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Books

Madeleine L'Engle, with granddaughters Charlotte and Léna, in 1976.

The Beloved, Baffling ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ Was Rejected By 26 Publishers

Author Madeleine L’Engle, whose birthday is today, almost quit writing before it was published

New Research

Researchers Find Word Optimism Is Linked to National Misery

Even Pollyanna changes her tune in times of war and economic hardship

Trending Today

Why Xenophobia Is Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year

The word derived from Greek roots captured the zeitgeist of 2016

Caedmon’s lofty slogan was “A third dimension for the printed page.”

The Christmas Tale Spoken Record That Launched the Audiobook

Narrated by Dylan Thomas, the album would go on to sell 400,000 copies

James Welch is featured on today's Google home page in honor of his birthday.

Google Makes Ledger Art to Celebrate Legendary Native American Author James Welch

In an exclusive interview with Smithsonian.com, artist Sophie Diao talks about what inspired today’s Google Doodle

Author Steven Johnson looks at many of history's "artifacts of the future" that hinted at huge technological, scientific and cultural breakthroughs to come in his new book, Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

If Necessity Is the Mother of Invention, Then Play Is Its Father

In a new book, Steven Johnson argues that many inventions, considered mindless amusements in their time, wind up leading to serious innovations later

"Ginzer" Kiki Smith, 2000 Aquatint, drypoint, and burnishing etching on paper. Smith placed the corpse of her cat on the plate and traced the outline to produce the image of the etching before burying him to create the etching.

Cool Finds

A Massive Collection of Cat Art Is up for Auction

The results of an art teacher’s passion project are for sale

A legal rumpus threw the author's epic book collection into question.

Trending Today

Legal Dispute Over Maurice Sendak’s Epic Book Collection Gets Wild

A legal rumpus has concluded—but have concerns about the author’s legacy only just begun?

Dove

Cool Finds

Hi-Res Photography Reveals New Details of the Centuries Old Aberdeen Bestiary

Fingerprints, wear marks and other details show the beautiful manuscript was once a teaching tool, not a royal collectible

An annotated note hidden in the margins of an 18th-century mathematical manuscript by a past restoration attempt.

Cool Finds

How Experts Are Digitizing Ancient Manuscripts

Digital preservation is more work than it might seem

Argentinians look on as Marta Minují's 1983 Parthenon of books is removed with a crane. The artist will recreate her installation on a grander scale in Germany next year.

Cool Finds

An Artist Is Building a Parthenon of Banned Books

More than 100,000 books will become a monument to intellectual freedom in Germany next year

Tourists and Cubans gamble at the casino in the Hotel Nacional in Havana, 1957. Meyer Lansky, who led the U.S. mob’s exploitation of Cuba in the 1950s, set up a famous meeting of crime bosses at the hotel in 1946.

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Cuba

When the Mob Owned Cuba

Best-selling author T.J. English discusses the Mob’s profound influence on Cuban culture and politics in the 1950s

The original Frankenstein didn't create a bride for his creature–and with good scientific reason.

New Research

Scientists Find That Frankenstein’s Monster Could Have Wiped Out Humanity

Thank goodness his creator never finished his proposed girlfriend

Trending Today

Five Things to Know About Evangelical Cartoonist Jack Chick

The controversial artist died after 50 years of publishing comics

Harry and the Potters live in concert in 2007.

Cool Finds

A Brief History of Wizard Rock

This Halloween, check out a genre devoted to Harry Potter’s Wizarding World

Portrait thought to be Christopher Marlowe

Cool Finds

What to Know About Shakespeare’s Newly Credited Collaborator Christopher Marlowe

Textual analysis convinced the editors of The New Oxford Shakespeare to make Marlowe a co-author on the “Henry VI” plays, parts 1, 2 and 3

A rare book depicting the sea monk by Guillaume Rondelet (1507-1566) in the Smithsonian Libraries dates to 1554.

Renaissance Europe Was Horrified by Reports of a Sea Monster That Looked Like a Monk Wearing Fish Scales

Something fishy this way comes

In her new book, the acclaimed Thunder & Lightning: Weather, Past, Present and Future, Lauren Redniss is intrigued by how people have coped with, survived, or failed in extreme weather situations.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

How the 2016 MacArthur Genius Award Recipient Lauren Redniss Is Rethinking Biography

The visual biographer of Marie and Pierre Curie turns to her next subject, weather, lightning and climate change

Chicago gangster Al Capone wearing a bathing suit at his Florida home. Ca. 1929-31

Seeking the Humanity of Al Capone

Through interviews with his descendants, one biographer sees the family man behind the infamous gangster

The Curious George series has sold 10,000 times the initial print run.

When Curious George Made a Daring Escape From the Nazis

The authors of the children’s book series fled wartime France with the manuscript tied to their bikes

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