book pickings

a visual way to explore the brain pickings book archive :: otlet's shelf theme :: back to brain pickings

CREATIVITY :: DESIGN :: SCIENCE :: HISTORY :: PSYCHOLOGY :: ART

  1. Advice to Little Girls Mark Twain Only the best thing ever: Advice to Little Girls – a playful and mischievous short story penned by young Mark Twain in 1865 and illustrated by beloved Russian children’s book artist Vladimir Radunsky. Plenty of images, and a personal story, at the link:

    Advice to Little Girls

    Mark Twain

    Only the best thing ever: Advice to Little Girls – a playful and mischievous short story penned by young Mark Twain in 1865 and illustrated by beloved Russian children’s book artist Vladimir Radunsky. Plenty of images, and a personal story, at the link:
  2. Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology Caroline Paul & Wendy MacNaughton “You can never know anyone as completely as you want. But that’s okay, love is better.” A spectacular illustrated meditation on love, loss, and what it means to be human:

    Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology

    Caroline Paul & Wendy MacNaughton

    “You can never know anyone as completely as you want. But that’s okay, love is better.”

    A spectacular illustrated meditation on love, loss, and what it means to be human:
  3. Look Both Ways: Illustrated Essays on the Intersection of Life and Design Debbie Millman “If you imagine less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve. Do what you love, and don’t stop until you get what you love. Work as hard as you can, imagine immensities, don’t compromise, and don’t waste time. Start now. Not 20 years from now, not two weeks from now. Now.” Debbie Millman’s fantastic illustrated essays of wisdom on the creative life – a timeless treat halfway between philosophy and design:

    Look Both Ways: Illustrated Essays on the Intersection of Life and Design

    Debbie Millman

    “If you imagine less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve. Do what you love, and don’t stop until you get what you love. Work as hard as you can, imagine immensities, don’t compromise, and don’t waste time. Start now. Not 20 years from now, not two weeks from now. Now.”

    Debbie Millman’s fantastic illustrated essays of wisdom on the creative life – a timeless treat halfway between philosophy and design:
  4. Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom Leonard S. Marcus “That is the creative artist — a penalty of the creative artist — wanting to make order out of chaos.” Timeless wisdom from the great Ursula Nordstrom, who groomed Maurice Sendak’s genius and ushered in the golden age of children’s literature.

    Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom

    Leonard S. Marcus

    “That is the creative artist — a penalty of the creative artist — wanting to make order out of chaos.”

    Timeless wisdom from the great Ursula Nordstrom, who groomed Maurice Sendak’s genius and ushered in the golden age of children’s literature.
  5. Lonesome Traveler Jack Kerouac “Might as well enjoy it… . Greatest city the world has ever seen.” Kerouac’s tour of the beat night life of New York:

    Lonesome Traveler

    Jack Kerouac

    “Might as well enjoy it… . Greatest city the world has ever seen.” Kerouac’s tour of the beat night life of New York:
  6. Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953 Elizabeth Winder What a catalog of superficiality reveals about the complex inner worlds of young women.

    Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

    Elizabeth Winder

    What a catalog of superficiality reveals about the complex inner worlds of young women.
  7. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark Carl Sagan “Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. … The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.” Carl Sagan on science and spirituality, a timelessly fantastic read:

    The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

    Carl Sagan

    “Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. … The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.”

    Carl Sagan on science and spirituality, a timelessly fantastic read:
  8. Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Poems Selected for Young People Edna St. Vincent Millay Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poems for young people, with enchanted vintage illustrations

    Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Poems Selected for Young People

    Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poems for young people, with enchanted vintage illustrations
  9. Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity Andrew Solomon “I do not accept subtractive models of love, only additive ones.” Fantastic read on “horizontal” vs. “vertical” identity and how the power of love both changes us and makes us more ourselves

    Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity

    Andrew Solomon

    “I do not accept subtractive models of love, only additive ones.”

    Fantastic read on “horizontal” vs. “vertical” identity and how the power of love both changes us and makes us more ourselves
  10. Darwin: A Life in Poems Ruth Padel Darwin’s life, adapted in poems by his great-grand-daughter, using his books, journals, autobiography, scientific papers, notebooks, drafts, and letters to summon an affectionate and imaginative memoir of rare poetic elegance.

    Darwin: A Life in Poems

    Ruth Padel

    Darwin’s life, adapted in poems by his great-grand-daughter, using his books, journals, autobiography, scientific papers, notebooks, drafts, and letters to summon an affectionate and imaginative memoir of rare poetic elegance.
  11. Italo Calvino: Letters, 1941-1985 Italo Calvino “To write well about the elegant world you have to know it and experience it to the depths of your being just as Proust, Radiguet and Fitzgerald did: what matters is not whether you love it or hate it, but only to be quite clear about your position regarding it.” Italo Calvino on writing – timeless wisdom culled from 40+ years of his freshly published letters

    Italo Calvino: Letters, 1941-1985

    Italo Calvino

    “To write well about the elegant world you have to know it and experience it to the depths of your being just as Proust, Radiguet and Fitzgerald did: what matters is not whether you love it or hate it, but only to be quite clear about your position regarding it.”

    Italo Calvino on writing – timeless wisdom culled from 40+ years of his freshly published letters
  12. Amiel’s Journal Henri-Frédéric Amiel “Thought is a kind of opium; it can intoxicate us, while still broad awake; it can make transparent the mountains and everything that exists. It is by love only that one keeps hold upon reality, that one recovers one’s proper self, that one becomes again will, force, and individuality. “ Swiss philosopher Henri-Frédéric Amiel’s timeless wisdom on love, culled from his lengthy journals:

    Amiel’s Journal

    Henri-Frédéric Amiel

    “Thought is a kind of opium; it can intoxicate us, while still broad awake; it can make transparent the mountains and everything that exists. It is by love only that one keeps hold upon reality, that one recovers one’s proper self, that one becomes again will, force, and individuality. “

    Swiss philosopher Henri-Frédéric Amiel’s timeless wisdom on love, culled from his lengthy journals:
  13. Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders Jennifer Finney Boylan “I was a father for six years, a mother for ten, and for a time in between I was both, or neither, like some parental version of the schnoodle, or the cockapoo. Of course, as parents go, I was a rather feminine father; for that matter I suppose I’m a masculine mother. When I was their father I showed my boys how to make a good tomato sauce, how to fold a napkin, how to iron a dress shirt; as their mother I’ve shown them how to split wood with a maul. Whether this means I’ve had one parenting style or two, I am not entirely certain. I can assure you I am not a perfect parent and will be glad to review the long list of my mistakes. But in dealing with a parent who subverts a lot of expectations about gender, I hope my sons have learned to be more flexible and openhearted than many of their peers with traditionally gendered parents.” Why there’s much more to the art of raising a human being than the science of chromosomal alignment.

    Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders

    Jennifer Finney Boylan

    “I was a father for six years, a mother for ten, and for a time in between I was both, or neither, like some parental version of the schnoodle, or the cockapoo. Of course, as parents go, I was a rather feminine father; for that matter I suppose I’m a masculine mother. When I was their father I showed my boys how to make a good tomato sauce, how to fold a napkin, how to iron a dress shirt; as their mother I’ve shown them how to split wood with a maul. Whether this means I’ve had one parenting style or two, I am not entirely certain. I can assure you I am not a perfect parent and will be glad to review the long list of my mistakes. But in dealing with a parent who subverts a lot of expectations about gender, I hope my sons have learned to be more flexible and openhearted than many of their peers with traditionally gendered parents.”

    Why there’s much more to the art of raising a human being than the science of chromosomal alignment.
  14. Jazz. New York in the Roaring Twenties Hans-Jurgen Schaal Band battles, brass classics, Cotton Club etiquette, and how to do the “double roll” like a pro.

    Jazz. New York in the Roaring Twenties

    Hans-Jurgen Schaal

    Band battles, brass classics, Cotton Club etiquette, and how to do the “double roll” like a pro.
  15. Do It: The Compendium Hans Ulrich Obrist “Art is something that you encounter and you know it’s in a different kind of space from the rest of your life, but is directly connected to it.” Curator extraordinaire Hans Ulrich Obrist gathers 20 years of famous artists’ irreverent instructions for art anyone can make, including contributions by Lawrence Weiner, Louise Bourgeois, Ai Weiwei, Douglas Coupland, David Lynch, and Sol LeWitt.

    Do It: The Compendium

    Hans Ulrich Obrist

    “Art is something that you encounter and you know it’s in a different kind of space from the rest of your life, but is directly connected to it.”

    Curator extraordinaire Hans Ulrich Obrist gathers 20 years of famous artists’ irreverent instructions for art anyone can make, including contributions by Lawrence Weiner, Louise Bourgeois, Ai Weiwei, Douglas Coupland, David Lynch, and Sol LeWitt.
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