Showing titles in Aesthetics

Uncover the fascinating history of aesthetics and how shifting cultural ideals shape our bodies, art, and power today. Perfect for a thought-provoking commute, this sociological journey traces human desire from ancient cave paintings to modern digital screens. Dive into a reflective exploration...

"A tour de force. It is a thoughtful, subtle, beautifully written discussion of what it takes to live a meaningful life." —Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice Throughout history most of us have looked to faith, relationships, or deeds to give our lives purpose. But in A Significant...

As an interiors photographer, Penny Wincer found that walking through a stranger’s home, listening to them explaining the history of the space, and the meaning of precious objects, was one of most joyful aspects of her work. And in Home Matters Penny does exactly that, taking us through the houses of 13 artists, designers and writers, inspiring us to reflect on how we want our own homes to feel.

Bloomsbury presents Concrete by Stephen Parnell, read by Matt Addis. Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Concrete has an image problem. Portrayed as boring, cheap, and thoughtless, it is often considered synonymous with bad...

Bloomsbury presents Drone by Adam Rothstein, read by Greg Lockett Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Drones are in the newspaper, on the TV screen, swarming through the networks, and soon, we're told, they'll be delivering...

Bloomsbury presents Dust by Michael Marder, read by Josh Wichard. Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. No matter how much you fight against it, dust pervades everything. It gathers in even layers, adapting to the contours of...

Bloomsbury presents Glasses by Adam Geczy, read by Todd Boyce. Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Glasses are among the oldest and most commonplace prosthetics we have invented. But what does it mean to wear glasses? There...

Bloomsbury presents… Driver’s Licence by Meredith Castile read by Barbara Barnes Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. A classic teenage fetish object, the American driver’s license has long symbolized freedom and...

Bloomsbury presents… Coffee by Dinah Lenney read by Lisa Rost-Welling Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Coffee--it's the thing that gets us through, and over, and around. The thing--the beverage, the break, the ritual--we...

‘Expertly crafted’ AMELIA DIMOLDENBERG ‘A beautiful siren song to anyone who has ever felt ashamed of their own taste’ SCARLETT CURTIS 'An ode to both fearless critique and visceral fandom’ BILLIE JD PORTER A deep dive into the joy and power of personal pleasures, quirks, obsessions...

Bloomsbury presents Football by Mark Yakich, read by Josh Wichard. Object Lessons is a series of short books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. When is the “beautiful game” at its most beautiful? How does football function as a lens through which so many view their daily lives?...

The book draws on history and sociology, and more personally on the author's early career as a professional cellist, as well as on his later work as a city planner and social thinker. It traces the evolution of performing spaces in the city; the emergence of actors, musicians, and dancers as independent artists; the inequality between performer and spectator; the uneasy relations between artistic creation and social and religious ritual; the uses and abuses of acting by politicians. The Janus-faced art of performing is both destructive and civilizing.

L'idea che la bellezza sia qualcosa di oggettivo e naturale è una superstizione moderna. Infatti non è mai esistita un'epoca in cui non convivessero estetiche e sensibilità diverse. Il culto della bellezza è diventato una prigione solo di recente: quando le coercizioni materiali verso le donne hanno iniziato ad allentarsi, il canone estetico nei confronti del loro aspetto è diventato rigido e asfissiante, spingendole alla ricerca di una perfezione irraggiungibile.

Desde o garbo e a elegância nos primeiros anos da República até a atual banalização das cirurgias plásticas, História da beleza no Brasil trata das transformações ligadas aos padrões estéticos e aos cuidados com o corpo, mas também do martírio causado pela feiura e da tumultuada luta para driblar o envelhecimento, a solidão e o fracasso.

Imagination: A Very Short Introduction explores imagination as a cognitive power and an essential dimension of human flourishing, demonstrating how imagination plays multiple roles in human cognition and shapes humanity in profound ways. Examining philosophical, evolutionary, and literary perspectives on imagination, the author shows how this facility, while potentially distorting, both frees us from immediate reality and enriches our sense of it, making possible our experience of a meaningful world.

Philosopher Alva Noë explores the inseparability of life, art, and philosophy, arguing that we have greatly underestimated what this entangled reality means for understanding human nature. Life supplies art with its raw materials, but art, Noë argues, remakes life by giving us resources to live differently. Our lives are permeated with the aesthetic. Indeed, human nature is an aesthetic phenomenon, and art is the truest way of understanding ourselves. All this suggests that human nature is not a natural phenomenon. 

La elegancia, en su etimología, está emparentada con la elección ( eligĕre), de tal manera que una persona elegante, entre otras cosas, es aquella que sabe elegir. El pensamiento elegante moldea a un sujeto que no lucha por mostrarse distinto entre la multitud sino que se eleva hacia una...

Some people long to find it, others long to escape it. But, whether we welcome or dread it, solitude is something we all experience in different forms at different points in our lives. After enduring nearly five years of solitary confinement, in cruel and terrifying conditions, Terry Waite discovered that he was drawn to find out more about the power of solitude in the lives of other people. The result is this haunting book, in which he recalls his encounters with people who have experienced some very different ways of being solitary.

Oscar Wilde wurde am 16.10.1854 in Dublin geboren. Sein Vater war Arzt, seine Mutter Dichterin. Wilde studierte in Dublin und Oxford. Seit 1879 lebte er in London. 1895 wurde er vom Vater seines Freundes Lord Douglas wegen homosexueller Neigungen angezeigt und zu zwei Jahren Zuchthaus verurteilt. Wilde starb am 30.11.1900 verarmt in Paris.

Philosopher Nick Riggle explores the beauty of being alive by investigating the things we say to inspire ourselves and each other: seize the day, treat yourself, you only live once. These clichés are at best vague, at worst stupid. They imply that you should do something wild with your life because your life is precious, a little like saying you should go swimming with your grandfather’s watch because it is irreplaceable.