Castles in the Air is a beautifully written, autobiographical story of rescuing an ancient mansion. Gwydir Castle was inhabited by ravers and rats until Judy Corbett and her husband Peter Welford found and acquired this 500-year-old house mouldering in the foothills of Snowdonia. Despite the toads, strange smells and squatters, they decided to mortgage themselves to the hilt to bring the castle back to life. This is an evocatively written and genuinely moving book and is infused with an extraordinary sense of place. The couple's adventures in a gothic wonderland lead them through plots both supernatural and historical. In a museum storeroom in a Bronx warehouse they find a missing room, in the castle's Solar Tower the ghost of a young woman appears and from the far edges of the woods a silent man called Sven emerges to befriend the couple and their beloved castle. For everyone who has ever wanted to live in a glorious house or escape from the mundanity of life - Castles in the Air is pure magic.

Cabins & Castles was first completed in 1981, a joint effort of the Historic Resources Commission and the North Carolina Division of Archives and History. The book became enormously popular with natives, tourists, historians, and preservationists as a primary source of knowledge about the richly historic Buncombe County. Cabins & Castles contains a historical overview as well as the specific record of individual properties built in the area, primarily those constructed prior to 1930. Rapid development in the urban and rural areas of Buncombe County makes this record timely and valuable.

This paperback edition of a book first published in hardback in 2002 is a fascinating and provocative study which looks at castles in a new light, using the theories and methods of landscape studies.

An outstanding feature of the Norse-Gaelic seaways is the network of dramatic castles built on or near the shore. They typically dominated main lines of sea communication, and were accessed by?birlinn? or galley. They played a central role in the Hebrides during the Hebrides? heyday, broadly from the Norse period through to the end of the Lordship of the Isles, when the islands were at the crossroads of the Norse-Gaelic world. In recent years considerable inter-disciplinary scholarly effort has gone into reinterpreting their history, dates, functions, and method of construction.0.

'I’d always known that I was Brown. Black was different though; it came announced. Black came with expectations, of rhythm and other things that might trip me up.' Imani is a foundling. Rescued as a baby and raised by nuns on a remote Northumbrian island, she grows up with an ever-increasing feeling of displacement. Full of questions, Imani turns to her shadow, Amarie, and her friend, Harold. When Harold can’t find the answers, she puts it down to what the nuns call her “greater purpose”. At nineteen, Imani answers a phone call that will change her life: she is being called to Accra after the sudden death of her biological mother. Past, present, faith and reality are spun together in this enthralling debut. Following her transition from innocence to understanding, Imani's experience illuminates the stories we all tell to make ourselves whole.

A New York Times bestseller with an "engaging narrative and array of detail” (The Wall Street Journal), the “intimate and sweeping” (Raleigh News & Observer) untold, true story behind the Biltmore Estate—the largest, grandest private residence in North America, which has seen more than 120 years of history pass by its front door. The story of Biltmore spans World Wars, the Jazz Age, the Depression, and generations of the famous Vanderbilt family, and features a captivating cast of real-life characters including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, Teddy Roosevelt, John Singer Sargent, James Whistler, Henry James, and Edith Wharton. Orphaned at a young age, Edith Stuyvesant Dresser claimed lineage from one of New York’s best known families. She grew up in Newport and Paris, and her engagement and marriage to George Vanderbilt was one of the most watched events of Gilded Age society. But none of this prepared her to be mistress of Biltmore House. Before their marriage, the wealthy and bookish Vanderbilt had dedicated his life to creating a spectacular European-style estate on 125,000 acres of North Carolina wilderness. He summoned the famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to tame the grounds, collaborated with celebrated architect Richard Morris Hunt to build a 175,000-square-foot chateau, filled it with priceless art and antiques, and erected a charming village beyond the gates. Newlywed Edith was now mistress of an estate nearly three times the size of Washington, DC and benefactress of the village and surrounding rural area. When fortunes shifted and changing times threatened her family, her home, and her community, it was up to Edith to save Biltmore—and secure the future of the region and her husband’s legacy. This is the fascinating, “soaring and gorgeous” (Karen Abbott) story of how the largest house in America flourished, faltered, and ultimately endured to this day.

Castles of the North celebrates the magnificent history of Canada's grand hotels, buildings that are among the country's most recognized and storied landmarks. In Quebec City, the Chateau Frontenac defines the skyline; in the Rockies, the Banff Springs entices visitors to dramatic scenery. Though overshadowed by towering bank buildings, the Royal York in Toronto still holds its own. Some of Canada's earliest tourist draws, the historic grand hotels were also at the social heart of emerging cities from coast to coast.