Palace of Palms

by Kate Teltscher

Author	: Kate Teltscher
Publisher	: Pan Macmillan
Total Pages	: 320
Release	: 2020-07-09
Genre	: History
ISBN	: 1529004861

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'A glorious green adventure story.' Ann Treneman, The Times 'Books of the Year' 'The most enthralling historical book I’ve read this year.' Claire Tomalin, New Statesman 'Books of the year' Daringly innovative when it opened in 1848, the Palm House in Kew Gardens remains one of the most beautiful glass buildings in the world today. Seemingly weightless, vast and yet light, the Palm House floats free from architectural convention, at once monumental and ethereal. From a distance, the crowns of the palms within are silhouetted in the central dome; close to, banana leaves thrust themselves against the glass. To enter it is to enter a tropical fantasy. The body is assaulted by heat, light and the smell of damp vegetation. In Palace of Palms, Kate Teltscher tells the extraordinary story of its creation and of the Victorians’ obsession with the palms that filled it. It is a story of breathtaking ambition, of scientific discovery and, crucially, of the remarkable men whose vision it was. The Palm House was commissioned by the charismatic first Director of Kew, Sir William Hooker, designed by the audacious Irish engineer, Richard Turner, and managed by Kew’s forthright curator, John Smith, who battled with boilers and floods to ensure the survival of the rare and wondrous plants it housed.

Madness Under the Royal Palms

by Laurence Leamer

Author	: Laurence Leamer
Publisher	: Hachette Books
Total Pages	: 525
Release	: 2009-01-20
Genre	: True Crime
ISBN	: 1401395554

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The New York Times bestselling history of the glamour and debauchery of the ultra-wealthy Palm Beach community--from The Breakers to Trump's Mar-a-Lago. For more than a hundred years, Palm Beach has been an exclusive and exotic universe of wealth and privilege in America. And until Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme devastated its eternally sunny world, the reality of this affluent enclave has rarely been exposed to outsiders. Now, in Madness Under the Royal Palms, resident insider Laurence Leamer reveals the secrets and scandals of this South Florida island via a cast of characters that includes social climbers, trophy wives, sugar daddies, glamorous widows and their "escorts," sociopathic multimillionaires, and elegant society queens. Dive into the unbelievable true story of love, lust, money, and murder in a uniquely American paradise.

Palace of Palms

by Kate Teltscher

Author	: Kate Teltscher
Publisher	: Picador
Total Pages	: 400
Release	: 2021-06-10
Genre	:
ISBN	: 9781529004885

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The Palm House at Kew has been one of Britain's most popular attractions since it opened in 1848 - this is the story of its creation and the men whose vision it was.

The High Road to China

by Kate Teltscher

Author	: Kate Teltscher
Publisher	: A&C Black
Total Pages	: 336
Release	: 2013-07-11
Genre	: Social Science
ISBN	: 1408846756

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_______________ 'Splendid and fascinating ... Teltscher has made remarkable use of her source material, aided by the constantly perceptive and witty tone of Bogle's own writings' - Patrick French, Sunday Times 'It is hard to imagine this fascinating story being told with greater sensitivity or skill' - Sunday Telegraph 'Teltscher is a remarkable new historian ... wholly original' - William Dalrymple 'Thrilling and fascinating ... Letters, journals and documents are woven into the flowing narrative, which is wonderfully vivid and evocative' - Jenny Uglow _______________ An unlikely meeting between a young Scotsman and the Panchen Lama gives birth to a remarkable friendship In 1774 British traders longed to open relations with China so they sent a young Scotsman, George Bogle, as an envoy to Tibet. Bogle became smitten by what he saw there, and struck up a remarkable friendship with the Panchen Lama. This gripping book tells the story of their two extraordinary journeys across some of the harshest and highest terrain in the world: Bogle's mission, and the Panchen Lama's state visit to China, on which British hopes were hung. Piecing together extracts from Bogle's private papers, Tibetan biographies of the Panchen Lama, the account of a wandering Hindu monk and the writings of the Emperor himself, Kate Teltscher deftly reconstructs the momentous meeting of these very different worlds.

Graffiti Palace

by A. G. Lombardo

Author	: A. G. Lombardo
Publisher	: Serpent's Tail
Total Pages	: 345
Release	: 2018-06-07
Genre	: Fiction
ISBN	: 1782833609

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It's August 1965 and Los Angeles is scorching - and when white police officers arrest an ordinary black Angeleno named Marquette Frye, they light the touchpaper on six days of rioting. Graffiti Palace follows young African-American graffiti expert Americo Monk as he tries to get home through the chaos, telling the secret history of the riots - and the unfolding story of Los Angeles and black America - along the way. As Monk travels through the streets of South Central LA, he orients himself by gang tags and more intricate and mysterious graffiti symbols towards home. But the cops and the gangs are after the notebook where Monk records the city's graffiti, and which might just be the key to the secret tides of power ebbing below the surface of the city... Bursting at the seams with memorable characters - including Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, sewer-dwelling crack dealers and a legendary Mexican graffiti artist no-one's even sure exists - Graffiti Palace conjures into being a fantastical, living, breathing portrait of Los Angeles in 1965.

Mar-a-Lago

by Laurence Leamer

Author	: Laurence Leamer
Publisher	: Flatiron Books
Total Pages	: 305
Release	: 2019-01-29
Genre	: Political Science
ISBN	: 1250177510

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Where Trump Learned to Rule To know Donald J. Trump it is best to start in his natural habitat: Palm Beach, Florida. It is here he learned the techniques that took him all the way to the White House. Painstakingly, over decades, he has created a world in this exclusive tropical enclave and favorite haunt of billionaires where he is not just president but a king. The vehicle for his triumph is Mar-A-Lago, one of the greatest mansions ever built in the United States. The inside story of how he became King of Palm Beach—and how Palm Beach continues to be his spiritual home even as president—is rollicking, troubling, and told with unrivaled access and understanding by Laurence Leamer. In Mar-A-Lago, the reader will learn: * How Donald Trump bought a property now valued by some at as much as $500,000,000 for less than three thousand dollars of his own money. * Why Trump was blackballed by the WASP grandees of the island and how he got his revenge. * How Trump joined forces with the National Enquirer, which was headquartered nearby, and engineered his own divorce. * How by turning Mar-A-Lago into a private club, Trump was the unlikely man to integrate Palm Beach’s restricted country club scene, and what his real motives were. * What transpires behind the gates of today’s Mar-A-Lago during “the season,” when President Trump and assorted D.C. power players fly down each weekend. In addition to copious interviews and reporting from inside Mar-A-Lago, Laurence Leamer brings an acute and unparalleled understanding of the society of Palm Beach, where he has lived for twenty-five years. He has written an essential book for understanding Donald Trump’s inner character.

The Palace of Tears

by Alev Lytle Croutier

Author	: Alev Lytle Croutier
Publisher	: Delta
Total Pages	: 194
Release	: 2002-01-02
Genre	: Fiction
ISBN	: 0385334915

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It is 1868. On a balmy autumn afternoon in Paris, young winemaker Casimir de Châteauneuf wanders into a small shop filled with curiosities from the Orient. There he spies a cache of fine miniature portraits. Above all others, an ivory-skinned beauty captivates him. Her eyes ... one blue, the other yellow. That night they pursue Casimir in his dreams, as one burning question consumes him: Who is she? Thus begins Alev Croutier’s lush, stirring adventure of the heart — a mesmerizing tale of forbidden passion, true love, and destiny. For Casimir will forsake his family, his vocation, and his country to find the object of his obsession. His journey will lead him across desert and sea, from the Royal Court in Paris to a sultan’s palace in Istanbul. And there he will find the woman of his reveries, the woman with one blue eye, the other yellow. But in this city of passion, in a Palace of Tears, Casimir is about to discover what it will mean to make a dream real ... and what awaits him when his lover is set free.

Palm Beach, Mar-a-Lago, and the Rise of America's Xanadu

by Les Standiford

Author	: Les Standiford
Publisher	: Atlantic Monthly Press
Total Pages	: 342
Release	: 2019-11-05
Genre	: History
ISBN	: 0802146457

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From the first Gilded Age to the second, a “charming, zippy history . . . a rollicking, informative lesson in real estate, American history, and current events.” —Town & Country Looking at the island of Palm Beach today, with its unmatched mansions, tony shops, and pristine beaches, one is hard pressed to visualize the dense tangle of Palmetto brush and mangroves that it was when visionary entrepreneur and railroad tycoon Henry Flagler first arrived there in April 1893. Trusting his remarkable instincts, he built the Royal Poinciana Hotel within a year, and two years later, what was to become the legendary Breakers—instantly establishing the island as the preferred destination for those who could afford it. Over the next 125 years, Palm Beach has become synonymous with exclusivity—especially its most famous residence, Mar-a-Lago. As Les Standiford relates, the high walls of Mar-a-Lago and other manses like it were seemingly designed to contain scandal within as much as keep intruders out. This book tells the history of this fabled landscape intertwined with the colorful lives of its famous and infamous protagonists, from Flagler’s two wives to architect Addison Mizner, who created Palm Beach’s “Mediterranean look” to heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and her husband E. F. Hutton, the original residents of Mar-a-Lago. With authoritative detail, Standiford recounts how Marjorie ruled Palm Beach society until her death in 1973, and how the fate of her mansion threatened to tear apart the very fabric of the town until Donald Trump acquired it in 1985. “Edifying, energetic, and captivating.” —Florida Weekly

The Shark Club

by Ann Kidd Taylor

Author	: Ann Kidd Taylor
Publisher	: Penguin
Total Pages	: 303
Release	: 2017-06-06
Genre	: Fiction
ISBN	: 0735221499

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“A quintessential summer read.” —Marie Claire A warm and wonderfully vivid novel about taking second chances—in life and in the sea One summer day on the beach in Florida, two extraordinary things happen to Maeve Donnelly. First, she is kissed by Daniel, the boy of her dreams. Then, she is bitten by a blacktip shark. Eighteen years later, Maeve has thrown herself into her work as a world-traveling marine biologist discovering more about the minds of misunderstood sharks. But when Maeve returns home to the legendarily charming and eccentric Hotel of the Muses where she was raised by her grandmother, she finds more than just the blood orange sunsets and key lime pies she’s missed waiting for her. While Maeve has always been fearless in the water, on land she is indecisive. A chance meeting on the beach with a plucky, irresistible little girl who is just as fascinated by the ocean as Maeve was growing up leaves her at a crossroads: Should she re-kindle her romance with Daniel, the first love she left behind when she dove into her work? Or indulge in a new romance with her colleague, Nicholas, who turns up in her hometown to investigate an illegal shark-finning operation? Set against the intoxicating backdrop of palm trees, calypso bands, and perfect ocean views, The Shark Club is a story of the mysterious passions of one woman’s life: her first love and new love; the sea and sharks that inhabit it.