In Praise of Shadows

Author: Junichiro Tanizaki
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1446475573
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 94

Book Description
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.

Shadows in the Vineyard

Author: Maximillian Potter
Publisher: Twelve
ISBN: 1455516082
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Book Description
Journalist Maximillian Potter uncovers a fascinating plot to destroy the vines of La Romance-Conti, Burgundy's finest and most expensive wine. In January 2010, Aubert de Villaine, the famed proprietor of the Domaine de la Romance-Conti, the tiny, storied vineyard that produces the most expensive, exquisite wines in the world, received an anonymous note threatening the destruction of his priceless vines by poison—a crime that in the world of high-end wine is akin to murder—unless he paid a one million euro ransom. Villaine believed it to be a sick joke, but that proved a fatal miscalculation and the crime shocked this fabled region of France. The sinister story that Vanity Fair journalist Maximillian Potter uncovered would lead to a sting operation by some of France's top detectives, the primary suspect's suicide, and a dramatic investigation. This botanical crime threatened to destroy the fiercely traditional culture surrounding the world's greatest wine. Shadows in the Vineyard takes us deep into a captivating world full of fascinating characters, small-town French politics, an unforgettable narrative, and a local culture defined by the twinned veins of excess and vitality and the deep reverent attention to the land that runs through it.

Devils in Daylight

Author: Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
Publisher: ببلومانيا للنشر والتوزيع
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 96

Book Description
One morning, Takahashi, a writer who has just stayed up all night working, is interrupted by a phone call from his old friend Sonomura: barely able to contain his excitement, Sonomura claims that he has cracked a secret cryptographic code based on Edgar Allan Poe’s The Gold-Bug and now knows exactly when and where a murder will take place—and they must hurry if they want to witness the murder, because it’s later that very night! Sonomura has a history of lunacy and playing the amateur detective, so Takahashi is of course reluctant to believe him. Nevertheless, they stake out the secret location, and through tiny peepholes in the knotted wood, become voyeurs at the scene of a shocking crime… Atmospheric, erotic, and tense, Devils in Daylight is an early work by the master storyteller who “created a lifelong series of ingenious variations on a dominant theme: the power of love to energize and destroy” (Chicago Tribune).

One Hundred Shadows

Author: Hwang Jungeun
Publisher: Erewhon Books
ISBN: 164566144X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Book Description
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER! “There is an unforgettable, curious beauty to be found here.” —Han Kang, Winner of the Man Booker International Prize for The Vegetarian Han Kang’s Human Acts meets Yōko Ogawa’s The Memory Police in this understated South Korean novella in translation: a restrained yet emotional magical realist examination of futility in a capitalist society written in response to the 2009 Yongsan Disaster. In a Seoul slum marked for demolition, residents’ shadows have begun to rise. No one knows how or why–but, they warn each other, do not follow your shadow if it wanders away. As the landscape of their lives is torn apart, building by building, electronics-repair-shop employees Eungyo and Mujae can only watch as their community begins to fade. Their growing connection with one another provides solace, but against an uncaring ruling class and the inevitability of the rising shadows, their relationship may not be enough. Winner of the Hankook Ilbo Literary Award and the Korean Bookseller’s Award, One Hundred Shadows is a tender working-class perspective with subtle and affecting social commentary. This edition features an introduction by Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Vegetarian, Han Kang, and an exclusive interview with the author.

Ink and Shadows

Author: Ellery Adams
Publisher: Kensington Cozies
ISBN: 149672643X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
Controversy erupts in Miracle Springs, North Carolina, when the owner of the local bookstore tries to play peacekeeper—but winds up playing detective instead . . . Known for her window displays, Nora Pennington decides to showcase fictional heroines like Roald Dahl’s Matilda and Madeline Miller’s Circe for Halloween. But a family-values group disapproves of the magical themes and wastes no time launching a modern-day witch hunt. Suddenly, former friends and customers are targeting not only Nora and Miracle Books, but a new shopkeeper, Celeste, who’s been selling CBD oil products. Nora and her friends in the Secret, Book, and Scone Society are doing their best to put an end to the strife—but then someone puts an end to a life. Declared an accident, the ruling can’t explain the old book page covered with strange symbols and disturbing drawings left under Nora’s doormat. It’s up to Nora and the Secret, Book, and Scone Society to sort out the clues before more bodies turn up and the secrets from Celeste’s past come back to haunt them all . . . “Entertaining . . . packed with mystery, romance, and sisterhood.” —Kirkus Reviews

A Fortress of Grey Ice

Author: J. V. Jones
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429975989
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 672

Book Description
"Wonderful . . . J. V. Jones is a striking writer." So says Robert Jordan, the author of The Wheel of Time epic fantasy series. And Jones lives up to that praise in the highly charged epic adventure of Ash March and Raif Sevrance, two outcasts whose fate are entwined by ancient prophecies and need, in the cold, dark world that threatens to be torn asunder by a war to end all wars. Isolated by their birthrights, they are but two who fight the dreaded Endlords, and their strength and courage will be needed if the world is to be saved from darkness." Raif, wrongly accused and cut off from his clan by the treachery of their new headsman, has a talent for killing that is part of his curse and his burden. But he bears another burden of greater weight. Ash is a sacred warrior to the Sull, an ancient race whose numbers have declined. Raised as a foundling, never knowing her true history, she must learn to accept the terrible gifts of her heritage. But as Ash learns more of her greater fate, Raif's task looms dark and desperate, for he must journey through the nightmare realm of the Want, a place where even the Sull now fear to tread. For deep within the Want is the Fortress of Grey Ice, and there he must heal the breach in the Blindwall that already threatens the world. Should he fail, not even Ash's powers can save them. . . . At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

House of Shadows

Author: Rachel Neumeier
Publisher: Hachette+ORM
ISBN: 031612625X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 261

Book Description
Orphaned, two sisters are left to find their own way. Sweet and proper, Karah's future seems secure at a glamorous Flower House. She could be pampered for the rest of her life. . . if she agrees to play their game. Nemienne, neither sweet nor proper, has fewer choices. Left with no alternative, she accepts a mysterious mage's offer of an apprenticeship. Agreeing means a home and survival, but can Nemienne trust the mage? With the arrival of a foreign bard into the quiet city, dangerous secrets are unearthed, and both sisters find themselves at the center of a plot that threatens not only to upset their newly found lives, but also to destroy their kingdom.

Quicksand

Author: Junichiro Tanizaki
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0679760229
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
Quicksand is a silkily nuanced novel of erotic gamesmanship and obsession. Sonoko Kakiuchi, an Osaka lady of a good family, married to a dully respected lawyer, tells a story of temptation and betrayal. Sonoko is infatuated with the beautiful art student and femme fatale Mitsuko, a woman so seductive and heartless she can even turn Sonoko's husband into her own accomplice. Filled with intrigue and treacherous romance, readers will be entranced by Tanizaki’s seminal novel. At once savagely funny and timorously exact in its portrayal of sexual enthrallment, Quicksand is “beautifully and mysteriously contrived.”—Newsday

The Way of Shadows

Author: Brent Weeks
Publisher: Orbit
ISBN: 0316040223
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 535

Book Description
From NYT bestselling author Brent Weeks comes the first novel in his breakout fantasy trilogy in which a young boy trains under the city's most legendary and feared assassin, Durzo Blint. For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art -- and he is the city's most accomplished artist. For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take for granted. As a guild rat, he's grown up in the slums, and learned to judge people quickly -- and to take risks. Risks like apprenticing himself to Durzo Blint. But to be accepted, Azoth must turn his back on his old life and embrace a new identity and name. As Kylar Stern, he must learn to navigate the assassins' world of dangerous politics and strange magics -- and cultivate a flair for death.

From the Shadows

Author: Juan José Millás
Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press
ISBN: 1942658672
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 207

Book Description
Publishers Weekly “Top 10 Book of the Year” selection “Begins as entertaining slapstick, subtly metamorphoses into fable. . . . As [the narrator’s] vivid imaginary world fuses with reality this deceptively ethereal novel advances toward a dark and startling finale.” —Wall Street Journal Laid off from his job, Damián Lobo obsessively imagines himself as a celebrity being interviewed on TV. After committing an act of petty theft at an antiques market, he finds himself trapped inside a wardrobe and delivered to the seemingly idyllic home of a husband, wife, and their internet-addicted teenage daughter. There, he sneaks from the shadows to serve as an invisible butler, becoming deeply and disastrously involved with his unknowing host family. Every thread of the plot is ingeniously tied together, creating a potent admixture of parable, love story, and thriller. Millás masterfully reveals the everyday as innately surreal as he renders the unbelievable tangible and the trivial fantastical, and full of dark humor. Juan José Millás is the recipient of Spain’s most prestigious literary prizes: the Premio Nadal, Premio Planeta, and Premio Nacional de Narrativa. A regular contributor to El País, Millás has also won many awards for his journalism. He is the author of several short story collections and works of nonfiction as well as over a dozen novels, including From the Shadows, the first of his novels to be published in North America. He lives in Madrid.