All articles from The Marginalian
A Decalogue for the Dignity of Growing Old: Eva Perón’s Revolutionary Rights of the Elderly
In modern society, Simone de Beauvoir observed in her later years, “it is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life” — it is something upon which the vast majority of humanity loo
Favorite Books of 2025
Because I read for the same reason I write — to fathom my life and deepen my living — looking back on a year of life has always been looking back on a year of reading. Here are the books I read this y
Beatitude: Poet John Keene’s Spell Against Despair
How do we live whole in a breaking world? It helps to bless what is simply for being. It helps to thank everything for its unbidden everythingness. And still we need help — help holding on to the beau
The Lighthouse Keeper: A Tender Illustrated Meditation on What Saves Us
“I have always felt that a human being could only be saved by another human being,” James Baldwin wrote in one of his finest essays. “I am aware that we do not save each other very often. But I am als
Little Free Library Divinations: Searching for the Meaning of Life in Discarded Books and Found Objects
The son of a Wisconsin schoolteacher, Todd Bol was well into his fifties when he dreamt up the first Little Free Library, not expecting that tens of thousands of these tiny shrines to the love of read
The Indissoluble Filament Connecting Us All: Patti Smith on What It Means to Be an Artist
Every visionary, every person of greatness and originality, is a resounding yes to life — to the truth of their own experience, to the demanding restlessness of the creative spirit, to the beauty and
Aldo Leopold on How to Hear the Song of Life
The point, of course, is to see the whole — what Virginia Woolf called “the thing itself.” Not just to uncover the fragments and discover how each works but to understand their harmonic unity — the su