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Books

Book hoarding has never been so lucrative.

Cool Finds

Competitive Book Collecting Is a Thing

Young bibliophiles duke it out in the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest

What’s It Like in Space? Ariel Waldman Has the Answers

The NASA adviser and author of a new book gives some insight on living beyond the Earth’s atmosphere

What Questlove Has to Say About Today’s Food-Obsessed Culture

In a new book, the bandleader and hip-hop star stirs up music and cooking

Meet Molly Crabapple, an Artist, Activist, Reporter, and Fire-Eater All in One

With pen and brush, the talented journalist fights for justice in the Middle East, and closer to home

Cool Finds

Roald Dahl’s Iconic Illustrator Inspired This New Font

Quentin Blake’s handwriting has elements of spontaneity and joy

Cool Finds

Muggles Are Selling the Chair in Which ‘Harry Potter’ Was Created

The decorated dining room chair J.K. Rowling used to write her iconic novels is going on sale

"Serra Gaucha," by Guy Laramée

Cool Finds

These Mountains Are Made of Books

An interdisciplinary artist creates landscapes out of encyclopedias

Walt Whitman spent much of the Civil War in hospitals, cheering up wounded soldiers and writing letters on their behalf.

Cool Finds

A Rare Walt Whitman Letter Was Found in the National Archives

The poet wrote the letter on behalf of a dying soldier

You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love #TheShirt

Cool Finds

Mr. Darcy’s Wet Shirt is Coming to the United States

It’s the costume that launched an entire generation of Jane Austen lovers

Mary Louise & the Liberty Girls

The Secret History of the Girl Detective

Long before Nancy Drew, avid readers picked up tales of young women solving mysteries

The Boule & Bill comic by Jean Roba

Europe

How Brussels Became a Real-Life Comic Strip

The city’s colorful murals put it in the running for comic book capital of the world

Innovators May Be Non-Conformists, But They Are Not Risk-Takers

In his new book, Wharton School professor Adam Grant looks at what really drives creativity and progress

Shackleton brought everything from trashy novels to accounts of Arctic rescues with him to Antarctica.

Cool Finds

Historians Finally Figured Out What Was on Shackleton’s Bookshelf

The brave explorer likely found solace in his library

Harper Lee didn't like publicity.

Cool Finds

Listen to a Rare Interview With Harper Lee

“[A]ll I want to be is the Jane Austen of South Alabama,” she told radio host Roy Newquist in 1964

This photograph of Harper Lee was taken in 1961, one year after she wrote for the Grapevine.

Five Things to Know About Harper Lee

The spunky and eloquent author is dead—but her legacy lives on

A 19th-century illustration depicts a scene off the coast of Peru, where bird poop, or guano, was harvested as a valuable agricultural fertilizer.

How the Gold Rush Led to Real Riches in Bird Poop

The ships carrying gold miners to California found a way to strike it rich on the way back with their holds full of guano

Dennis the Menace

Dennis the Menace Has an Evil British Twin

Meet the lovable American cartoon character’s sinister counterpart

New Graphic Novel Writes the Wright Brothers’ Sister Back Into History

Four students journey back to the birth of aviation in ‘The Wrong Wrights’

Onlookers crowd King Street in Alexandria, recently named America's most romantic city.

What’s America’s Most Romantic City?

A new Amazon.com list finds true love in Alexandria, Virginia

Students pledged to speak only Latin, Greek or Hebrew in each other's company in this 1712 note.

Cool Finds

Read About Drama, Politics, Breakfast in These Newly Digitized Colonial Documents

An ambitious Harvard University project brings history to life, archiving nearly half a million documents online

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