"Sarah Kaufman offers an old-fashioned cure for a modern-day ailment. The remedy for our culture of coarseness is grace…This is an elegant, compelling, and, yes, graceful book." —Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive In this joyful exploration of grace’s many forms, Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Sarah L. Kaufman celebrates a too-often-forgotten philosophy of living that promotes human connection and fulfillment. Drawing on the arts, sports, the humanities, and everyday life—as well as the latest findings in neuroscience and health research—Kaufman illuminates how our bodies and our brains are designed for grace. She promotes a holistic appreciation and practice of grace, as the joining of body, mind, and spirit, and as a way to nurture ourselves and others.
Through this book, you will be moved by powerful stories of personal loss and triumph. You will learn important tips on how to learn, how to mend fences, how to make the world better, and all the while do it with energy and with a smile.
A Pulitzer Prize–winning dance critic teaches us to appreciate—and enact—grace in every dimension, from the physical to the emotional. Grace has long been taught as essential to civilized living. The Three Graces—goddesses of charm, beauty, and creativity—exemplify ease and harmony with one another and the world around them. But what has happened to this simple, marvelous concept of being at ease in the world? With warmth, humor, and an ever-perceptive eye, Sarah L. Kaufman sifts the graceful from the graceless, celebrating heart-catching moments of physical elegance in sports, movies, dance, fashion, and music; rare sightings of celebrity grace; the secrets of gracious hosts; and grace found unexpectedly, in the kitchen of a high-end restaurant and among strippers in a basement bar. Kaufman’s thought-provoking reflections on these physical and social acts of grace offer hope for even the clumsiest, most awkward among us. Guided by the muse of Cary Grant (with further inspiration from Smokey Robinson, Roger Federer, Nelson Mandela, Margot Fonteyn, Amy Purdy, Beyoncé, and others), Kaufman illuminates the importance of grace in the small moments of everyday life. In The Art of Grace, she inspires us to walk taller, spend time on unnecessary kindnesses, and celebrate the grace notes in our lives and those of others.
A comedian who has gained popularity on YouTube offers her irreverent take on life, in an illustrated book geared toward anyone faced with the daunting challenge of growing up. Original.
The Art of Grace is a book for the heart. While avoiding technical definitions that drain grace of its beauty, the author has woven together a magnificent composition of moving personal stories and uplifting Biblical teaching. The result is a work revealing the vibrancy of grace as something better "caught than taught".Gary Barrett has used this approach because he contends grace is so exquisite the words to describe it in a technical manner, though helpful, are limited and can never quite reveal the depth of its magnificence. He is so aware of this linguistic limitation he created some new words just to compensate for the shortcomings he encountered with the English language.After being filled with joy by the beauty of grace, readers will be gently encouraged to allow grace to do a transformational work in their own lives. It is on this journey of transformation that the most pleasant surprise of grace is discovered, a revelation that comes when we learn to live life from a new center.This uniquely refreshing approach to the wonders of grace will be of deep insight and encouragement no matter where you find yourself in your spiritual journey.
Just as our society delights in citations, quotations, and allusions in myriad contexts, not least in popular song, late medieval poets and composers knew well that such references could greatly enrich their own works. In The Art of the Grafted Song: Citation and Allusion in the Age of Machaut, author Yolanda Plumley explores the penchant for borrowing in chansons and lyrics from fourteenth-century France, uncovering a practice integral to the experiments in form, genre, and style that ushered in a new school of lyric. Working across disciplinary boundaries, Plumley traces creative appropriations in the burgeoning "fixed forms" of this new tradition to build a more intimate understanding of the shared experience of poetry and music in the generations leading up to, and including, Guillaume de Machaut. Exploring familiar and less studied collections of songs as well as lyrics without music, this book sheds valuable light on the poetic and musical knowledge of authors and their audiences, and on how poets and composers devised their works and engaged their readers or listeners. It presents fresh insights into when and in which milieus the classic Ars nova polyphonic chanson took root and flourished, and into the artistic networks of which Machaut formed a part. As Plumley reveals, old songs lingered alongside the new in the collective imagination well beyond what the written sources imply, reminding us of the continued importance of memory and orality in this age of increasing literacy. The first detailed study of citational practice in the French fourteenth-century song-writing tradition, The Art of Grafted Song will appeal to students and scholars of medieval French music and literature, cultural historians, and others interested in the historical and social context of music and poetry in the late Middle Ages.
This is not your grandmother’s etiquette book. In a world where “etiquette” and “manners” are being increasingly equated to “being old-fashioned,” Girls with Grace is the Social Graces and Empowerment 101 handbook you never thought you needed. Forget going to finishing school, Girls with Grace serves as a handy guide to social graces and personal improvement. This book revisits rules of etiquette and breaks them down into manageable, easy-to-understand tips that are readily applicable to your daily life. Knowing this little—and often forgotten—social conventions and common courtesies will ultimately help boost your confidence in navigating any social situation you find yourself in. From personal style to money management to dating and goal-setting, Girls with Grace is full of tips to make sure you are empowered to handle everyday situations confidently, to achieve your dreams and desires courageously, and to treat the people you meet along the way with respect and dignity. Whether you’re meeting dignitaries, going to a job interview, or even meeting the future love of your life, the tips within this book will help you in making sure you’re always projecting your best self. Let Girls with Grace help you make a commitment to yourself to live your most authentic self with grace, dignity, and confidence.
If you worry about how to handle the awkward situations in life-or just life itself-with dignity, wisdom, and grace-well, The Art of Grace may be exactly what you need. In this easy-to-read book overflowing with charm and encouragement, Rose Robbins gives gentle, practical advice on cultivating inner and outer beauty.
Because clothing, food, and shelter are basic human needs, they provide excellent entries to cultural values and individual aesthetics. Everyone gets dressed every day, but body art has not received the attention it deserves as the most common and universal of material expressions of culture. The Grace of Four Moons aims to document the clothing decisions made by ordinary people in their everyday lives. Based on fieldwork conducted primarily in the city of Banaras, India, Pravina Shukla conceptualizes and realizes a total model for the study of body art—understood as all aesthetic modifications and supplementations to the body. Shukla urges the study of the entire process of body art, from the assembly of raw materials and the manufacture of objects, through their sale and the interactions between merchants and consumers, to the consumer's use of objects in creating personal decoration.
A surprise trip to Barcelona with her boyfriend, Jake, seems like the perfect antidote to Grace Sawyer's current woes. The city is dazzling and unpredictable, but the biggest surprise for Grace is discovering who arranged and paid for the vacation. Carrie Ann wasn't just Grace's foster sister. Clever, pretty, and mercurial, she was her best friend--until everything went terribly wrong. Now, as she flees an abusive marriage, Carrie Ann has turned to the one person she hopes will come through for her. Despite her initial misgivings, Grace wants to help. But then Carrie Ann and Jake both go missing. Stunned and confused, Grace begins to realize how much of herself she's kept from Jake--and how much of Carrie Ann she never understood. Soon Grace is baited into following a trail of scant clues across Spain, determined to find the truth, even if she must revisit her troubled past to do it. . . Mary Carter's intriguing novel delves into the complexities of childhood bonds, the corrosive weight of guilt and blame, and all the ways we try--and often fail--to truly know the ones we love. Praise for Mary Carter "A touching novel." --Publishers Weekly on The Things I Do For You "This is guaranteed to become one of the books on your shelf that you'll want to read again." --The Free Lance-Star on The Pub Across the Pond
