~openculture | Bookmarks (3)

For many, even most of us moderns, the central religious choice is a simple one: adhere to the belief system in which you grew up, or stop adhering to it. But if you survey the variety of religions in the world, the situation no longer seems quite so binary; if you then add the variety […]

Author, educator and book restoration expert Sophia Bogle is in a constant race against time. Her mission: to rescue and restore ill-treated books before their lamentable conditions can consign them to the landfill. To the untrained eye, many of these volumes appear beyond repair, but Bogle has nerves of steel, preternatural patience, surgical precision, and […]

We suppose it’s conceivable that a gift of a wooden Totoro figurine, hand-carved from a single block using 50 different kinds of chisels, might spark a reverence for traditional Japanese craft and nature in the next generation… Or, they may be left wishing you’d given them a vastly more huggable machine-made plushie version, especially if […]