House of the Dragon


Book Description

A new design expression is being formed in China as architects look internally for visionary design instead of toward the West.




Beauty and the East


Book Description

This fascinating story of body care and the creation of sensual ambiance focuses on customs practiced in the Middle East, Africa and India and takes a humorous look at the often converse attitudes toward the body prevailing in the West.




Facing East


Book Description

Drawing from 2,500 years of wisdom that has been adapted to today’s lifestyles, Facing East teaches you how to restore your Qi—the vital energy at the root of every function in the human body—to become both internally healthy and externally radiant. In Facing East, Dr. Jingduan Yang, a fifth-generation practitioner of Chinese medicine and a respected authority in integrative medicine, joins forces with wellness advocate Norma Kamali to reveal ancient healing secrets, adapted for the modern age, that will help preserve, maintain, and restore vitality, health, and beauty in all its forms. Style icon Norma Kamali, having felt deeply and noticeably rested and rejuvenated after Dr. Jingduan Yang’s unique acupuncture treatments, encouraged her remarkable physician to share his mastery of both traditional Chinese medicine and modern medicine with the world. The result is Facing East, a book filled with practical day-to-day health, beauty, wellness, and lifestyle practices that can radically enhance the way you look, feel, and interact with everything and everyone around you! Inside you’ll discover: The ways each of the primary organs can affect every aspect of your life—from your physical health to your mental well-being—and how to keep them in balance Tips to help revitalize the hair, skin, eyes, lips, teeth, and nails Self-assessments to help determine your unique general energy constitution Personal checklists for preventative care A year-round wellness plan that includes advice on sleep, sex, exercise, and nutrition And much more! By exploring the mind-body-spirit connection from a truly integrative perspective, Facing East helps you maintain wellness in every aspect of your life. “Dr. Yang and Norma Kamali share ancient wisdom in a friendly, modern, and engaging dialogue, making timeless Eastern health practices relevant to the present and easy for everyone to apply in their lives. If you want to design happy, vibrant wellness for yourself, read Facing East!”—VINCENT PEDRE, M.D., author of Happy Gut: The Cleansing Program to Help You Lose Weight, Gain Energy, and Eliminate Pain Harness the power of the East to feel better, look younger, and live healthier, no matter your age! Are you easily fatigued? Is there too much fat around your belly? Are you often unhappy? Do you have chronic nasal congestion? Do you have black circles under your eyes? Does your skin often feel dry? Do your hands and feet feel cold? Is your skin prone to acne? If you answered yes to any of these questions, your Qi—the vital energy essential to your body’s every function—is probably out of balance. Filled with ancient health and beauty secrets, Facing East can help you rebalance your body and turn back the hands of time. “Facing East looks to the past for a vision of the future, drawing on ancient knowledge to devise simple strategies to allow you to stay young, vibrant, and healthy. This book by Dr. Yang, a foremost expert on Chinese medicine, and his patient, Norma Kamali, will help you to correct imbalances with techniques so simple anyone can use them with success.”—Andrew Weil, M.D., #1 New York Times bestselling author




Visualizing Beauty


Book Description

Visualizing Beauty examines the intersections between feminine ideals and changing socio-political circumstances in China, Japan, and Korea during the first half of the twentieth century. Eight essays present a broad range of visual products that informed concepts of beauty and womanhood, including fashion, interior design magazines, newspaper illustrations, and paintings of and by women. Studying "Traditional Woman" and "New Woman" as historical categories, this anthology contemplates the complex relations between feminine subjectivity and the promotion of modernity, commerce, and colonialism.







Beauty in Arabic Culture


Book Description

A specialist in Islamic architecture and social history, Behrens-Abouseif (U. of Munich) surveys the concepts of beauty in classical and post-classical Arabic culture through the 15th century CE, drawing on Arabic texts in philosophy, theology, mysticism, poetry, literary criticism, historiography, and the Thousand and One Nights. She shows how beauty was measured by the degree of pleasure it elicited in the recipient. The original German Schonheit in der Arabischen Kultur was published by C. D. Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Munich, in 1998. Paper edition (199-3), $22.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR




Beauty and the Beast


Book Description

This is the first published version of Beauty and the Beast, written by the French author Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve in the mid-18th century and translated by James Robinson Planch . It is a novel-length story intended for adult readers, addressing the issues of the marriage system of the day in which women had no right to choose their husband or to refuse to marry. There is also a wealth of rich back story as to how the Prince became cursed and revelations about Beauty's parentage, which fail to appear in subsequent versions of the now classic fairy tale.




Kingdom of Beauty


Book Description

A Study of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University Kingdom of Beauty shows that the discovery of mingei (folk art) by Japanese intellectuals in the 1920s and 1930s was central to the complex process by which Japan became both a modern nation and an imperial world power. Kim Brandt’s account of the mingei movement locates its origins in colonial Korea, where middle-class Japanese artists and collectors discovered that imperialism offered them special opportunities to amass art objects and gain social, cultural, and even political influence. Later, mingei enthusiasts worked with (and against) other groups—such as state officials, fascist ideologues, rival folk art organizations, local artisans, newspaper and magazine editors, and department store managers—to promote their own vision of beautiful prosperity for Japan, Asia, and indeed the world. In tracing the history of mingei activism, Brandt considers not only Yanagi Muneyoshi, Hamada Shōji, Kawai Kanjirō, and other well-known leaders of the folk art movement but also the often overlooked networks of provincial intellectuals, craftspeople, marketers, and shoppers who were just as important to its success. The result of their collective efforts, she makes clear, was the transformation of a once-obscure category of pre-industrial rural artifacts into an icon of modern national style.




Asian Beauty Secrets


Book Description

Dr. Jhin shares the secrets of the Far East in maintaining the beauty that comes from young, vibrant skin. She combines modern-day skin care regimens with the natural and spiritual beauty products, trends, and rituals practiced in Korea, Japan, and China.




The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet


Book Description

By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas | Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize In 2007, Time magazine named him one of the most influential novelists in the world. He has twice been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. The New York Times Book Review called him simply “a genius.” Now David Mitchell lends fresh credence to The Guardian’s claim that “each of his books seems entirely different from that which preceded it.” The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is a stunning departure for this brilliant, restless, and wildly ambitious author, a giant leap forward by even his own high standards. A bold and epic novel of a rarely visited point in history, it is a work as exquisitely rendered as it is irresistibly readable. The year is 1799, the place Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, the “high-walled, fan-shaped artificial island” that is the Japanese Empire’s single port and sole window onto the world, designed to keep the West at bay; the farthest outpost of the war-ravaged Dutch East Indies Company; and a de facto prison for the dozen foreigners permitted to live and work there. To this place of devious merchants, deceitful interpreters, costly courtesans, earthquakes, and typhoons comes Jacob de Zoet, a devout and resourceful young clerk who has five years in the East to earn a fortune of sufficient size to win the hand of his wealthy fiancée back in Holland. But Jacob’s original intentions are eclipsed after a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, the disfigured daughter of a samurai doctor and midwife to the city’s powerful magistrate. The borders between propriety, profit, and pleasure blur until Jacob finds his vision clouded, one rash promise made and then fatefully broken. The consequences will extend beyond Jacob’s worst imaginings. As one cynical colleague asks, “Who ain’t a gambler in the glorious Orient, with his very life?” A magnificent mix of luminous writing, prodigious research, and heedless imagination, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is the most impressive achievement of its eminent author. Praise for The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet “A page-turner . . . [David] Mitchell’s masterpiece; and also, I am convinced, a masterpiece of our time.”—Richard Eder, The Boston Globe “An achingly romantic story of forbidden love . . . Mitchell’s incredible prose is on stunning display. . . . A novel of ideas, of longing, of good and evil and those who fall somewhere in between [that] confirms Mitchell as one of the more fascinating and fearless writers alive.”—Dave Eggers, The New York Times Book Review “The novelist who’s been showing us the future of fiction has published a classic, old-fashioned tale . . . an epic of sacrificial love, clashing civilizations and enemies who won’t rest until whole family lines have been snuffed out.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post “By any standards, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is a formidable marvel.”—James Wood, The New Yorker “A beautiful novel, full of life and authenticity, atmosphere and characters that breathe.”—Maureen Corrigan, NPR




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