Letters to a Young Poet
1908 · 123 pages
Ten letters answer a nineteen-year-old cadet who asked whether his poems were good. Rilke declines to judge them and tells him to go into himself and ask whether he must write.
★ 6.9
The Books canon
Sourced and shelved.
Every book chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
The Soul of a New Machine
1981 · 320 pages
Working nights in a Massachusetts basement, a crew of young engineers races to build a new computer in a year, and Kidder catches every argument. Nobody had made engineering a literary subject.
★ 6.8
Thoughts on Design
1947 · 95 pages
Beauty and utility generate each other, Paul Rand argues, and the designer's job is fusing idea with image. He pulled European modernism into American advertising and made the trade take design seriously.
★ 4.5