Maria Popova's Book Recommendations

"An uncommonly moving autobiography."

"You will find yourself at once infinitely gladdened by [the author]'s enduring ideas and infinitely saddened by the self-fulfilling prophecy embedded in this particular one."

"A meditation on what the gruesome experience of Auschwitz taught [the author] about the primary purpose of life: the quest for meaning, which sustained those who survived."

"So powerful, so enduring, so fiercely necessary today."

"An extraordinary celebration of smallness and the grandeur of life."

"[The author's] magnificent memoir of the writing life, at once disarmingly personal and brimming with widely resonant wisdom on the most universal challenges and joys of writing."

"I’m actually gobsmacked that this isn’t required in order to be sworn into office, like the Constitution is required for us American immigrants when it comes time to gain American citizenship."

"A book I continue to consider an existential Bible of secular scripture."

"Favorite books of 2022 – from Rumi to Blake to Nick Cave, by way of trees, hummingbirds, grief, and music"

"Favorite books of 2022 – from Rumi to Blake to Nick Cave, by way of trees, hummingbirds, grief, and music"

"A poignant reminder of what we so deeply intuit yet so easily forget and so chronically fail to put into practice."

"Explores the sometimes subtle, sometimes radical changes we can make in our everyday cognitive strategies in order to avoid ending up unhappy and disappointed."

"Lovely, and profound, and challenge our existing ideas about sensory experience."

"Favorite books of 2022 – from Rumi to Blake to Nick Cave, by way of trees, hummingbirds, grief, and music"

"Spectacular and pause-giving in its entirety — the kind of perspective-normalizing read that reminds us both how far we’ve come and how much further we have yet to go."

"Favorite books of 2022 – from Rumi to Blake to Nick Cave, by way of trees, hummingbirds, grief, and music"

"Favorite books of 2022 – from Rumi to Blake to Nick Cave, by way of trees, hummingbirds, grief, and music"

"Favorite books of 2022 – from Rumi to Blake to Nick Cave, by way of trees, hummingbirds, grief, and music"

"Favorite books of 2022 – from Rumi to Blake to Nick Cave, by way of trees, hummingbirds, grief, and music"

"Favorite books of 2022 – from Rumi to Blake to Nick Cave, by way of trees, hummingbirds, grief, and music"

"Favorite books of 2022 – from Rumi to Blake to Nick Cave, by way of trees, hummingbirds, grief, and music"

"Favorite books of 2022 – from Rumi to Blake to Nick Cave, by way of trees, hummingbirds, grief, and music"