Eric Temple Bell (February 7, 1883 – December 21, 1960) was a mathematician and science fiction author born in Scotland who lived in the U.S. for most of his life. He published his non-fiction under h…
Herodotus (Greek: Ηρόδοτος) (c. 484 – c. 425 BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thur…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers. He began his career as a classical philol…
Walter Isaacson, a professor of history at Tulane, has been CEO of the Aspen Institute, chair of CNN, and editor of Time. He is the author of 'Leonardo da Vinci; The Innovators; Steve Jobs; Einstein: …
Stephen John Fry is an English comedian, writer, actor, humourist, novelist, poet, columnist, filmmaker, television personality and technophile. As one half of the Fry and Laurie double act with his c…
Snorri Sturluson (also spelled Snorre Sturlason) was an Icelandic historian, poet and politician. He was twice elected lawspeaker at the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He was the author of the Pro…
Adam Smith FRSA FRS FRSE was a Scottish philosopher and economist who was a pioneer in thinking on political economy and a key figure during the Scottish…
Born in Ramat Gan in 1967, Etgar Keret is a leading voice in Israeli literature and film. His books have been published in over four dozen languages and his writing has appeared in The New York Times,…
Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Somali: Ayaan Xirsi Cali; born Ayaan Hirsi Magan 13 November 1969) is a Dutch feminist, writer, and politician. She is the estranged daughter of the Somali scholar, politician, and re…
Steven Strogatz is the Schurman Professor of applied mathematics at Cornell University. A renowned teacher and one of the world’s most highly cited mathematicians, he has been a frequent guest on Nati…
An American writer who was originally trained in topology but became interested in the history of mathematics and specializes in Leonhard Euler. He has received several awards for writing and teaching…
Douglas Kear Murray is a British neoconservative writer and commentator. He was the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion from 2007 until 2011, and is currently an associate director of the Henry…
People consider that Russian writer Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (Николай Васильевич Гоголь) founded realism in Russian literature. His works include The Overcoat (1842) and Dead Souls (1842).
Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812-1870) was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. Hi…
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (Cyrillic: Иван Сергеевич Тургенев) was a novelist, poet, and dramatist, and now ranks as one of the towering figures of Russian literature. His major works include the short…
José de Sousa Saramago (16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010) was a Portuguese novelist and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature, for his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony…
Carlos Fuentes Macías was a Mexican writer and one of the best-known novelists and essayists of the 20th century in the Spanish-speaking world. Fuentes influenced contemporary Latin American literatur…
Richard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercool…
Andrew Ross Sorkin is The New York Timess chief mergers and acquisitions reporter and a columnist. Mr. Sorkin, a leading voice about Wall Street and corporate America, is also the editor of DealBook (…
Douglas Richard Hofstadter is an American scholar of cognitive science, physics, and comparative literature whose research focuses on consciousness, thinking and creativity. He is best known for his b…
Tony Tulathimutte is the author of Private Citizens and Rejection. He has written for The Paris Review, N+1, The New York Times, VICE, WIRED, The New Yorker, The New Republic, and others. He has recei…
William Somerset Maugham was born in Paris in 1874. He spoke French even before he spoke a word of English, a fact to which some critics attribute the purity of his style.
Benjamin Labatut was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands. He spent his childhood in The Hague and Buenos Aires and when he was twelve years old he moved to Santiago de Chile, where he lives today.
Chantal V. Johnson is an attorney and writer whose debut novel, Post-Traumatic, was long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and selected as a New York Public Library book club pick. S…