NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY ESQUIRE AND BOOKPAGE Figuring 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 catalyzed the environmental movement. Stretching between these figures is a cast of artists, writers, and scientists—mostly women, mostly queer—whose public contribution have 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. Emanating 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? Weaving 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. “[A] passionate and erudite pursuit of truth and beauty.”  —Booklist  (starred review) “Intimate . . . timely . . . Figuring thunders along with a novelistic intensity, propelled by the organic drama of its extraordinary lives . . . It speaks to the quality of Popova’s own writing that it survives comparison with the literary giants of the last four centuries. Her wonderfully deft and sincere prose melts down the raw materials of heavy research into a coruscating flow of ideas, images, and insights that add skin and sinew to the bones of biographical fact to create a forward-looking history that's both timely and timeless.”  — Vanity Fair “Strange and lovely . . . [An] ambitious, challenging and somewhat category-defying book . . . fascinating . . . beautiful.” — The New York Times Book Review “An intricate tapestry in which the lives of these women, and dozens of other scientific and literary figures, are woven together through threads of connection across four centuries . . . In Figuring, we are thrust into a waltz of exquisitely honed minds—most of them belonging to women, many of them sexually queer—all insisting on living to their fullest.” — The Washington Post “Poignant . . . dynamic and engaging . . . Figuring, if anything, serves as a corrective to the male/straight school of historical writing, showcasing women who tried to live their own lives and create their own worlds in the face of dismissal and neglect. Finally, perhaps, women like Fuller, Mitchell, and Carson have found their best chronicler.” —Book and Film Globe " Figuring is a love letter to scientists of the past, women whose lived have all too often been eclipsed. . . striking. . . profound. . . dizzying in its scope. . . inspirational. . . There is grandeur and beauty in this view of science. . . few have so fulsomely explored how science and poetry, love and learning, and affairs of the heart intertwine in a way that, even after more than 500 pages, leaves one trembling for more. But like other affairs of the heart, the joys of reading Popova’s prose are perhaps best experienced for oneself.”  — Science! “Stunning in both its scope and execution. . . [ Figuring ] is a shiningly femme, revolutionary, and poetic piece of literature. . .” — The Harvard Crimson “Fans of polymath Maria Popova’s popular website, Brain Pickings , will find themselves right at home in  Figuring,  her audacious new work of intellectual history that focuses on the lives of a coterie of brilliant women.  . .  Figuring  invites the reader to engage with complex ideas and challenging personalities, unearthing a wealth of material for further reflection along the way.”  —BookPage (starred review) “Fascinating . . . Piecing together human truths and the remarkable details of these lives well-lived into an extraordinary mosaic of human existence, Figuring reveals our timeless interconnectedness, and the inevitable, although improbable, intersections of our lives in the vastness of the universe.”  — BookTrib   “This is an ocean-deep and sky-uplifting book, an elaborate feast for both brain and soul. Written by the beyond brilliant Popova, it explores colossal questions through the interwoven lives of historical figures across centuries and disciplines including science, literature and art. There are galaxies of themes in the cosm