The artist Ed Kluz has a fascination for the sites of lost buildings. Kluz grew up in the wilds of the Yorkshire Dales, surrounded by the landscape of the past, and the sense of remoteness he felt there sparked an interest in forgotten places, such as country houses and follies. Once-celebrated houses that were abandoned to ruin, burned or deliberately destroyed have now become the haunting subject matter of his distinctive collages. Kluz is meticulous in his research. He spends hours at a site, sketching, taking photographs and generally 'getting to the heart of a place'. Then, in a process in which he likens himself to a collector of fragments or relics, he gathers all the material he can find before adding a little invention of his own to revive or reimagine the house. His highly original works are a combination of watercolor and layers of delicate painted collage elements, the tension between color and texture achieving a sense of depth and light. Kluz's lost houses conjure up the vanished buildings in all their pomp, perched on stark, treeless plains under threatening skies, as if briefly illuminated in the glare of lightening or the beam of an arc light. In his introduction to the book, the art and architectural historian Tim Knox describes Kluz's views of houses, with their concentration on the filigree architecture and silhouette of building itself, as heirs to the highly finished perspective drawings produced by professional architectural artists in the early nineteenth century, but he also draws parallels with the bold graphic tradition of Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden. Kluz himself, too, explains that his aim is to evolve the long tradition of country-house painting - a tradition that began in Britain in the sixteenth century and continued into the 1800s, only declining with the advent of photography. Over recent decades, public interest in lost country houses has been growing; there are an increasing number of books and websites devoted to the theme. In his search for information about his often elusive subjects, Kluz has made full use of these sources, presenting in this book a wide range of materials - engravings, paintings, plans, maps, written accounts and his own preparatory sketches - before the final spread in each chapter unveils the finished collage. Ten English houses are featured in depth, among them the Tudor palace of Holdenby House in Northamptonshire, the magnificent mansion of Hamstead Marshall in Berkshire, Vanbrugh's Claremont in Surrey, and the grandiosely Gothic Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire. Each house is introduced by the architectural historian Olivia Horsfall Turner, who details its history and fate. As Knox concludes, one yearns to have all the houses back, 'But in a sense we have, in Kluz's scenographic visions.'

USA Today Bestseller! One of Refinery29's Best Reads of September In this novel authorized by the Little House Heritage Trust, Sarah Miller vividly recreates the beauty, hardship, and joys of the frontier in a dazzling work of historical fiction, a captivating story that illuminates one courageous, resilient, and loving pioneer woman as never before—Caroline Ingalls, "Ma" in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s beloved Little House books. In the frigid days of February, 1870, Caroline Ingalls and her family leave the familiar comforts of the Big Woods of Wisconsin and the warm bosom of her family, for a new life in Kansas Indian Territory. Packing what they can carry in their wagon, Caroline, her husband Charles, and their little girls, Mary and Laura, head west to settle in a beautiful, unpredictable land full of promise and peril. The pioneer life is a hard one, especially for a pregnant woman with no friends or kin to turn to for comfort or help. The burden of work must be shouldered alone, sickness tended without the aid of doctors, and babies birthed without the accustomed hands of mothers or sisters. But Caroline’s new world is also full of tender joys. In adapting to this strange new place and transforming a rough log house built by Charles’ hands into a home, Caroline must draw on untapped wells of strength she does not know she possesses. For more than eighty years, generations of readers have been enchanted by the adventures of the American frontier’s most famous child, Laura Ingalls Wilder, in the Little House books. Now, that familiar story is retold in this captivating tale of family, fidelity, hardship, love, and survival that vividly reimagines our past.

The classic French novel written by a soldier, who would later die during World War I, tells the story of Auguste Meaulnes and the "domain mysterieux."

A lovingly photographed tour of internationally renowned writer Umberto Pasti's famous hillside garden in Morocco. Italian writer and horticulturist Umberto Pasti's passion for the wild flora of Tangier and its surrounding region led him to create his world-famous garden, Rohuna, where he has transplanted thousands of plants rescued from construction sites with the aid of men from the village. Planted between two small houses is the Garden of Consolation: a series of rooms and terraces with lush vegetation, some rendering homage to the paintings of Henri Rousseau, others inspired by invented characters. Surrounding the Garden of Consolation are the Wild Garden and a hillside devoted to the wild flowering bulbs of northern Morocco, where indigenous species of narcissus, iris, crocus, scilla, gladiolus, and others bloom. With its stunning vistas and verdant fields, Rohuna is a garden of incomparable beauty with the mission to preserve the botanical richness of the region. Captured here in detail by celebrated photographer Ngoc Minh Ngo, the poetic beauty of this special and unique place is lovingly rendered for all the world to see and share.

In 1854, a group of engineers and railroad businessmen drew a straight line from Philadelphia to the New Jersey coast, built a railroad along the line, and created Atlantic City. From the 1850s to the 1950s, the city attracted the creme of American society and the working class alike and gave birth to the beauty pageant, rolling chair, boardwalk, saltwater taffy, jitney, and the successful Monopoly board game. But the onset of air travel in the 1950s and the aging grand hotels brought Atlantic City to its knees. The opening of Resorts International in 1978 and the prosperous gaming business that followed in its wake helped the city rise from its own ashes, and a year-round tourism industry exploded. Garish and opulent casino hotels replaced many of the boardwalk dowagers, and new palaces transformed the once desolate marina section into a vibrant destination.