{"title":"Books by Maria Popova","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781786897268","title":"Figuring","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eFiguring\u003c\/i\u003e 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 catalysed the environmental movement. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 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. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43205471862962,"sku":"9781786897268","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781786897268_7250bf18-5a55-45fc-9eb3-772c0a57895b.jpg?v=1786025568"},{"product_id":"9781509557370","title":"Russia and Ukraine – Entangled Histories, Divering States","description":"In February 2022, Russian missiles rained on Ukrainian cities, and tanks rolled towards Kyiv to end Ukrainian independent statehood. President Zelensky declined a Western evacuation offer and Ukrainians rallied to defend their country. What are the roots of this war, which has upended the international legal order and brought back the spectre of nuclear escalation? How did these supposedly “brotherly peoples” become each other’s worst nightmare? In Russia and Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Diverging States, Maria Popova and Oxana Shevel explain how since 1991 Russia and Ukraine diverged politically, ending up on a collision course. Russia slid back into authoritarianism and imperialism, while Ukraine consolidated a competitive political system and pro-European identity. As Ukraine built a democratic nation-state, Russia refused to accept it and came to see it as an “anti-Russia” project. After political and economic pressure proved ineffective, and even counterproductive, Putin went to war to force Ukraine back into the fold of the “Russian world.” Ukraine resisted, determined to pursue European integration as a sovereign state. These irreconcilable goals, rather than geopolitical wrangling between Russia and the West over NATO expansion, are – the authors argue – essential to understanding Russia’s war on Ukraine.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56302555201909,"sku":"9781509557370","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781509557370_ac506cc0-a8d7-4a4d-8ee3-835aa409155e.jpg?v=1786022093"},{"product_id":"9781592703494","title":"The Snail with the Right Heart","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eBased on a real scientific event and inspired by a beloved real human in the author’s life, this is a story about science and the poetry of existence...\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e★ A \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eKirkus \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eBest Book of 2021: A Best Informational Picture Book\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ★ \u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eSpirituality \u0026amp; Practice\u003c\/i\u003e Best Spiritual Book of 2021\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Snail with the Right Heart\u003c\/i\u003e is a story about time and chance, genetics and gender, love and death, evolution and infinity—concepts often too abstract for the human mind to fathom, often more accessible to the young imagination; concepts made fathomable in the concrete, finite life of one tiny, unusual creature dwelling in a pile of compost amid an English garden. Emerging from this singular life is a lyrical universal invitation not to mistake difference for defect and to welcome, across the accordion scales of time and space, diversity as the wellspring of the universe’s beauty and resilience.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis boldly illustrated book about evolution for children features a large gatefold that opens up to immerse readers in the story and will help kids understand that nature is all about differentiation and that being different is beautiful.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56305013588341,"sku":"9781592703494","price":18.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781592703494_0484370f-e9c1-4385-a897-a41f2b308f94.jpg?v=1786023491"},{"product_id":"9781635868838","title":"The Universe in Verse","description":"\u003cb\u003eIn this book of illustrated essays, Maria Popova, creator of \u003ci\u003eThe Marginalian\u003c\/i\u003e, presents a celebration of the human search for truth and beauty through the lenses of science and poetry.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Poetry and science,\" as Popova writes in her introduction, \"are instruments for knowing the world more intimately and loving it more deeply.\" In 15 short essays on subjects ranging from the mystery of dark matter and the infinity of pi to the resilience of trees and the intelligence of octopuses, Popova tells the stories of scientific searching and discovery. These stories are interwoven with details from the very real and human lives of scientists—many of them women, many underrecognized—and poets inspired by the same questions and the beauty they reveal. Each essay is paired with a poem reflecting its subject by poets ranging from Emily Dickinson, W. H. Auden, and Edna St. Vincent Millay to Maya Angelou, Diane Ackerman, and Tracy K. Smith, and is stunningly illustrated by celebrated artist Ofra Amit. Together, they wake us to a \"reality aglow with wonder.\"","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56305182212469,"sku":"9781635868838","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781635868838_bb0b8377-021c-4a7a-bd59-e8ccc7271172.jpg?v=1786023428"},{"product_id":"9781592704378","title":"The Coziest Place on the Moon","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eMarginalian\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e creator Maria Popova and acclaimed illustrator Sarah Jacoby comes this gorgeous picture book about the dark side of the moon, and creative solitude as an antidote to loneliness.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e Big Indie Children’s Book of Fall 2025! \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eOne of Betsy Bird's Top Unconventional Children's Books of 2025! \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA Politics \u0026amp; Prose Children \u0026amp; Teen Favorite of 2025!\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFeeling like the loneliest creature on Earth, Re decides to go live in the coziest place on the moon. Re packs a suitcase and takes off on a beam of light, shooting out into the cosmic aloneness of space.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRe's aim is to go into the cozy nook that the moon is said to possess. But shortly after arriving, Re makes a surprising discovery: Re is not alone. Indeed, another lonely soul has beaten Re there! And so, Re meets Mi, and while each lives in their own chamber of the nook, these two single souls still become, at times, a kind of togetherness.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEach remains alone but less lonely, and now each can watch over the solitude of the other. Moreover, on certain nights, the solitary songs of them both might be heard cadencing the night together, in harmony, across the vast and starry sky.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56369040654709,"sku":"9781592704378","price":13.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781592704378_22c0903a-2637-4b77-8bd3-1d579f40ce80.jpg?v=1786023532"},{"product_id":"9781837265619","title":"Traversal","description":"In Traversal, Maria Popova traverses the border between life and death, chance and choice, chemistry and consciousness: what makes a body a person? What makes a planet a world? How do we safeguard our love of truth from our lust for power? What slakes our longings and what redeems our losses? Popova illuminates our various instruments of reckoning with these questions - our telescopes and our treatises, our postulates and our poems - through the intertwined lives, loves and legacies of visionaries both celebrated and sidelined by history, people born into the margins of their time and place who lived to write the future: Mary Shelley, Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglass, Fanny Wright. Woven throughout their stories are other threads - the decoding of the insulin molecule, the invention of the bicycle, how nature creates blue - which come together to create a rich tapestry of life's meaning; exploring what it is that makes life alive and worth living.    By turns epic and intimate, Traversal explores the universe between cells and souls to reveal the world, and our lives, in a dazzling new light.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56369307648373,"sku":"9781837265619","price":28.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781837265619_d899c18f-e118-4747-bb85-6464b2ed00a1.jpg?v=1786028167"},{"product_id":"9781837265411","title":"An Almanac of Birds","description":"How do we live with uncertainty? Maria Popova was navigating a challenging season, longing for guidance, when she conceived of this project fusing her love of birds and her love of language, her scepticism about tarot and her compassion for the basic human yearning to be shown the way through.   Originally intended as a gift to her friends, she set out to create an avian alternative to tarot - a deck of cards for making sense of the present, for finding grace in the complexities and confusions of our human lives. Each night before sleep, she chose a single bird from a favourite 19th-century ornithological book - from John James Audubon's Birds of America to John and Elizabeth Gould's Birds of Europe - letting her wakeful mind seize a handful of words and phrases from the page, then handing them over to her unconscious to wrestle with in the land of dreams. Each morning, she would read over the text and compose a message - not a poem, not a prescription, but eavesdropping on the conversation between logic and intuition, between knowledge and mystery, between the part of us that already knows how to live through any perplexity and the part that forgets in the overwhelming act of living.   Presented as a deck of cards tucked into book-safe in the style of a 19th-century ornithology tome, An Almanac of Birds gathers one hundred of these poetic collages for readers to savour and shuffle into relevance to their own lives, offering consolation, inspiration and assurance for the daily perplexity of living.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56420055187829,"sku":"9781837265411","price":35.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781837265411_325175f2-0aa9-467f-8b88-d1b3dac5a168.jpg?v=1786028165"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-maria-popova.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}