{"title":"Maria Popova","description":"\u003cp\u003eMaria Popova’s works invite readers into a richly woven tapestry of knowledge, blending \u003cem\u003escience\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003enature\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eculture\u003c\/em\u003e with poetic insight and profound curiosity. From explorations of the cosmos to reflections on the natural world, her books offer thoughtful perspectives that engage both the mind and the imagination.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith touches of \u003cstrong\u003eeducation\u003c\/strong\u003e, \u003cstrong\u003ecurrent affairs\u003c\/strong\u003e, and even \u003cem\u003echildren’s literature\u003c\/em\u003e, her collection is a celebration of wonder and learning, perfect for those drawn to books that enlighten as much as they inspire.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"figuring-by-maria-popova-9781786897268","title":"Figuring","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFiguring\u003c\/em\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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eStretching 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eEmanating 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?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWeaving 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\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46520887902444,"sku":"9781786897268","price":36.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/5501723482824.jpg?v=1749001249"},{"product_id":"the-universe-in-verse-by-maria-popova-9781635868838","title":"The Universe in Verse","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Universe in Verse\u003c\/i\u003e is an ode to wonder and an exploration of the human search for truth and meaning.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePoetry and science, as Popova writes in her introduction, \"are instruments for knowing the world more intimately and loving it more deeply.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn 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 under-recognised—and poets inspired by the same questions and the beauty they reveal.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eEach 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.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46855298646252,"sku":"9781635868838","price":39.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781635868838.jpg?v=1759266372"},{"product_id":"an-almanac-of-birds-by-maria-popova-9781837265411","title":"An Almanac of Birds","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHow 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOriginally 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 \u003ci\u003eBirds of America\u003c\/i\u003e to John and Elizabeth Gould's \u003ci\u003eBirds of Europe\u003c\/i\u003e—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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePresented as a deck of cards tucked into a book-safe in the style of a 19th-century ornithology tome, \u003ci\u003eAn Almanac of Birds\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47288353226988,"sku":"9781837265411","price":79.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/82d26b6f98c72916f475e970707e7188.jpg?v=1770634244"},{"product_id":"the-coziest-place-on-the-moon-by-maria-popova-9781592704378","title":"The Coziest Place on the Moon","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom \u003ci\u003eMarginalian\u003c\/i\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\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Feeling 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. Re'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. Each 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":"Thames and Hudson (Australia) Pty Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47288874959084,"sku":"9781592704378","price":34.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/1492333482755.jpg?v=1770578151"},{"product_id":"traversal-by-maria-popova-9781837265619","title":"Traversal","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eTraversal\u003c\/em\u003e, 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?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePopova 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWoven 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBy turns epic and intimate, \u003cem\u003eTraversal\u003c\/em\u003e explores the universe between cells and souls to reveal the world, and our lives, in a dazzling new light.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47496836382956,"sku":"9781837265619","price":69.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781837265619-traversal.jpg?v=1775800391"},{"product_id":"russia-and-ukraine-by-maria-popova-9781509557370","title":"Russia and Ukraine","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 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?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eRussia and Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Diverging States\u003c\/i\u003e, 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAs 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47598092648684,"sku":"9781509557370","price":42.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/e8414b2864b330c6fee8eca55fb5627d.jpg?v=1778027397"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/collections\/maria-popova.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}