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Figuring
Figuring | Maria Popova
Figuring explores the complexities of love and the human search for truth and meaning through the interconnected lives of several historical figures across four centuries--beginning with the astronomer Johannes Kepler, who discovered the laws of planetary motion, and ending with the marine biologist and author Rachel Carson, who catalyzed the environmental movement. Stretching between these figures is a cast of artists, writers, and scientists--mostly women, mostly queer--whose public contribution has risen out of their unclassifiable and often heartbreaking private relationships to change the way we understand, experience, and appreciate the universe. Among them are the astronomer Maria Mitchell, who paved the way for women in science; the sculptor Harriet Hosmer, who did the same in art; the journalist and literary critic Margaret Fuller, who sparked the feminist movement; and the poet Emily Dickinson. Emanating from these lives are larger questions about the measure of a good life and what it means to leave a lasting mark of betterment on an imperfect world: Are achievement and acclaim enough for happiness? Is genius? Is love? Weaving through the narrative is a set of peripheral figures--Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Darwin, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Walt Whitman--and a tapestry of themes spanning music, feminism, the history of science, the rise and decline of religion, and how the intersection of astronomy, poetry, and Transcendentalist philosophy fomented the environmental movement.
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AllDebooks
Figuring | Maria Popova
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#LitSolace #MidsummerSolace

Are you feeling a bit stuck in a rut and in need of inspiration? The Marginalian published a great essay on habits and patterns. Well worth a read and a save.

https://www.themarginalian.org/2019/01/21/shakespeare-hamlet-habit/?fbclid=IwZXh...

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bibliothecarivs
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Recent acquisitions:

📖 Figuring by Maria Popova
📖 Orwell's Roses by Rebecca Solnit

#UniteAgainstBookBans #LetUtahRead

kspenmoll Both fabulous books, although I have not finished Orwell‘s Roses yet. 5mo
7 likes1 comment
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sarahljensen
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Pickpick

I read this book for the second time this year. It soothes my mind and my heart as no other book has

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Heideschrampf
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Did anyone else watch #universeinverse yesterday? It was so good!

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Lindy
Figuring | Maria Popova
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I‘m absolutely thrilled about Popova‘s book winning a Los Angeles Times prize. Also thrilled that the judges placed it in the Science and Technology category.

https://youtu.be/Rg9pA4MC_y0?list=PLdgePvblfv94vi2LEAkHWu1SD8sWGaWwg

kspenmoll Love her. Thank you for sharing this! 5y
Lindy @kspenmoll A pleasure. 😊 5y
41 likes2 comments
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saigeofgreengables
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Next weekend I plan on organizing my shelves. I want to make an "on deck" shelf with all my books to-read! One I'm excited about is Figuring by Maria Popova. #bookshelf #getorganized2020

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charl08
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Where would you go if you had a time machine? (And a stash of antibiotics)

LeahBergen That‘s very cool! 5y
batsy I'm coming along! (bringing toilet paper 😂) 5y
charl08 @LeahBergen @batsy and probably some bug repellant. And deodorant... 5y
28 likes3 comments
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charl08
Figuring | Maria Popova
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I was going to go outside and take an Autumnal picture with my book, but then it started to rain...

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charl08
Figuring | Maria Popova
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I'm wondering what category this book falls into. Non fiction fiction? Littered with quotes that make me want to take notes!

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sarahljensen
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Pickpick

I can't recommend this book strongly enough, nor do I know where to begin. I delayed finishing it because of how much I knew I would miss it.

9 likes1 stack add
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Lindy
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Lots of audiobooks this month. 😎

Louise Which audiobook was your favorite? Right now I‘m listening to the superbly written and very well done audio of James Baldwin‘s 5y
Lindy @Louise Two favourite audiobooks this month: Popova‘s Figuring and Schofield‘s Bina. I love Baldwin too, but I haven‘t yet listened to the one you mentioned. It‘s on my list. 👍 5y
Louise Wow! I didn‘t know Figuring was available as an audiobook! I‘ve made a note of both titles you mentioned and will see if I can get them from the library‘s Libby/Overdrive system. Thanks! 5y
Lindy @Louise Figuring is about 21 hours long in audiobook and I found it mesmerizing. 5y
Louise Sounds great! 👍 5y
44 likes5 comments
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Lindy
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Pickpick

A long & mesmerizing #audiobook narrated by Natascha McElhone, this begins with Kepler in the 17th c & ends with Rachel Carson. In between is a tapestry of the interwoven lives of scientists & artists—with a focus on queer women—showing the cross pollination between art & science, the way poetry & music have inspired discoveries & invention. If you love Popova‘s Brain Pickings blog, you will love this too. ❤️ #LGBTQ #Feminist #nonfiction

Lindy Here‘s a link to Maria Popova‘s website: https://www.brainpickings.org 5y
charl08 Ooh, this has just turned up at the library: looking forward to it. 5y
Lindy @charl08 Enjoy! 5y
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Lindy
Figuring | Maria Popova
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A world without insects would be as dark as a world without stars, shorn of the stardust which makes a world a world.

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Lindy
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Having received more congratulatory calls from friends after the Peanuts nod than after her National Book Award, Carson joked, “I found that true immortality seems to rest in being included in a comic strip.”

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Lindy
Figuring | Maria Popova
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The very term ‘pesticide‘ seemed no longer appropriate to Rachel Carson, for designating any organism as a pest to be decimated for the benefit of another organism, the human animal, was an affront to the elemental interconnectedness of nature. She thought ‘biocide‘ better captured the impossibility of violating earth with such poisons without making it unfit for all life.

Lindy Photo: black swallowtail caterpillars in my garden. 5y
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Lindy
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Nuclear fission would prove to be one of the most powerful and most dangerous discoveries ever made. This triumph of the human intellect over the mysteries of nature became a failure of human morality, as it led to the invention of the atomic bomb.

(Internet photo of Lise Meitner, who discovered nuclear fission.)

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Lindy
Figuring | Maria Popova
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“It is one of the ironies of our time that while concentrating on the defence of our country from enemies without, we should be so heedless of those who would destroy it from within.” —Rachel Carson, in a letter to the editor of the Washington Post.

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Lindy
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Book synchronicity: I just finished Erin Nations‘ autobiographical trans man narrative Gumballs, and then I listen to Maria Popova quoting Emily Dickinson: “Amputate my freckled bosom / make me bearded like a man…”
#LGBTQ

ephemeralwaltz 🙌🙌🙌 5y
38 likes1 comment
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Lindy
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Urania had taken on a different meaning. As sociology and medicine sought to classify identities that diverged from heteronormative sexuality, uranian, coined before homosexual, came to signify a person of a third sex. First, a female psyche in a male body, then more generally those whose attractions differed from the normative standards of their anatomy, or what we today might call queer people.

esurient *gasp* I need those socks. 5y
Lindy @esurient Aren‘t they great? They were a birthday gift. They are from Out of Print. 5y
esurient @Lindy Thank you! 5y
36 likes1 stack add3 comments
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jchawkins
Figuring | Maria Popova
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#top6reads I would highly recommend all of these, for different reasons. Vuong, Roy, and Oz are masters of emotional resonance. Figuring celebrates queer women who changed American history with their lives' works. Brusatte spins a great yarn with nonfiction. And Anzaldúa changed how I see the world.

SamAnne Vuong has been on my list for awhile! 5y
Sunraven Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is on my endless TBR list ... Maybe I‘ll move it up a few notches. 😁 5y
jchawkins @SamAnne he's so good!! 5y
See All 16 Comments
jchawkins @Sunraven it feels like a beach read to me, so the summer is the perfect time for it 😁 5y
Sunraven Good to know! Maybe I can use it to convince myself to go to the beach. 😆 5y
jchawkins @Sunraven I'll leave you to it, I hate the beach 😂 5y
Sunraven I‘m actually sort of terrible at reading on the beach, anyway. I want to just stare at the scenery instead ... I‘d much rather read on a picnic blanket under a tree. Are “picnic reads” a thing? 🤔 5y
jchawkins @Sunraven maybe we call them Alice reads, since Alice fell asleep under the tree and dreamed Wonderland? 😄 5y
Sunraven Or enlightenment reads, since the Buddha was theoretically enlightened under a tree? 😉 Or tea reads, because tea was supposedly invented when a leaf fell into water that was boiling under a tree?

I didn‘t know I knew of so many things that happened under trees. Now I sort of want to put together an anthology involving tree-related occurrences. 🌳
5y
jchawkins @Sunraven or that Odin gained his wisdom under a tree, or that Newton figured out gravity under a tree... 😁 Sounds like a good project to me! 5y
Sunraven This is totally getting written down. Maybe it will even happen, haha. 5y
jchawkins @Sunraven ahahaha yesssss! 5y
merelybookish Sorry for the late response! Ive read a bit of Gloria Anzadula but I need to read more! 5y
merelybookish What an eclectic set of books! I also loved 5y
jchawkins @merelybookish I hear Borderlands is the staple to read by her, but I haven't read that one yet. And yes, I'm a bit of an omnivorous reader! 😅 5y
58 likes16 comments
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BekaReid
Figuring | Maria Popova
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"There is a singular strangeness to those moments when we find ourselves unmoored from our own being, when something seems to pull us beyond ourselves and shock us into the recognition, however momentary, that the self is not the static monolith we take it to be but something dynamic and situationally sculpted into various possibilities of being."

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BekaReid
Figuring | Maria Popova
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As has become my norm, all of the library books came in at once (+2 more hard copies). But Maria Popova's Figuring is amazing!! I already have so many highlights, notes, and more books added to my TBR list, and I'm only at 22%!

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Cartoom
Figuring | Maria Popova
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I have so many quotes from Figuring, many of them meditatively deep as this one, that choosing a flower from the bouquet is a job...

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Cartoom
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Pickpick

I don‘t think that I have ever read a book quite like this one. Besides being a great accomplishment in weaving together the lives of all these magnificent women in terms of research, it stands out in combining beauty and truth much the same way each of the historical characters actually worked and lived. It inspires further reading into the works of Margaret Fuller, Emily Dickinson, Rachel Carson et al. I really recommend it.

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everlocalwest
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Pickpick

I took a lot of time with this audiobook because it is perfection. And now I have to buy a physical copy because I need to reread it. Already got a copy for the mother for mother's day.

25 likes1 stack add
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Cartoom
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Started ‘Figuring‘ out what this is about: It‘s obviously an extremely well-read, discursive, tour-de-force of the life of many important western thinkers, but less obvious a story of how they create meaning scientifically and emotionally. More precisely: How does truth and beauty combine? I learn a lot and the language is beautiful.

Theaelizabet Love Popova. 6y
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everlocalwest
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Took an audio walk around my sister's neighborhood with this fantastic book. All of the spring flowers are happening, from the wild flowers to the beds, this garden had plenty of both.

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Floresj
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Pickpick

There‘s a lot of deep thinking in this book...the anecdotes about brilliant scientists and writers over the years were really interesting. Some parts were a solid 5/5 but other parts dragged a bit for me. It also made me wish I could just read and think all day instead of doing my day job😜.

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PNWBookseller85
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Pickpick

Finally finished this brilliant book. It‘s dense with language, ideas, and history and I am feeling an uncommon sense of accomplishment at having read it from cover to cover. I do recommend it to lovers of history, poetry, science, and damn good stories.

Penny_LiteraryHoarders My library is ordering this in! Added it to the shelf. 6y
96 likes3 stack adds1 comment
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BookishMarginalia
Figuring | Maria Popova
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#ImmersionReading this very well-written and thoroughly engrossing book! #CurrentlyListening

underground_bks I loved this book! Enthralling! 6y
125 likes7 stack adds1 comment
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WanderingBookaneer
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Pickpick

Popova uses a seemingly tenuous thread to connect the biographies of several luminaries. When the last page was read I was in awe of what the author accomplished. I am definitely going to reread this. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

kspenmoll She is beyond amazing!❤️ 6y
116 likes5 stack adds1 comment
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underground_bks
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Pickpick

If biography has traditionally been the craft of drawing out the line of a life from the cobwebs of history, in Figuring, Maria Popova traces each thread of silk in the web of thought that connects her subjects of study. This rich, enlightening journey through feminism, transcendentalism, environmentalism, and philosophy could only be penned by the author of Brainpickings and is sure to break your heart even as your mind soars with every page.

15 likes2 stack adds
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Expandingbookshelf
Figuring | Maria Popova
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“We spend our lives trying to discern where we end and the rest of the world begins. We snatch our freeze-frame of life from the simultaneity of existence by holding on to illusions of permanence, congruence, and linearity; All the while, we mistake chance for choice, our labels and models of things for the things themselves, our records for our history. History is not what happened, but what survives the shipwrecks of judgement and chance.”

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HillsAndHamletsBookshop
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Pickpick

Popova‘s Figuring is a love song in which she celebrates the lives, relationships, & thought of a dozen or so well known (& lesser known) writers and activists (mostly women, mostly queer) of the last few hundred years. A bit meandering at times, the detours are a joy, like strolling through a garden with a brilliant and engaging philosopher. I found sections relating to Emily Dickinson, Margaret Fuller, and Rachel Carson particularly satisfying.

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PNWBookseller85
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Only on chapter 2, and loving this book so far. Read with a dictionary near by!! A daguerreotype is a photograph taken by an early photographic process using and iodine-sensitized silvered plate and mercury vapors. 🤓

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balletbookworm
Figuring | Maria Popova
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Pickpick

For the first third or so of the book I wasn‘t quite sure what Popova was really getting at. There were a lot of historical figures surrounding her “main” subjects and I was having a little bit of trouble keeping up with the jumps back and forth (and I kept confusing Maria Mitchell and Margaret Fuller, oops). But then Popova got to her chapters on Emily Dickinson and just wow. Blew me away. That was when the book began to gel for me.

balletbookworm I began to understand Popova was drawing all these parallels between geniuses ahead of their times, their successes and set-backs, the rich relationships they formed (some romantic, some not, some that could be considered queer, some more “conventional”), and how their work creates a web from generation to generation, from Kepler to Dickinson to Rachel Carson. A book to be savored. 6y
Libby1 This sounds AMAZING. Thank you for sharing. 6y
30 likes2 stack adds2 comments
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Patchshank
Figuring | Maria Popova
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https://www.brainpickings.org/

This a website, or maybe it's more of a blog, that I really enjoy. I've discovered many amazing books and a couple interests and insights because of it. I just thought I'd share it in case anyone else might enjoy it.

Tonton Love it! 6y
34 likes1 comment
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balletbookworm
Figuring | Maria Popova
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- Maria Edgeworth to Mary Somerville, regarding Somerville‘s The Mechanism of the Heavens, as quoted in Chapter 5 of @brainpicker Figuring, out in February.

Maria Edgeworth has accurately described a book hangover and I‘m stealing it. Also, this book is a really fascinating look at the links that connect so many brilliant people through the generations.