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Showing 1 - 20 of 6991 items
By Kazuaki Tanahashi. 2024
Renowned artist Kaz Tanahashi reveals the deep, inner spiritual connections that Zen gardens can foster, with over 75 stunning full-color photos…
of the masterpiece gardens of Kyōto, Japan.Imagine yourself in Kyōto, Japan, gazing at an ancient temple garden. How would you contextualize what you are seeing? What is the history of this centuries-old contemplative art form of Zen gardening? What are its symbols and concepts?Richly illustrated with full-color photographs, Gardens of Awakening guides you through a series of Zen temple gardens, most of which were created from the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries. Some are teeming with plants and flowing water, while others have only rocks and sand. All share in the Zen aesthetics of awakening.Through essays and commentary on Mitsue Nagase&’s striking photographs, beloved Zen artist and translator Kazuaki Tanahashi presents the gardens in terms of seven qualities that arise from Zen practice: direct, ordinary, vigorous, gleaming, pivotal, nondual, and inexhaustible. Relating these qualities to the development of Zen culture and its influence on Japanese art, Gardens of Awakening invites you deep into the heart of Zen.Whether you want to garden at a more accessible height, improve soil fertility, nurture plants with needs, or simply enjoy…
a closer sensory experience, growing in raised beds will help you reach new heights in the garden.Raised beds are possible in any-size garden, even on balconies, but it needs expert advice to create the optimum growing conditions, achieve the most practical use of space tailored to your individual needs, and ensure longevity of the raised bed structure. Featuring clear diagrams, inspired planting plans, and step-by-step photography of beds built from scratch, this book will be the ultimate guide on your raised bed journey.In addition, 10 international gardeners, all sharing a love of raised beds, will explain their "take" and provide planting designs that will open your eyes to the variety of shapes, sizes, materials, and planting displays that are possible with a raised bed. From placing and designing, choosing materials, and growing media, to ongoing maintenance and how best to care for your plants, The Raised Bed Book is the final word on growing above ground.By Nell Irvin Painter. 2024
From the New York Times bestselling author of The History of White People and Old in Art School, a finalist…
for the NBCC Award, comes a comprehensive new collection of essays spanning art, politics, and the legacy of racism that shapes American history as we know it.Throughout her prolific writing career, Nell Painter has published works on such luminaries as Sojourner Truth, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Malcolm X. Her unique vantage on American history pushes the boundaries of personal narrative and academic authorship. Led by an unbridled curiosity for her subjects, Painter asks readers to reconsider ideas of race, politics, and identity. I Just Keep Talking assembles her writing for the first time into a single volume, displaying the breadth and depth of Painter&’s decades-long historical inquiry and the evolution of Black political thought—and includes a dazzling introduction and coda being published for the first time in this collection. From her mining of figures like Carrie Buck and Martin Delaney for their resonance today, to a deep dive into the history of exclusion through the work of Toni Morrison, to a discussion of the American political landscape after the 2016 election, Painter nimbly portrays the trials of a country frequently at war with itself.Along with Painter&’s writing, this collection offers her original artwork, threaded throughout the book as counterpoint and emphasis. Her visual art shows a deft mind turning toward the tragedy and humor of her subjects; pulling from newspapers, personal records, and original sketches, Painter&’s artwork testifies to the dialectic of tremendous change and stasis that continues to shape American history.These essays resist easy answers in favor of complexity, the inescapable sense of our country&’s potential thwarted by its failures. This collection will surely solidify Painter&’s place among the finest critics and writers of the last half century.By Girls Write Now. 2023
A writing companion, inspirational guide to the craft, and anthology featuring interactive multi-genre work from the acclaimed organization on its…
twenty-fifth anniversary.We all have stories to tell, but not everyone gets the mentoring and training or encouragement to become a great storyteller. Founded a quarter century ago, Girls Write Now has empowered young women and gender-expansive youth to harness their creative talents, gaining confidence, skills, and a community supporting them in sharing stories the world needs to hear.This hands-on guide—conceived of and written and edited by the young people of Girls Write Now—draws from the organization’s dynamic curriculum and the writers’ own personal experiences spanning decades. It offers aspiring writers the tools they need to develop their craft—including tips, insight, and advice on the writing and publishing process as well as critical thinking about the future of storytelling.With this handbook, readers everywhere can equip themselves to shape their life stories, and become the writers and leaders they dream of being.By Abhishek Mukherjee. 2017
2017 RUNNER-UP OF THE BODLEY HEAD | FINANCIAL TIMES ESSAY PRIZEIn this sharp, witty essay, written from inside the Indian…
banking system, we witness the absurdities and mundanities of corruption and bureaucracy, set against a backdrop of modern urban India. In a personal battle with his moustachioed boss, Mukherjee illuminates a Kafkaesque system of compliance inherited from the British Raj and shows us how to walk away from it laughing.By Mark Haddon, Michael Rosen, Zadie Smith, Carmen Callil, Jeanette Winterson, Tim Parks, Blake Morrison, Dr Maryanne Wolf, Mirit Barzillai, Nicholas Carr, Jane Davis. 2011
In any 24 hours there might be sleeping, eating, kids, parents, friends, lovers, work, school, travel, deadlines, emails, phone calls,…
Facebook, Twitter, the news, the TV, Playstation, music, movies, sport, responsibilities, passions, desires, dreams.Why should you stop what you're doing and read a book?People have always needed stories. We need literature - novels, poetry - because we need to make sense of our lives, test our depths, understand our joys and discover what humans are capable of. Great books can provide companionship when we are lonely or peacefulness in the midst of an overcrowded daily life. Reading provides a unique kind of pleasure and no-one should live without it.In the ten essays in this book some of our finest authors and passionate advocates from the worlds of science, publishing, technology and social enterprise tell us about the experience of reading, why access to books should never be taken forgranted, how reading transforms our brains, and how literature can save lives. In any 24 hours there are so many demands on your time and attention - make books one of them.Carmen Callil Tim ParksNicholas Carr Michael RosenJane Davis Zadie SmithMark Haddon Jeanette WintersonBlake Morrison Dr Maryanne Wolf & Dr Mirit BarzillaiBy Oscar Wilde. 2001
Selection includes The Portrait of Mr W.H., Wilde's defence of Dorian Gray, reviews, and the writings from 'Intentions' (1891): 'The…
Decay of Lying, 'Pen, Pencil, Poison', and 'The Critic as Artist'.Wilde is familiar to us as the ironic critic behind the social comedies, as the creator of the beautiful and doomed Dorian Gray, as the flamboyant aesthete and the demonised homosexual. This volume presents us with a different Wilde. Wilde emerges here as a deep and serious reader of literature and philosophy, and an eloquent and original thinker about society and art.By The BBC team. 2024
The first official book from the life-changing BBC One show, Sort Your Life Out will have you falling back in…
love with your home in three simple steps:1. STRIP - how to let go and clear out the clutter (when you don't have a warehouse to hand)!2. SORT - time to sell, donate, recycle and upcycle.3. SYSTEMISE - learn how to organise, fold and store in a way that is manageable and sustainable.Filled with every tip and trick from your favourite experts Stacey, Dilly, Iwan and Rob, this empowering book will give you the tools to transform your home and get that Sort Your Life Out mindset.By Charles Mackay. 2010
Describing bizarrely popular Victorian street slang, the madness of crowds, stock market mania (from the South Sea Bubble to Tulip…
fever), popular fashions, fads, crazes, schemes and scams, this brilliantly entertaining and ever-more relevant study of human folly shows that we are always susceptible to hysteria and bamboozlement.GREAT IDEAS. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.By Robert Burton. 2008
Not simply an investigation into melancholy, these unique essays form part of a panoramic celebration of human behaviour from the…
time of the ancients to the Renaissance. God, devils, old age, diet, drunkenness, love and beauty are each given equal consideration in this all-encompassing examination of the human condition. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves – and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives – and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.By Juvenal. 1998
Perhaps more than any other writer, Juvenal (c. AD 55-138) captures the splendour, the squalor and the sheer energy of…
everyday Roman life. In The Sixteen Satires he evokes a fascinating world of whores, fortune-tellers, boozy politicians, slick lawyers, shameless sycophants, ageing flirts and downtrodden teachers. A member of the traditional land-owning class that was rapidly seeing power slip into the hands of outsiders, Juvenal also creates savage portraits of decadent aristocrats - male and female - seeking excitement among the lower orders of actors and gladiators, and of the jumped-up sons of newly-rich former slaves. Constantly comparing the corruption of his own generation with its stern and upright forebears, Juvenal's powers of irony and invective make his work a stunningly satirical and bitter denunciation of the degeneracy of Roman societyBy Ann Wroe. 2015
'She's a genius, I believe, because she lights up every subject she touches.' Hilary Mantel A Spectator Book of the…
YearGoethe claimed to know what light was. Galileo and Einstein both confessed they didn't. On the essential nature of light, and how it operates, the scientific jury is still out. There is still time, therefore, to listen to painters and poets on the subject. They, after all, spend their lives pursuing light and trying to tie it down.Six Facets of Light is a series of meditations on this most elusive and alluring feature of human life. Set mostly on the Downs and coastline of East Sussex, the most luminous part of England, it interweaves a walker's experiences of light in Nature with the observations, jottings and thoughts of a dozen writers and painters - and some scientists - who have wrestled to define and understand light. From Hopkins to Turner, Coleridge to Whitman, Fra Angelico to Newton, Ravilious to Dante, the mystery of light is teased out and pondered on. Some of the results are surprising.By using mostly notebooks and sketchbooks, this book becomes a portrait of the transitoriness, randomness, swiftness, frustrations and quicksilver beauty that are the essence of light. It is a work to be enjoyed, pondered over, engaged with, provoked by; to be packed in the rucksack of every walker heading for the sea or the hills, or to be opened to bring that outside radiance within four dark town walls.Lifescapes by Ann Wroe is coming in August 2023.By Carolyn Steel. 2020
'A visionary look at how quality food should replace money as the new world currency' Tim Spector'Hugely ambitious and beautifully…
written...destined to become a modern classic' Bee WilsonHow we search for, make and consume food has defined human history. It transforms our bodies and homes, our politics and our trade, our landscapes and our climate. But by forgetting our culinary heritage and relying on cheap, intensively produced food, we have drifted into a way of life that threatens our planet and ourselves.What if there were a more sustainable way to eat and live? Drawing on many disciplines, as well as stories of the farmers, designers and economists who are remaking our relationship with food, this inspiring and deeply thoughtful book gives us a provocative and exhilarating vision for change, and points the way to a better future.'Utterly brilliant' Thomasina MiersWINNER OF THE 2021 GUILD FOOD OF WRITERS AWARD FOR BEST FOOD BOOK*Shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize 2020*By George Eliot. 2010
Describing the silliness and 'feminine fatuity' of many popular books by lady novelists, George Eliot perfectly skewers the formulaic yet…
bestselling works that dominated her time, with their loveably flawed heroines. She also examines the great women writers of France and their enrichment of the culture, and the varying qualities of literary translations. GREAT IDEAS. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.By Ben Williams. 2019
Find yourself, in your shed.Turn your she-shed or man cave into your own private escape with 101 simple, practical ideas.Take…
some well-deserved alone time and learn to preserve lemons and chillies, whittle a butter knife, tie your own fishing flies, keep chickens, plant a roof garden or make a camera obscura.Why not transform your shed itself? This book is full of inspiration for anyone who has dreamed of having an observatory, a sauna, a pub – or just a bit of peace and quiet at the bottom of the garden.The perfect gift for anyone who would rather be in their shed.By Donna Mullen. 2024
Bees, butterflies, bats, badgers … These beautiful and fascinating creatures need a little help from us, as their natural habitats…
are under pressure. It’s time to invite nature into your home – whether it’s a window box, a suburban garden or a farm. Learn how to build a pond, make places for bats to roost and spaces for hedgehogs to ramble. Discover the amazing secret lives of Ireland’s wildlife, from tiny bugs to large mammals. Do try this at home!By Thomas Carlyle. 1971
The most important writings by the great and controversial Victorian polemicist.Carlyle was one of the great figures of his age:…
thunderous, passionate, irascible, sceptical and idealistic. This selection is representative of all stages of Carlyle's career, and includes 'Sign of the Times', his essay against the mechanization of the age and the rise of the machines; the whole of 'Chartism'; and extracts from The French Revolution, Heroes and Hero-Worship, Sartor Resartus, Past and Present, as well as other pieces. The book also includes an introduction and notes by Alan Shelston.Thomas Carlyle was born in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, in 1795. Intended by his family to become a Presbyterian minister, he was influenced by the Scottish Enlightenment while at the University of Edinburgh and became a teacher instead. He later turned to literary work, publishing a life of Schiller and translations of Goethe in the 1820s. His first truly successful book was The French Revolution, which was followed by many others. He died in 1881.Alan Shelston was Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Manchester until retirement in 2002. He has edited a number of Gaskell's works including The Life of Charlotte Bronte (1975) and North and South (2005), and was joint editor with John Chapple of The Further Letters of Mrs Gaskell (2000). He has published a selection of Hardy's poetry and written on a number of nineteen century authors including Dickens and Henry James.By Thomas Aquinas. 1993
In his reflections on Christianity, Saint Thomas Aquinas forged a unique synthesis of ancient philosophy and medieval theology. Preoccupied with…
the relationship between faith and reason, he was influenced both by Aristotle's rational world view and by the powerful belief that wisdom and truth can ultimately only be reached through divine revelation. Thomas's writings, which contain highly influential statements of fundamental Christian doctrine, as well as observations on topics as diverse as political science, anti-Semitism and heresy, demonstrate the great range of his intellect and place him firmly among the greatest medieval philosophers.By Hildegard Of Bingen. 2001
Benedictine nun, poet and musician, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was one of the most remarkable figures of the Middle Ages.…
She undertook preaching tours throughout the German empire at the age of sixty, and was consulted not only by her religious contemporaries but also by kings and emperors, yet it is largely for her apocalyptic and mystical writings that she is remembered. This volume includes selections from her three visionary works, her treatises on medicine and the natural world, her devotional songs, and fascinating letters to prominent figures of her time. Dealing with such eternal subjects as the relationship between humans and nature, and men and women, Hildegard's works show her to be a wide-ranging thinker who created such fresh, startling images and ideas that her writings have been compared to Dante and Blake.By John Donne. 1987
This selection of John Donne's most powerful prose shows that the man remembered predominantly for his poetry was also a…
preacher, and a prose writer of extraordinary power. In it, he explores the metaphysical collision between poetry and religion, suicide and duty, the secular and the spiritual that characterized his times.Edited with an introduction and notes by Neil Rhodes.