Download or read book The Orchid in Lore and Legend written by Luigi Berliocchi and published by Timber Press (OR). This book was released on 2000 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Berliocchi (1953-1999), former lecturer in garden history at the University of Reggio Calabria, Italy, presents a lively history of orchids, including myths and legends, their uses from prehistory to modern times, patrons and hunters, arts and customs, the plants' habitat and structure, descriptions of the genera, and basic culture. Fine period color plates and b&w illustrations throughout. A translation from Italian of Il Fiore Degli Dei, L'Orchidea dal Mito Alla Storia, 1996, Nuovi Equilibri, Viterbo, Italy.Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.
Download or read book The Orchid Thief written by Susan Orlean and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-07-20 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK A modern classic of personal journalism, The Orchid Thief is Susan Orlean’s wickedly funny, elegant, and captivating tale of an amazing obsession. Determined to clone an endangered flower—the rare ghost orchid Polyrrhiza lindenii—a deeply eccentric and oddly attractive man named John Laroche leads Orlean on an unforgettable tour of America’s strange flower-selling subculture, through Florida’s swamps and beyond, along with the Seminoles who help him and the forces of justice who fight him. In the end, Orlean—and the reader—will have more respect for underdog determination and a powerful new definition of passion. In this new edition, coming fifteen years after its initial publication and twenty years after she first met the “orchid thief,” Orlean revisits this unforgettable world, and the route by which it was brought to the screen in the film Adaptation, in a new retrospective essay. Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more. Praise for The Orchid Thief “Stylishly written, whimsical yet sophisticated, quirkily detailed and full of empathy . . . The Orchid Thief shows [Orlean’s] gifts in full bloom.”—The New York Times Book Review “Fascinating . . . an engrossing journey [full] of theft, hatred, greed, jealousy, madness, and backstabbing.”—Los Angeles Times “Orlean’s snapshot-vivid, pitch-perfect prose . . . is fast becoming one of our national treasures.”—The Washington Post Book World “Orlean’s gifts [are] her ear for the self-skewing dialogue, her eye for the incongruous, convincing detail, and her Didion-like deftness in description.”—Boston Sunday Globe “A swashbuckling piece of reporting that celebrates some virtues that made America great.”—The Wall Street Journal
Download or read book Orchid written by Jim Endersby and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-11-07 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The prize-winning history of the orchid: “an engaging and enlightening account of one of the Earth's most mythologized botanical wonders” (Richard Conniff, author of House of Lost Worlds). At once delicate, exotic, and elegant, orchids are beloved for their singular, instantly recognizable beauty. Found in nearly every climate, the many species of orchid have had varying forms of significance in countless cultures over time. Following the orchid’s journey from Ancient Greek medicine to twentieth century detective novels, science historian Jim Endersby explores the flower’s four recurring themes: science, empire, sex, and death. Orchids were a symbol of the exotic riches sought by 19th century Europeans in their plans for colonization. They became subjects of scientific scrutiny for Charles Darwin, who investigated their methods of cross-pollination. As Endersby shows, orchids—perhaps because of their extraordinarily diverse colors, shapes, and sizes—have also bloomed repeatedly in films, novels, plays, and poems, from Shakespeare to science fiction. Featuring many gorgeous illustrations from the collection of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Orchid: A Cultural History was awarded the Watson Davis and Helen Miles Davis Prize by the History of Science Society. It is an enchanting tale not only for gardeners and plant collectors, but anyone curious about the flower’s obsessive hold on the imagination in history, cinema, literature, and more.
Download or read book A History of the Orchid written by Merle A. Reinikka and published by Timber Press. This book was released on 2008-11-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An engaging account of humanity's growing fascination with orchids from ancient times onward, together with a biographical gallery of 50 great scientists, naturalists, and explorers who contributed to our knowledge of orchids. The nomenclature and bibliography have been updated for this edition. This book is only available through print on demand. All interior art is black and white.
Download or read book Orchid Lore written by and published by . This book was released on 1950 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Orchid Muse A History of Obsession in Fifteen Flowers written by Erica Hannickel and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2022-12-20 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Longlisted for the 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award A kaleidoscopic journey into the world of nature’s most tantalizing flower, and the lives it has inspired. The epitome of floral beauty, orchids have long fostered works of art, tales of adventure, and scientific discovery. Tenacious plant hunters have traversed continents to collect rare specimens; naturalists and shoguns have marveled at orchids’ seductive architecture; royalty and the smart set have adorned themselves with their allure. In Orchid Muse, historian and home grower Erica Hannickel gathers these bold tales of the orchid-smitten throughout history, while providing tips on cultivating the extraordinary flowers she features. Consider Empress Eugenie and Queen Victoria, the two most powerful women in nineteenth-century Europe, who shared a passion for Coelogyne cristata, with its cascading, fragrant white blooms. John Roebling, builder of the Brooklyn Bridge, cultivated thousands of orchids and introduced captivating hybrids. Edmond Albius, an enslaved youth on an island off the coast of Madagascar, was the first person to hand-pollinate Vanilla planifolia, leading to vanilla’s global boom. Artist Frida Kahlo was drawn to the lavender petals of Cattleya gigas and immortalized the flower’s wilting form in a harrowing self-portrait, while more recently Margaret Mee painted the orchids she discovered in the Amazon to advocate for their conservation. The story of orchidomania is one that spans the globe, transporting readers from the glories of the palace gardens of Chinese Empress Cixi to a seedy dime museum in Gilded Age New York’s Tenderloin, from hazardous jungles to the greenhouses and bookshelves of Victorian collectors. Lush and inviting, with radiant full-color illustrations throughout, Orchid Muse is the ultimate celebration of our enduring fascination with these beguiling flowers.
Download or read book Fragrant Orchid written by Yoshiko Yamaguchi and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2015-02-28 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed actress and legendary singer, Yamaguchi Yoshiko (aka Li Xianglan, 1920-2014), emerged from Japan-occupied Manchuria to become a transnational star during the Second Sino-Japanese war. Born to Japanese parents, raised in Manchuria, and educated in Beijing, the young Yamaguchi learned to speak impeccable Mandarin Chinese and received professional training in operatic singing. When recruited by the Manchurian Film Association in 1939 to act in "national policy" films in the service of Japanese imperialism in China, she allowed herself to be presented as a Chinese, effectively masking her Japanese identity in both her professional and private lives. Yamaguchi soon became an unprecedented transnational phenomenon in Manchuria, Shanghai, and Japan itself as the glamorous female lead in such well-known films as Song of the White Orchid (1939), China Nights (1940), Pledge in the Desert (1940), and Glory to Eternity (1943). Her signature songs, including "When Will You Return?" and "The Evening Primrose," swept East Asia in the waning years of the war and remained popular well into the postwar decades. Ironically, although her celebrated international stardom was without parallel in wartime East Asia, she remained a puppet within a puppet state, choreographed at every turn by Japanese film studios in accordance with the expediencies of Japan's continental policy. In a dramatic turn of events after Japan's defeat, she was placed under house arrest in Shanghai by the Chinese Nationalist forces and barely escaped execution as a traitor to China. Her complex and intriguing life story as a convenient pawn, willing instrument, and tormented victim of Japan's imperialist ideology is told in her bestselling autobiography, translated here in full for the first time in English. An addendum reveals her postwar career in Hollywood and Broadway in the 1950s, her friendship with Charlie Chaplin, her first marriage to Isamu Noguchi, and her postwar life as singer, actress, political figure, television celebrity, and private citizen. A substantial introduction by Chia-ning Chang contextualizes Yamaguchi's life and career within the historical and cultural zeitgeist of wartime Manchuria, Japan, and China and the postwar controversies surrounding her life in East Asia.
Download or read book Empress Orchid written by Anchee Min and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2004 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a master of the historical novel, Empress Orchid sweeps readers into the heart of the Forbidden City to tell the fascinating story of a young concubine who becomes China's last empress. Min introduces the beautiful Tzu Hsi, known as Orchid, and weaves an epic of a country girl who seized power through seduction, murder, and endless intrigue. When China is threatened by enemies, she alone seems capable of holding the country together. In this "absorbing companion piece to her novel Becoming Madame Mao" (New York Times), readers and reading groups will once again be transported by Min's lavish evocation of the Forbidden City in its last days of imperial glory and by her brilliant portrait of a flawed yet utterly compelling woman who survived, and ultimately dominated, a male world.
Download or read book Orchid written by Jim Endersby and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-11-07 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction: imagining orchids -- Censored origins -- The lesbian boy -- The uses of orchids -- Red book, black flower -- Utopian botany -- The signature of all things -- The name of the orchid -- Making a family -- A second Adam -- Artificial to natural -- Myths of orchids -- Orchidmania -- The blooming aristocracy -- Orchis bank -- Every trifling detail -- Beautiful contrivances -- The scramble for orchids -- Lost orchids -- Cannibal tales -- Savage orchids -- Long purples and a forked radish -- Queer flowers -- Creation and consolation -- Sexy orchids -- Boy's own orchids -- Manly orchids -- Frail orchids -- Deceptive orchids -- Orchids in orbit -- Endangered orchids -- Fragile specialists -- The spider orchids of Sussex -- Conclusion: an orchid's-eye view?
Download or read book Orchid Modern written by Marc Hachadourian and published by Timber Press. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This beautiful book is useful for all of us, novice and experienced orchid lovers alike.” —Martha Stewart, author, entrepreneur, founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Add the vibrant colors and exotic blooms of orchids to your houseplant haven! It’s easier than you think with the help of Orchid Modern. Marc Hachadourian, the curator of the orchid collection at the New York Botanical Garden, shares his secrets to successfully growing these sometimes finicky houseplants. Besides the basics, you’ll learn his top 120 orchid picks for green and not-so-green thumbs. Ten inspirational, step-by-step projects, including terrariums, a wreath, and a kokedama, provide the confidence to make orchids a thriving, vivid part of your home’s signature style.
Download or read book The Orchid and the Dandelion written by W. Thomas Boyce MD and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Based on groundbreaking research that has the power to change the lives of countless children--and the adults who love them." --Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts. A book that offers hope and a pathway to success for parents, teachers, psychologists, and child development experts coping with difficult children. In Tom Boyce's extraordinary new book, he explores the "dandelion" child (hardy, resilient, healthy), able to survive and flourish under most circumstances, and the "orchid" child (sensitive, susceptible, fragile), who, given the right support, can thrive as much as, if not more than, other children. Boyce writes of his pathfinding research as a developmental pediatrician working with troubled children in child-development research for almost four decades, and explores his major discovery that reveals how genetic make-up and environment shape behavior. He writes that certain variant genes can increase a person's susceptibility to depression, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and antisocial, sociopathic, or violent behaviors. But rather than seeing this "risk" gene as a liability, Boyce, through his daring research, has recast the way we think of human frailty, and has shown that while these "bad" genes can create problems, they can also, in the right setting and the right environment, result in producing children who not only do better than before but far exceed their peers. Orchid children, Boyce makes clear, are not failed dandelions; they are a different category of child, with special sensitivities and strengths, and need to be nurtured and taught in special ways. And in The Orchid and the Dandelion, Boyce shows us how to understand these children for their unique sensibilities, their considerable challenges, their remarkable gifts.
Download or read book The Orchids written by Robert L. Dressler and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reprint of the 1981 Smithsonian edition with a new taxonomy note by Dressler. Contains fine reproductions of the original 95 plates (on 16 pages). Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book League of Legends Realms of Runeterra Official Companion written by Riot Games and published by Voracious. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlock the mysteries and magic within League of Legends, one of the world's most popular video games, in this encyclopedic and collectible companion book that explores the game's epic lore. Embark on a journey through the realms of Runeterra in this first-ever collectible companion book, published to celebrate the game's tenth anniversary. Spanning the farthest reaches of this universe and venturing into uncharted territory, this encyclopedic compendium connects players to the rich storytelling that inspires all the action. Inside, you'll find: An expedition through eleven regions, chronicling conflicts, entrenched rivalries, and covert alliances Hundreds of illustrations, including never-before-seen maps and artwork Insights into the heroes, flora, fauna, architecture, politics, and technologies from all corners of this world Original narratives that bring the cultures of Runeterra to life League of Legends is an online game played by millions of people around the world, offering endless engagement with an expanding roster of champions, frequent updates, and a thriving esports scene. This volume is an essential reference for fans everywhere.
Download or read book The Woman Warrior written by Maxine Hong Kingston and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An exhilarating blend of autobiography and mythology, of world and self, of hot rage and cool analysis. First published in 1976, it has become a classic in its innovative portrayal of multiple and intersecting identities—immigrant, female, Chinese, American. • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER “A classic, for a reason.” —Celeste Ng, bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere and Our Missing Hearts, via Twitter As a girl, Kingston lives in two confounding worlds: the California to which her parents have immigrated and the China of her mother’s “talk stories.” The fierce and wily women warriors of her mother’s tales clash jarringly with the harsh reality of female oppression out of which they come. Kingston’s sense of self emerges in the mystifying gaps in these stories, which she learns to fill with stories of her own. A warrior of words, she forges fractured myths and memories into an incandescent whole, achieving a new understanding of her family’s past and her own present.
Download or read book The Classic Cattleyas written by A A Chadwick and published by . This book was released on 2021-01-13 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cattleyas, first introduced in 1818, are the flowers whose form and color defined the essence of tropical orchids for generations to come. This helpful and informative book describes each classic Cattleya species in fascinating detail and includes all that is required to appreciate and grow cattleyas successfully.
Download or read book The Book of Orchids written by Mark W. Chase and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-03-13 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of every seven flowering plants on earth is an orchid. Some are stunningly over the top; others almost inconspicuous. The Orchidaceae is the second most widely geographically distributed family, after the grasses, yet remains one of the least understood. This book will profile 600 species, representing the remarkable and unexpected diversity and complexity in the taxonomy and phylogeny of these beguiling plants, and the extraordinary means they have evolved in order to ensure the attraction of pollinators. Each species entry includes life-size photographs to capture botanical detail, as well as information on distribution, peak flowering period, and unique attributes--both natural and cultural. The result is a work which will attract and allure, much as the orchids themselves do.
Download or read book Golden Orchid written by Karen Zhang and published by Austin Macauley. This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amid the hustle and bustle of teeming contemporary Guangzhou (also known as Canton), capital of Guangdong province, an ordinary blue-collar Chinese family of three copes with a life-threatening crisis. As an only child--the product of China's harsh one-child policy--the daughter of the family must care for her mother who is in the late stage of colon cancer. This is the story of that struggle. That child takes the reader back in time to see the marriage of her parents through the eyes of an only child. Growing up alone without the love and support of a sibling, how does the only child bear the filial responsibility so deeply influenced by traditional Chinese culture? How does she deal with the dilemma of keeping secret from her mother the terminal nature of her cancer? How does her mother's deathbed account of her life change the daughter's understanding of her parents' generation? The true life story is unique both in its depiction of ordinary life in today's China and in its universal picture of an ordinary family dealing with its past and facing its grim future. This young woman, typical of China's one-child generation, tells a tale that ranges from grim to comic, revealing human frailty as well as faith and extraordinary courage.
