Well look what just came in the mail @mitpress.bsky.social 🧠🤖🦠

And me? I have a giant Roman water garden mural, some historical scientific prints, Renaissance art, a Bluetooth typewriter, an email reply from one of my favorite authors (thanks @levgrossman.bsky.social!) and, most critically, a black cat. 🐈‍⬛

Brandon Sanderson had a fantasy writing lair built 30 feet underground in Utah.

Thomas Edison slept in his glamorous multi-story-library-office so often that his wife had a cot brought in.

Charles Dickens was an interior design enthusiast who once wrote a 6,000-word essay on wallpaper. When his pet raven died, he had it taxidermied and hung above his desk. So attached was he to his workspace that when he traveled, he brought his portable rosewood writing desk with him.

Ray Bradbury wrote surrounded by toys, a canopy of masks, a six-foot Bullwinkle stuffed animal and a jar with a fake human head in it.

Sigmund Freud cluttered his office was ancient artifacts, including over two thousand Greco-Roman statutes, busts, Neolithic tools, Sumerian seals, Egyptian mummy bandages and even a collection of penis amulets. He was so in love with his statues he even took some on holiday with him.

Oh look what just arrived! 💕 The Kinship Issue from @nautil.us

In the 1600s, “animal cruelty” wasn’t really a thing, and people thought this hammer-powered cat piano was a delightful instrument. 🐈🔨 🎶
#skyhistory

TIL “fox tossing” passed for entertainment in 17th century Europe. “Fuchsprellen” was all fun and games until the fox a) died on impact or b) turned on the players with teeth and claws.