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The Ugly History of Beautiful Things

The Ugly History of Beautiful Things

Essays on Desire and Consumption

Paris Review contributor Katy Kelleher explores our obsession with gorgeous things, unveiling the fraught histories of makeup, flowers, perfume, silk, and other beautiful objects.

Product Code: 9371
ISBN: 9781982179366
Format: Paperback / softback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 272
Published Date: 04/23/2024
Availability:In stock
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Price: $18.99
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April recommended reading by the New York Times Book Review, Vanity Fair, Goodreads, Jezebel, Christian Science Monitor, All Arts, and the Next Big Idea Club.

Katy Kelleher has spent much of her life chasing beauty. As a child, she uprooted handfuls of purple, fragrant little flowers from the earth, plucked iridescent seashells from the beach, and dug for turquoise stones in her backyard. As a teenager she applied glittery shimmer to her eyelids after religiously dabbing on her signature scent of orange blossoms and jasmine. And as an adult, she coveted gleaming marble countertops and delicate porcelain to beautify her home. This obsession with beauty led her to become a home, garden, and design writer, where she studied how beautiful things are mined, grown, made, and enhanced. In researching these objects, Kelleher concluded that most of us are blind to the true cost of our desires. Because whenever you find something unbearably beautiful, look closer, and you’ll inevitably find a shadow of decay lurking underneath.

In these dazzling and deeply researched essays, Katy Kelleher blends science, history, and memoir to uncover the dark underbellies of our favorite goods. She reveals the crushed beetle shells in our lipstick, the musk of rodents in our perfume, and the burnt cow bones baked into our dishware. She untangles the secret history of silk and muses on her problematic prom dress. She tells the story of countless workers dying in their efforts to bring us shiny rocks from unsafe mines that shatter and wound the earth, all because a diamond company created a compelling ad. She examines the enduring appeal of the beautiful dead girl and the sad fate of the ugly mollusk. With prose as stunning as the objects she describes, Kelleher invites readers to examine their own relationships with the beautiful objects that adorn their body and grace their homes.

And yet, Kelleher argues that while we have a moral imperative to understand our relationship to desire, we are not evil or weak for desiring beauty. The Ugly History of Beautiful Things opens our eyes to beauty that surrounds us, helps us understand how that beauty came to be, what price was paid and by whom, and how we can most ethically partake in the beauty of the world.


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Contents

Introduction

1. The Mercurial Charms of The Mirror
On Seeing and being seen
On stealing, eating, praying, and playing with flowers

3. Bright Blues, Cursed Cuts
On gemstones, worry stones, and her majesty the diamond

4. Spiraling
On the ancient appeal of shells, pearls, and mollusk-made wonders

5. Live Fast, Die Pretty
On Wearing war paint, faces full of lead, and the makeup of makeup

6. Dirty, Sweet, Floral, Foul
The rank backstory of perfumery

7. Women and Worms
The prismatic sheen of silk and its fairy-tale logic

8. Deceptions and Damnation
The molten glow of screens, the beauty of stained glass, and the treachery of spectacles

9. Bone White, Paper Thin
On porcelain dishes, pale faces, and the complicated act of setting a table

10. The Exhalations of The Earth
On marble statues, engineered stones, white lungs, and small lambs

Conclusion

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

“There are writers you want to read on every subject, because they are able to whip up such stylish, intricate, and sparkling prose that they elevate every paragraph to an event. Katy Kelleher is such a writer – her sentences are as beautiful as the diamonds and marble surfaces she writes about, but contain far more depth. Her research shines through every page of this book without ever weighing it down. Kelleher has pulled off a magic trick: she has written a book that is both sumptuous and airy, rich and gossamer. I inhaled it.” —Rachel Syme, Staff Writer, The New Yorker

“A lovely book. Kelleher's voice is curious and full of insight into the often dark histories of the things we call beautiful. By the end of this book, you'll want to go pick some flowers and listen to the ocean out of a conch shell, empowered by the knowledge of where that desire comes from.” —Rax King, Author of Tacky and co-host of the podcast Low Culture Boil

"Fascinating and richly researched. You'll never smell a rose or stroke a silk blouse quite the same way again – even if, like Kelleher, you can’t stop loving them." —Alexandra Lange, author of Meet Me By the Fountain

"Katy Kelleher's The Ugly History of Beautiful Things is an astonishing accomplishment--for its insight, its honesty, and its willingness to ask difficult questions and probe the darkest corners of human nature for the answers. Without judgment or preciousness, Kelleher takes us on a journey into the complexity, power, necessity, and aliveness of beauty. This book's strengths are many, but above all, it is Kelleher's restless, thrilling curiosity itself--which she turns inward as much as outward--that will stay with readers long after they turn the last page." —Chloé Cooper Jones, author of Easy Beauty

“Fascinating, compelling, and at times unnerving–Kelleher's deep dive into the nature of beauty and the material reality that lurks beneath its surface lingers in your mind long after you've put it down.”—Colin Dickey, author of Ghostland

“Kelleher has always been obsessed with beauty, and this poetic book is a careful study of its ambiguity and meaning.” —Kirkus Reviews

"Kelleher’s engrossing essays cogently explore the unsettling dichotomy between the precious and the problematic, the seedy and the sublime to vividly reveal the pleasures and perils in pursuit of ideal beauty. —Booklist, starred review
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April recommended reading by the New York Times Book Review, Vanity Fair, Goodreads, Jezebel, Christian Science Monitor, All Arts, and the Next Big Idea Club.

Katy Kelleher has spent much of her life chasing beauty. As a child, she uprooted handfuls of purple, fragrant little flowers from the earth, plucked iridescent seashells from the beach, and dug for turquoise stones in her backyard. As a teenager she applied glittery shimmer to her eyelids after religiously dabbing on her signature scent of orange blossoms and jasmine. And as an adult, she coveted gleaming marble countertops and delicate porcelain to beautify her home. This obsession with beauty led her to become a home, garden, and design writer, where she studied how beautiful things are mined, grown, made, and enhanced. In researching these objects, Kelleher concluded that most of us are blind to the true cost of our desires. Because whenever you find something unbearably beautiful, look closer, and you’ll inevitably find a shadow of decay lurking underneath.

In these dazzling and deeply researched essays, Katy Kelleher blends science, history, and memoir to uncover the dark underbellies of our favorite goods. She reveals the crushed beetle shells in our lipstick, the musk of rodents in our perfume, and the burnt cow bones baked into our dishware. She untangles the secret history of silk and muses on her problematic prom dress. She tells the story of countless workers dying in their efforts to bring us shiny rocks from unsafe mines that shatter and wound the earth, all because a diamond company created a compelling ad. She examines the enduring appeal of the beautiful dead girl and the sad fate of the ugly mollusk. With prose as stunning as the objects she describes, Kelleher invites readers to examine their own relationships with the beautiful objects that adorn their body and grace their homes.

And yet, Kelleher argues that while we have a moral imperative to understand our relationship to desire, we are not evil or weak for desiring beauty. The Ugly History of Beautiful Things opens our eyes to beauty that surrounds us, helps us understand how that beauty came to be, what price was paid and by whom, and how we can most ethically partake in the beauty of the world.


Bookmark and Share
Contents

Introduction

1. The Mercurial Charms of The Mirror
On Seeing and being seen
On stealing, eating, praying, and playing with flowers

3. Bright Blues, Cursed Cuts
On gemstones, worry stones, and her majesty the diamond

4. Spiraling
On the ancient appeal of shells, pearls, and mollusk-made wonders

5. Live Fast, Die Pretty
On Wearing war paint, faces full of lead, and the makeup of makeup

6. Dirty, Sweet, Floral, Foul
The rank backstory of perfumery

7. Women and Worms
The prismatic sheen of silk and its fairy-tale logic

8. Deceptions and Damnation
The molten glow of screens, the beauty of stained glass, and the treachery of spectacles

9. Bone White, Paper Thin
On porcelain dishes, pale faces, and the complicated act of setting a table

10. The Exhalations of The Earth
On marble statues, engineered stones, white lungs, and small lambs

Conclusion

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

“There are writers you want to read on every subject, because they are able to whip up such stylish, intricate, and sparkling prose that they elevate every paragraph to an event. Katy Kelleher is such a writer – her sentences are as beautiful as the diamonds and marble surfaces she writes about, but contain far more depth. Her research shines through every page of this book without ever weighing it down. Kelleher has pulled off a magic trick: she has written a book that is both sumptuous and airy, rich and gossamer. I inhaled it.” —Rachel Syme, Staff Writer, The New Yorker

“A lovely book. Kelleher's voice is curious and full of insight into the often dark histories of the things we call beautiful. By the end of this book, you'll want to go pick some flowers and listen to the ocean out of a conch shell, empowered by the knowledge of where that desire comes from.” —Rax King, Author of Tacky and co-host of the podcast Low Culture Boil

"Fascinating and richly researched. You'll never smell a rose or stroke a silk blouse quite the same way again – even if, like Kelleher, you can’t stop loving them." —Alexandra Lange, author of Meet Me By the Fountain

"Katy Kelleher's The Ugly History of Beautiful Things is an astonishing accomplishment--for its insight, its honesty, and its willingness to ask difficult questions and probe the darkest corners of human nature for the answers. Without judgment or preciousness, Kelleher takes us on a journey into the complexity, power, necessity, and aliveness of beauty. This book's strengths are many, but above all, it is Kelleher's restless, thrilling curiosity itself--which she turns inward as much as outward--that will stay with readers long after they turn the last page." —Chloé Cooper Jones, author of Easy Beauty

“Fascinating, compelling, and at times unnerving–Kelleher's deep dive into the nature of beauty and the material reality that lurks beneath its surface lingers in your mind long after you've put it down.”—Colin Dickey, author of Ghostland

“Kelleher has always been obsessed with beauty, and this poetic book is a careful study of its ambiguity and meaning.” —Kirkus Reviews

"Kelleher’s engrossing essays cogently explore the unsettling dichotomy between the precious and the problematic, the seedy and the sublime to vividly reveal the pleasures and perils in pursuit of ideal beauty. —Booklist, starred review
Be the first to submit a review on this product!
Review and Rate this Item

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