Orchid House
Orchid House

Author: Cindy Martinusen Coloma

Publisher: Thomas Nelson

Published: 2008-02-12

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1418537276

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Love in a foreign land. A decaying hacienda full of secrets. And a woman searching for the story of her life. A funeral and some family business--that's what Julia Bentley expects when she travels to the Philippines to bury her grandfather. She hopes for a brief adventure, a distraction from her most recent failed relationship and her loose-ends California life. Maybe even a chance to meet some distant relatives she's never known. Instead, she discovers a place where past and present, Spanish and Asian, primitive and civilized mingle in a melange as spicy and colorful as the paella her relatives dish up for special occasions. A place where some children hitch rides on cattle and others wield loaded guns. Where guerillas lurk in the jungle, and volcanoes and governments are threatened to blow. Where stories haunt her ancestral home--the grand but decaying Hacienda Esperanza, Plantation of Hope--and danger lurks behind every tree. Love and orchids bloom in places she never thought to look. How can a land so foreign, and so troubled, fill her with a strange peace? And would staying mean risking her life . . . or finding it at last?

The Orchid Thief
The Orchid Thief

Author: Susan Orlean

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Published: 2011-07-20

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0307795292

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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

Orchid
Orchid

Author: Jim Endersby

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2016-11-07

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 022642703X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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.

Hothouse Orchid
Hothouse Orchid

Author: Stuart Woods

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2009-09-22

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1101144939

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Home gets hot for CIA Special Agent Holly Barker in this novel in #1 New York Times bestselling author Stuart Woods’s thrilling series. After Holly Barker lets an international terrorist slip through her fingers for a second time, the CIA thinks she might want a long vacation. So Holly returns to her hometown of Orchid Beach, Florida, where she had been police chief for many years. But a very unpleasant surprise awaits her. Many years earlier, while she was in the army, Holly and another female officer had brought charges against their commander for sexual harassment. Holly had managed to fight him off, but the other woman, a young lieutenant, had not. The officer in question was acquitted of all charges, and has also left the army—for a job as Orchid Beach’s new police chief. Now Holly must decide whether to return to the CIA—or seek her revenge...

The Kew Gardener's Guide to Growing Orchids
The Kew Gardener's Guide to Growing Orchids

Author: Philip Seaton

Publisher: White Lion Publishing

Published: 2020-01-21

Total Pages: 147

ISBN-13: 0711242801

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A combination of botanical beauty and practical advice in Kew Gardener’s Guide to Growing Orchids will inspire beginners and experienced growers to love and grow 60 beautiful orchids and 12 inspirational projects. From growing from seed to harvesting vanilla pods, the projects will bring the wonderful world of orchids to life and produce confident, keen growers wanting to expand their experience of these exotic flora.

The Orchid and the Dandelion
The Orchid and the Dandelion

Author: W. Thomas Boyce MD

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2019-01-29

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1101946571

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"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.

Growing Orchids in Your Garden
Growing Orchids in Your Garden

Author: Robert G. M. Friend

Publisher: Timber Press (OR)

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 9780881926590

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The author draws on a lifetime of experience to offer details on more than 500 orchid choices for every garden situation and to provide practical cultivation information.

The Mystery of the Three Orchids
The Mystery of the Three Orchids

Author: Augusto De Angelis

Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo

Published: 2016-10-18

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 1782271864

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The notorious Inspector Di Vincenzi returns in this cryptic murder mystery teeming with blackmail, deceit, and revenge Death is in the air at one of Milan’s great fashion houses. As a new collection is unveiled, and the wealthy rub shoulders with the glamorous, owner Cristiana O’Brian escapes upstairs to discover the strangled body of her servant slumped on her bed—a single orchid by his side. When Inspector Di Vincenzi is called in to investigate, the brilliant detective is puzzled. Why is Cristiana behaving so suspiciously? And what is her estranged ex-husband doing there? As two additional corpses appear, each accompanied by an orchid, Di Vincenzi must see through dirty tricks and slippery clues in order to uncover the real killer.

The Seven Orchids
The Seven Orchids

Author: Ian MacMillan

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Fiction. A young woman tries to rebuild her life after moving away from Waikiki and the excesses of a self-destructive lifestyle with her drug-dealing boyfriend. She moves temporarily to her father's Molokai beach home, a ramshackle old house complete with an overgrown orchid hothouse and an ancient koa canoe. There she uncovers the remnants of a tragic love storywhich inspires a ragtag team of paddlers to take on the channel race and in so doing rebuild their lives. "I may never race a koa canoe from Molokai to Oahu, but if there's any writer in the world that can make me feel the blisters as though I alreadyhave, that writer is Ian MacMillan. This is also a novel of the deepest concern for the human condition, of the importance of love and dignity, a novel that strikes at the heart of why we keep at being alive"--Robert Barclay.