Fewer, Better Things

Fewer, Better Things PDF Author: Glenn Adamson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1632869667
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
From the former director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, a timely and passionate case for the role of the well-designed object in the digital age. Curator and scholar Glenn Adamson opens Fewer, Better Things by contrasting his beloved childhood teddy bear to the smartphones and digital tablets children have today. He laments that many children and adults are losing touch with the material objects that have nurtured human development for thousands of years. The objects are still here, but we seem to care less and know less about them. In his presentations to groups, he often asks an audience member what he or she knows about the chair the person is sitting in. Few people know much more than whether it's made of wood, plastic, or metal. If we know little about how things are made, it's hard to remain connected to the world around us. Fewer, Better Things explores the history of craft in its many forms, explaining how raw materials, tools, design, and technique come together to produce beauty and utility in handmade or manufactured items. Whether describing the implements used in a traditional Japanese tea ceremony, the use of woodworking tools, or the use of new fabrication technologies, Adamson writes expertly and lovingly about the aesthetics of objects, and the care and attention that goes into producing them. Reading this wise and elegant book is a truly transformative experience.

Fewer, Better Things

Fewer, Better Things PDF Author: Glenn Adamson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1632869667
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Get Book Here

Book Description
From the former director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, a timely and passionate case for the role of the well-designed object in the digital age. Curator and scholar Glenn Adamson opens Fewer, Better Things by contrasting his beloved childhood teddy bear to the smartphones and digital tablets children have today. He laments that many children and adults are losing touch with the material objects that have nurtured human development for thousands of years. The objects are still here, but we seem to care less and know less about them. In his presentations to groups, he often asks an audience member what he or she knows about the chair the person is sitting in. Few people know much more than whether it's made of wood, plastic, or metal. If we know little about how things are made, it's hard to remain connected to the world around us. Fewer, Better Things explores the history of craft in its many forms, explaining how raw materials, tools, design, and technique come together to produce beauty and utility in handmade or manufactured items. Whether describing the implements used in a traditional Japanese tea ceremony, the use of woodworking tools, or the use of new fabrication technologies, Adamson writes expertly and lovingly about the aesthetics of objects, and the care and attention that goes into producing them. Reading this wise and elegant book is a truly transformative experience.

The Discovery of Things

The Discovery of Things PDF Author: Wolfgang-Rainer Mann
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691221596
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
Aristotle's Categories can easily seem to be a statement of a naïve, pre-philosophical ontology, centered around ordinary items. Wolfgang-Rainer Mann argues that the treatise, in fact, presents a revolutionary metaphysical picture, one Aristotle arrives at by (implicitly) criticizing Plato and Plato's strange counterparts, the "Late-Learners" of the Sophist. As Mann shows, the Categories reflects Aristotle's discovery that ordinary items are things (objects with properties). Put most starkly, Mann contends that there were no things before Aristotle. The author's argument consists of two main elements. First, a careful investigation of Plato which aims to make sense of the odd-sounding suggestion that things do not show up as things in his ontology. Secondly, an exposition of the theoretical apparatus Aristotle introduces in the Categories--an exposition which shows how Plato's and the Late-Learners' metaphysical pictures cannot help but seem inadequate in light of that apparatus. In doing so, Mann reveals that Aristotle's conception of things--now so engrained in Western thought as to seem a natural expression of common sense--was really a hard-won philosophical achievement. Clear, subtle, and rigorously argued, The Discovery of Things will reshape our understanding of some of Aristotle's--and Plato's--most basic ideas.

The Names of the Things That Were There

The Names of the Things That Were There PDF Author: Antonio Skármeta
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 1635420768
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
A collection of the best short stories by the author of the unforgettable novel The Postman. Each of the stories in this book is an extraordinary piece of literature. Love, youth, desire, and freedom, coupled with versatile prose, sensitivity, and a subtle irony that sometimes morphs into dark humor, confirm Antonio Skármeta’s position as one of the greatest storytellers in contemporary literature. Juan Villoro has selected and written a prologue for this collection, originally published in five books that influenced an entire generation of writers and brought about a renewal of Latin American prose.

There Are Two Types of People in This World Among Other Things

There Are Two Types of People in This World Among Other Things PDF Author: Uche Nwakudu
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 143895901X
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Here is a collection of essays and commentaries on social, political and contemporary issues written with a tinge of euphuistic, witty, and imaginative aplomb. The topics range from politics, government, war and conflict to poverty, religion, racism and marriage. The book raises some pertinent and interesting questions and attempts to answer them from an insightful, contemplative, and commonsensical standpoint. Who created God? Do God and Jesus come from the same place? Is America's demise near? Why has Osama Bin Laden vowed to destroy America? Why may he succeed? What motivates the terrorist? Is marriage a good thing? What makes a marriage work? Why has the rest of the world allowed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to fester? Why does peace remain elusive to the world? Who gains from war and conflict? What is the solution to the problem of poverty? Why do we have poor people? Why are people racist? Why are people stupid? Why do people hate each other? Have governments augured well for People? Is Democracy truly the answer? Why is there so much bitterness and rancor in the world? And much more! The book is loaded with ideas and notions intended to give vent to the contemplative mind and lift the closed and narrow minded out from the morass of age-old institutional thinking.

Things No Longer There

Things No Longer There PDF Author: Susan Krieger
Publisher: Terrace Books
ISBN: 029920863X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Things No Longer There is a lovingly crafted collection of personal stories about the author's struggle toward enlightenment while losing her eyesight. It is also, more broadly, about invisible landscapes—places of the heart that linger long after they have disappeared from the world outside. In these ten brief tales and one novella-length intimate drama, Susan Krieger takes us on a series of adventures in vision, a journey both inward and to various parts of the country. We travel with her as she goes birdwatching before sunrise in the New Mexico desert, learns to walk with a white cane, revisits an old love, returns to a summer camp of her youth, and reflects on the nature of blindness and sight. Krieger's touching memoir explores the ways that outer landscapes may change and sight may be lost, but inner visions persist, giving meaning, jarring the senses with a very different picture than what appears before the eyes. This book will reward both the general reader and those interested in disability studies, feminist ethnography, and lesbian studies.

There Are Worse Things

There Are Worse Things PDF Author: Chriss Cudney
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1483653145
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 95

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Book Description
A young naive popular athletic high school girl, Kelsey, heads off to college only to have her predictable life changed to an emotional rollercoaster. Kelsey not only encounters peer challenges, she gets burnt by her high school sweetheart, and dumped financially by her parents and has to take on a low-end job. Just when she thinks things cannot get worse, she finds new love...........However, things are not always as expected...........

"There Are Things I Want You to Know" About Stieg Larsson and Me

Author: Eva Gabrielsson
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
ISBN: 1609804104
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Eva Gabrielsson and Stieg Larsson. In "There Are Things I Want You to Know" About Stieg Larsson and Me, Gabrielsson accepts the daunting challenge of telling their story, steeped in love and sharpened in the struggle for justice and human rights. She chooses to tell it in short, spare, lyrical chapters, like snapshots, regaling Larsson's readers with how he wrote, why he wrote, who the sources are were for Lisbeth and his other characters—graciously answering Stieg Larsson's readers' most pressing questions—and at the same time telling us the things we didn't know we wanted to know—about love and loss, death, betrayal, and the mistreatment of women.

There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce

There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce PDF Author: Morgan Parker
Publisher: Tin House Books
ISBN: 1941040543
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
A TIME Magazine Best Paperback of 2017 One of Oprah Magazine's "Ten Best Books of 2017" "This singular poetry collection is a dynamic meditation on the experience of, and societal narratives surrounding, contemporary black womanhood. . . . These exquisite poems defy categorization." —The New Yorker The only thing more beautiful than Beyoncé is God, and God is a black woman sipping rosé and drawing a lavender bath, texting her mom, belly-laughing in the therapist’s office, feeling unloved, being on display, daring to survive. Morgan Parker stands at the intersections of vulnerability and performance, of desire and disgust, of tragedy and excellence. Unrelentingly feminist, tender, ruthless, and sequined, these poems are an altar to the complexities of black American womanhood in an age of non-indictments and deja vu, and a time of wars over bodies and power. These poems celebrate and mourn. They are a chorus chanting: You’re gonna give us the love we need.

Against Such Things There Is No Law

Against Such Things There Is No Law PDF Author: Dr. Jaerock Lee
Publisher: Urim Books
ISBN: 8975578631
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
This work Against Such Things There Is No Law lets you easily understand the spiritual meanings of the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit along with specific examples. Together with Spiritual Love in 1 Corinthians 13, and the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, the fruits of the Holy Spirit are a signpost that guides us to proper faith. They will lead us until we reach the final destination of our faith, New Jerusalem.

They Do the Same Things Different There

They Do the Same Things Different There PDF Author: Robert Shearman
Publisher: ChiZine
ISBN: 1771483016
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 521

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Book Description
A collection of the best weird fantasy stories by the Doctor Who series writer and World Fantasy Award–winning author. SHORTLISTED FOR THE SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD Prolific author and screenwriter Robert Shearman has won numerous awards for his short stories of dark fantasy and horror. In this collection, Shearman visits worlds that are unsettling and strange. Sometimes they are just like ours―except landlocked countries may disappear overnight, marriages to camels are the norm, and the dead turn into musical instruments. Sometimes they are quite alien―where children carve their own tongues from trees, and magic shows are performed to amuse the troops in the war between demons and angels. There is horror, and dreams—fulfilled and squandered—of true love. Venture into the world of Robert Shearman’s darkly exhilarating imagination. They do the same things different there.