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Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty
by Annelise OrleckIn Storming Caesars Palace, historian Annelise Orleck tells the compelling story of how a group of welfare mothers built one of this country's most successful antipoverty programs. Declaring "We can do it and do it better," these women proved that poor mothers are the real experts on poverty. In 1972 they founded Operation Life, which was responsible for many firsts for the poor in Las Vegas-the first library, medical center, daycare center, job training, and senior citizen housing. By the late 1970s, Operation Life was bringing millions of dollars into the community. These women became influential in Washington, DC-respected and listened to by political heavyweights such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Ted Kennedy, and Jimmy Carter. Though they lost their funding with the country's move toward conservatism in the 1980s, their struggles and phenomenal triumphs still stand as a critical lesson about what can be achieved when those on welfare chart their own course.
Lines in the Water: Nature and Culture at Lake Titicaca
by Benjamin S. OrlovePart ethnography, part natural history, part memoir, Ben Orlove's book reflects on the changes that have taken place over 30 years in the fishing villages along the shores of Lake Titicaca.
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio
by Suze Orman Terry RyanThe Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio introduces Evelyn Ryan, an enterprising woman who kept poverty at bay with wit, poetry, and perfect prose during the "contest era" of the 1950s and 1960s. Stepping back into a time when fledgling advertising agencies were active partners with consumers, and everyday people saw possibility in every coupon, Terry Ryan tells how her mother kept the family afloat by writing jingles and contest entries. Mom's winning ways defied the Church, her alcoholic husband, and antiquated views of housewives. To her, flouting convention was a small price to pay when it came to securing a happy home for her six sons and four daughters. Evelyn, who would surely be a Madison Avenue executive if she were working today, composed her jingles not in the boardroom, but at the ironing board. By entering contests wherever she found them -- TV, radio, newspapers, direct-mail ads -- Evelyn Ryan was able to win every appliance her family ever owned, not to mention cars, television sets, bicycles, watches, a jukebox, and even trips to New York, Dallas, and Switzerland. But it wasn't just the winning that was miraculous; it was the timing. If a toaster died, one was sure to arrive in the mail from a forgotten contest. Days after the bank called in the second mortgage on the house, a call came from the Dr Pepper company: Evelyn was the grand-prize winner in its national contest -- and had won enough to pay the bank. Graced with a rare appreciation for life's inherent hilarity, Evelyn turned every financial challenge into an opportunity for fun and profit. From her frenetic supermarket shopping spree -- worth $3,000 today -- to her clever entries worthy of Erma Bombeck, Dorothy Parker, and Ogden Nash, the story of this irrepressible woman whose talents reached far beyond her formidable verbal skills is told in The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio with an infectious joy that shows how a winning spirit will triumph over the poverty of circumstance.
Pippa: Simple Tips to Live Beautifully
by Pippa O'Connor OrmondPippa O'Connor's easy style and approachability have won her a huge and loyal following. Now Pippa shares her top tips and insights for how to live well, look good and feel great.'The older I've become, the more confident I am in my own skin. I don't follow trends that I know won't suit me and I've learned to make the best of what I have.'This book is about sharing everything I've learned along the way. It's full of useful information - such as how to put on a face in ten minutes, the essential items every woman needs in her wardrobe, what to wear to a wedding, how to travel in style (and with kids!), easy ways to create a beautiful home and how to be the perfect hostess.'To me, anybody can be stylish, regardless of money, age or body shape. You don't need to spend a fortune to look and feel fabulous - far from it. Style is about using your imagination and feeling confident.'Pippa - Simple Tips to Live Beautifully is stuffed with practical tips and inspirational advice and is the book for everyone, aged 16 or 60, who wants to discover their own personal style and to build the confidence to celebrate it.
The Pippa Guide: Live Your Best Life
by Pippa O'Connor Ormond"I think anyone can do anything they want to do. I really believe that."Style icon and savvy businesswoman Pippa O'Connor Ormond believes that anything is achievable if you put your mind to it.In this honest and revealing guide to modern life, Pippa shares some of her personal moments, experiences and life lessons that have shaped her into the person she is today. From excelling at work, to making your house a home, styling your wardrobe and perfecting your beauty routine, nurturing family and friendships while promoting self-care, Pippa will reveal her most valuable tips for bringing positivity and happiness into your life."I'm always practising gratitude. No matter what you have in life, once you are grateful for it, it manifests more. 100%."
Smahtguy: The Life and Times of Barney Frank
by Eric OrnerEric Orner, the acclaimed cartoonist of one of the country’s most popular and longest-running gay comic strips, The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green, presents his debut graphic novel—a dazzling, irreverent biography of the iconic and iconoclastic Barney Frank, one of the first gay and out congressmen and a front-line defender of civil rights.What are the odds that a disheveled, zaftig, closeted kid with the thickest of Jersey accents might wind up running Boston on behalf of a storied Irish Catholic political machine, drafting the nation’s first gay rights laws, reforming Wall Street after the Great Recession, and finding love, after a lifetime assuming that he couldn't and wouldn’t?In Smahtguy: The Life and Times of Barney Frank, one of America’s first out members of Congress and a gay and civil rights crusader for an era is confirmed as a hero of our age. But more than a biography of an indispensable LGBTQ pioneer, this funny, beautifully rendered, warts-and-all graphic account reveals the down-and-dirty inner workings of Boston and DC politics.As Frank’s longtime staff counsel and press secretary, Eric Orner lends his first-hand perspective to this extraordinary work of history, paying tribute to the mighty striving of committed liberals to defend ordinary Americans from an assault on their shared society.
Am I Alone Here?: Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live
by Peter Orner"Stories, both my own and those I've taken to heart, make up whoever it is that I've become," Peter Orner writes in this collection of essays about reading, writing, and living. Orner reads-and writes-everywhere he finds himself: a hospital cafeteria, a coffee shop in Albania, or a crowded bus in Haiti. The result is "a book of unlearned meditations that stumbles into memoir." Among the many writers Orner addresses are Isaac Babel and Zora Neale Hurston, both of whom told their truths and were silenced; Franz Kafka, who professed loneliness but craved connection; Robert Walser, who spent the last twenty-three years of his life in a Swiss insane asylum, "working" at being crazy; and Juan Rulfo, who practiced the difficult art of silence. Virginia Woolf, Eudora Welty, Yasunari Kawabata, Saul Bellow, Mavis Gallant, John Edgar Wideman, William Trevor, and Václav Havel make appearances, as well as the poet Herbert Morris-about whom almost nothing is known.An elegy for an eccentric late father, and the end of a marriage, Am I Alone Here? is also a celebration of the possibility of renewal. At once personal and panoramic, this book will inspire readers to return to the essential stories of their own lives.
Still No Word from You: Notes in the Margin
by Peter OrnerFinalist for the Vermont Book AwardFinalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the EssayA new collection of pieces on literature and life by the author of Am I Alone Here?, a finalist for the NBCC Award for CriticismStationed in the South Pacific during World War II, Seymour Orner wrote a letter every day to his wife, Lorraine. She seldom responded, leading him to plead in 1945, &“Another day and still no word from you.&” Seventy years later, Peter Orner writes in response to his grandfather&’s plea: &“Maybe we read because we seek that word from someone, from anyone.&”From the acclaimed fiction writer about whom Dwight Garner of The New York Times wrote, &“You know from the second you pick him up that he&’s the real deal,&” comes Still No Word from You, a unique chain of essays and intimate stories that meld the lived life and the reading life. For Orner, there is no separation. Covering such well-known writers as Lorraine Hansberry, Primo Levi, and Marilynne Robinson, as well as other greats like Maeve Brennan and James Alan McPherson, Orner&’s highly personal take on literature alternates with his own true stories of loss and love, hope and despair. In his mother&’s copy of A Coney Island of the Mind, he&’s stopped short by a single word in the margin, &“YES!&”—which leads him to conjure his mother at twenty-three. He stops reading Penelope Fitzgerald&’s The Beginning of Spring three quarters of the way through because he knows that finishing the novel will leave him bereft. Orner&’s solution is to start again from the beginning to slow the inevitable heartache.Still No Word from You is a book for anyone for whom reading is as essential as breathing.
Crime or Compassion?: One woman's story of a loving friendship that knew no bounds
by Gail O'Rorke'I was torn. My best friend needed me. But little did I know then what the consequences of helping her would be...'In 2015, Gail O'Rorke stood trial on three counts of assisting in the suicide of her friend Bernadette Forde, who had taken her life in 2011 in the late stages of Multiple Sclerosis. Facing the possibility of fourteen years in prison for a crime she didn't commit, Gail was also grieving for the friend she'd lost.Here in Crime or Compassion? she takes us on the journey behind the events that led to her arrest: from her remarkable early years - growing up with an abusive father and her escape to a better life - to her enduring friendship with Bernadette and the highs and lows of caring for someone you love, to the moment she was arrested by Garda officers, signalling three of the worst years of her life.This is a story of friendship and selflessness, of the rules of a society sometimes at odds with the nature of personal suffering, and a gripping insight into the inner world of the courtroom: the characters, the colour, and the emotions that accompany standing in the dock, facing a jury of your peers.
Crime or Compassion?: One woman's story of a loving friendship that knew no bounds
by Gail O'Rorke'I was torn. My best friend needed me. But little did I know then what the consequences of helping her would be...'In 2015, Gail O'Rorke stood trial on three counts of assisting in the suicide of her friend Bernadette Forde, who had taken her life in 2011 in the late stages of Multiple Sclerosis. Facing the possibility of fourteen years in prison for a crime she didn't commit, Gail was also grieving for the friend she'd lost.Here in Crime or Compassion? she takes us on the journey behind the events that led to her arrest: from her remarkable early years - growing up with an abusive father and her escape to a better life - to her enduring friendship with Bernadette and the highs and lows of caring for someone you love, to the moment she was arrested by Garda officers, signalling three of the worst years of her life.This is a story of friendship and selflessness, of the rules of a society sometimes at odds with the nature of personal suffering, and a gripping insight into the inner world of the courtroom: the characters, the colour, and the emotions that accompany standing in the dock, facing a jury of your peers.
Dear Ross: An Amazing True Story of Love and Survival
by Evelyn O'RourkeWhen broadcaster and journalist Evelyn O'Rourke was on maternity leave with her first child she discovered that she was pregnant for the second time. Within a week of this joyous news however, her world came crashing down when she was diagnosed with cancer.In this beautifully written and searingly honest memoir, Evelyn charts her journey - from the realisation that she would have to undergo invasive surgery and chemotherapy to the decisions she made and her determination to protect her unborn baby Ross and live for her family.Told with frankness and great humour, Dear Ross is a story about the strength of love: between families, sisters, brothers, a husband and a wife - but, most of all, the unwavering and uncompromising love between a mother and her children.
The Jersey Shore Thrill Killer: Richard Biegenwald (True Crime Ser.)
by John E. O'RourkeThe true story of the murders that terrorized New Jersey beach towns for nearly a decade. Beachgoers usually watch out for dangers like riptides or sharks—but from 1974 to 1983, a different fear gripped the New Jersey shore: young women were disappearing. Their abductor was Richard Biegenwald, a man released for good behavior after serving seventeen years in prison for murder and spending time in a psychiatric facility. Police arrested him on suspicion of rape, and it was not until they connected him to a woman&’s death in Asbury Park that he finally stopped his rampage. Investigators later linked him to nine murders and convicted him of five. In this account, former New Jersey state trooper John O&’Rourke narrates the chilling story of the Jersey Shore Thrill Killer.
The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness
by Meghan O'RourkeA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERFINALIST FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTIONNamed one of the BEST BOOKS OF 2022 by NPR, The New Yorker, Time, and Vogue&“Remarkable.&” –Andrew Solomon, The New York Times Book Review"At once a rigorous work of scholarship and a radical act of empathy.&”—Esquire"A ray of light into those isolated cocoons of darkness that, at one time or another, may afflict us all.&” —The Wall Street Journal"Essential."—The Boston GlobeA landmark exploration of one of the most consequential and mysterious issues of our time: the rise of chronic illness and autoimmune diseasesA silent epidemic of chronic illnesses afflicts tens of millions of Americans: these are diseases that are poorly understood, frequently marginalized, and can go undiagnosed and unrecognized altogether. Renowned writer Meghan O&’Rourke delivers a revelatory investigation into this elusive category of &“invisible&” illness that encompasses autoimmune diseases, post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, and now long COVID, synthesizing the personal and the universal to help all of us through this new frontier. Drawing on her own medical experiences as well as a decade of interviews with doctors, patients, researchers, and public health experts, O&’Rourke traces the history of Western definitions of illness, and reveals how inherited ideas of cause, diagnosis, and treatment have led us to ignore a host of hard-to-understand medical conditions, ones that resist easy description or simple cures. And as America faces this health crisis of extraordinary proportions, the populations most likely to be neglected by our institutions include women, the working class, and people of color. Blending lyricism and erudition, candor and empathy, O&’Rourke brings together her deep and disparate talents and roles as critic, journalist, poet, teacher, and patient, synthesizing the personal and universal into one monumental project arguing for a seismic shift in our approach to disease. The Invisible Kingdom offers hope for the sick, solace and insight for their loved ones, and a radical new understanding of our bodies and our health.
The Long Goodbye
by Meghan O'RourkeFrom one of America's foremost young literary voices, a transcendent portrait of the unbearable anguish of grief and the enduring power of familial love. What does it mean to mourn today, in a culture that has largely set aside rituals that acknowledge grief? After her mother died of cancer at the age of fifty-five, Meghan O'Rourke found that nothing had prepared her for the intensity of her sorrow. In the first anguished days, she began to create a record of her interior life as a mourner, trying to capture the paradox of grief-its monumental agony and microscopic intimacies-an endeavor that ultimately bloomed into a profound look at how caring for her mother during her illness changed and strengthened their bond. O'Rourke's story is one of a life gone off the rails, of how watching her mother's illness-and separating from her husband-left her fundamentally altered. But it is also one of resilience, as she observes her family persevere even in the face of immeasurable loss. With lyricism and unswerving candor, The Long Goodbye conveys the fleeting moments of joy that make up a life, and the way memory can lead us out of the jagged darkness of loss. Effortlessly blending research and reflection, the personal and the universal, it is not only an exceptional memoir, but a necessary one.
The Long Goodbye: A Memoir
by Meghan O'RourkeMeghan O'Rourke was thirty-two when her mother died of cancer on Christmas Day, 2008. As a writer, even in the depths of her grief, she was fascinated by what she observed of herself in the aftermath: the rage she felt, not only at what had happened to her mother, but also at the inability of people to acknowledge her pain; her sense that the meaning of her life had changed fundamentally with the loss of a parent; the way that the reassuringly familiar often became somehow completely new and strange. The Long Goodbye interleaves personal recollections of her much-loved mother with an examination of what it means to grieve in a society which no longer has the rituals - or even, most of the time, the desire - to engage with grief, to understand it, and to let it do both its worst - and its best.
The Long Goodbye
by Meghan O'RourkeWhat is it like to mourn today, in a culture that has largely set aside rituals that acknowledge grief? After her mother died of cancer at the age of fifty-five, Meghan O'Rourke found that nothing had prepared her for the intensity of her sorrow. She began to create a record of her interior life as a mourner, trying to capture the paradox of grief--its monumental agony and microscopic intimacies--an endeavor that ultimately bloomed into a profound look at how caring for her mother during her illness changed and strengthened their bond. With lyricism and unswerving candor, The Long Goodbye captures the fleeting moments of joy that make up a life and the way memory can lead us out of the jagged darkness of loss. Effortlessly blending research and reflection, the personal and the universal, it is a love letter from a daughter to a mother that will touch any reader who has felt the powerful ties of familial love.
Age and Guile: Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut
by P. J. O'Rourke<p>Readers may be shocked to discover that America's most provocative (and conservative) satirist, P. J. O'Rourke, was at one time a raving pinko, with scars on his formerly bleeding heart to prove it. In Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut, O'Rourke chronicles the remarkable trajectory that took him from the lighthearted fun of the revolutionary barricades to the serious business of the nineteenth hole. How did the O'Rourke of 1970, who summarized the world of "grown-ups" as "materialism, sexual hang-ups, the Republican party, uncomfortable clothes, engagement rings, car accidents, Pat Boone, competition, patriotism, cheating, lying, ranch houses, and TV" come to be in favor of all of those things? <p>What causes a beatnik-hippie type, comfortable sleeping on dirty mattresses in pot-addled communes—as P. J. did when he was a writer for assorted "underground" papers-to metamorphosize into a right-wing middle-aged grouch? Here, P. J. shows how his Socialist idealism and avant-garde aesthetic tendencies were cured and how he acquired a healthy and commendable interest in national defense, the balanced budget, Porsches, and Cohiba cigars. P. J. O'Rourke's message is that there's hope for all those suffering from acute Bohemianism, or as he puts it, "Pull your pants up, turn your hat around, and get a job."</p>
The CEO of the Sofa
by P. J. O'RourkeExperience a year in the life of a cranky couch potato—also known as &“the funniest writer in America&” (The Wall Street Journal). Touching on topics from technological change to the United Nations, this is a chronicle of the day-to-day home life and frequent harangues of a New York Times–bestselling humorist. Over the course of the year, in between rants, he does occasionally leave the sofa and embark on exotic adventures—including a blind (drunk) wine tasting with Christopher Buckley, and a Motel 6 where he has twenty-eight channels and a bathroom to himself. As readers of Parliament of Whores, Give War a Chance, and his other bestsellers know, P. J. O&’Rourke takes no prisoners—though he may take a few naps. &“An entertaining and engaging read.&” —Associated Press &“A wide-angled worldview from his own living room, his salon of sarcasm. He introduces readers to his assistant, friends, family and smart-aleck babysitter . . . His vitriolic wit is couched in humor that elicits the gamut from giggles to guffaws.&” —Publishers Weekly
Driving Like Crazy: Thirty Years of Vehicular Hell-Bending, Celebrating America the Way It's Supposed to Be—With an Oil Well in Every Backyard, a Cadillac Escalade in Every Carport, and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Mowing Our Lawn
by P. J. O'Rourke<p>Driving Like Crazy celebrates cars and author P. J. O’Rourke’s love for them, while chronicling the golden age of the automobile in America. O’Rourke takes us on a whirlwind tour of the world’s most scenic and bumpiest roads in trouble-laden cross-country treks, from a 1978 Florida-to-California escapade in a 1956 special four-door Buick sedan to a 1983 thousand-mile effort across Mexico in the Baja 1000 to a trek through Kyrgyzstan in 2006 on the back of a Soviet army surplus six-wheel-drive truck. <p>For longtime fans of the celebrated humorist, the collection features a host of O’Rourke’s classic pieces on driving, including "How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink,” about the potential misdeeds one might perform in the front (and back) seat of an automobile; "The Rolling Organ Donors Motorcycle Club,” which chronicles a seven-hundred-mile weekend trip through Michigan and Indiana that O’Rourke took on a Harley Davidson alongside Car & Driver publisher David E. Davis, Jr.; his brilliant and funny piece from Rolling Stone on NASCAR and its peculiar culture, recorded during an alcohol-fueled weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1977; and an hilarious account of a trek from Islamabad to Calcutta in Land Rover’s new Discovery Trek.</p>
Republican Party Reptile: The Confessions, Adventures, Essays and (Other) Outrages of . . . P. J. O'Rourke
by P. J. O'Rourke"I think our agenda is clear. We are opposed to: government spending, Kennedy kids, seat-belt laws, busing our children anywhere other than Yale, trailer courts near our vacation homes, all tiny Third World countries that don't have banking secrecy laws, aerobics, the UN, taxation without tax loopholes, and jewelry on men. We are in favor of: guns, drugs, fast cars, free love (if our wives don't find out), a sound dollar, and a strong military with spiffy uniforms. There are thousands of people in America who feel this way, especially after three or four drinks. If all of us would unite and work together, we could give this country. . . well, a real bad hangover."
Confessions of a Guilty Freelancer
by William O'RourkeWilliam O'Rourke's singular view of American life over the past 40 years shines forth in these short essays on subjects personal, political, and literary, which reveal a man of keen intellect and wide-ranging interests. They embrace everything from the state of the nation after 9/11 to the author's encounter with rap, from the masterminds of political makeovers to the rich variety of contemporary American writing. His reviews illuminate both the books themselves and the times in which we live, and his personal reflections engage even the most fearful events with a special humor and gentle pathos. Readers will find this richly rewarding volume difficult to put down.
Cuban Music from A to Z
by Helio OrovioAvailable in English for the first time, Cuban Music from A to Z is an encyclopedic guide to one of the world's richest and most influential musical cultures. It is the most extensive compendium of information about the singers, composers, bands, instruments, and dances of Cuba ever assembled. With more than 1,300 entries and 150 illustrations, this volume is an essential reference guide to the music of the island that brought the world the danzn, the son, the mambo, the conga, and the cha-cha-ch. The life's work of Cuban historian and musician Helio Orovio, Cuban Music from A to Z presents the people, genres, and history of Cuban music. Arranged alphabetically and cross-referenced, the entries span from Abaku music and dance to Eddy Zervign, a Cuban bandleader based in New York City. They reveal an extraordinary fusion of musical elements, evident in the unique blend of African and Spanish traditions of the son musical genre and in the integration of jazz and rumba in the timba style developed by bands like Afrocuba, Chucho Valds's Irakeke, Jos Luis Corts's ng La Banda, and the Buena Vista Social Club. Folk and classical music, little-known composers and international superstars, drums and string instruments, symphonies and theaters--it's all here.
Bobby: My Story in Pictures
by Bobby OrrOne of the greatest sports figures of all time at last breaks his silence in a memoir as unique as the man himself. Number 4. It is just about the most common number in hockey, but invoke that number and you can only be talking about one player -- the man often referred to as the greatest ever to play the game: Bobby Orr. From 1966 through the mid-70s he could change a game just by stepping on the ice. Orr could do things that others simply couldn’t, and while teammates and opponents alike scrambled to keep up, at times they could do little more than stop and watch. Many of his records still stand today and he remains the gold standard by which all other players are judged. Mention his name to any hockey fan – or to anyone in New England – and a look of awe will appear. But skill on the ice is only a part of his story. All of the trophies, records, and press clippings leave unsaid as much about the man as they reveal. They tell us what Orr did, but don’t tell us what inspired him, who taught him, or what he learned along the way. They don’t tell what it was like for a shy small-town kid to become one of the most celebrated athletes in the history of the game, all the while in the full glare of the media. They don’t tell us what it was like when the agent he regarded as his brother betrayed him and left him in financial ruin, at the same time his battered knee left him unable to play the game he himself had redefined only a few seasons earlier. They don’t tell about the players and people he learned to most admire along the way. They don’t tell what he thinks of the game of hockey today. Orr himself has never put all this into words, until now. After decades of refusing to speak of his past in articles or “authorized” biographies, he finally tells his story, because he has something to share: “I am a parent and a grandparent and I believe that I have lessons worth passing along.” In the end, this is not just a book about hockey. The most meaningful biographies and memoirs rise above the careers out of which they grew. Bobby Orr’s life goes far deeper than Stanley Cup rings, trophies and recognitions. His story is not only about the game, but also the age in which it was played. It’s the story of a small-town kid who came to define its highs and lows, and inevitably it is a story of the lessons he learned along the way.
Orr: My Story
by Bobby OrrThe NHL legend tells his story from his Ontario childhood to his years with the Bruins and Blackhawks, to today. New York Times Bestseller! Bobby Orr is often referred to as the greatest defenseman ever to play the game of hockey. <P><P>But all the brilliant achievements leave unsaid as much as they reveal. They don't tell what inspired Orr, what drove him, what it was like for a shy small-town kid to suddenly land in the full glare of the media. They don't tell what it was like when the agent he regarded as a brother betrayed him and left him in financial ruin. They don't tell what he thinks of the game of hockey today.Now he breaks his silence in a memoir as unique as the man himself...Includes photographsand I believe that I have lessons worth passing on." Orr: My Story is more than a book about hockey--it is about the making of a man.
Mrs Delany: A Life
by Clarissa Campbell OrrThe first comprehensive biography of Mary Granville Delany – the artist and court insider whose flower collages, in particular, continue to inspire widespread admiration Mrs Delany is best remembered for her captivating paper collages of flowers, but her artistic flourishing came late in life. This nuanced, deeply researched biography pulls back the lens to place Delany’s art in the broader context of her family life, relationships with royalty, and her endeavor to live as an independent woman. Clarissa Campbell Orr, a noted authority on the eighteenth century court, charts Mary Delany’s development from a young woman at the heart of elite circles to beloved godmother and celebrated collagist. Orr traces the varied connections Mary Delany fostered throughout her life and which influenced her intellectual and artistic development: she was friends with prominent figures such as Methodist leader, John Wesley, composer G. F. Handel, the writer Jonathan Swift, and England’s leading patron of science, Margaret Bentinck, Duchess of Portland. Mrs Delany reveals its subject to be far more than a widow befriended by George III and Queen Charlotte; she is, instead, restored to her proper place in the era’s aristocratic society –and as a ground-breaking artist.