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7 great science books of 2017

Albert Einstein comics graphic novels science and technology science

Einstein’s life and legacy, in a graphic novel.

Albert Einstein graphic novels comics science and technology science Corinne Maier Anne Simon art and design physics illustration

Albert Einstein’s brilliant and unusual life, in a graphic novel.

Tom Gauld time comics art and design

This Tom Gauld comic for New Scientist gives a whole new meaning to Alan Watts’s assertion that “hurrying and delaying are alike ways of trying to resist the present.”

And yet moss is one of the most magical organisms on our planet.

Calvin and Hobbes Bill Watterson commencement commencement address culture and society thought and opinion education comics creativity and innovation advice creativity

The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive.

On this day in 1990, Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson gave his magnificent Kenyon College commencement address about integrity and the creative life.

Alison Bechdel writing lit thought and opinion culture and society comics creativity creativity and innovation

The brilliant Alison Bechdel on what her experience of writing about her mother taught her about writing.

Alison Bechdel comics family art and design

The brilliant Alison Bechdel on family, writing, self-doubt, and how the messiness of life foments the creative conscience.

Sigmund Freud comics graphic novels history and literature psychology art and design

For Freud’s 160th birthday, an illustrated homage to his life and legacy.

Umberto Eco Peanuts Charles Schulz thought and opinion culture and society comics art and design media and communication

[Charles Schulz’s Peanuts characters] demand from the reader a continuous act of empathy, a participation in the inner warmth that pervades the events.

The late, great Umberto Eco on the poetry of Peanuts. Also see how Schulz made an art of childhood’s difficult emotions and his underappreciated advocacy of civil rights, then revisit Eco on the future of the book and his advice to writers.

Neil Gaiman comics lit history and literature culture and society gender

The idea of dreaming always fascinates me. The idea that even the most normal people close their eyes for six, seven, eight hours a night and during that time, for several hours, go absolutely and utterly stark-staring mad is beautiful. I think I love my dreaming process because one of the things that my dreaming process does is sort out stories for me. I will go to sleep stuck on what happens next. I will wake up, and somewhere these boys in the back room have been moving heavy furniture around. They’ve been digging. They’ve been painting. They’ve been plastering. And they present me with the solution.

Neil Gaiman visits NPR’s Fresh Air to celebrate the release of The Sandman Overture. Also see Gaiman on how stories last and his philosophical dream, animated.

Writers and dreams have an abiding relationship – Dostoyevsky discovered the meaning of life in a dream and Steinbeck presaged how commercial media is killing creative culture in one.

Complement with poet Mark Strand’s beautiful ode to dreams.

Ada Lovelace science and technology tech history and literature history comics Sydney Padua

For Ada Lovelace’s 200th birthday today, the thrilling illustrated story of how she and Charles Babbage invented the world’s first computer.

education sex education culture and society comics

Sex Is a Funny Word – wonderfully intelligent and inclusive illustrated primer on sexuality and befriending one’s body.

Peanuts Charles Schulz Snoopy space NASA art and design comics

This drawing of Snoopy celebrating NASA’s Apollo 10 space program comes from this new trove of previously unseen Peanuts art – dive in here.

T.S. Eliot comics art and design art Julian Peters poetry lit history and literature

T.S. Eliot’s “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” in a comic by artist Julian Peters – a fine addition to the graphic canon of literary comics.

Complement with Edward Gorey’s timelessly delightful illustrations for T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

(HT Open Culture)

Charles Schulz Peanuts Charlie Brown art art and design culture and society comics

Charles Schulz and the art of Peanuts – a new trove of previously unpublished artwork and ephemera, assembled by beloved graphic designer and Peanuts nerd Chip Kidd.