The Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings)✓

20 favorite children's books from 20 years of The Marginalian

On Sylvia Plath's birthday, Patti Smith reads her haunting portrait of depression

“Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” The story behind one of the greatest poems ever written, and a rare recording of Dylan Thomas (born on this day in 1914) reading it:

Sylvia Plath, who would have been 92 today, on living with the darkness and making art out of the barely bearable lightness of being

Marcus Aurelius on the good luck of your bad luck – the Stoic strategy for turning suffering into strength

Meryl Streep reads "Morning Song" by Sylvia Plath, who would have been 94 today

“Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” The story behind one of the greatest poems ever written, and a rare recording of Dylan Thomas (born on this day in 1914) reading it

20 favorite books from 20 years of The Marginalian

When the Oxford children's dictionary discarded dozens of nature-words—"dandelion," "fern," "starling"—as irrelevant to children's imagination and replaced them with words like "broadband" and "cut-and-paste," this inspired act of resistance was born:

Sundogs and the sacred geometry of wonder – the fascinating science of the phenomenon that inspired Hilma af Klint, born on this day in 1862

"When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment." On this day in 1963, JFK delivered one of the greatest (and truest) speeches of all time

Tchaikovsky on depression and finding beauty amid the wreckage of the soul

Oliver Sacks on the 3 essential elements of creativity

Bob Dylan on the unconscious mind and the ideal conditions for creative work

The Baloney Detection Kit – Carl Sagan's timeless tenets of critical thinking

20 favorite children's books from 20 years of The Marginalian:

20 favorite books from 20 years of The Marginalian

Although he won the Nobel Prize for his fiction, I think John Steinbeck's greatest masterpiece is this strange, splendid book at the intersection of marine biology and philosophy:

The power of surrender and the paradox of self-transcendence – timeless wisdom from The Moomins

The greatest commencement address of all time – Nobel-winning poet Joseph Brodsky's 6 rules for playing the game of life like a winner