People collect to connect with the past, personal and historic, to exercise some small and perfect degree of control over a carefully chosen portion of the world. The Grain of the Clay is Allen S. Weiss’s engaging exploration of the meaning and practice of collecting through his relationship with Japanese ceramics. Weiss unfolds their world of materiality and pleasure and the culture and knowledge that extends out of their forms and uses. Japanese ceramics are celebrated for their profound material poetry, especially in relation to the natural world, and they maintain a unique place in the history of the arts and in the lives of those who collect and use them. The Grain of the Clay deepens our appreciation of ceramics while providing a critical meditation on collecting. Weiss examines the vast stylistic range of ceramics, investigating the reasons for viewing, using and collecting them. He explores ceramic objects’ relationship with cuisine as an art and as a part of everyday life. Ceramics are increasingly finding their rightful place in museums and Weiss shows how this newfound engagement with finely wrought natural materials might foster an increased ecological sensitivity. The Grain of the Clay will appeal to the collector in every one of us.