Orchid Muse: A History of Obsession in Fifteen Flowers

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Release : 2022-12-20
Genre : Nature
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Book Rating : 293/5 ( reviews)

Orchid Muse: A History of Obsession in Fifteen Flowers - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Orchid Muse: A History of Obsession in Fifteen Flowers write by Erica Hannickel. This book was released on 2022-12-20. Orchid Muse: A History of Obsession in Fifteen Flowers available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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.

Orchid Muse

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Author :
Release : 2022
Genre : Orchids
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Book Rating : 674/5 ( reviews)

Orchid Muse - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Orchid Muse write by Erica Hannickel. This book was released on 2022. Orchid Muse available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.

Wily Violets and Underground Orchids

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Release : 2003-05-17
Genre : Gardening
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Book Rating : 661/5 ( reviews)

Wily Violets and Underground Orchids - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Wily Violets and Underground Orchids write by Peter Bernhardt. This book was released on 2003-05-17. Wily Violets and Underground Orchids available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. In this book, Peter Bernhardt takes us on a grand tour of the botanical realm, weaving engaging descriptions of the lovely shapes and intriguing habits of flowering plants with considerations of broader questions, such as why there are only six basic shapes of flowers and why the orchid family is so numerous and so bizarre. Everyone from amateur naturalists and gardeners to plant scientists will find Wily Violets and Underground Orchids a lively guide to botanical lore.

American Orchid Society Bulletin

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Author :
Release : 1993
Genre : Orchid culture
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Book Rating : /5 ( reviews)

American Orchid Society Bulletin - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook American Orchid Society Bulletin write by American Orchid Society. This book was released on 1993. American Orchid Society Bulletin available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.

Gorgeous George

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Release : 2008-08-19
Genre : Biography & Autobiography
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Book Rating : 636/5 ( reviews)

Gorgeous George - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Gorgeous George write by John Capouya. This book was released on 2008-08-19. Gorgeous George available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. “Finally, the tawdry but glamorous details behind the legend of one of my first childhood heroes. Gorgeous George is such a good read I felt like bleaching my hair afterwards.” — John Waters “Capouya’s biography vividly re-creates Gorgeous George’s antics and the world in which he had more shock value than a numerically named wideout could hope for today.” — Sports Illustrated “Compelling. . . . The tension between George’s excess and his era’s reserve is one of many in his story, and those are what make Capouya’s cultural anthropology so interesting.” — Newsweek “Terrifically, tantalizingly weird. . . . GORGEOUS GEORGE does leave the words of one long-ago sports reporter ringing in your ears: ‘Oh, my, what a strut. If only this man had been born in the barnyard. What a rooster he would have made.’” — New York Times “...[Capouya] delivers a solid, entertaining book about a long-forgotten character and a peculiar slice of American history.” — Entertainment Weekly “Capouya vividly portrays the ins and outs of wrestling and [Wagner’s] own struggle to maintain the ‘Gorgeousness’ of a public life in his private life as well.” — Publishers Weekly “In GORGEOUS GEORGE, Capouya combines extensive research and interviews with a colorful writing style and presents Gorgeous George as a cultural pioneer...Capouya’s words are as fast-paced as the action in the ring and connect with the reader as solidly as a dropkick to George’s kisser.” — Tampa Tribune “Compulsively entertaining...” — Penthouse “You see the title of John Capouya’s biography of Gorgeous George - which claims the flamboyant wrestler “created pop culture” - and you are struck by its audacity. A wrestler responsible for something that important? Impossible. But as you go through the pages, you can’t help but agree.” — New York Post “Gorgeous George invented a style of showmanship that was imitated by entertainers and athletes. With this biography, John Capouya has done an excellent job in introducing the most inventive of sport’s anti-heroes to a new generation of readers.” — Ishmael Reed (novelist, poet, and cultural critic) NO DOUBT OF IT: GEE GEE’S THE BIGGEST THING IN TV — Washington Post, 1949 “I don’t know if I was made for television, or television was made for me.” — Gorgeous George “Liberace stole my entire act, including the candelabra!” — Gorgeous George “One can explain the American condition as an eternal, televised battle between the Babyface and the Heel. That said, there’s never been a heel like Gorgeous George. John Capouya has done a fine job here, excavating a forgotten life and explaining why it mattered.” — Mark Kriegel, author of Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich; National Columnist for FOXSports.com “Like the man himself, this inside look at a legendary performer challenges the reader to think beyond the wrestling ring. We give it four suplexes out of five.” — Pro Wrestling Illustrated “Former Newsweek editor John Capouya reveals the gory underworld of pre-WWE wrestling and shows how the Gorgeous One inspired James Brown, who loved George’s robes, and Muhammad Ali, whose “I am the prettiest” echoed the wrestler’s own vainglorious boasts.” — Los Angeles Magazine “As a show-biz bio and, for those who subscribe to a loose definition of sport, a sports bio, too, this is great stuff, entertaining and well referenced.” — Booklist