925 Meditation on Gender Stereotypes and the Rewards of Parenting
  31. Pioneering Early-Twentieth-Century Artist and Creative Entrepreneur Wanda Gág on Our Two Selves and How Love Lays Its Claim on Us
  32. Poet and Philosopher David Whyte on Fulfillment Beyond the Limiting Notion of Work/Life Balance
  33. More than Words: The Illustrated Love Letters, Thank-You Notes, and Travelogues of Great Artists, from Kahlo to Calder to Saint-Exupéry
  34. The Soul-Expanding Value of Difficulty: Rilke on How Great Sadnesses Transform Us and Bring Us Closer to Ourselves
  35. The Unlikely Roads That Lead Us Back to Ourselves: Eve Ensler on How a Tree Saved Her Life
  36. An Illustrated Celebration of the Many Things Home Can Mean
  37. Walter Benjamin on Finding Wisdom in the Age of Information and Storytelling as the Antidote to Death by News
  38. Gabriel García Márquez on His Improbable Beginnings as a Writer
  39. Iterations: A Lyrical Animated Film about How We Grow as Human Beings and the Iterative Nature of Self-Transformation
  40. Crowds and Power: Nobel Laureate Elias Canetti on the Four Attributes of Crowds and the Paradox of Why We Join Them
  41. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to School: A Charming Catalog of Excuses and an Allegory for How the Human Imagination Works
  42. Annie Dillard on How to Live with Mystery, the Two Ways of Looking, and the Secret of Seeing
  43. David the Dreamer: Extraordinary Philosophical 1922 Children’s Book Illustrated by Freud’s Nonbinary Niece Named Tom
  44. Roald Dahl on How Illness Emboldens Creativity: A Moving Letter to His Bedridden Mentor
  45. Special Delivery: A Mischievous Illustrated Reminder that Nothing Is Insurmountable in the Conveyance of a Loving Gesture
  46. How Steinbeck Used the Diary as a Tool of Discipline, a Hedge Against Self-Doubt, and a Pacemaker for the Heartbeat of Creative Work
  47. 89 Clouds: A Poetic Celebration of Clouds and Everything They Mean
  48. How to Ask for Help: Young James Joyce’s Magnificent Letter to Lady Gregory

February 2015

  1. 26-Year-Old Frida Kahlo’s Compassionate Letter to 46-Year-Old Georgia O’Keeffe
  2. Rilke on Our Fear of the Unexplainable
  3. The Well of Being: An Extraordinary Children’s Book for Grownups about the Art of Living with Openhearted Immediacy
  4. E.B. White on How to Write for Children and the Writer’s Responsibility to All Readers
  5. Virginia Woolf on Writing and Self-Doubt
  6. What Comes After Religion: The Search for Meaning in Secular Life
  7. Mozart on Creativity and the Ideation Process
  8. Joan Didion on Hollywood’s Diversity Problem: A Masterpiece from 1968 That Could Have Been Written Today
  9. The Velveteen Rabbit, Reimagined with Uncommon Tenderness by Beloved Japanese Illustrator Komako Sakai
  10. This Idea Must Die: Some of the World’s Greatest Thinkers Each Select a Major Misconception Holding Us Back
  11. Mary Oliver on How Habit Gives Shape to Our Inner Lives
  12. Nature Anatomy: A Glorious Illustrated Love Letter to Curiosity and the Magic of Our World
  13. How to Read Intelligently and Write a Great Essay: Robert Frost’s Letter of Advice to His Young Daughter
  14. The Infinite Hotel Paradox: A Brilliant Animated Thought Experiment to Help You Grasp the Mind-Bending Concept of Infinity
  15. The Magic Boat: A Brilliant Vintage “Interactive” Children’s Book by Freud’s Eccentric Niece Named Tom
  16. What Mathematics Reveals About the Secret of Lasting Relationships and the Myth of Compromise
  17. The Artist’s Reality: Mark Rothko’s Little-Known Writings on Art, Artists, and What the Notion of Plasticity Reveals about Storytelling
  18. How a Dog Actually “Sees” the World Through Smell
  19. The Best LGBT Children’s Books: A Sweet and Assuring Celebration of Diversity and Difference
  20. Lewis Carroll on Happiness and How to Alleviate Our Discomfort with Change
  21. Addiction to Truth: David Carr, the Measure of a Person, and the Uncommon Art of Elevating the Common Record
  22. The Difference Between Routine and Ritual: How to Master the Balancing Act of Controlling Chaos and Finding Magic in the Mundane
  23. Mozart’s Magnificent Love Letter to His Wife
  24. The Missing Piece Meets the Big O: Shel Silverstein’s Sweet Allegory for the Simple Secret of Love and the Key to Nurturing Relationships
  25. Lou Andreas-Salomé, the First Woman Psychoanalyst, on Human Nature in Letters to Freud
  26. Joan Didion’s Favorite Recipes
  27. Robert Walser, the Art of Walking, and Our Daily Dance of Posturing and Sincerity
  28. The Nature and Nurture of Genius: The Sweet Illustrated Story of How Henri Matisse’s Childhood Shaped His Creative Legacy
  29. Thoreau on Hard Work, the Myth of Productivity, and the True Measure of Meaningful Labor
  30. Mary Oliver on the Measure of a Life Well Lived and How to Magnify Your Aliveness
  31. Hope, Cynicism, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves
  32. E.E. Cummings on Creativity
  33. Rethinking Our Atlas of Possibility: An Alphabet Book of Imaginative, Uncommon, and Stereotype-Defying Occupations
  34. Virginia Woolf on the Paradox of the Soul and the Consolations of Growing Older
  35. Kafka’s Beautiful and Heartbreaking Love Letters
  36. The People’s Platform: An Essential Manifesto for Reclaiming Our Cultural Commons in the Age of Commerce
  37. A Decadent Decade of Design Matters: 10 Years of Intelligent and Inspiring Interviews with Creative Icons
  38. How to Work Through Difficulty: Lewis Carroll’s Three Tips for Overcoming Creative Block
  39. Gertrude Stein’s “Word Portrait” of the Love of Her Life, Illustrated
  40. Bertrand Russell on Immortality, Why Religion Exists, and What “The Good Life” Really Means
  41. The Island of Knowledge: How to Live with Mystery in a Culture Obsessed with Certainty and Definitive Answers
  42. How Ursula Nordstrom, the Greatest Patron Saint of Modern Childhood Stood, Up for Creativity Against Commercial Cowardice
  43. Carl Jung’s Delightfully Disgruntled Review of Ulysses and His Letter to James Joyce

January 2015

  1. Cassandra Austen’s Drawings of English Royalty for Teenage Jane Austen’s Parodic History of England
  2. Zen Master D.T. Suzuki on What Freedom Really Means and How to Break Free of the Ego-Shell That Imprisons Us
  3. How to Listen Between the Lines: Anna Deavere Smith on the Art of Listening in a Culture of Speaking
  4. How Playing Music Benefits Your Brain More than Any Other Activity
  5. Rilke on What It Really Means to Love
  6. Poet Mark Strand on Creativity and the Artist’s Task
  7. Young Tolstoy’s Diaries: Time, Moral Development, and the Search of Self
  8. Astrophysicist Janna Levin on Free Will and Whether the Universe Is Infinite or Finite, in Letters to Her Mother
  9. How Lewis Carroll’s Rules of Letter-Writing Can Make Email More Civil and Digital Communication Kinder
  10. Emerson on Talent vs. Character, Our Resistance to Change, and the Key to True Personal Growth
  11. Anne Lamott on How We Endure and Find Meaning in a Crazy World
  12. The Quiet Book: An Illustrated Love Letter to Life’s Meaningful Pauses
  13. The Principle of Infinite Pains: Legendary Filmmaker Maya Deren on Cinema, Life, and Her Advice to Aspiring Filmmakers
  14. Little Tree: An Uncommonly Beautiful and Subtle Japanese Pop-Up Book about the Cycle of Life
  15. Hans Christian Andersen’s Daily Routine
  16. The Power of Surrender and the Paradox of Self-Transcendence: Wisdom from the Moomins
  17. What to Do When Your Wife Is More Successful than You: Wise Advice from Tchaikovsky’s Father, 150 Years Ahead of Its Time
  18. To Paint Is to Love Again: Henry Miller on Art and Why Good Friends Are Essential for Creative Work
  19. Bertrand Russell on the Vital Role of Boredom and “Fruitful Monotony” in Human Flourishing
  20. Mary Oliver on What Attention Really Means and Her Moving Elegy for Her Soul Mate
  21. Peanuts and the Quiet Pain of Childhood: How Charles M. Schulz Made an Art of Difficult Emotions
  22. How to Merge Money and Meaning: An Animated Field Guide to Finding Fulfilling Work in the Modern World
  23. The Paradox of Intellectual Promiscuity: Stephen Jay Gould on What Nabokov’s Butterfly Studies Reveal About the Unity of Creativity
  24. How Jane Goodall Turned Her Childhood Dream into Reality: A Sweet Illustrated Story of Purpose and Deep Determination
  25. The Wisdom of No Escape: Pema Chödrön on Gentleness, the Art of Letting Go, and How to Befriend Your Inner Life
  26. Susan Sontag on the Trouble with Treating Art and Cultural Material as “Content”
  27. Why Not to Put a Raincoat on Your Dog: A Cognitive Scientist Explains the Canine Umwelt
  28. Joan Didion on Driving as Secular Worship and Self-Transcendence
  29. The Art of Tough Love: Samuel Beckett Models How to Give Constructive Feedback on Your Friends’ Creative Work
  30. A Vintage Illustrated Love Letter to Books and How They’re Made
  31. Why Bees Build Perfect Hexagons
  32. Kierkegaard on Boredom, Why Cat Listicles Fail to Answer the Soul’s Cry, and the Only True Cure for Existential Emptiness
  33. A Graphic Cosmogony: Artists Imagine How the Universe Was Born
  34. The Nine Kinds of Silence
  35. How to Master the Vital Balance of Freedom and Restraint: Young André Gide’s Rules of Conduct
  36. Some of Today’s Most Prominent Artists on Courage, Creativity, Criticism, Success, and What It Means to Be a Great Artist
  37. Rilke on Winter as the Season for Tending to Your Inner Garden
  38. Parents Talk to Their Kids About How Babies Are Made
  39. Thea’s Tree: An Illustrated Ode to Daydreaming, the Passage of Time, and the Gift of the Imagination
  40. Einstein’s God: Science, Free Will, and the Human Spirit
  41. Compassion and the Real Meaning of the Golden Rule
  42. Nabokov Gets Food Poisoning and Flees from the Hospital via Fire Escape: History’s Most Entertaining Account of “Homeric Retching”
  43. A Classical Guitarist’s Assuring Account of Creative Homecoming and Overcoming Impostor Syndrome
  44. The Greatest Definition of Love
  45. The Seven Most Important Things I Learned in Seven Years of Reading, Writing, and Living: A Cinematic Adaptation
  46. Alan Watts on What Reality Is and How to Become What You Are
  47. Joan Didion’s Favorite Books of All Time, in a Handwritten Reading List
  48. Albert Einstein’s Little-Known Correspondence with W.E.B. Du Bois About Equality and Racial Justice
  49. Self-Refinement Through the Wisdom of the Ages: New Year’s Resolutions from Some of Humanity’s Greatest Minds
  50. Rereading as Rebirth: Young Susan Sontag on Personal Growth, the Pleasures of Revisiting Beloved Books, and Her Rereading List
  51. A Noble New Year’s Resolution from Nietzsche
  52. What Everybody Needs

2014 701

December 2014

  1. The Best of Brain Pickings 2014
  2. Conscience and Spirit: Leo Tolstoy on Why Humans Drink
  3. Pioneering Children’s Book Author, Artist, and Early Twentieth-Century Woman Entrepreneur Wanda Gág Reimagines the Brothers Grimm
  4. What It Really Takes to Be an Artist: MacArthur Genius Teresita Fernández’s Magnificent Commencement Address
  5. Neil deGrasse Tyson Selects the Eight Books Every Intelligent Person on the Planet Should Read
  6. Maurice Sendak’s Weird and Wondrous Illustrations for “The Nutcracker”
  7. Wole Soyinka, the First African Writer to Win the Nobel Prize in Literature, on Faith, Medicine, and the Healing of the Human Spirit
  8. Van Gogh on Principles, Talking vs. Doing, and the Human Pursuit of Greatness
  9. The Definitive Reading List of the 14 Best Books of 2014 Overall
  10. Why We Lost Leisure: David Steindl-Rast on Purposeful Work, Play, and How to Find Meaning in the Magnificent Superfluities of Life
  11. Take Away the A: An Unusual Illustrated Alphabet Book about How We Make Meaning
  12. John Maeda on Creative Leadership, Talking vs. Making, and Why Human Relationships Are a Work of Craftsmanship
  13. Haunting Illustrations for Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four,’ Introduced by the Courageous Journalist Who Broke the Edward Snowden Story
  14. Madeleine L’Engle on Creativity, Hope, Getting Unstuck, and How Studying Science Enriches Art
  15. How New York Became New York: A Love Letter to Jane Jacobs, Tucked Inside a Graphic Biography of Robert Moses
  16. At What Point Are You Actually Dead?
  17. Wendell Berry on Solitude and the Two Great Enemies of Creative Work
  18. Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress: A Tender Story of Gender Identity, Acceptance, and Overcoming Bullying
  19. Carl Sagan Explains How Stars Are Born, Live, Die, and Give Us Life
  20. Margaret Mead on Myth vs. Deception and What to Tell Kids about Santa Claus
  21. Pecan Pie Baby: A Sweet Children’s Book Celebrating Diversity, Single-Motherhood, and the Vitalizing Gift of Community
  22. Jane Austen’s Advice on Writing, in Letters to Her Teenage Niece
  23. The Best Biographies, Memoirs, and History Books of 2014
  24. Being vs. Becoming: John Steinbeck on Creative Integrity, the Art of Changing Your Mind, the Humanistic Duty of the Artist
  25. Tove Jansson’s Vintage Philosophical Moomin Comics About Identity, Belonging, and Why We Join Groups
  26. The Slippery Question of What Makes a Great Book
  27. Being Mortal: A Surgeon on the Crossroads Between Our Bodies and Our Inner Lives and What Really Matters in the End
  28. Pearl S. Buck, the Youngest Woman to Receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, on Art, Writing, and the Nature of Creativity
  29. The Farmer and the Clown: A Warm Wordless Story about an Unlikely Friendship and How We Ennoble Each Other with Kindness
  30. A Burst of Delight and Recognition: E.E. Cummings, the Art of Noticing, and the Spirit of Rebellion
  31. Why Cloudy Days Help Us Think More Clearly
  32. Dial Up the Magic of This Moment: Philosopher Joanna Macy on How Rilke Can Help Us Befriend Our Mortality and Be More Alive
  33. How Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron’s Daughter, Became the World’s First Computer Programmer
  34. Elie Wiesel’s Timely Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech on Human Rights and Our Shared Duty in Ending Injustice
  35. How We Become Who We Are: Meghan Daum on Nostalgia, Aging, and Why We Romanticize Our Imperfect Younger Selves
  36. Henri Rousseau’s Heartening Story of Success after a Lifetime of Rejection, Illustrated
  37. Albert Einstein on the Fickle Nature of Fame, the Real Rewards of Work, and the “Whole Buffoonery” of the Cultural Establishment
  38. Georgia O’Keeffe on What It Means to Be an Artist
  39. The Best Art, Design, and Photography Books of 2014
  40. On “Beauty”: Marilynne Robinson on Writing, What Storytelling Can Learn from Science, and the Splendors of Uncertainty
  41. Margaret Mead on the Root of Racism and the Liability of Law Enforcement
  42. Vanessa Redgrave Reads Joan Didion’s Harrowing ‘Blue Nights’
  43. The Psychology of Flow: What Game Design Reveals about the Deliberate Tensions of Great Writing
  44. The Knot in the Rosary: Rilke on How Difficulty Can Fuel Creativity and Why Feedback Poisons Art
  45. The Watcher: A Children’s Book about How Jane Goodall Became Jane Goodall
  46. The Art of Quickness: Italo Calvino on Digression as a Hedge Against Death and the Key to Great Writing
  47. Legendary Cellist Pablo Casals, at Age 93, on Creative Vitality and How Working with Love Prolongs Your Life
  48. Vladimir Nabokov’s Passionate Love Letters to Véra and His Affectionate Bestiary of Nicknames for Her
  49. Once Upon a Northern Night: A Loving Illustrated Lullaby of Winter’s Whimsy
  50. Dostoyevsky on Why There Are No Bad People
  51. Lynda Barry’s Illustrated Field Guide to Keeping a Visual Diary and Cultivating a Capacity for Creative Observation
  52. How to Let Your Life Speak, Discern Your Purpose, and Define Your Own Success
  53. How Van Gogh Found His Purpose: Heartfelt Letters to His Brother on How Relationships Refine Us
  54. Our Fraught Relationship with Time, in Clever Minimalist Illustrations
  55. 2014’s Best Books on Psychology, Philosophy, and How to Live Meaningfully

November 2014

  1. In Praise of Melancholy and How It Enriches Our Capacity for Creativity
  2. Great Children’s Books Celebrating Science
  3. The Science of How Clouds Actually Stay Up in the Sky
  4. Kierkegaard on Nonconformity, the Individual vs. the Crowd, and the Power of the Minority
  5. Little Red Riding Hood, Reimagined in Unusual Die-Cut Illustrations
  6. C.S. Lewis on Why We Read
  7. The Only True and Durable Antidote to Violence: Composer Leonard Bernstein’s Moving Response to JFK’s Assassination
  8. Eating Delancey: A Love Letter to Jewish Food and Its Iconic New York Bastions
  9. Maria Merian’s Butterflies: The Illustrated Story of How a 17th-Century Woman Forever Changed the Course of Science Through Art
  10. Anne Lamott on Grief, Grace, and Gratitude
  11. Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Catalog of Beautiful Untranslatable Words from Around the World
  12. The Best Science Books of 2014
  13. Ursula K. Le Guin on Where Ideas Come From, the “Secret” of Great Writing, and the Trap of Marketing Your Work
  14. Artist Francis Bacon’s Conflicted and Creative Life, Illustrated
  15. Voltaire on How to Write Well and Stay True to Your Creative Vision
  16. The Graphic Canon of Children’s Literature: Comic Artists Reimagine Beloved Childhood Classics, from Tolstoy’s Fairy Tales to Harry Potter
  17. The Difference Between the Beautiful and the Sublime, Animated
  18. The Humane Art: Virginia Woolf on What Killed Letter Writing and Why We Ought to Keep It Alive
  19. MacArthur Geniuses on the Relationship Between Uncertainty and Creativity
  20. Albert Camus’s Beautiful Letter of Gratitude to His Childhood Teacher After Winning the Nobel Prize
  21. Ted Turner on the Meaning of Life, the Trouble with Religion, and His Revision of the 10 Commandments
  22. Form, Faith, and Freedom: Wendell Berry on What Poetry Teaches Us about the Secret to a Happy Marriage
  23. The Best Children’s Books of 2014
  24. The Spirit of Sauntering: Thoreau on the Art of Walking and the Perils of a Sedentary Lifestyle
  25. A Sweet Illustrated Celebration of the Wild Inner Child in Each of Us
  26. Leonardo’s Brain: What a Posthumous “Brain Scan” Six Centuries Later Reveals about the Source of Da Vinci’s Creativity
  27. Loneliness, Resilience, and the Right Choice: Poet Diane Ackerman on What She Learned While Working at a Suicide Prevention Hotline
  28. Ah-Ha to Zig-Zag: Maira Kalman’s Sweet Design-History Alphabet Book about Embracing Uncertainty and Imperfection
  29. Adrienne Rich on the Alchemy of Human Possibility and What “Truth” Really Means
  30. Mr. Tweed’s Good Deeds: An Unusual Counting Book about the Power of Small Kindnesses
  31. The Fluid Dynamics of “The Starry Night”: How Vincent Van Gogh’s Masterpiece Explains the Scientific Mysteries of Movement and Light
  32. The Mirror and the Meme: A 600-Year History of the Selfie
  33. The Jacket: A Sweet Illustrated Meta-Story about How We Fall in Love With Books
  34. How Do You Know You’re Not Already Dead: William S. Burroughs and Tennessee Williams Talk Writing, Drugs, and Mortality
  35. Showroom vs. Sanctuary: Rebecca Solnit on What Our Dream Homes Reveal about Our Interior Lives
  36. Amanda Palmer on the Art of Asking and What Thoreau Teaches Us about Accepting Love
  37. Anne Lamott on the Greatest Gift of Friendship and the Uncomfortable Art of Letting Yourself Be Seen
  38. Artist Andrea Dezsö’s Enchanting Black-and-White Illustrations for the Little-Known Original Edition of the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales
  39. Leonard Cohen and the Art of Stillness: Pico Iyer on What the Monastic Musician Taught Him About Presence
  40. Why “Psychological Androgyny” Is Essential for Creativity
  41. What Book Changed Your Perception of Reality?
  42. Anaïs Nin on Inner Conflict, the Interconnectedness of All Things, and What Maturity Really Means
  43. Someone Reading a Book is a Sign of Order in the World: Poet Mary Ruefle on Why We Read
  44. Bill Nye Reads a Brilliant, Creationism-Busting Passage from His New Book on Evolution
  45. The Language of Lying: Animated Primer on How to Detect Deception
  46. Richard Dawkins on The Science of Why You Are Lucky to Be Alive
  47. The Flat Rabbit: A Minimalist Scandinavian Children’s Book about Making Sense of Death and the Mysteries of Life
  48. The Malady of Middlebrow: Virginia Woolf’s Brilliantly Blistering Response to a Patronizing Reviewer
  49. Pablo Neruda’s Extraordinary Life, in an Illustrated Love Letter to Language
  50. E.O. Wilson on How We Give Meaning to Life
  51. Lucinda Williams on Compassion
  52. Bruce Springsteen’s Reading List: 28 Favorite Books That Shaped His Mind and Music
  53. Found Meals of the Lost Generation: An Edible Time-Capsule of the Creative Scene of 1920s Paris
  54. The Elusive Art of Inner Wholeness and How to Stop Hiding Our Souls

October 2014

  1. Cosmigraphics: Picturing Space Through Time in 4,000 Years of Mapping the Universe
  2. Butterflies and Iron Bolts: What Virginia Woolf Teaches Us About Great Design and the Value of the Ungoogleable
  3. William James on Choosing Purpose Over Profit and the Life-Changing Power of a Great Mentor
  4. The Hand Through the Fence: Pablo Neruda on What a Childhood Encounter Taught Him About Writing and Why We Make Art
  5. Jazz Legend Bill Evans on the Creative Process, Self-Teaching, and Balancing Clarity with Spontaneity in Problem-Solving
  6. Evolution: A Coloring Book
  7. At Home with Themselves: Sage Sohier’s Moving Portraits of Same-Sex Couples in the 1980s
  8. 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy: Andy Warhol’s Little-Known Collaborations with His Mother
  9. Neil Gaiman Reimagines Hansel and Gretel, with Stunning Illustrations by Italian Graphic Artist Lorenzo Mattotti
  10. Walter Benjamin on the Key Qualities of the Successful Person and How to Master the Art of Asking for What You Want
  11. Kahlil Gibran on the Absurdity of Self-Righteousness
  12. Standing at the Gates of Hope
  13. The Paradox of Active Surrender: Jeanette Winterson on How Learning to Understand Art Transforms Us
  14. Sylvia Plath on Poetry and a Rare Recording of Her Reading the Poem “The Disquieting Muses”
  15. How to Do Nothing with Nobody All Alone by Yourself: A Timely Vintage Field Guide to Self-Reliant Play and Joyful Solitude
  16. Mark Twain on Racism, How Religion Is Used to Justify Injustice, and What His Mother Taught Him About Compassion
  17. What Is Philosophy For? A Beautiful Animated Manifesto for Undoing Our Unwisdom, Cultivating Our Character, and Gaining Perspective
  18. Once Upon an Alphabet: Oliver Jeffers’s Imaginative Illustrated Stories for the Letters
  19. A Wave in the Mind: Virginia Woolf on Creativity and Consciousness
  20. An Illustrated Celebration of the Little-Known Mothers, Brothers, Friends, Wives, and Other Unsung Champions Behind Geniuses
  21. October 22, 1964: Jean-Paul Sartre Becomes the First Person to Decline the Nobel Prize
  22. You Have Never Seen the Sky: Georgia O’Keeffe on the Shimmering Beauty of the Southwest
  23. My Favorite Things: Maira Kalman’s Illustrated Catalog of Unusual Objects, Memories, and Delight
  24. Ursula K. Le Guin on Growing Older and What Beauty Really Means
  25. Craigslist Founder Craig Newmark on Trust, Integrity, Human Nature, and Why a Steady Moral Compass Is the Best Investment
  26. The Hummingbird Effect: How Galileo Invented Timekeeping and Forever Changed Modern Life
  27. Mister Horizontal & Miss Vertical: A Minimalist Illustrated Meditation on How We Become Who We Are
  28. John Dewey on War and Our Individual Role in Peace
  29. Ursula K. Le Guin on Being a Man
  30. Are Writers Born or Made? Jack Kerouac on the Crucial Difference Between Talent and Genius
  31. A Stocking for a Kitten: Beautiful Vintage Children’s Book Illustrations of Domestic Life in Eastern Europe
  32. A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated by Oscar Wilde
  33. Umbrella: A Tender Illustrated Love Letter to Time, Anticipation, and the Art of Waiting by Mid-Century Japanese Artist Taro Yashima
  34. The History Manifesto: How to Eradicate the Epidemic of Short-Termism and Harness Our Past in Creating a Flourishing Future
  35. Friedrich Nietzsche on Why a Fulfilling Life Requires Embracing Rather than Running from Difficulty
  36. Man Meets Woman: Minimalist Pictogram Commentary on Gender Norms
  37. Italo Calvino on the Unbearable Lightness of Language, Literature, and Life
  38. Hannah Arendt on Memory, the Elasticity of Time, and What Free Will Really Means
  39. The Best Infographics of the Year: Nate Silver on the 3 Keys to Great Information Design and the Line Between Editing and Censorship
  40. Why Haters Hate: Kierkegaard Explains the Psychology of Bullying and Online Trolling in 1847
  41. A Book Is a Heart That Only Beats in the Chest of Another: Rebecca Solnit on the Solitary Intimacy of Reading and Writing
  42. The Curse of Meh: Why Being Extraordinary Is Not a Matter of Being Universally Liked but of Being Polarizing
  43. Self-Scrutiny Applied with Kindness: Epictetus’s Enduring Wisdom on Happiness and the Art of Answering the Soul’s Cry
  44. The Sense of Style: Psycholinguist Steven Pinker on the Art and Science of Beautiful Writing
  45. Artist Anne Truitt on the Ideal Daily Routine and How Parenting Shapes Our Capacity for Savoring Solitude
  46. What Books Do for the Human Spirit: The Four Psychological Functions of Great Literature
  47. Joni Mitchell on the Crucial Difference Between Suffering and Creative Confusion
  48. The Virtuous Cycle of Gratitude and Mutual Appreciation: The Letters of Hermann Hesse and Thomas Mann
  49. A Minimalist, Maximally Imaginative Geometric Allegory for the Essence of Friendship and Creativity
  50. Some Thoughts on “Privilege”
  51. The Mystery of Personal Identity: What Makes You and Your Childhood Self the Same Person Despite a Lifetime of Change
  52. Pen & Ink: An Illustrated Collection of Unusual, Deeply Human Stories Behind People’s Tattoos
  53. Marcus Aurelius on What His Father Taught Him About Humility, Honor, Kindness, and Integrity
  54. The Artist and the Anguish of the American Dream: Zadie Smith’s Love-Hate Letter to New York
  55. Karl Marx’s Life and Legacy, in a Comic
  56. What the Future of Robots Reveals About the Human Condition
  57. Legendary Choreographer Merce Cunningham on Life, Learning, and the Creative Experience
  58. Joey and the Birthday Present: Wonderful Vintage Illustrations from Anne Sexton’s Little-Known 1971 Children’s Book
  59. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch’s Three Rules of Writing and Four Elements of Style: Timeless Advice from 1914
  60. Joan Didion Answers the Proust Questionnaire
  61. Heidegger in the Kitchen: What a Shrimp Can Teach Us About the Meaning of Life
  62. The Unsung Heroes of Innovation: A 1964 Manifesto for the Role of the Critic-Curator in How Ideas Spread
  63. Pioneering Psychologist Jerome Bruner on Art as a Mode of Knowing and Its Four Psychological Aspects
  64. A History of New York in 101 Objects: A Thoughtful Visual Encyclopedia of Collective Memory

September 2014

  1. Tolstoy’s Reading List: Essential Books for Each Stage of Life
  2. Hopeful Dispatches on Love, Sex, Work, Friendship, Death, and Life’s In-Betweenery from Lena Dunham
  3. Jane Goodall on Empathy and How to Reach Our Highest Human Potential
  4. The Moomin Strategy for Living with Uncertainty
  5. Sam Harris on the Paradox of Meditation and How to Stretch Our Capacity for Everyday Self-Transcendence
  6. Werner Herzog on America and His Lifelong NASA Dream
  7. The Art of Timing: Alan Watts on the Perils of Hurrying and the Pleasures of Presence
  8. What There Is Before There Is Anything There: Celebrated Cartoonist Liniers Confronts Childhood Nightmares
  9. The Psychology of Cryptomnesia: How We Unconsciously Plagiarize Existing Ideas
  10. Real Recipes from Roald Dahl’s Beloved Children’s Books
  11. William Faulkner on Writing, the Human Dilemma, and Why We Create: A Rare 1958 Recording
  12. The Edge of the Sky: A Poetic Primer on the Science of the Universe Composed in the 1,000 Most Common Words in the English Language
  13. Mary Oliver Reads Her Beloved Poem “Wild Geese”
  14. A Lolitigation Lament: Nabokov on Censorship and Solidarity
  15. Greil Marcus on What the History of Rock ‘n’ Roll Teaches Us about Innovation and the Art of Self-Reinvention
  16. Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space: Imaginative and Illuminating Children’s Book Tickles Our Zest for the Cosmos
  17. Marie Curie on Curiosity, Wonder, and the Spirit of Adventure in Science
  18. A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus on Our Search for Meaning and Why Happiness Is Our Moral Obligation
  19. Joni Mitchell on Freedom, the Source of Creativity, and the Dark Side of Success
  20. Susan Sontag on the Perils of Publicity in Creative Work
  21. David Foster Wallace on the Redemptive Power of Reading and the Future of Writing in the Age of Information
  22. John Dewey on the True Purpose of Education and How to Harness the Power of Our Natural Curiosity
  23. George Orwell on Writing and the Four Questions Great Writers Must Ask Themselves
  24. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Reimagined in Minimalist Graphics by Italian Illustrator Olimpia Zagnoli
  25. How Repetition Enchants the Brain and the Psychology of Why We Love It in Music
  26. Sherwin Nuland on the Art of Dying and How Our Mortality Confers Meaning Upon Our Lives
  27. Rosie Revere, Engineer: A Stereotype-Defying Children’s Book Celebrating the Value of Failure
  28. Georgia O’Keeffe on Art, Life, and Setting Priorities
  29. Walt Whitman, Bohemian Dandy: The Story of America’s First Gay Bar and Its Creative Coterie
  30. Petunia, I Love You: A Forgotten 1965 Children’s Book Treasure
  31. The Life of the Mind: Hannah Arendt on Thinking vs. Knowing and the Crucial Difference Between Truth and Meaning
  32. Neuroscientist Sam Harris on Happiness, Spirituality Without Religion, and How to Cultivate the Art of Presence
  33. A Sweet Celebration of Connection and Inner Softness in a Culture That Encourages Hard Individualism and Prickly Exteriors
  34. Nobel-Winning Playwright Eugene O’Neill on Happiness and the True Measure of Success in a Letter to His Unmotivated Young Son
  35. Anne Truitt on Compassion, Humility, and How to Cure Our Chronic Self-Righteousness
  36. Zadie Smith on the Psychology of the Two Types of Writers
  37. Jeff Buckley on Music and Life: A Rare Interview with a Rare Soul
  38. Theodor Adorno on the Art of Punctuation
  39. The World’s First Children’s Book about a Two-Mom Family
  40. The Memory of an Elephant: A Most Unusual Children’s Book for Lovers of Mid-Century Modern Design
  41. Mary Oliver on the Magic of Punctuation and a Reading of Her Soul-Stretching Poem “Seven White Butterflies”
  42. 100 Ideas That Changed the Web
  43. Legendary Composer Aaron Copland on the Conditions of Creativity, Emotion vs. Intellect, and the Trap of Public Opinion
  44. Wisdom in the Age of Information and the Importance of Storytelling in Making Sense of the World: An Animated Essay
  45. Maurice Sendak’s Darkest, Most Controversial Yet Most Hopeful Children’s Book
  46. C.S. Lewis on True Friendship
  47. The Little Red Schoolbook: An Honest Vintage Guide to Teenage Sexuality, Education Reform, and Independent Thinking
  48. Incomparable Things Said Incomparably Well: Emerson’s Extraordinary Letter of Appreciation to Young Walt Whitman
  49. The Book of Miracles: Rare Medieval Illustrations of Magical Thinking
  50. Montaigne and the Double Meaning of Meditation
  51. Werner Herzog’s No-Nonsense Advice to Aspiring Filmmakers and Creative Entrepreneurs
  52. Happy Birthday, Madame Chapeau: Cultural Stereotypes Subverted in a Subtle Celebration of Diversity
  53. Celebrated Writers on the Creative Benefits of Keeping a Journal
  54. How to Be Alone: An Antidote to One of the Central Anxieties and Greatest Paradoxes of Our Time
  55. Everything I Need To Know I Learned From a Little Golden Book: Grown-up Advice on Modern Life from Vintage Children’s Books
  56. The Hedgehog and the Fox: Italo Calvino on the Two Types of Writers
  57. The Actual Algebra of Finding Your Soul Mate
  58. Fox’s Garden: A Tender Wordless Story About the Transformative Power of Kindness
  59. Pioneering Psycholinguist Vera John-Steiner on How Creativity Works
  60. The Shortness of Life: Seneca on Busyness and the Art of Living Wide Rather Than Living Long
  61. Click Like You Give a Damn: The Politics of Linkbait and How Feeding on Buzz Ensures a Malnourished Soul
  62. From a Gentleman to a Lady: A Clever Cryptographic Love Letter from the 1850s

August 2014

  1. Leonard Bernstein’s Moving Letter of Gratitude to His Mentor and a Prescient 1943 Manifesto for Crowdfunding the Arts
  2. Darwin’s Battle with Anxiety
  3. The Price of Admission: Dan Savage on the Myth of “The One” and the Unsettling Secret of Lasting Love
  4. Anne Truitt on Resisting the Label “Artist” and the Difference Between Doing Art and Being an Artist
  5. Why We Ignore the Obvious: The Psychology of Willful Blindness
  6. Worn Stories: Playful and Poignant Tales of Clothes That Encode Life’s Most Meaningful Memories
  7. How William Gibson Coined “Cyberspace”
  8. Keep Your Baby Eyes: Legendary Journalist Lincoln Steffens’s Beautiful Letter of Advice to His Son on the Power of Not-Knowing
  9. The Psychology of Writing and the Cognitive Science of the Perfect Daily Routine
  10. My Teacher Is a Monster: A Sweet Modern Fable About Seeing Through the Otherness of Others
  11. A Visual History of Romantic Friendship
  12. How We Know What We Know: The Art of Seeing with the Eye of the Heart
  13. Ray Bradbury on the Secret of Life, Work, and Love
  14. Maurice Sendak’s Rare, Sensual Illustrations for Herman Melville’s Greatest Commercial Failure and Most Personally Beloved Book
  15. How Rockets Really Work
  16. Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi on Love, Violence, and the Truth of the Human Spirit
  17. James Baldwin on the Creative Process and the Artist’s Responsibility to Society
  18. Inside, Outside, Upside-Down: A Sweet Children’s Book About Understanding the World Through Relative Positions
  19. Why the Sky and the Ocean Are Blue: Rebecca Solnit on the Color of Distance and Desire
  20. Thoughts on Design: Paul Rand on Beauty, Simplicity, the Power of Symbols, and Why Idealism Is Essential in Creative Work
  21. Maya Angelou on Courage and Facing Evil
  22. “Don’t Read Books!” A 12th-Century Zen Poem
  23. Werner Herzog on Creativity, Self-Reliance, and How to Make a Living Doing What You Love
  24. Reconfiguring Reality: An Atlas of Alternative Maps by Ed Ruscha, Yoko Ono, Damien Hirst, John Maeda, Kevin Kelly, John Baldessari, and Other Icons
  25. How We Think: John Dewey on the Art of Reflection and Fruitful Curiosity in an Age of Instant Opinions and Information Overload
  26. John W. Gardner on What Children Can Teach Us About Risk, Failure, and Personal Growth
  27. O Captain! My Captain! David Foster Wallace, Robin Williams, Walt Whitman, and the Unholy Ghost of Suicide
  28. C.S. Lewis’s Ideal Daily Routine
  29. What Makes a Baby: An Inclusive and Imaginative Illustrated Guide to the Modern Family
  30. Barbara Walters on Gossip
  31. Emerson on the Two Pillars of Friendship
  32. Jane Goodall Answers the Proust Questionnaire
  33. Charity and Sylvia: The Remarkable Story of How Two Women Married Each Other in Early America
  34. Bukowski’s Letter of Gratitude to the Man Who Helped Him Quit His Soul-Sucking Job and Become a Full-Time Writer
  35. Flashlight: A Whimsical Wordless Story about Curiosity and Wonder
  36. Art, Inc.: A Field Guide to the Psychology and Practicalities of Becoming a Successful Artist
  37. David Foster Wallace on Writing, Self-Improvement, and How We Become Who We Are
  38. Bad Feminist: Roxane Gay on the Complexities and Blind Spots of the Equality Movement
  39. Ordering the Heavens: Hevelius’s Revolutionary 17th-Century Star Catalog and the First Moon Map
  40. Nietzsche’s 10 Rules for Writers, Penned in a Letter to His Lover and Muse
  41. The ABC Bunny: A Sweet and Unusual Alphabet Book from 1934
  42. Leonard Shlain on Integrating Wonder and Wisdom at the Intersection of Art and Physics
  43. Allergy to Originality: Mark Twain and the Remix Nature of All Creative Work, Animated
  44. Rilke on the Symbiosis Between the Body and the Soul
  45. Anthropologist Margaret Mead on Female vs. Male Creativity, Gender in Leadership, Equitable Parenting, and Why Women Make Better Scientists
  46. This Land Is Mine: Nina Paley’s Animated History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict
  47. Andy Warhol on the Joys of Virtual Relationships
  48. A Guide for the Perplexed: Mapping the Meaning of Life and the Four Levels of Being
  49. Parrots Over Puerto Rico: An Illustrated Children’s Book Celebrating the Spirit of Conservation
  50. How Susan Sontag Possessed New York and Subverted Sexual Stereotypes
  51. A Field Guide to Getting Lost: Rebecca Solnit on How We Find Ourselves
  52. Henry Miller on Money and How the Hedonic Treadmill of Material Rewards Entraps Us
  53. The Best-Kept Secret of Clichés: How to Upgrade Our Uses and Abolish Our Abuses of Language

July 2014

  1. “Vacation Sex”: A Poem by Dorianne Laux
  2. Migrant: An Alice in Wonderland for the Modern Immigrant Experience
  3. C.S. Lewis on Suffering and What It Means to Have Free Will in a Universe of Fixed Laws
  4. The Poetics of Reverie: Philosopher Gaston Bachelard on Love, Solitude, and Happiness
  5. Love Is Forever: A Children’s Book That Helps Kids Deal with Losing a Loved One
  6. Astronomer Jill Tarter on the Ongoing Search for Extraterrestrial Life and How She Inspired Carl Sagan’s Novel-Turned-Film Contact
  7. How a Vintage Children’s Book Illustrated by Lynd Ward Saved New York’s Iconic Little Red Lighthouse
  8. Debriefing: Susan Sontag Reads from I, Etcetera
  9. The Universe, “Branes,” and the Science of Multiple Dimensions
  10. Shakespeare, Sadness-Shaman: How Hamlet Can Help Us Through Our Grief and Despair
  11. The Science of Dust, Picasso’s Favorite Phenomenon
  12. Edna St. Vincent Millay on the Death Penalty and What It Really Means to Be an Anarchist
  13. New Yorker Cartoonist Roz Chast’s Remarkable Illustrated Meditation on Aging, Illness, and Death
  14. Jeanette Winterson on Time, Language, Reading, and How Art Creates a Sanctified Space for the Human Spirit
  15. The Relationship Between Creativity and Mental Illness
  16. Adam Phillips on Why a Capacity for “Fertile Solitude” Is Essential for Self-Esteem and Healthy Relationships
  17. July 18, 1992: The First Photo Uploaded to the Web, of CERN’s All-Girl Science Rock Band
  18. How to Find Yourself
  19. Portraits in Creativity: Artist Maira Kalman, Modern Patron Saint of the Moments Inside the Moments Inside the Moments
  20. The Book of Trees: 800 Years of Symbolic Diagrams Visualizing Human Knowledge
  21. Barbara Walters on the Art of Conversation, How to Talk to Bores, and What Truman Capote Teaches Us About Being Interesting
  22. Ray Bradbury on Failure, Why We Hate Work, and the Importance of Love in Creative Endeavors
  23. David Bowie’s Enchanting Isolated Vocal Track for “Ziggy Stardust”
  24. Leonard Cohen on Creativity, Work Ethic, and Why You Should Never Quit Before You Know What It Is You’re Quitting
  25. Physician Allison Ballantine’s Short, Stirring Commencement Address on Living with Presence
  26. Swami Vivekananda on the Secret of Work: Intelligent Consolation for the Pressures of Productivity from 1896
  27. 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
  28. Mocha Dick: The Story of the Real-Life Whale That Inspired Moby-Dick, Illustrated
  29. How the Bees Gave Earth Its Splendid Colors
  30. Beloved British Artist Ralph Steadman Illustrates the Life of Leonardo da Vinci
  31. Chinua Achebe on the Meaning of Life and the Writer’s Responsibility in the World
  32. David Bowie Answers the Famous Proust Questionnaire
  33. 30 Days of “Quantum Poetry” Celebrating the Glory of Science
  34. Artist Francis Bacon on the Role of Suffering and Self-Knowledge in Creative Expression
  35. What Makes a Great City: E.B. White on the Poetics of New York
  36. Visionary Neurologist Oliver Sacks on What Hallucinations Reveal about How the Mind Works
  37. Bohemians: A Graphic History of Creative Mavericks
  38. Thoreau on What Skunk-Cabbage Can Teach Us About Optimism and the Meaning of Human Life
  39. The Story of a Man Who Wanted to Do Housework: A Proto-Feminist Children’s Book from 1935
  40. The Man Who Turned Paper into Pixels: How Mathematician and Black Jack Wizard Claude Shannon Ignited the Information Age
  41. Buddhist Economics: How to Start Prioritizing People Over Products and Creativity Over Consumption
  42. The Best Illustrations from 150 Years of Alice in Wonderland
  43. Tchaikovsky on the “Immeasurable Bliss” of Creativity, the Mystical Machinery of Inspiration, and the Evils of Interruptions
  44. A Breathtaking Animated Adaptation of Bukowski’s “The Man with the Beautiful Eyes”
  45. How to Get Out of Your Own Way and Unblock the “Spiritual Electricity” of Creative Flow
  46. Against Cynicism: Isaac Asimov on the Case for Optimism about the Human Spirit
  47. How to Write Fat Books: Walter Benjamin’s Principles of the Weighty Tome
  48. The Last Hotel: Patti Smith Sets Jack Kerouac to Song
  49. How to Get Rich: Paul Graham on Money vs. Wealth
  50. The Science of Mental Time Travel and Why Our Ability to Imagine the Future Is Essential to Our Humanity
  51. Maya Angelou’s Beautiful Letter to Her Younger Self
  52. Whitman’s Urban Reverie: A Passionate Ode to the City from the Poet Laureate of Nature

June 2014

  1. A “Dynamic Interaction”: How We Learn (and Unlearn) the Language of Love
  2. Tove Jansson’s Rare Vintage Illustrations for Alice in Wonderland
  3. Elementary School Kids Record Recommendations for Their Favorite Books
  4. The Art of Looking: How to Live with Presence, Break the Tyranny of Productivity, and Learn to See Our Everyday Wonderland
  5. Alan Watts on the Difference Between Belief and Faith
  6. The Measure of a Life Well Lived: Henry Miller on How to Grow Old and the Secret of Remaining Young at Heart
  7. Legendary Songwriter Carole King on Inspiration vs. Perspiration and How to Overcome Creative Block
  8. A Good Man: Moving Animated Short Film by StoryCorps Tells the Human Stories of LGBT Pride
  9. 7 Life-Learnings from 7 Years of Brain Pickings, Illustrated
  10. George Orwell on Money, Taxes, the Government, and the Real Measure of Patriotism
  11. Why the Best Roadmap to an Interesting Life is the One You Make Up as You Go Along: Daniel Pink’s Commencement Address
  12. Picasso on Intuition, How Creativity Works, and Where Ideas Come From
  13. Malcolm Gladwell on Criticism, Tolerance, and Changing Your Mind
  14. Susan Sontag on the Crucial Difference Between Being in the Middle and Being at the Center
  15. Censorship and What Freedom of Speech Really Means: Comedian Bill Hicks’s Brilliant Letter to a Priest
  16. Rethinking the Placebo Effect: How Our Minds Actually Affect Our Bodies
  17. A Brief History of Glass and How It Planted the Seed for the Innovation Gap Between the East and West
  18. The London Jungle Book: What an Indian Tribal Artist Can Teach Us About Rediscovering Our Capacity for Everyday Wonder
  19. Psychoanalyst Adam Phillips on Why a Capacity for Boredom Is Essential for a Full Life
  20. The Invisibles: Moving Vintage Photos of LGBT Couples in the Early 20th Century
  21. Joyce Carol Oates on What Hemingway’s Early Stories Can Teach Us About Writing and the Defining Quality of Great Art
  22. C.S. Lewis on the Three Ways of Writing for Children and the Key to Authenticity in All Writing
  23. The Psychology of Your Future Self and How Your Present Illusions Hinder Your Future Happiness
  24. Leonardo da Vinci’s Life and Legacy, in a Vintage Pop-Up Book
  25. Willa Cather on Making Art Through Troubled Times: A Moving Letter to Her Younger Brother
  26. The Theology of Rest: A Modern Sermon About Living with Presence in the Age of Productivity
  27. The Poetic Species: Legendary Sociobiologist E.O. Wilson in Conversation with Poet Laureate Robert Hass on Science and Poetry
  28. Anna Deavere Smith on Discipline and Learning to Stop Letting Others Define You
  29. How to Navigate the Complexities and Harness the Rewards of Workplace Friendships: Wisdom from Adam Smith and Aristotle
  30. Albert Camus on Happiness and Love, Illustrated by Wendy MacNaughton
  31. How to Learn: Lewis Carroll’s Four Rules for Digesting Information and Mastering the Art of Reading
  32. Vintage Illustrations for Tolkien’s The Hobbit from Around the World
  33. Legendary Harvard Psychologist Jerome Bruner on Identity, “Creative Wholeness,” and How We Limit Our Happiness
  34. 19-Year-Old Sylvia Plath on the Transcendent Splendor of Nature
  35. Shonda Rhimes on Dreaming vs. Doing, the Tradeoffs of Success, and the Blinders of Entitlement
  36. Iconic Italian Graphic Artist Bruno Munari’s Rare Vintage “Interactive” Picture-Books
  37. William Styron on Why Formal Education Is a Waste of Time for Writers
  38. Shepard Fairey on Capitalism, Freedom, Selling Out, and What Makes Great Art
  39. Anaïs Nin on Reproductive Rights: A Prescient Perspective from 1940
  40. Animal Madness: How Deciphering Mental Illness in Our Fellow Beings Helps Us Become Better Versions of Ourselves
  41. Maurice Sendak’s Rarest Art: His Vintage Illustrations for William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence”
  42. How We Grieve: Meghan O’Rourke on the Messiness of Mourning and Learning to Live with Loss
  43. The Poetics of the Psyche: Adam Phillips on Why Psychoanalysis Is Like Literature and How Art Soothes the Soul
  44. The Birth of the Information Age: How Paul Otlet’s Vision for Cataloging and Connecting Humanity Shaped Our World
  45. Kafka on Books and What Reading Does for the Human Spirit
  46. Amusingly Cryptic Warning Signs from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Autotuned
  47. Strange Fruit: Nine Unsung Heroes of Black History, in a Graphic Novel
  48. The Breathtaking Love Letters of Violet Trefusis and Vita Sackville-West
  49. Van Gogh and Mental Illness
  50. How Our Delusions Keep Us Sane: The Psychology of Our Essential Self-Enhancement Bias
  51. Andy Warhol on Sex and Love
  52. Maira Kalman at TEDxMet
  53. Leo Tolstoy on Finding Meaning in a Meaningless World
  54. Allen Ginsberg Sings William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence and of Experience”
  55. Dani Shapiro on Vulnerability, the Creative Impulse, the Writing Life, and How to Live with Presence
  56. Kandinsky on the Spiritual Element in Art and the Three Responsibilities of Artists
  57. Astronomy and the Art of Verse: How Galileo Influenced Shakespeare

May 2014

  1. The Art of Neil Gaiman
  2. Anatomy of the Influences Behind Star Wars : A Mashup Masterpiece
  3. Alan Watts on Money vs. Wealth
  4. A Brief History of the Toilet
  5. Maya Angelou on the Meaning of Life
  6. Discipline, Quality vs. Quantity, and the Power of Intellectual Elegance: Remembering Massimo Vignelli
  7. The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine: Donald Barthelme’s Irreverent Vintage Children’s Book
  8. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody Williams on How Your Choices Shape the World, Animated
  9. The Pilot and the Little Prince: Beloved Illustrator Peter Sís Captures the Bittersweet Story of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
  10. A Lesson in Listening from John Cage
  11. Rare and Stunning Etchings for Ulysses by Italian Artist Mimmo Paladino
  12. Thoreau on the Greatest Gift of Growing Old
  13. The Oppressed Majority: A Poignant French Short Film about a World in Which Men Are Subject to Sexism
  14. The Long Game: Brilliant Visual Essays on the Only Secret to Creative Success, from Leonardo da Vinci to Marie Curie
  15. A Visual History of Typewriter Art from 1893 to Today
  16. Alan Lightman on Immortality and Our Touching Longing for Permanence in a Universe of Constant Change
  17. How Diego Rivera Met the Fierce Teenage Frida Kahlo and Fell in Love with Her Years Later
  18. I Am Cow, Hear Me Moo: A Charming Illustrated Ode to Courage and Confidence
  19. Adrienne Rich on Why an Education Is Something You Claim, Not Something You Get
  20. Bob Dylan on Sacrifice, the Unconscious Mind, and How to Cultivate the Perfect Environment for Creative Work
  21. Children’s Endearing Letters to Judy Blume About Masturbation, and the Beloved Author’s Response
  22. The Greatest Commencement Addresses of All Time
  23. Seth Godin on Vulnerability, Creative Courage, and How to Dance with the Fear: A Children’s Book for Grownups
  24. Lisbeth Zwerger’s Rare and Soulful 1984 Illustrations for Oscar Wilde’s “The Selfish Giant”
  25. Leo Buscaglia on Education, Industrialized Conformity, and How Stereotypes and Labels Limit Love
  26. 1,000 Dog Portraits: How a David-vs-Goliath Copyright Nightmare Became an Illustrated Celebration of the Canine Condition
  27. Eve Ensler on How Trauma Makes Us Leave Our Bodies and Disconnect from Ourselves
  28. The Definitive Manifesto for Handling Haters: Anne Lamott on Priorities and How We Keep Ourselves Small by People-Pleasing
  29. Artist Matt Freedman’s Courageous Visual Diary of Cancer
  30. Muriel Rukeyser on What Poetry Does for Us, What It Shares with Science, and Why Some People Resist It
  31. Flannery O’Connor on Dogma, Belief, and the Difference Between Religion and Faith
  32. The Original Cartoon Canon of Lolcats: Legendary British Artist Ronald Searle’s 1960s Cat Drawings
  33. Joyce Carol Oates on Consciousness, Wonder, and the Art of Beholding Beauty
  34. Where Do Babies Come From? A Sweet and Honest Primer on How Reproduction Works by Illustrator Sophie Blackall
  35. Pete Seeger on Combinatorial Creativity, Originality, Equality, and the Art of Dot-Connecting
  36. Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” Reimagined in Beautiful Illustrations by Artist Allen Crawford
  37. The Backfire Effect: The Psychology of Why We Have a Hard Time Changing Our Minds
  38. Kurt Vonnegut on Reading, Boredom, Belonging, and Our Human Responsibility
  39. Salvador Dalí’s Eccentric and Extravagant Life, Illustrated
  40. How to Pitch Yourself: Young Eudora Welty’s Impossibly Charming Job Application to The New Yorker
  41. David Lynch on Where Ideas Come From and the Fragmentary Nature of Creativity
  42. May 9, 1933: Helen Keller’s Searing Letter to the Nazis About Censorship and the Inextinguishable Freedom of Ideas
  43. An Animated Ode to What a Dog Can Teach Us About the Meaning of Life
  44. The Modern Art Cookbook: Recipes and Food-Inspired Treasures from the Twentieth Century’s Greatest Creative Icons
  45. Blast Off: Visionary Vintage Children’s Book Celebrates Equality, Diversity, and Space Exploration
  46. Lynne Tillman on What to Say When People Ask You Why You’re an Artist or Writer
  47. Vincent van Gogh on Art and the Power of Love in Letters to His Brother
  48. The Lion and the Bird: A Tender Illustrated Story About Loneliness, Loyalty, and the Gift of Friendship
  49. What the Science of “Sleep Paralysis” Reveals About How the Brain Works
  50. A Graphic Biography of Warhol
  51. Girls Standing on Lawns: A Quirky Collaboration Between Maira Kalman, Daniel Handler, and MoMA
  52. E.B. White’s Beautiful Letter to a Man Who Had Lost Faith in Humanity
  53. Picasso on Success and Why You Should Never Compromise in Creative Work
  54. Ten Days at the Mad-House: How Nellie Bly Posed as Insane in 1887 in Her Brave Exposé of Asylum Abuse
  55. Kierkegaard on Our Greatest Source of Unhappiness
  56. Pixar Cofounder Ed Catmull on Failure and Why Fostering a Fearless Culture Is the Key to Groundbreaking Creative Work
  57. David Bowie Narrates the Pioneering Soviet Children’s Symphony “Peter and the Wolf”
  58. Carson McCullers’s Little-Known 1964 Illustrated Children’s Book
  59. Letters to a Young Artist: Anna Deavere Smith on Confidence and What Self-Esteem Really Means
  60. How to Turn Down a Marriage Proposal Like Charlotte Brontë

April 2014

  1. Perseverance, Self-Transcendence, and the “Slow Churn” of Creativity: A Conversation with Artist Rachel Sussman
  2. Lisbeth Zwerger’s Imaginative Illustrations for Alice in Wonderland
  3. What Girls Are Good For: 20-Year-Old Nellie Bly’s 1885 Response to a Patronizing Chauvinist
  4. What It Takes to Design a Good Life
  5. Salvador Dalí’s Rare, Erotic Vintage Cookbook
  6. How to Move People with Integrity: The Art of Persuasion, Animated
  7. Drawing Autism: A Visual Tour of the Autistic Mind from Kids and Celebrated Artists on the Spectrum
  8. Six Rare Recordings of Denise Levertov Reading Her Poetry, Illustrated by Artist Ohara Hale
  9. George Saunders on the Power of Kindness, Animated
  10. George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” Illustrated by Ralph Steadman
  11. John Lennon and Yoko Ono on Love, Animated
  12. Queer Kids’ Endearing Letters to Judy Blume and Her Timeless Advice to Their Parents
  13. The Dark Side of Certainty: Jacob Bronowski on the Spirit of Science and What Auschwitz Teaches Us About Our Compulsion for Control
  14. Anthony Trollope’s Witty and Wise Advice on How to Be a Successful Writer
  15. Love Undetectable: A Love Letter to Friendship in a World Obsessed with Romance
  16. Upside Down Day: Rare and Wonderful Vintage Children’s Book by the Head of NASA’s Public Affairs Office
  17. Why Love Needs Space: Applying the Benjamin Franklin Effect to Romantic Relationships
  18. Susan Sontag on Beauty vs. Interestingness
  19. Three Delightful Poems About Dogs from E.B. White
  20. Happy Birthday, Nabokov: A BBC Documentary on Lolita and Life
  21. Trying Not to Try: Finding Freedom from Striving in the Ancient Chinese Concept of Wu-Wei
  22. Pioneering Psychologist Jerome Bruner on the 6 Pillars of Creativity and How to Master the Art of “Effective Surprise”
  23. Patti Smith’s Advice on Life
  24. How to Save a Life: “Little Prince” Author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry on the Power of the Smallest Kindnesses
  25. Mr. Bliss: Tolkien’s Little-Known Children’s Book for His Own Kids, Lovingly Handwritten and Illustrated by the Author Himself
  26. Hope Is a Girl Selling Fruit: A Heartening Illustrated Parable of Self-Actualization by a Young Indian Artist and Storyteller
  27. Kurt Vonnegut’s Advice to the Young
  28. I Can Fly: A Heartening Vintage Gem by Ruth Krauss, with Illustrations by Celebrated Disney Artist Mary Blair
  29. 19-Year-Old Italo Calvino on How to Assert Yourself and Live with Integrity
  30. The Wizard of Oz, Reimagined by Beloved Illustrator Lisbeth Zwerger
  31. The Science of Humor and the Humor of Science: A Brilliant 1969 Reflection on Laughter as Self-Defense Against Automation
  32. Fictitious Dishes: Elegant and Imaginative Photographs of Meals from Famous Literature
  33. Zelda Fitzgerald’s Little-Known Art
  34. Why There Was No First Human
  35. Herman Melville on Art
  36. The World’s Oldest Living Things: A Decade-Long Photographic Masterpiece at the Intersection of Art, Science, and Philosophy
  37. The Art of Practical Wisdom
  38. A Visual Dictionary of Philosophy: Major Schools of Thought in Minimalist Geometric Graphics
  39. The Science of Mood in Animals: Can Pets Be Depressed?
  40. Journey: A Beautiful Wordless Story About the Power of the Imagination
  41. Dorothy Parker Reads “Inscription for the Ceiling of a Bedroom” in a Rare 1926 Recording
  42. Dare to Disturb the Universe: Madeleine L’Engle on Creativity, Censorship, Writing, and the Duty of Children’s Books
  43. The Science of Smell: How the Most Direct of Our Senses Works
  44. Mary Oliver on the Mystery of the Human Psyche, the Secret of Great Poetry, and How Rhythm Makes Us Come Alive
  45. The Public Library: A Photographic Love Letter to Humanity’s Greatest Sanctuary of Knowledge, Freedom, and Democracy
  46. The Hidden Brain: How Ocean Currents Explain Our Unconscious Social Biases
  47. Gorgeous and Rare Illustrations for Alice in Wonderland by John Vernon Lord
  48. The Adulterous Society: How John Updike Made Suburban Sex Sexy
  49. The Science of How Memory Works
  50. Isaac Asimov on the Thrill of Lifelong Learning, Science vs. Religion, and the Role of Science Fiction in Advancing Society
  51. Tom Gauld’s Brilliant Literary Cartoons Blur the Artificial Line Between “High” and “Pop” Culture
  52. Donald Barthelme on the Art of Not-Knowing and the Essential Not-Knowing of Art
  53. An Illustrated Taxonomy of City Bikes and Cyclist Archetypes
  54. Young Hans Christian Andersen’s Breathtaking Account of Climbing Mount Vesuvius During an Eruption
  55. Maya Angelou Recites Her Poem “Phenomenal Woman”
  56. The Presence of Absence: Jane Dorn’s Haunting Photographs of Abandoned Buildings in the South
  57. April 3, 1920: Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Wedding
  58. Jane Goodall on Science, Spirituality, and Our Highest Responsibility as Human Beings
  59. Winston and George: An Illustrated Ode to Friendship, with an Incredible Creative Journey 50 Years in the Making
  60. From the Gold Rush to Silicon Valley: How Mark Twain Became the Steve Jobs of His Day
  61. Neurocomic: A Graphic Novel About How the Brain Works
  62. Why Look at Animals: John Berger on What Our Relationship with Our Fellow Beings Reveals About Us
  63. Whatever You Are, Be a Good One

March 2014

  1. The Evolutionary Mystery of Left-Handedness and What It Reveals About How the Brain Works
  2. Agnes Martin on Art, Happiness, Pride, and Failure: A Rare Vintage Interview with the Reclusive Artist
  3. The Betrayed Confidence: Edward Gorey’s Weird and Whimsical Vintage Illustrated Postcards
  4. How to Criticize with Kindness: Philosopher Daniel Dennett on the Four Steps to Arguing Intelligently
  5. Grit and the Secret of Success
  6. March 28, 1941: Virginia Woolf’s Suicide Letter and Its Cruel Misinterpretation in the Media
  7. Rejection as Creative Catalyst: A Lesson in Entrepreneurship from New Yorker Cartoon Editor Bob Mankoff
  8. John Vernon Lord’s Whimsical Illustrations for James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake
  9. Frank O’Hara Reads “Metaphysical Poem” in a Rare 1964 Recording
  10. The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My: Tove Jansson’s Playful and Philosophical Vintage Masterpiece
  11. Viktor Frankl on the Art of Presence, the Soul-Stretching Capacity of Suffering, and How to Persevere in Troubled Times
  12. Annie Dillard on the Art of the Essay and the Different Responsibilities of Narrative Nonfiction, Poetry, and Short Stories
  13. Flannery O’Connor on Why the Grotesque Appeals to Us, Plus a Rare Recording of Her Reading “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”
  14. Toy Stories: Photos of Children from Around the World with Their Favorite Things
  15. Aldous Huxley on Drugs, Democracy, and Religion
  16. Mood Science and the Evolutionary Origins of Depression
  17. Larry and Friends: An Illustrated Ode to Immigration, Diversity, Otherness, and Kindness
  18. The Timekeeper: Behind the Scenes of Humanity’s Most Accurate Atomic Clocks, Which Dictate Our Daily Lives
  19. Salvador Dalí’s Sinister and Sensual Paintings for Dante’s “Divine Comedy”
  20. We Are Made of Dead Stuff: Amazing Animation Made of Leaves
  21. Neil Gaiman on Why Scary Stories Appeal to Us, the Art of Fear in Children’s Books, and the Most Terrifying Ghosts Haunting Society
  22. Hello, New York: Julia Rothman’s Illustrated Love Letter to Gotham’s Five Boroughs
  23. Schopenhauer on Style
  24. Collect Raindrops: The Rhythm of the Seasons, in Gorgeous Cut-Paper Illustrations
  25. Happy Birthday, Standard Time: How the Railroads Gave Us Time Zones
  26. Meanwhile: An Illustrated Love Letter to the Living Fabric of a City and Our Shared Human Longing to Be Understood
  27. Astronaut Chris Hadfield Covers Bowie’s “Space Oddity” in Space
  28. Marketing the Moon: How NASA Sold Space to Earth
  29. George Lucas on the Meaning of Life
  30. How the Invention of the Alphabet Usurped Female Power in Society and Sparked the Rise of Patriarchy in Human Culture
  31. Djuna Barnes Interviews James Joyce in 1922: The Iconic Irishman’s Most Significant Interview
  32. Philosopher Martha Nussbaum on How to Live with Our Human Fragility
  33. Einstein on Fairy Tales and Education
  34. 33 Books on How to Live: My Reading List for the Long Now Foundation’s Manual for Civilization
  35. In Pieces: French Illustrator Marion Fayolle’s Wordless Narratives About Human Relationships
  36. Narrowly Selective Transparency: Susan Sontag on Photography vs. the Other Arts
  37. March 13, 1964: What the Kitty Genovese Murder Teaches Us About Empathy, Apathy, and Our Human Predicament
  38. How to Master on the Art of Getting Noticed: Austin Kleon’s Advice to Aspiring Artists
  39. Jack Kerouac on Kindness, the Self Illusion, and the “Golden Eternity”
  40. Mary Roach on the Science of Masturbation and the Outrageous Vintage Pseudoscientific Techniques for Controlling It
  41. A Short Guide to a Happy Life: Anna Quindlen on Work, Joy, and How to Live Rather Than Exist
  42. The Life and Death of Mountains
  43. Orgasm Without Release: Alan Watts Presages Our Modern Media Gluttony in 1951
  44. Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Crucial Difference Between Success and Mastery
  45. A Love Letter to the City
  46. “Little Prince” Author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry on What the Sahara Desert Taught Him About the Meaning of Life
  47. The Miraculous in the Mundane: Richard Feynman Explains How Rubber Bands Work
  48. Stewart Brand’s Reading List: 76 Books to Sustain and Rebuild Humanity
  49. Wondrous Beauty: How Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte Pioneered the Ideal of the Independent Woman
  50. Italo Calvino on Distraction, Procrastination, and Newspapers as the Proto-Time-Waster
  51. Buckminster Fuller Presages Online Education, with a Touch of TED, Netflix, and Pandora, in 1962
  52. The Science of Our Warped Perception of Time, Animated
  53. The Distracted Public: Saul Bellow on How Writers and Artists Save Us from the “Moronic Inferno” of Our Time
  54. A Solitary World: A Poetic Cinematic Homage to H.G. Wells
  55. An Illustrated Field Guide to Mythic Monsters, from Gremlins to Zombies to the Kraken
  56. Brian Eno’s Reading List of Twenty Books Essential for Sustaining Human Civilization

February 2014

  1. Advice from Artists on How to Overcome Creative Block, Handle Criticism, and Nurture Your Sense of Self-Worth
  2. The Six Motives of Creativity: Mary Gaitskill on Why Writers Write
  3. The River: A Watercolor Serenade to the Inner Seasons of Human Life
  4. John Steinbeck on the Creative Spirit and the Meaning of Life
  5. Conformity and the Instinct of Rebellion: Norman Mailer Channels His Departed Friend, the Pioneering Psychologist Robert Lindner
  6. Shackleton’s Journey: A Lovely Illustrated Chronicle of History’s Most Heroic Polar Expedition
  7. The Nature of the Self: Experimental Philosopher Joshua Knobe on How We Know Who We Are
  8. Mark Twain on Masturbation
  9. Life Is Like Blue Jelly: Margaret Mead Discovers the Meaning of Existence in a Dream
  10. Alice Walker on Creativity
  11. Dinner with Mr. Darcy: Recipes from Jane Austen’s Novels and Letters
  12. Freud’s Life and Legacy, in a Comic
  13. Tara Brach Reads from Mary Oliver’s “Dog Songs”
  14. The “I” of the Beholder: What Is the Self?
  15. Vladimir Nabokov on Writing, Reading, and the Three Qualities a Great Storyteller Must Have
  16. The Hating Book: An Illustrated Vintage Parable About What Every Friendship Needs
  17. Anaïs Nin on Love and Life, Illustrated
  18. Beloved Children’s Book Author and Illustrator Leo Lionni on Creativity and the Secret of Great Storytelling
  19. The Benjamin Franklin Effect: The Surprising Psychology of How to Handle Haters
  20. Why Science-Fiction Writers Are So Good at Predicting the Future
  21. Mark Rothko on the Transcendent Power of Art and How (Not) To Experience His Paintings
  22. The 10 Stages of the Creative Process
  23. Joan Didion on Storytelling, the Economy of Words, and Facing Rejection
  24. How Creativity Works: Neil Gaiman on Where Ideas Come From
  25. Gorgeous Vintage Posters from the Golden Age of Skiing
  26. A Simple Intervention to Increase Your Well-Being and Lower Depression from the Founding Father of Positive Psychology
  27. David Foster Wallace on Leadership, Illustrated and Read by Debbie Millman
  28. Legendary Lands: Umberto Eco on the Greatest Maps of Imaginary Places and Why They Appeal to Us
  29. Joseph Brodsky on How to Develop Your Taste in Reading
  30. The Dot and the Line: A Quirky Vintage Love Story in Lower Mathematics by Norton Juster, Animated by Chuck Jones
  31. The Greatest Queer Love Letters of All Time
  32. The Philosopher and the Prodigy: How Voltaire Fell in Love with a Remarkable Woman Mathematician
  33. The Science of Why We Kiss
  34. Aesthetic Rapture Between Heaven and Hell: William Blake Illustrates John Milton’s “Paradise Lost”
  35. A.A. Milne Reads from Winnie-the-Pooh in a Rare 1929 Recording
  36. Maira Kalman on Curiosity, Courage, Happiness, and the Two Keys to a Full Life
  37. The Little Prince as a Pop-Up Book
  38. Charles Darwin on Family, Work, and Happiness
  39. Lemony Snicket and Lisa Brown’s Charming Illustrated Allegory about Curiosity, the Imagination, and the Subjectivity of Observation
  40. Big Thinkers on the Only Things Worth Worrying About
  41. Beauty, Aging, and the Expansion of Our Sympathies: What George Eliot Teaches Us About the Rewards of Middle Age
  42. We Are Singing Stardust: Carl Sagan on the Story of Humanity’s Greatest Message and How the Golden Record Was Born
  43. How Apple Went from Underdog to Cult in Six Design and Innovation Strategies from the Early Days
  44. The Project of Literature: Susan Sontag on Writing, Routines, Education, and Elitism in a 1992 Recording from the 92Y Archives
  45. Charles Dickens on Grief and How to Heal a Mourning Heart
  46. R. Crumb Illustrates Philip K. Dick’s Hallucinatory Spiritual Experience
  47. The Dreadnought Hoax: Young Virginia Woolf and Her Bloomsbury Posse Prank the Royal Navy in Drag and a Turban
  48. Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far: Sagmeister’s Typographic Maxims on Life, Updated
  49. Legendary Anthropologist Margaret Mead on the Fluidity of Human Sexuality in 1933
  50. David Hockney Illustrates the Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm
  51. Stop Overplanning: The Psychology of Why Excessive Goal-Setting Limits Our Happiness and Success
  52. Comedy Godmother Phyllis Diller on What Every Comedian Needs and How a Great Joke Works
  53. William S. Burroughs on Creativity
  54. The Cosmic Accident of Life: Alan Lightman on Dark Energy, the Multiverse, and Why We Exist
  55. Compiling as a Creative Act: What Duke Ellington’s Remixing Reveals about Plagiarism and Innovation
  56. Jeanette Winterson on the Value of Art to the Human Spirit
  57. The Psychology of Trust in Work and Love
  58. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Original Watercolors for “The Little Prince”
  59. Virginia Woolf Visits Stonehenge

January 2014

  1. Norman Mailer on the Paradoxes of Success and What True Growth Means
  2. Herman and Rosie: An Illustrated Ode to Finding a Sense of Purpose and Belonging in the Big City
  3. George Orwell’s Dessert Recipes
  4. Some of Today’s Most Beloved Children’s Book Illustrators Each Draw Their Favorite Animal
  5. Herman Melville on Writing and His Daily Routine
  6. Alice in Quantumland: A Charming Illustrated Allegory of Quantum Mechanics by a CERN Physicist
  7. The Taste Gap: Ira Glass on the Secret of Creative Success, Animated in Living Typography
  8. Let’s Be Enemies: A Vintage Maurice Sendak Treasure
  9. Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives
  10. What Makes People Compelling
  11. Industrial Sublime: How New York City’s Bridges and Rivers Became a Muse of Modernism
  12. The Poetic Principle: Poe on Truth, Love, Reason, and the Human Impulse for Beauty
  13. Astronaut Chris Hadfield on Success and the Meaning of Life
  14. The Ego and the Universe: Alan Watts on Becoming Who You Really Are
  15. John Lennon’s Semi-Sensical Poetry and Prose, Illustrated with His Charming Drawings
  16. From Galileo to Sagan, Famous Scientists on the Art of Wonder, the Mystery of the Universe, and the Heart of Science
  17. Sir Quentin Blake’s Quirky Illustrated Alphabet Book
  18. John Updike on How to Have a Productive Daily Routine, and the Most Important Things Aspiring Writers Should Know
  19. Much Loved: Portraits of Beloved Childhood Teddies
  20. The Future of Love: A Humorous Century-Old Prediction for the Age of Data
  21. The Life-Cycle of a Single Water Drop, in a Pop-Up Book Animated in Stop-Motion
  22. Lord Byron’s Epic Poem “Don Juan,” Annotated by Isaac Asimov and Illustrated by Milton Glaser
  23. Oblique Strategies: Brian Eno’s Prompts for Overcoming Creative Block, Inspired by John Cage
  24. Debunking the Myth of the 10,000-Hours Rule: What It Actually Takes to Reach Genius-Level Excellence
  25. The Futurist Cookbook: 11 Rules for a Perfect Meal and an Anti-Pasta Manifesto from a Century Ago
  26. Jane Goodall on Science and Spirit: The Iconic Primatologist Talks to Bill Moyers and Reads Her Poem “The Old Wisdom”
  27. The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs. Oscar Wilde
  28. The Thoughtbook of F. Scott Fitzgerald: An Endearing Record of His First Loves from His Secret Boyhood Diary
  29. I’m Glad I’m a Boy! I’m Glad I’m a Girl! A Vintage Parody of Gender Inequality
  30. The Creative Cleft: Joyce Carol Oates on the Divided Self and the “Diamagnetic” Relationship Between Person and Persona
  31. William Blake’s Breathtaking Drawings for Dante’s Divine Comedy, Over Which He Labored Until His Dying Day
  32. From Galileo to Google: How Big Data Illuminates Human Culture
  33. Party Like It’s 1903: Virginia Woolf on the Ecstasy of Music and Dance
  34. Kurt Vonnegut on the Simplest, Hardest Secret of Happiness
  35. The Gorgeous Art of Norah Borges, Jorge Luis Borges’s Younger Sister
  36. Legendary Indian Leader Nehru on Power, Privilege, and Kindness: Letters to His 10-Year-Old Daughter, Indira Gandhi
  37. The Osprey and the Meaning of Life: The Poetic Physicist Alan Lightman on Science and Our Spiritual Bond with Nature
  38. Every Page of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Illustrated by Self-Taught Artist Matt Kish
  39. How to Make Love: A 1936 Guide to the Art of Wooing
  40. Love, Sex, and the World Between
  41. Salvador Dalí’s Rare 1975 Illustrations for “Romeo and Juliet”
  42. John Green’s Superb Advice to Aspiring Writers and Creators in the Digital Age
  43. Leonard Bernstein on the Motive Force of Creativity
  44. Weight and Weightlessness: The Science of Life in Space, in Charming Vintage Illustrations
  45. 19th-Century German Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer Presages the Economics and Ethics of the Web and Modern Publishing
  46. Alice in Wonderland Illustrated by Ralph Steadman: A 1973 Gem
  47. Edith Windsor on Love and the Truth about Equality, Illustrated
  48. William Faulkner’s Beautiful Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech About How Artists Help Us Live
  49. Reinventing the Wheel: A Design History of the Circle as a Visual Metaphor for Information
  50. The History of Philosophy, in Superhero Comics
  51. Henry James on Memory, Growing Older, and What Happiness Really Means
  52. The Culture and Costs of Anxiety
  53. How Art Can Save Your Soul
  54. Stephen Hawking’s Charming Children’s Book about Time-Travel, Co-Written with His Daughter
  55. How to Live: Lessons from Montaigne
  56. French Artist Benjamin Lacombe’s Haunting Illustrations for Poe’s Tales of the Macabre
  57. The Secret Life of the Radio
  58. An Antidote to the Age of Anxiety: Alan Watts on Happiness and How to Live with Presence
  59. The Universe in a Glass of Wine: Richard Feynman on How Everything Connects, Animated
  60. Teenage Virginia Woolf on the Human Mind
  61. The Baloney Detection Kit: Carl Sagan’s Rules for Bullshit-Busting and Critical Thinking
  62. J.R.R. Tolkien’s Little-Known, Gorgeous Art
  63. Falling Upwards: An Illustrated History of the Golden Age of Hot Air Balloons and How We Conquered the Skies
  64. A Wonderful New Year’s Resolution from Ursula Nordstrom, Unheralded Patron Saint of Modern Childhood
  65. How Long It Takes to Form a New Habit
  66. How to Lower Your “Worryability”: Italo Calvino’s 1950 New Year’s Resolution

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