Poetry of Roses


Book Description

As it was centuries ago for the Persian poet Attar, so it is for us today: The rose remains a flower of mysterious beauty, of many moods, with myriad symbolic associations. Parker celebrates the rose, pairing her exquisite full-color photographs of blooms from her own garden with evocative poems by such diverse writers as Sappho, Emily Dickinson, John Milton, e.e. cummings, T.S. Eliot, and Jorge Luis Borges, among others. 84 photos.




Rose Sees Red


Book Description

Partly based on the author's own experiences at the famous Manhattan high school for the performing arts, this novel explores friendship, freedom, and the art of challenging convention.Set in New York in the 1980s, this story of two ballet dancers (one American, one Russian) recounts the unforgettable night they spend in the city, and celebrates the friendship they form despite their cultural and political differences.







By Any Other Name


Book Description

‘Fascinating...I’ll never look at a rose in quite the same way again.’ Adrian Tinniswood The rose is bursting with meaning. Over the centuries it has come to represent love and sensuality, deceit, death and the mystical unknown. Today the rose enjoys unrivalled popularity across the globe, ever present at life’s seminal moments. Grown in the Middle East two thousand years ago for its pleasing scent and medicinal properties, it has become one of the most adored flowers across cultures, no longer selected by nature, but by us. The rose is well-versed at enchanting human hearts. From Shakespeare’s sonnets to Bulgaria’s Rose Valley to the thriving rose trade in Africa and the Far East, via museums, high fashion, Victorian England and Belle Epoque France, we meet an astonishing array of species and hybrids of remarkably different provenance. This is the story of a hardy, thorny flower and how, by beauty and charm, it came to seduce the world.




Orwell's Roses


Book Description

Roses, pleasure and politics: a fresh take on Orwell as an avid gardener, whose political writing was grounded in his passion for the natural world. 'I loved this book... An exhilarating romp through Orwell's life and times' Margaret Atwood 'Expansive and thought-provoking' Independent Outside my work the thing I care most about is gardening - George Orwell Inspired by her encounter with the surviving roses that Orwell is said to have planted in his cottage in Hertfordshire, Rebecca Solnit explores how his involvement with plants, particularly flowers, illuminates his other commitments as a writer and antifascist, and the intertwined politics of nature and power. Following his journey from the coal mines of England to taking up arms in the Spanish Civil War; from his prescient critique of Stalin to his analysis of the relationship between lies and authoritarianism, Solnit finds a more hopeful Orwell, whose love of nature pulses through his work and actions. And in her dialogue with the author, she makes fascinating forays into colonial legacies in the flower garden, discovers photographer Tina Modotti's roses, reveals Stalin's obsession with growing lemons in impossibly cold conditions, and exposes the brutal rose industry in Colombia. A fresh reading of a towering figure of the 20th century which finds solace and solutions for the political and environmental challenges we face today, Orwell's Roses is a remarkable reflection on pleasure, beauty, and joy as acts of resistance. 'Luminous...It is efflorescent, a study that seeds and blooms, propagates thoughts, and tends to historical associations' New Statesman 'A genuinely extraordinary mind, whose curiosity, intelligence and willingness to learn seem unbounded' Irish Times




Bulletin


Book Description




Fences


Book Description

From legendary playwright August Wilson comes the powerful, stunning dramatic bestseller that won him critical acclaim, including the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize. Troy Maxson is a strong man, a hard man. He has had to be to survive. Troy Maxson has gone through life in an America where to be proud and black is to face pressures that could crush a man, body and soul. But the 1950s are yielding to the new spirit of liberation in the 1960s, a spirit that is changing the world Troy Maxson has learned to deal with the only way he can, a spirit that is making him a stranger, angry and afraid, in a world he never knew and to a wife and son he understands less and less. This is a modern classic, a book that deals with the impossibly difficult themes of race in America, set during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s. Now an Academy Award-winning film directed by and starring Denzel Washington, along with Academy Award and Golden Globe winner Viola Davis.




The Garden


Book Description







Design Fundamentals


Book Description

Design Fundamentals: Notes on Type looks like a design student's sketchbook with handwritten notes and full-color, hand-drawn illustrations. But it's more than that. This gorgeously illustrated "notebook" is a full-blown typography course in disguise. Young designers are lured in by the lush graphics and quirky layout only to discover by the end of the book that they've learned all of the key concepts taught in a foundational course on type. They'll learn about the history of letterforms, the anatomy and physiology of type, the basics of measurements and spacing, how to recognize and choose type for design projects, and more. Fun and fast-paced, this creative notebook isn't required reading, it's desired reading; and it's the third in a series of Design Fundamentals books that students will want to keep and enjoy long after they've mastered these basic building blocks of design. This book includes: - Core instruction on the history, anatomy, and structure of type - Direction on the basics of measurement and spacing: leading, kerning, indents, and line lengths both in text and display sizes, and optical measurement considerations. - Examination of the use, mood, and "voice" of type as seen in creative work and professional examples - Exercises and projects for practice and concept development - Strange and delightful illustrations created specifically for this book (to inspire action) - A companion website stocked with additional projects, a bibliography, glossary, and links to additional visual examples.