Title: Judge This.
Author: Chip Kidd.
Genre: Non-fiction, design, books on books.
Country: U.S.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 2015.
Summary: Judging every-day items and ordinary experiences, book-cover-designer Kidd breaks down the good and the bad, the confusing and the clear, the absurd and the splendid. Design rests on a spectrum that ranges from clarity to mystery. Some design requires charity; other design needs a lot more mystery; most need a bit of both. From the design of the ATM machine to the books you read to the medicine you take to the coffee cup on your desk, design gives us the impressions by which we experience and judge the world. In this book, the author reveals the hidden secrets behind design choices, and, along the way, shows how so much of our world can be a dazzling magic show, a seductive work of art, and a sublime experience—if we have the tools to judge it.

My rating: 6/10
My review:

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Title: In Praise of Shadows.
Author: Jun'ichirō Tanizaki (trans. by Thomas J. Harper and Edward G. Seidensticker).
Genre: Non-fiction, philosophy, architecture, art.
Country: Japan.
Language: Japanese.
Publication Date: 1933.
Summary: An essay on Japanese aesthetics, exploring everything from architecture, jade, food, and toilets and combining an acute sense of the use of space in buildings, to descriptions of laquerware under candlelight and women in the darkness of the house of pleasure. The essay is both a historical work documenting a period when many in Japan grappled with the breakneck speed of Westernization, and a timeless celebration of the beauty and elegance of simplicity. Nearly a century removed from its first appearance, the work offers a surprisingly contemporary lesson in the values of subtlety and restraint. The Foreword by Charles Moore, American architect and Fellow of the American Institute of Architects introduces the books, highlighting how familiarizing ourselves with the Japanese aesthetic and the beauty of shadow and darkness, can shift our perspective on everything. In the Afterword (1977) by Thomas J. Harper, the translator explains Tanizaki's seemingly haphazard writing style that may appear abrasive to a Western reader, as well as expanding on the social circumstances in which Tanizaki was moved to write the essay and a quickly modernizing and changing world.

My rating: 9/10.
My review:

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