Sublime

Rachel Carson returned her borrowed stardust to the universe 60 years ago today, having forever changed our relationship to the living world. Link in profile for her breathtaking deathbed letter to her soul mate about the meaning of life.

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me. I wanted to be buried. If I must depart this life, I thought, let me live on in the soil: let me feed the earthworms, nourish the roots of the trees, like my mother and her mother before her.

Emilia Hart • Weyward: Discover the unique, original and unforgettable fiction debut novel of 2023 – a BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick and #2 Times Bestseller

In four billion years, our own star will follow its fate, collapsing into a white dwarf. We exist only by chance, after all. The Voyager will still be sailing into the interstellar shorelessness on the wings of the “heavenly breezes” Kepler had once imagined, carrying Beethoven on a golden disc crafted by a symphonic civilization that long ago made... See more

Maria Popova • Figuring

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 Br... See more

Maria Popova • Figuring

“It was the Fourth of July, and I had forgotten all of wide space and all of historical time. I opened the blinds a crack like eyelids, and it all came exploding in on me at once—oh yes, the world.” — Annie Dillard, The Writing Life