A fully illustrated, beautifully produced edition of Junichiro Tanizaki's wise and evocative essay on Japanese culture. ‘We find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates… Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty.’ This book is in fact a portal. Reading it, you will be led by Junichiro Tanizaki’s light touch into a mysterious and tranquil world of darkness and shadows, where gold flashes in the gloom and a deep stillness reigns. If you are accustomed to equate light with clarity, the faded with the worthless and the dim with the dreary, prepare for a courteous but powerful realignment of your ideas. In Praise of Shadows is a poetic paean to traditional Japanese aesthetics – in a free-ranging style that moves from architecture to No theatre, and from cookery to lighting, Tanizaki teaches us to see the beauty in tarnished metal, the sombre dignity in unglazed pottery, the primacy of organic materials that bear witness to the regular touch of human hands. It is also astonishingly prescient, offering a gentle warning against the quest for airbrushed perfection, and reminding us that too much light can pollute and obscure our natural world. In this special edition, the text is accompanied by specially selected images to complement Tanizaki’s reflections and further illustrate the pattern and beauty of shadows.

Even with the huge amount of architecture media available online, books still hold an unrivaled amount of information that websites and online journals just can’t provide...

I know a posting here at Nerdy Book Club is truly preaching to the choir, and I did hesitate to write this post. But a couple of weeks ago, I did a little preaching to the Arkansas Association of …

Rather than suppress this misunderstood emotion, we need to understand its essential evolutionary role in motivating us to action

Bertrand Russell is a 20th-century philosopher for 21st-century life – Australian humourist Bradley Trevor Greive illustrates his finest aphorisms

Joanna Lannister (Briton Rivière, Una and Lion)

Dustfinger is a famed fire-eater, widely praised and known as the Fire-Dancer, of the Inkworld. He has the constant companion of Gwin, his marten with horns, who is usually found perched on his shoulder. Dustfinger was born in the kingdom of Argenta, where he grew up along with The Black Prince, with whom he apparently got into great mischief from the fact that the two were pilloried together at age 11.[2] He has a wife named Roxane, and two daughters, Brianna and Rosanna. Rosanna fell ill and l

Bertrand Russell is a 20th-century philosopher for 21st-century life – Australian humourist Bradley Trevor Greive illustrates his finest aphorisms

Save We have a pack of dogs, a flock of birds, a forest of trees — but what about a group of angels? The word used for groups of angels is “choir.” Here is a diagram to describe and explain the choirs of angels in all their different categories. According to many theologians, like St. Thomas […]

Find new words to share every day with Dictionary.com's Word of the Day. Discover the definition, pronunciation, and origin of uncommon words plus more!

Bertrand Russell is a 20th-century philosopher for 21st-century life – Australian humourist Bradley Trevor Greive illustrates his finest aphorisms

The envious nature of men, so prompt to blame and so slow to praise, makes the discovery and introduction of any new principles and systems as dangerous as almost the exploration of unknown seas and continents.

An educational blog

Approbation is similar in meaning to approval, and it is also very close to approval etymologically. Both words trace back to the Latin verb approbare, which means 'to prove' or 'to approve.'

Celebrating Think-Pair-Share, the Little Strategy That Could, and sharing some best practices for making it work for you.

Praising students can actually cause more harm than good. Find out what happens when we praise students and what you could do instead!

"My mother dreamed about becoming a parent her entire life, just like so many women do. I dream about freedom and creativity and changing the world."

If you know nothing else about Svetlana Chmakova’s Awkward, know this: it needs to be on the shelves of every school and public library. That may sound bombastic, but Awkward deserves the high praise. It’s one of the best reads I’ve had—comic or otherwise—in years.

This special student's edition...is limited to one thousand copies of which this one is number 559.

Even with the huge amount of architecture media available online, books still hold an unrivaled amount of information that websites and online journals just can’t provide...