I know some of you don't like lists, or are tired of year-end summaries, but I love both of those things and thought I'd make a list of my own.
Here are some of my favorite blogs of the year, in alphabetical order, since there's not really a unifying theme. I'm an omnivorous liberal artist type, so my favorites range from science and technology to knitting, with some lit-crit writing in between.
The sites, with a brief description from each site:
- 3 Quarks Daily: On this website, my fellow editors and guest authors and I hope to present interesting items from around the web on a daily basis, in the areas of science, design, literature, current affairs, art, and anything else we deem inherently fascinating.
- Barking up the Wrong Tree is proud to be listed on blogrolls at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. My Wired Magazine columns are here.
- Brain Pickings is the brain child of Maria Popova, an interestingness hunter-gatherer and curious mind at large, who also writes for Wired UK andThe Atlantic, among others, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow. She gets occasional help from a handful of guest contributors. Brain Pickings is a human-powered discovery engine for interestingness, culling and curating cross-disciplinary curiosity-quenchers, and separating the signal from the noise to bring you things you didn’t know you were interested in until you are.
- The Everywhereist: (My friend, Geraldine. One of the top 3 funniest people I know.) The story behind the blog. My husband’s job requires him to travel. A lot. For years, I sat behind a desk while he wandered around the world without me. It sucked for both of us, but probably more for me. Then, one day, I was laid off. It might have been one of the best things that ever happened to me. Since then, I’ve been following him around the world. This blog is mostly for him. So he can remember the places we’ve visited, the things we saw. So he can know a little bit about what I see when he’s off giving presentations and having meetings. Yes, it’s a travel blog. But at its core, it’s a love letter to my husband. A big, long, cuss-filled love letter. The kind he’d appreciate. The only kind I’m able to write.
- Feld Thoughts: (My husband.) Brad is one of the managing directors at Foundry Group, a venture capital firm that invests in early stage software / Internet companies throughout the United States. He is also the co-founder of TechStars, a mentor-driven accelerator, author of several books and blogs, and a marathon runner.
- The Happiness Project: Gretchen Rubin is one of the most thought-provoking and influential writers on happiness. Her books Happier at Home and The Happiness Project were both instant New York Times bestsellers, and The Happiness Project has spent more than a year on the bestseller list. Here, she writes about her adventures as she test-drives the studies and theories about how to be happier.
- It's Okay to Be Smart: This is a blog about science. But it’s probably not about science the way you’re used to it. I’m a biology Ph.D. student by day, and I curate and publish everything you see here. We live in the future, and that future is one in which science impacts every part of our lives. But too many people aren’t taking part in that future. Too many aren’t taking part in science. We must teach science as more than facts. It’s a creative process, it’s an instant injection of wonderment, it’s the excitement we feel at the edge of knowledge. It’s for everyone.
- The Paris Review. Founded in Paris by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton in 1953, The Paris Review began with a simple editorial mission: “Dear reader,” William Styron wrote in a letter in the inaugural issue, “The Paris Review hopes to emphasize creative work—fiction and poetry—not to the exclusion of criticism, but with the aim in mind of merely removing criticism from the dominating place it holds in most literary magazines and putting it pretty much where it belongs, i.e., somewhere near the back of the book. I think The Paris Review should welcome these people into its pages: the good writers and good poets, the non-drumbeaters and non-axe-grinders. So long as they're good.” Decade after decade, the Review has introduced the important writers of the day.
- Singularity Hub: Science, Technology, The Future of Mankind. Singularity Hub is a blog and news network covering the latest in robots, genetics, longevity, artificial intelligence, aging, stem cells, and more. The singularity is the point in mankind’s future when we will transcend current intellectual and biological limitations and initiate an intelligence and information explosion beyond imagining.
- Slow Love Life: I want to write about moving at a gentler, more loving pace in everything I do, learning to appreciate the beauty of everyday moments, the wisdom of thinking things over. I was forced to slow down when I lost my job--and the journey of grieving and recovery is what my book is about. Slow living led me to falling in love with the world, experiencing what I think of as slow love.
- Yarn Harlot: Stephanie Pearl-McPhee goes on (and on) about knitting
- Zen Habits is about finding simplicity in the daily chaos of our lives. It’s about clearing the clutter so we can focus on what’s important, create something amazing, find happiness.