Kiss Guide to Wine or Book of Tea

Kiss Guide to Wine

Author: Robert Joseph

The Keep It Simple Series — the greatest guides ever!

Drink to your health and discover how wine can be good for you with DK's KISS Guide to Wine. You'll learn the basics from what wine to buy, where to buy it, and how to store it, to finding out which glasses, corkscrews, and other wine gadgets are the best to use. Savor and appreciate the basic styles of wine, from soft and fruity to heavy and rich. Enter the new world of high-tech wine production and compare it with the ancient methods. Master the art of tasting wine and discover the best food and wine combinations.

The Keep It Simple Series is the new standard in how-to books! Written by leading experts, each book includes full-color photographs and illustrations throughout, making these the first and only truly accessible guides for beginners. The KISS format is designed to help readers build confidence from the start, and learn gradually and thoroughly to the very last page. Much more than introductions to various subjects, these inspiring and innovative books are the ones that readers can trust!

Author Biography: Robert Joseph is the wine correspondent for The Sunday Telegraph in London and founding editor of WINE Magazine. Among his many achievements, he has won writing awards from the Marques de Caceres, Glenfiddich, and the Wine Guild of the UK. Robert Joseph is the author of several books, including French Wines, also published by Dorling Kindersley.

Margaret Rand is an award-winning wine writer and former editor of WINE Magazine, Wine and Spirit International and Whisky Magazine. She contributes to a wide range of publications, including The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph, WINE Magazine and the web site winetoday.com. She also wrote the audio guide for Vinopolis, London's major wine exhibit.

Robert Mondavi, now in this mid-80's, is American's foremost ambassador of wine. In 1966, he set up the now celebrated Robert Mondavi Winery in California, and single-handedly has popularized new styles of wine, such as Chenin Blanc. With Julia Child, Robert is currently Co-chairman of the American Institute of Wine and Food, which is devoted to celebrating food, wine, and the arts in American culture. He is also the recipient of many prestigious awards, including the American Wine Society's "1982 Winemaker of the Year Award" and Harvard Business Association's "Business Leader of the Year Award" in 1997.

Interesting textbook: DVD Studio Pro 4 or Beginning Linux Programming

Book of Tea

Author: Okakura Kakuzo

In 1906 in turn-of-the century Boston, a small, esoteric book about tea was written with the intention of being read aloud in the famous salon of Isabella Gardner. It was authored by Okakura Kakuzo, a Japanese philosopher, art expert, and curator. Little known at the time, Kakuzo would emerge as one of the great thinkers of the early 20th century, a genius who was insightful, witty and greatly responsible for bridging Western and Eastern cultures.
Nearly a century later, Kakuzo's The Book of Tea is still beloved the world over. In this edition, readers are treated to Kakuzo's delicious wisdom along with evocative quadratone photographs in an exquisite new package. Interwoven with a rich history of tea and its place in Japanese society is poignant commentary on Eastern culture and our ongoing fascination with it, as well as illuminating essays on art, spirituality, poetry, and more. The Book of Tea is a delightful cup of enlightenment from a man far ahead of his time.
Author Bio: Okakura Kakuzo (1862-1913) devoted his life to teaching, art, Zen, and the preservation of Japanese art and culture, working as an ambassador, teacher, writer, and, at the time of his death, as the Curator fo Chinese and Japanese Art at the Boston Museum.

Liza Dalby has lived intermittently in Japan since she was a teenager. She is the first non-Japanese ever to have become a geisha. She received a PhD in anthropology from Stanford University in 1978 and is the author of several books, including Geisha, and the upcoming Tale of Murasaki.

Booknews

Kakuzo was a leading figure in Japanese art and culture at the end of the 19th century, and this book, first published in 1906, is a classic treatise explicating the philosophical nuances of tea and the tea ceremony in Japanese culture. This edition contains an introduction by Liza Dalby who was the first American trained as a Geisha in the 1970s, and elegant photos by Daniel Proctor. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)