The introduction of this book reads, "Beauty, like every other quality — courage, fear, ugliness, trust, truth, wisdom — is a part of us and apart from us, inside us and outside us, personal and impersonal. Beauty invites us to build bridges and make connections between the senses and the soul, between contemplation and expression, between ourselves and the world." In this wide-ranging and deeply felt book, artist and writer J. Ruth Gendler invites us to reclaim and celebrate the often misunderstood quality of beauty as one of the most profound and essential forces in our lives. Drawing upon observations from art and mythology, science and nature, contemporary culture and personal experience, the author looks at her subject in its most generous implications — not simply as a reflection of surface and image, but as a pathway to wholeness, integrity, coherence, and ultimately, to love. Written with curiosity, courage, a discerning eye and a lyrical sensibility, and illustrated with evocative line drawings by the author, Notes on the Need for Beauty displays the strong personal voice that has made her previous book, The Book of Qualities so beloved. It is a work to savor and to share.

珍·露絲·貞德萊爾（J. Ruth Gendler）多纔多藝，是當今美國小有名氣的人物，兼有藝術傢、作傢、教師三個頭銜。用她自己的話說，她主要用畫筆創作，極少用文字創作，因而她名下的文字作品僅有兩部。她二十多年前齣版的第一部著作《心靈國度》（Book of Qualities）至今已重印四十餘次，本書是她的第二部著作。