Maria Popova

© Allan Amato

Maria Popova thinks and writes about our search for meaning—sometimes through science and philosophy, sometimes through poetry and children’s books, always through the lens of wonder. She is the creator of The Marginalian (born in 2006 under the name Brain Pickings), which is included in the Library of Congress permanent digital archive of culturally valuable materials. She has written some very long books (Figuring and Traversal) and some very short books (The Snail with the Right Heart and The Coziest Place on the Moon), and her show The Universe in Verse—a charitable celebration of the wonder of reality through stories of science winged with poetry—has also become a book the length of a day on Saturn.

Featured
An Almanac of Birds: 100 Divinations for Uncertain Days
An Almanac of Birds: 100 Divinations for Uncertain Days
$45.00

Maria Popova

From writer Maria Popova, creator of The Marginalian, comes a gorgeous and inspiring book of cards: one hundred “divinations” for daily living, partway between poem and koan yet neither, collaged from the texts and illustrations of 19th-century ornithological books.

Featured
Alpha and Omega
Alpha and Omega
$19.00

Jane Ellen Harrison

Foreword by Maria Popova

From Marginalian Editions: a far-seeing essay collection by the iconoclastic historian Jane Ellen Harrison—heroine to generations of writers from Virginia Woolf to Mary Beard—that explores the invisible tendrils between science and the sacred, the psychology of bias, the fulcrum of progress, and the countercultural courage of changing our minds in light of new understanding.

Is Peace Possible?
Is Peace Possible?
$24.00

Kathleen Lonsdale

Foreword by Maria Popova

Marginalian Editions presents a trailblazing Quaker scientist’s slender masterwork of moral courage, penned at the height of the Cold War, envisioning a transformation of the human spirit and our politics that might enable the triumph of peace.

Willard Gibbs: The Whole Is Simpler than Its Parts
Willard Gibbs: The Whole Is Simpler than Its Parts
$32.00

Muriel Rukeyser

Foreword by Maria Popova

Marginalian Editions presents a groundbreaking poet’s biography of the forgotten scientist who founded physical chemistry, shaping much of the 20th century—and an ingenious, expansive treatise on American creativity, character, and remembrance.

The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral
Stock Coming Soon
The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral
$24.00

Diane Ackerman

Foreword by Maria Popova

From Marginalian Editions comes a gorgeous reissue of celebrated poet and naturalist Diane Ackerman’s debut: a soaring ode to our solar system, planet to planet, blending science and imagination, astronomy and cosmology, as well as fantasy, satire, myth, and confession.

COMING FEB 24, 2026

Blackie & Co.: Blackbirds in My Garden
Stock Coming Soon
Blackie & Co.: Blackbirds in My Garden
$19.00

Hockley Clarke

Foreword by Maria Popova

From Marginalian Editions comes a moving meditation on our connection with other creatures, told through the unforgettable story of a family of blackbirds sharing a birder’s backyard garden. 

COMING MAY 26, 2026

Featured
Announcing Marginalian Editions
Announcing Marginalian Editions

We’re delighted to announce the launch of Marginalian Editions — a collaboration between McNally Jackson Books and Maria Popova, the visionary writer and creator of The Marginalian (born under the name Brain Pickings).