I chose to include this link on my birthday because it gave me an hour of aesthetic joy, following its links.

Maria Popova is a Bulgarian-born polymath who lives in Brooklyn and reads voraciously with deep understanding and love of knowledge.

On June 26, she wrote about the artist Keith Haring and his love of life and art, and how his art inspired her and others, and how his life demonstrated “the courage to be yourself.”

As I began reading, I started opening links, one of which sent me to her archive (not easy to find), and I was soon reading about Mary Wollstonecraft, the world’s first radical feminist, who died giving birth to Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, who survived the death of three of her children and her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Reading Maria Popova is sheer bliss and an invitation to share her joy of reading. I signed up to send her a small monthly gift, to sustain her as she pursues knowledge and shares its fruits.