The photograph shows Vedran Smailović, known as the cellist of Sarajevo, playing in his country's largely destroyed National Library at the height of the siege of Sarajevo in 1992, in an act of resilience that has become iconic of the power of music to triumph over the ravages of war.

The Cultures of Resistance Network's Make Music Not War project area aims to give exposure to music that is created and performed by those immediately affected by political and military oppression who are committed to using their music as a force for justice. The network has done a more in-depth study of musical resistance traditions in four Middle Eastern countries: Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine.

Read more

Brain Pickings is the brain child of Maria Popova, an interestingness hunter-gatherer and curious mind at large, who has also written for Wired UK, The New York Times, Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab, and The Atlantic, among others, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow.

In this post, Maria brings together 8 books which she rates as the year's best on writing and creativity, quoting masters like Kurt Vonnegut, Neil Gaiman and Isabel Allende. With this post's trove of inspiration, you should be set for 2014.

Visit website