The Finer Things In Life

With a foreword by Miles Redd, this luxurious decorating resource trains the eye to recognize enduring, quality home goods and to use them to dazzling design effect. Quality matters. Just as a home’s foundation should be built to stand the test of time, so, too, should the furniture, objects, and elements of our rooms speak to an enduring sense of beauty and comfort. They should outlast trends and our loving day-to-day use. But how does one recognize quality and judge whether something is well made? Christiane Lemieux set out to answer this question by interviewing the world’s greatest experts. Weaving together the insights and guidance of dozens of wallpaper and paint specialists, textile fabricators, accessories artisans, and interior designers, Lemieux has curated an unparalleled education in recognizing the hallmarks of timeless, heirloom-quality pieces. Hundreds of elegant home interiors—both iconic examples from the past and stunning residences today--represent the range of luxurious and customized environments that can be created with fine décor.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Smart, likable Bernie Fine was the wonder boy of Wolff’s, New York’s most glamorous department store. A senior VP on the way up, he arrives in San Francisco to open a West Coast store. His career is skyrocketing, but his life lacks a center. When he looks into the wide, innocent eyes of five-year-old Jane O’Reilly, and then into the equally enchanting eyes of her mother, Liz, Bernie knows he has found what he has been looking for. Bernie thought he had found love to last a lifetime, but when Liz is stricken with cancer, time becomes painfully short. Alone with two children, Bernie must face the loss and learn that life has other fine things to offer.

When noted New Orleans anesthesiologist and widower, Sam Stone, and aspiring veterinary student, Emma George, enter into a two-year marriage contract, their goal is simple: keep the lives of his two, young, daughters as stable as possible while he fulfills an obligation to the World Health Organization. What begins as a temporary contractual agreement between two people of vastly different backgrounds, eventually turns into a mutual discovery that will last forever--the true meaning of the finer things in life.

London: 1963. The lives of a professional shoplifter and a young art student collide. Delia must atone for a terrible mistake; Tess is desperate to be a real artist. With the threat of the criminal underworld encroaching, only their friendship can save them from disaster.

Meet the Real Danielle… You’ve seen her on The Real Housewives of New Jersey, turning heads, raising eyebrows, and igniting feuds with her feisty suburban neighbors. Now, the always fascinating Danielle Staub gets real about her scandalous past in the year’s most explosive tell-all memoir. . . . When she signed on to appear in a reality TV show, Danielle had no idea what she was getting herself into. Hoping for a new lease on life after her recent divorce, the single mother of two became the target of vicious gossip, heated arguments, and endless controversy. When her housewife costars confronted her with the true crime book written about her ex-husband, the you-know-what hit the fan. Danielle knew she could no longer keep her checkered past a secret—and she had to set the record straight. This is the real Danielle Staub, in her own words, as you’ve never seen her before. The child of an unmarried Italian teenager, Danielle was born in Pennsylvania (under the name Beverly Merrill) after her mother was pressured by her well-to-do family to leave Italy and not return until after she’d put her baby up for adoption. After years of sexual abuse, she fled to Miami, where she became a model, living the kind of lifestyle she could only dream of as a child. She partied like a rock star and with them as well, but ended up marrying a deceitful man who held dangerous secrets of his own. Soon Danielle was caught up in a tangled web of lies, drugs, and abuse that landed her in the hospital more than once. How she survived—leaving her husband, changing her name, and finally giving birth to two lovely daughters—is one shocking story you have to read to believe. If you thought The Real Housewives of New Jersey gave you the real story of Danielle Staub, you don’t know the half of it. Filled with glamour and grit, heartbreak and heroism, this brave, no-holds-barred memoir reveals the naked truth behind reality TV’s most talked-about star. “You either love me or you hate me, there is no in between .” —Danielle Staub For the first time ever, one of the stars of the hit television show The Real Housewives of New Jersey tells her side of the story, including . . . • The truth behind Cop Without a Badge, the book that shocked the other housewives in the first season’s explosive finale. • Her flashy, fast-paced life as a Miami model—and exotic dancer. • Her controversial arrest and time spent in prison. • Her wild hookups with famous celebrities, including an Olympian and a Miami Vice star. • Her abusive childhood, rocky marriages, stormy divorces—and her triumphant rise as one of television’s most intriguing personalities. It’s all here—and all real—in this straight-from-the-hip memoir from the Real Housewife who has all of New Jersey talking . . . and the whole world watching.

The Power...The Passion...The Incomparable Romance of Brenda Joyce The Pretender An orphan from London's East End, a fugitive from the poorhouse, Violet Cooper was tired of sleeping on stoops and being hungry and cold. But she dared to enter a world forbidden to her and her kind. Even marriage to a gentle elderly knight and the title Lady Goodwin could not open closed doors, stop the cold stares, or hush the shadowy rumors of murder... The Aristocrat He was a man of the world. The rules of Victorian society did not interest him, nor could a gauche pretender with a Cockney acent possibly turn his head. Yet Thodore Blake, second son fo the Earl of Harding, was immediately compelled by Violet--and soon found himself defending the investigation. But wedding vows were the only way to save her from a certain hanging... The Finer Things Two people from different worlds brought together by passion, bound together by whispered accusations, and torn apart by scandal and misfortune. The world claimed they should never love each other. Their hearts claimed otherwise.

The purpose of this work is to present practical methods through which anyone, the beginner in particular, may realize his ideals, cause his cherished dreams to come true, and cause the visions of the soul to become tangible realities in everyday life. The best minds now believe that the ideal can be made real; that every lofty idea can be applied in practical living, and that all that is beautiful on the heights of existence can be made permanent expressions in personal existence. And so popular is this belief becoming that it is rapidly permeating the entire thought of the world. Accordingly, the demand for instructive knowledge on this subject, that is simple as well as scientific, is becoming almost universal. This book has been written to supply that demand. However, it does not claim to be complete; nor could any work on "The Ideal Made Real" possibly be complete, because the ideal world is limitless and the process of making real the ideal is endless. To know how to begin is the principal secret, and he who has learned this secret may go on further and further, forever and forever, until he reaches the most sublime heights that endless existence has in store. No attempt has been made to formulate the ideas, methods and principles presented, into a definite system. In fact, the tendency to form a new system of thinking or a new philosophy of life, has been purposely avoided. Closely defined systems invariably become obstacles to advancement, and we are not concerned with new philosophies of life. Our purpose is the living of a greater and a greater life, and in such a life all philosophies must constantly change. In preparing the following pages, the object has been to take the beginner out of the limitations of the old into the boundlessness of the new; to emphasize the fact that the possibilities that are latent in the human mind are nothing less than marvelous, and that the way to turn those possibilities to practical use is sufficiently simple for anyone to understand. But no method has been presented that will not tend to suggest new and better methods as required for further advancement. The best ideas are those that inspire new ideas, better ideas, greater ideas. The most perfect science of life is that science that gives each individual the power to create and recreate his own science as he ascends in the scale of life. (Great souls are developed only where minds are left free to employ the best-known methods according to their own understanding and insight. And it is only as the soul grows greater and greater that the ideal can be made real. It is individuality and originality that give each person the power to make his own life as he may wish it to be; but those two important factors do not flourish in definite systems. There is no progress where the soul is placed in the hands of methods; true and continuous progress can he promoted only where all ideas, all methods and all principles are placed in the hands of the soul. We have selected the best ideas and the best methods known for making the ideal real, and through this work, will place them in your hands. We do not ask you to follow these methods; we simply ask you to use them. You will then find them all to be practical; you will find that every one will work and produce the results you desire. You will then, not only make real the ideal in your present sphere of life, but you will also develop within yourself that Greater Life, the power of which has no limit, the joy of which has no end.