Back to top

I'm following Open Culture

I've been following Open Culture for quite a few years, and it continues to be a great resource for great art, music, and more. I know some of y'all have extra time on your hands, so it seemed like a great time to feature this impressive collection. 

Why I'm Following Open Culture

Their mission is their tagline "The best fee cultural and educational media on the web." And I agree! Links to books, video, music, and more. Including:

  • 1,300 Free Online Courses
  • 1000+ MOOCs
  • 1,150 Free Movies
  • 700 Free Audio Books
  • 800 Free eBooks
  • 200 Free Textbooks
  • 300 Free Language Lessons
  • 150 Free Business Courses
  • Free K-12 Education

You can find them on Facebook, Twitter, or via their RSS feed.

Some of my favorites!

You can browse 3,900 pages of Paul Klee’s personal notebooks!

I'm following Open Culture to look at Paul Klee's notebooks. This image is a formal artist color chart showing primary, secondary, and tertiary colors in pie slices.

Or maybe you would like to download the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe as free eBooks and audio books. This image is a still from the bonus, gorgeous animated short film of the Tell-Tale Heart from1953.

I'm following Open Culture to look at cool things like this still from Tell-Tale Heart animation of the Edgar Allen Poe story of a hand sticking out from under a rug.

Maybe comics are more your game? Check out the Comic Book Plus archive  has over 22,000 Golden and Silver Age comics to download. 

Daredevil Battles Hitler comic book cover has featuring Hitler looking scared and being fought by multiple characters.

How about binging on Spike Lee’s list of 95 essential movies or Martin Scorsese's list of 39 essential foreign films?

Spike Lee's headshot features the director wearing a ballcap and a black turtleneck.

Neil Gaiman and Lavar Burton had a lovely Twitter encounter where Gaiman gives actor LeVar Burton permission to read Gaiman's stories live. In the meantime you can read a bunch of them here.

A picture of an interaction on Twitter between LaVar Burton and Neil Gaiman where Neil gives LaVar permission to read his short stories.

Hear lectures from great comtemporary writers in The Celebrity Lecture Series from Michigan State University:

…You can revisit these lectures presented by the likes of Amy Tan, Arthur Miller, Joyce Carol Oates, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Margaret Atwood, Maya Angelou, Norman Mailer, Paul Theroux, Philip Roth, Richard Ford, Susan Sontag, Tom Wolfe, Carlos Fuentes, August Wilson, E.L. Doctorow, Edward Albee, Isabel Allende, Garry Wills, Jane Smiley, John Irving, John Updike and Joseph Heller. Just click on any of the links above and you can stream the audio lectures for free online.

So go and watch something, read something, learn something, discover something and see why I'm following Open Culture.