Book Of Etiquette And Ceremonial

 
The Yili (仪礼; literally "Etiquette and Rites") or Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial is a Chinese classic text about Zhou Dynasty rituals. The Yili, Zhouli 周礼 "Zhou Rites", and Liji 礼记 "Record of Rites" — collectively known as the "three ritual texts" — are Confucianist compilations of records about rites, ceremonies, protocols, and social customs.
Title
The title Yili combines the Chinese words yi 仪 "demeanor; appearance; etiquette; ceremony; rite; present; gift; apparatus" and li 礼 "ceremony; rite; ritual; courtesy; etiquette; manners; propriety; social customs". In modern Standard Mandarin, the compound yili 仪礼 means "etiquette; rite; protocol".
This ritual text was first called Yili in the (ca. 80 CE) Lunheng. During the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), it was also called Shili 士礼 "Rites for Common Officers", Lijing 礼经 "Classic of Rites", Ligujing 礼古经 "Old Classic of Rites", or simply Li 礼 "Rites". Among Zhou Dynasty feudal ranks, this shi 士 was a "low-level noble; yeoman; common officer; scholar".
History
Many early Chinese texts were lost during the Qin Dynasty (213-206 BCE) burning of books and burying of scholars. When texts were restored during the early Han Dynasty, the Yili was extant in two versions: "Old Text" (supposedly discovered in the walls of Confucius's residence) and "New Text" (supposedly transmitted orally). Zheng Xuan (127–200) compiled an Yili edition from both the Old and New Text versions and wrote the first commentary. Wang Su (195-256 CE) wrote two books about the Yili and criticized Zheng, but Zheng's version became the basis for later studies and editions.
The Yili text was carved into the 837 CE Kaicheng Stone Classics, and first printed from woodblocks from 932-953 CE. In 1959, archeologists excavated some 1st-century Han tombs at Wuwei, Gansu and discovered a cache of wooden and bamboo textual copies. They include three fragmentary manuscripts of the Yili, covering more than seven chapters.
The first Western translations of the Yili were in French (Charles-Joseph de Harlez de Deulin 1890 and Seraphin Couvreur 1916). John Steele (1917) translated the full text into English.
Content

The Classic Of Poetry

The Book of Songs, formerly called Poetry, is the earliest general collection of ancient Chinese poems. It is also called Three Hundred Poems, for it includes 305 poems in total. Since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Poetry was regarded as a must read by the Confucians, so it is called The Book of Songs. The interpretation and study on The Book of Songs has been carried on generation after generation, and it is not stopped until now.Collected in The Book of Songs were poems popular around the region from the north of the Yellow River basin to the Jianghan Drainage Area during the period from the early Western Zhou Dynasty (the 11th century BC) to the mid Spring and Autumn Period. It is said that they had been compiled by Confucius.In the ancient times, poems are lyrics for accompanying tunes. The Book of Songs is classified into three parts according to contents, namely Feng (ballads), Ya (peoms from intellectuals or aristocrats), and Song (songs for praying). Feng, also called Guofeng, is mostly the collection of folk songs. It is divided into 15 groups and has a total of 160 poems, which mainly express the love between men and women and the dissatisfaction of the people toward the emperor. Ya contains 105 poems, including 31 articles of Daya and 74 articles of Xiaoya, most of which were written by court officials and aristocrats. Song collects 40 poems, which are songs for offering sacrifice and praising emperors by the aristocrats. They are usually accompanied with dance during the performance. Although the Book of Songs is a collection of works of many people, authors of most works are unknown, just a small part of them were researched out by later generations.The Book of Songs exerted a very profound effect on ancient China in terms of politics, culture, language, and even thinking. During the Spring and Autumn Period, diplomats often expressed words that they didn’t want to say by themselves or that were difficult to say by quoting sentences from the Book of Songs, which is similar to today’s diplomatic language. Confucius, a sage of China and who gave a high praise to the Book of Songs, claimed that people’s cultures, observation abilities and interpersonal skills could be highly improved through the study of the Book of Songs.

How To Write A Book

If you want to write a book on a particular topic, you can just start writing and keep on going. Once you have written around 75,000 words you have written a book. You can sell your book to a major publisher. You can be a bestseller in a few days and make good money.

This is the procedure for writing a book generally but chances of becoming popular this way are very thin. Before starting a book you must know that what you are going to write. You must have knowledge of audience that what they are going to like and if at all there is an audience for your kind of book. This may sound awkward but you have to convince a publisher while selling your book to them. You can sell books online as well in soft copy if you do not get a publisher.

Mostly, new authors start their book by getting inspired by any other book. They don’t think that they are almost rewriting a book and there may not be audience for the book they are writing.Generally there are two types of books – truth and lies that means nonfiction and fiction. Fiction ones are also called Novels. There are around hundred thousand books published each year only in English language. So you must know what type of book you are about to write. There are online books stores also where you can buy books online.

Let’s say you have read a Harry Potter novel and you are highly impressed with it. You also start writing a book and words come out of you pouring. You become enthusiastic and you write and write until your computer hard disk is full.This is great but while you are writing the book you should ask yourself that where and on which shelf your book will be kept in a book store or online book store. If you are not sure you should visit a book store yourself. You will see your book right next to Harry Potter books so it’s not that you have to write a book, you have to think a lot before writing a book.

The Chinese "Book of songs"

GUAN SUI
Guan-guan go the ospreys ,
On the islet in the river .
The modest , retiring , virtuous , young lady : --
For our prince a good mate she .

Here long , there short , is the duckweed ,
To the left , to the right , borne about by the current .
The modest , retiring , virtuous , young lady : --
Waking and sleeping , he sought her .
He sought her and found her not ,
And waking and sleeping he thought about her .
Long he thought ; oh ! long and anxiously ;
On his side , on his back , he turned , and back again .
Here long , there short , is the duckweed ;
On the left , on the right , we gather it .
The modest , retiring , virtuous , young lady : --
With lutes , small and large , let us give her friendly welcome .
Here long , there short , is the duckweed ;
On the left , on the right , we cook and present it .
The modest , retiring , virtuous , young lady : --
With bells and drums let us show our delight in her .
LU MING
With pleased sounds the deer call to one another ,
Eating the celery of the fields .
I have here admirable guests ;
The lutes are struck , and the organ is blown [for them] ; --
The organ is blown till its tongues are all moving .
The baskets of offerings [also] are presented to them .
The men love me ,
And will show me the perfect path .
With pleased sounds the deer call to one another ,
Eating the southernwood of the fields .
I have here admirable guests ;
Whose virtuous fame is grandly brilliant .
They show the people not to be mean ;
The officers have in them a pattern and model .
I have good wine ,
Which my admirable guests drink , enjoying themselves .
With pleased sounds the deer call to one another ,
Eating the salsola of the fields .
I have here admirable guests ;
For whom are struck the lutes , large and small .
The lutes , large and small , are struck ,
And our harmonious joy is long-continued .
I have good wine ,
To feast and make glad the hearts of my admirable guests .

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.

The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood, he’d been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile. But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.
Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.
In her long-awaited new book, Laura Hillenbrand writes with the same rich and vivid narrative voice she displayed in Seabiscuit. Telling an unforgettable story of a man’s journey into extremity, Unbroken is a testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.

A book called Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage took Annie Leibovitz to places that she could explore with no agenda. She wasn’t on assignment. She chose the subjects simply because they meant something to her. The first place was Emily Dickinson’s house in Amherst, Massachusetts, which Leibovitz visited with a small digital camera. A few months later, she went with her three young children to Niagara Falls. “That’s when I started making lists,” she says. She added the houses of Virginia Woolf and Charles Darwin in the English countryside and Sigmund Freud’s final home, in London, but most of the places on the lists were American. The work became more ambitious as Leibovitz discovered that she wanted to photograph objects as well as rooms and landscapes. She began to use more sophisticated cameras and a tripod and to travel with an assistant, but the project remained personal.

Leibovitz went to Concord to photograph the site of Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond. Once she got there, she was drawn into the wider world of the Concord writers. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s home and Orchard House, where Louisa May Alcott and her family lived and worked, became subjects. The Massachusetts studio of the Beaux Arts sculptor Daniel Chester French, who made the seated statue in the Lincoln Memorial, became the touchstone for trips to Gettysburg and to the archives where the glass negatives of Lincoln’s portraits have been saved. Lincoln’s portraitists—principally Alexander Gardner and the photographers in Mathew Brady’s studio—were also the men whose work at the Gettysburg battlefield established the foundation for war photography. At almost exactly the same time, in a remote, primitive studio on the Isle of Wight, Julia Margaret Cameron was developing her own ultimately influential style of portraiture. Leibovitz made two trips to the Isle of Wight and, in an homage to the other photographer on her list, Ansel Adams, she explored the trails above the Yosemite Valley, where Adams worked for fifty years.
The final list of subjects is perhaps a bit eccentric. Georgia O’Keeffe and Eleanor Roosevelt but also Elvis Presley and Annie Oakley, among others. Figurative imagery gives way to the abstractions of Old Faithful and Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty. Pilgrimage was a restorative project for Leibovitz, and the arc of the narrative is her own. “From the beginning, when I was watching my children stand mesmerized over Niagara Falls, it was an exercise in renewal,” she says. “It taught me to see again.”

The DASH Diet Action Plan: Proven to Lower Blood Pressure and Cholesterol Without Medication

　　The complete guide to lowering blood pressure and cholesterol-without medication-through a proven diet, exercise, and weight loss program
　　Finally, the #1 ranked DASH diet is popularized and user-friendly. Unlike any diet before it, DASH, which stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, came out of groundbreaking NIH-funded research. Now, Marla Heller, MS, RD, who was trained by one of the primary architects of the DASH diet and is herself the leading dietician putting DASH into action for over ten years, shares the secret to making the diet easy and accessible, in THE DASH DIET ACTION PLAN.
Rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat and nonfat dairy, lean meats, fish, beans, and nuts, DASH is grounded in healthy eating principles that lower blood pressure; reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, and some types of cancer; and support reaching and maintaining a healthy weight. No diet has a medical pedigree like DASH, and this book is a simple, actionable plan that can fit seamlessly into everyone's life and lifestyle. It includes:

• 　　28 days of meal plans at different calorie ranges
• 　　Simple tools to help you personalize a DASH Diet Action Plan for guaranteed success
• 　　DASH-friendly recipes and shopping lists
• 　　Tips for eating on-the-run
• 　　Advice on healthy weight loss and exercise for every lifestyle.

Now, you can revolutionize your health and change your life-without medication. There are no magical combinations, no forbidden foods-just fabulous, healthy eating!

Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis

　　How the worldwide currency war, already under way, will soon affect us all.
　　The debasement of the dollar, bailouts in Greece and Ireland, and Chinese currency manipulation are unmistakable signs that we are experiencing the start of a new currency war. Fought as a series of competitive devaluations of one country's currency against others, currency wars are one of the most destructive and feared outcomes in international economics. Left unchecked, the new currency wars could lead to a crisis worse than the panic of 2008.
Drawing on a mix of economic history, network science, and sociology, Currency Wars provides a rich understanding of the increasing threats to U.S. national security, from dollar devaluation to collapse in the European periphery, failed states in Africa, Chinese neomercantilism, Russian adventurism, and the current scramble for gold.
James Rickards, an expert who has worked at the highest levels of both finance and national security, explains everything we need to know about this growing global standoff. He takes readers around the world and behind closed doors to explain complex financial and political currents with absorbing firsthand anecdotes.

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and The Romanovs returns with another masterpiece of narrative biography, the extraordinary story of an obscure young German princess who traveled to Russia at fourteen and rose to become one of the most remarkable, powerful, and captivating women in history.

Born into a minor noble family, Catherine transformed herself into Empress of Russia by sheer determination. Possessing a brilliant mind and an insatiable curiosity as a young woman, she devoured the works of Enlightenment philosophers and, when she reached the throne, attempted to use their principles to guide her rule of the vast and backward Russian empire. She knew or corresponded with the preeminent historical figures of her time: Voltaire, Diderot, Frederick the Great, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, Marie Antoinette, and, surprisingly, the American naval hero, John Paul Jones.

Reaching the throne fired by Enlightenment philosophy and determined to become the embodiment of the “benevolent despot” idealized by Montesquieu, she found herself always contending with the deeply ingrained realities of Russian life, including serfdom. She persevered, and for thirty-four years the government, foreign policy, cultural development, and welfare of the Russian people were in her hands. She dealt with domestic rebellion, foreign wars, and the tidal wave of political change and violence churned up by the French Revolution that swept across Europe. Her reputation depended entirely on the perspective of the speaker. She was praised by Voltaire as the equal of the greatest of classical philosophers; she was condemned by her enemies, mostly foreign, as “the Messalina of the north.”

Catherine’s family, friends, ministers, generals, lovers, and enemies—all are here, vividly described. These included her ambitious, perpetually scheming mother; her weak, bullying husband, Peter (who left her lying untouched beside him for nine years after their marriage); her unhappy son and heir, Paul; her beloved grandchildren; and her “favorites”—the parade of young men from whom she sought companionship and the recapture of youth as well as sex. Here, too, is the giant figure of Gregory Potemkin, her most significant lover and possible husband, with whom she shared a passionate correspondence of love and separation, followed by seventeen years of unparalleled mutual achievement.

The story is superbly told. All the special qualities that Robert K. Massie brought to Nicholas and Alexandra and Peter the Great are present here: historical accuracy, depth of understanding, felicity of style, mastery of detail, ability to shatter myth, and a rare genius for finding and expressing the human drama in extraordinary lives.

History offers few stories richer in drama than that of Catherine the Great. In this book, this eternally fascinating woman is returned to life.

The Nobel Peace Prize 2011

Alfred Nobel was interested in social issues. He developed a special engagement in the peace movement. An important factor in Nobel’s interest in peace was his acquaintance with Bertha von Suttner. Perhaps his interest in peace was also due to the use of his inventions in warfare and assassination attempts? Peace was the fifth and final prize area that Nobel mentioned in his will.

Henry Dunant, founder of the Red Cross, shared the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901 with Frédéric Passy, a leading international pacifist of the time. In addition to humanitarian efforts and peace movements, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded for work in a wide range of fields including advocacy of human rights, mediation of international conflicts, and arms control.

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by a committee of five persons who are chosen by the Norwegian Storting (Parliament of Norway), Oslo, Norway.
The Nobel Peace Prize 2011 was awarded jointly to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkol Karman "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work".