extravagantly wrapped sweets to thank guests. For autumn, carve an uncommon jack-o'-lantern out of a speckled squash. From flower arrangements to a country Christmas with gilded walnuts and calico dolls, every project is inspirational. ""Elegant color photographs.""""--Booklist "  (less)

October, the day Monday. In the dark outside the railway station at Worsted Skeynes Mr. Horace Pendyce's omnibus, his brougham, his luggage-cart, monopolized space. The face of Mr. Horace Pendyce's coachman monopolized the light of the solitary station lantern. Rosy-gilled, with fat close-clipped grey whiskers and inscrutably pursed lips, it presided high up in the easterly air like an emblem of the feudal system. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.  (less)

watercolors and photos, you'll see how the grounds and the projects evolve. In a greenhouse, springtime seedlings sprout, awaiting their warm-weather transfer to the smokehouse terrace. Summer finds thriving vegetable plots; inside, the house becomes a quiet retreat, dressed in cool linens and exuberant bouquets. Autumn is lively with jack o' lanterns carved by the dozens, and winter shows off a blanket of pure, fresh snow while apples and spices simmer on the kitchen stove. Live the country life, too, by making a myrtle topiary, wrapping autumn gift preserves, and stitching Christmas angel-shoe decorations. ""Plus: learn about collecting country classics, from American flags to rag dolls."  (less)

Chautauqua or traveling players could not afford to mount but one program, their costs were too great, but the Medicine Show or the traveling lanternist could, and did, play but one program in a town as they passed through. This book tells the story of Top and Letta who are disappointed in their wish to appear at the St. Louis Fair of 1904. It chronicles their trek about the country as they try to escape the bane of the Flickers whose parenthood has been claimed by so many. All their travels are fictional, but there are incidents that actually happened so long ago. The lanternists named are mostly real people who kept the Magic Lantern alive at the turn of the century (1900).  (less)

of the most delighful country-style designs ever! Every pattern is here, including helpful color drawings illustrating each decorative layer, from base to shadow and highlights, to final details.  (less)

of the most delighful country-style designs ever! Every pattern is here, including helpful color drawings illustrating each decorative layer, from base to shadow and highlights, to final details. 128 pages (all in color), 8 1/2 x 10.BRBR  (less)

indulgent grandmother, who never spoke to us children in anything but honeyed tones of endearment, snapped at us for the first time on August 19, 1953. We were playing in the corner of the shadowed, lantern-lit living room when she turned on us with a stern expression and scolded us quiet. It was the year before I started grade school, and my family was spending the summer at my father’s spacious country home on the outskirts of Hamedan, a province in central western Iran where both of my parents were raised. My grandmother also owned property nearby, and the grandchildren gathered there each summer, playing hide-and-seek in the fruit orchards and returning by sunset to gather around the radio with the adults. I vividly recall that evening: we returned home with sticky fingers and berry-stained clothes to find the adults in a terrible mood, for once unmoved by our disarray. They sat huddled around the radio, closer than usual, with rapt expressions, the copper bowls of dates and pistachios before them untouched. A trembling voice announced on the battery-operated radio that after four days of turmoil in Tehran, Prime Minister MohammadbrbrMossadegh had been toppled in a coup d’état. To us children, this news meant nothing. We giggled at the downcast eyes and somber faces of the adults and scampered away from the still, funereal living room.brbrThe supporters of the shah who seized the national radio network announced that with the fall of Mossadegh the Iranian people had triumphed. Few outside those paid to participate in the coup d’état actually shared this sentiment. For secular and religious Iranians, working class and wealthy alike, Moss@1Y™™™™šÿ¾Û€  (less)

novel,bMiss Chopsticks/b.brbrbriFrom the Hardcover edition./iThis hugely important and ground-breaking book — an unprecedented oral history — gives voice to a silent generation and tells the secret history of 20th century China.brbrIn 1912, five thousand years of feudal rule ended in China. Warlords, Western businessmen, soldiers, missionaries and Japanese all ruled China, exploited and fought one another and the Chinese. In 1949, Mao Zedong came to power.brbrbChina Witness/bis both a journey through time and through the author’s own country, and a memorial to an extraordinary generation of men and women who have survived war, invasion, revolution, famine and modernization — to tell the story of their times. It is an extraordinary personal testimony from a normally silent generation who, in their lifetimes have seen China transformed from a largely peasant, agricultural country of more than 1.3 billion people into a modern state. These are ordinary people — a herb woman at a market, retired teachers, a legendary “bandit” woman, Red Guards, oil pioneers, an acrobat, a naval general, a shoe mender, a lantern maker, taxi drivers, and others — from west to east, across the vast country, now in their seventies, eighties and nineties, and whose memories will soon die with them.brbrHere, for the first time many of them speak out about their lives and private thoughts about what they witnessed. Together their intimate stories are perhaps the only accurate record of modern Chinese history.brbrbriFrom the Hardcover edition./i  (less)