
Speaker’s Book:
The Urban Muse, by Ilan Stavens
The Mead of Poetry (or the origin of bad puns)
Online:
- Flying and swimming animals cruise at a Strouhal number tuned for high power efficiency – Graham K. Taylor, Robert L. Nudds and Adrian L. R. Thomas
- Estimating the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow – Jonathan Corum
Print:
- The Prose Edda, by Snorri Sturluson, (~13th c.) via projectgutenberg.org
- Excerpt from Pagan Words and Christian Meanings, by Richard North, Prof. of English at UCL via Google Books
- D’Aulaire’s Book of Norse Myths, by Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire
Romantic Getaways that Inspired Amazing Science
Online:
- The Butterfly Art of Vladimir Nabokov: A Love Story – beautiful collection of butterflies drawn by Nabokov and signed specifically to his wife Vera – by Stephen J. Gertz
- Excerpt from The God Particle about Schrodinger, Two Pearls, and his Mistress – Google Books
- Pierre Currie to Marie Currie – August 10, 1894 – a wonderful love letter from Pierre to his fiancé/colleague/fellow-future-nobel-prize-winner Marie Curie detailing how they are bound by both love and science – theromantic.com
Print:
- A Life of Erwin Schrödinger, by Walter J. Moore, Erwin Schrödinger
- Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, by Kary Mullis
- Nabokov’s Blues: The Scientific Odyssey of a Literary Genius, by Kurt Johnson and Steven L. Coates
La Muse Verte: An alchemical muse
Online:
- Absinthe Fever –The online home of the Green Fairy
- Sarah Bernhardt – Jewish Women’s Archive
- 10 Fascinating Stories From The Torrid History Of Absinthe – Listverse.com
Print:
- The Little Green Book of Absinthe: An Essential Companion with Lore, Trivia, and Classic and Contemporary Cocktails, by Paul Nathan and Paul Owens
- Absinthe, the Cocaine of the Nineteenth Century: A History of the Hallucinogenic Drug and Its Effect on Artists and Writers in Europe and the United States, by Doris Lanier
- Absinthe: The Myths, Science and Drinks, by The New York Times
URANIA: Muse of the Future
Online:
- Ourania – theoi.com
- The Muse Urania and the Holy Spirit (about Milton’s invocation to Urania in Paradise Lost) – TeamMilton.blogspot.com
- Dante’s Invocations to the Muses & God
Print:
- Fasti, by Ovid
- Paradise Lost, by John Milton
William Blake and the Mystic Muse
Print:
- Poetry and Mysticism, by Colin Wilson
- William Blake, by G.K. Chesterton
- Eternity’s Sunrise: The Imaginative World of William Blake, by Leo Damrosch
Inspiring Salvador: Gala Dalí, the first lady of surrealism
Print:
- Dali, by Dawn Ades
- Salvador Dali, Robert and Nicolas Descharnes
- Dalí, by Robert Descharnes and Gilles Néret
Online:
- About Gala – Salvador Dali Museum
- Gala Biography – Salvador-Dali.org
For each salon, we invite our speakers to share the resources and interesting reading they came across in researching their talk, so that we can all dig more deeply. This reading list was compiled by Odd Salon with Daniel Cohen, Leonard Apeltsin, Marcelo Pontin, Schuyler Erle, Kirsten Weiss, and Isolde Honore. Thank you!