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Figuring

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Figuring

By: Maria Popova
Narrated by: Natascha McElhone
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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 have 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.

Accolades & Awards

Los Angeles Times Book Prize
2019
Los Angeles Times Book Prize Women Biographies & Memoirs Gender Studies Social Sciences Inspiring
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Masterful Interconnections • Sweeping Historical Perspective • Beautiful Reading Voice • Intellectual Depth

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The detail of the lives, conversations and accomplishments by and between notable women in American history. Thanks Maria!

Insights into notable American women

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A beautifully told series of vignettes illustrating the author's sweeping vision of the human condition

Absolutely overwhelming

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There was so much beautiful history packed in to this book that I will be reading it again and again.

A beautiful read

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Beautiful writing that introduced me to many new people and gave me more info about familiar ones. A bit slow at times but overall worth the time. It is a different structure but once I caught on, I liked how it kept me on my toes.

Learned a lot - great audiobook

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What a book. What a treasure. I immediately subscribed to The Marginalian, the author’s blog, upon finishing this book. My reading list for the next several years is Fuller, Dickinson, Emerson, Carson. I’m so grateful to have been pushed back towards these giants as an adult.

Unparalleled

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