book pickings

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

history

  1. The Mighty Lalouche Matthew Olshan & Sophie Blackall What Parisian boxing from the early 1900s has to do with contemporary technoparanoia about robots replacing us – a heartening underdog story illustrated by the inimitable Sophie Blackall

    The Mighty Lalouche

    Matthew Olshan & Sophie Blackall

    What Parisian boxing from the early 1900s has to do with contemporary technoparanoia about robots replacing us – a heartening underdog story illustrated by the inimitable Sophie Blackall
  2. Einstein on Peace Albert Einstein “Every man has a right over his own life and war destroys lives that were full of promise.” Einstein and Freud’s little-known correspondence on violence, peace, and human nature

    Einstein on Peace

    Albert Einstein

    “Every man has a right over his own life and war destroys lives that were full of promise.”

    Einstein and Freud’s little-known correspondence on violence, peace, and human nature
  3. Letters to Ms., 1972-1987 Three decades before the golden age of social media, feminist magazine Ms. allowed women to connect and raise their voices together, its remarkable archive of reader letters itself a powerful early form of “social media” – read the best here:

    Letters to Ms., 1972-1987

    Three decades before the golden age of social media, feminist magazine Ms. allowed women to connect and raise their voices together, its remarkable archive of reader letters itself a powerful early form of “social media” – read the best here:
  4. Virtually Normal Andrew Sullivan “Silence, if it does not equal death, equals the living equivalent.” Excerpts from Andrew Sullivan’s seminal 1993 essay “The Politics of Homosexuality,” which changed the discourse on LGBT rights:

    Virtually Normal

    Andrew Sullivan

    “Silence, if it does not equal death, equals the living equivalent.”

    Excerpts from Andrew Sullivan’s seminal 1993 essay “The Politics of Homosexuality,” which changed the discourse on LGBT rights:
  5. Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World Mark Pendergrast “In the form of a hot infusion of its ground, roasted seeds, coffee is consumed for its bittersweet bouquet, its mind-racing jump start, and social bonding.” How coffee changed the world

    Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World

    Mark Pendergrast

    “In the form of a hot infusion of its ground, roasted seeds, coffee is consumed for its bittersweet bouquet, its mind-racing jump start, and social bonding.”

    How coffee changed the world
  6. Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World Matthew Goodman “No female reporter before her had ever seemed quite so audacious, so willing to risk personal safety in pursuit of a story.” The remarkable tale of pioneering Victorian journalist Nellie Bly, who set out to race around the world in 80 days, featuring wonderful illustrations of her packing list by Wendy MacNaughton:

    Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World

    Matthew Goodman

    “No female reporter before her had ever seemed quite so audacious, so willing to risk personal safety in pursuit of a story.”

    The remarkable tale of pioneering Victorian journalist Nellie Bly, who set out to race around the world in 80 days, featuring wonderful illustrations of her packing list by Wendy MacNaughton:
  7. A Natural History Of Love Diane Ackerman “What a small word we use for an idea so immense and powerful it has altered the flow of history, calmed monsters, kindled works of art, cheered the forlorn, turned tough guys to mush, consoled the enslaved, driven strong women mad, glorified the humble, fueled national scandals, bankrupted robber barons, and made mincemeat of kings. How can love’s spaciousness be conveyed in the narrow confines of one syllable? If we search for the source of the word, we find a history vague and confusing, stretching back to the Sanskrit lubhyati (“he desires”). I’m sure the etymology rambles back much farther than that, to a one-syllable word heavy as a heartbeat. Love is an ancient delirium, a desire older than civilization, with taproots stretching deep into dark and mysterious days.” A natural history of love:

    A Natural History Of Love

    Diane Ackerman

    “What a small word we use for an idea so immense and powerful it has altered the flow of history, calmed monsters, kindled works of art, cheered the forlorn, turned tough guys to mush, consoled the enslaved, driven strong women mad, glorified the humble, fueled national scandals, bankrupted robber barons, and made mincemeat of kings. How can love’s spaciousness be conveyed in the narrow confines of one syllable? If we search for the source of the word, we find a history vague and confusing, stretching back to the Sanskrit lubhyati (“he desires”). I’m sure the etymology rambles back much farther than that, to a one-syllable word heavy as a heartbeat. Love is an ancient delirium, a desire older than civilization, with taproots stretching deep into dark and mysterious days.”

    A natural history of love:
  8. What is Remembered Alice B. Toklas “It was Gertrude Stein who held my complete attention, as she did for all the many years I knew her. I knew her until her death, and all these empty ones since then. She was a golden brown presence, burned by the Tuscan sun and with a golden glint in her warm brown hair. She was dressed in a warm brown corduroy suit. She wore a large round coral brooch and when she talked, very little, or laughed, a good deal, I thought her voice came from this brooch. It was unlike anyone else’s voice — deep, full, velvety, like a great contralto’s, like two voices.” How Alice B. Toklas met Gertrude Stein and one of literary history’s greatest loves began:

    What is Remembered

    Alice B. Toklas

    “It was Gertrude Stein who held my complete attention, as she did for all the many years I knew her. I knew her until her death, and all these empty ones since then. She was a golden brown presence, burned by the Tuscan sun and with a golden glint in her warm brown hair. She was dressed in a warm brown corduroy suit. She wore a large round coral brooch and when she talked, very little, or laughed, a good deal, I thought her voice came from this brooch. It was unlike anyone else’s voice — deep, full, velvety, like a great contralto’s, like two voices.”

    How Alice B. Toklas met Gertrude Stein and one of literary history’s greatest loves began:
  9. Daily Rituals: How Artists Work Mason Currey Hemingway wrote standing, Nabokov on index cards, Twain while puffing cigars, and Sitwell in an open coffin – a fascinating inside peek at the creative routines of famous writers:

    Daily Rituals: How Artists Work

    Mason Currey

    Hemingway wrote standing, Nabokov on index cards, Twain while puffing cigars, and Sitwell in an open coffin – a fascinating inside peek at the creative routines of famous writers:
  10. The Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov Andrea Pitzer Nabokov and Homeland Security – how Russia’s most revered literary émigré became an American

    The Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov

    Andrea Pitzer

    Nabokov and Homeland Security – how Russia’s most revered literary émigré became an American
  11. How to Create the Perfect Wife: Britain’s Most Ineligible Bachelor and his Enlightened Quest to Train the Ideal Mate Wendy Moore How an 18th-century bachelor enlisted Rousseau’s teachings in Frankensteining his better-ever half.

    How to Create the Perfect Wife: Britain’s Most Ineligible Bachelor and his Enlightened Quest to Train the Ideal Mate

    Wendy Moore

    How an 18th-century bachelor enlisted Rousseau’s teachings in Frankensteining his better-ever half.
  12. Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation Michael Pollan “What Winston Churchill once said of architecture — “First we shape our buildings, and then they shape us” — might also be said of cooking. First we cooked our food, and then our food cooked us.” Essential reading: Michael Pollan on reclaiming cooking as social glue and anti-corporate activism

    Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation

    Michael Pollan

    “What Winston Churchill once said of architecture — “First we shape our buildings, and then they shape us” — might also be said of cooking. First we cooked our food, and then our food cooked us.”

    Essential reading: Michael Pollan on reclaiming cooking as social glue and anti-corporate activism
  13. The Joy of Sexus: Lust, Love, and Longing in the Ancient World Vicki León “Mouse dung, applied as a liniment, was a favorite anti-aphrodisiac. So was rue boiled with rose oil and aloes. Drinking wine in which a mullet fish had drowned and sipping male urine in which a lizard had expired both had their loyal adherents.” Fascinating excerpt on ancient aphrodisiacs and anti-aphrodisiacs

    The Joy of Sexus: Lust, Love, and Longing in the Ancient World

    Vicki León

    “Mouse dung, applied as a liniment, was a favorite anti-aphrodisiac. So was rue boiled with rose oil and aloes. Drinking wine in which a mullet fish had drowned and sipping male urine in which a lizard had expired both had their loyal adherents.”

    Fascinating excerpt on ancient aphrodisiacs and anti-aphrodisiacs
  14. The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait Frida Kahlo “Only one mountain can know the core of another mountain.” Frida Kahlo’s passionate handwritten love letters to Diego Rivera:

    The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait

    Frida Kahlo

    “Only one mountain can know the core of another mountain.”

    Frida Kahlo’s passionate handwritten love letters to Diego Rivera:
  15. The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City Alan Ehrenhalt “… unrefined, menacing to some, and occasionally violent, but full of the raw energy of day-to-day human existence.” Fascinating anatomy of European street life in 1900:

    The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City

    Alan Ehrenhalt

    “… unrefined, menacing to some, and occasionally violent, but full of the raw energy of day-to-day human existence.”

    Fascinating anatomy of European street life in 1900:
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