The Paradise Garden

Tired of his mother's shouting and the noise of the city, Peter runs away to a beautiful garden, where he stays until he finds a way to bring a part of it home with him.

'Lavish ... a celebration of the history and enduring romance of Islamic gardens' Washington Post As seen on the highly acclaimed BBC2 series Monty Don's Paradise Gardens, a glorious celebration of the richness of Islamic culture through some of the most beautiful gardens on earth. In the Islamic tradition, a garden with its central elements of water, the scent of fruit trees, and places for rest and reflection, celebrate heaven on earth. Paradise gardens play a central role in everyday life in the Islamic world, yet little is known about them. Monty Don and acclaimed photographer, Derry Moore, set off on a journey to find out more about the principles and immersive delights of paradise gardens and how a very different culture and climate has influenced garden design round the world. Their journey covers twenty-nine gardens from the Real Alcazar and the Alhambra in Spain, and Le Jardin Majorelle in Morocco, to Highgrove and a Mughal garden in Bradford in England. There are some spectacular and rarely seen examples such as Pasargadae and the Maidan in Isfahan, Iran, the birthplace of paradise gardens, as well as the more renowned examples such as Turkey's Topkapi Palace and the Amber Palace and Taj Mahal in India. 'A garden, green and filled with water is heaven on earth - it is paradise.' Monty Don ALSO BY MONTY DON & DERRY MOORE JAPANESE GARDENS: A JOURNEY An exploration of the exquisite beauty and fascinating history of the most beautiful and famous gardens across Japan, from Kenrok-en to the Zen gardens of Tokyo. 'A fabulous, bonsai-filled book' Daily Mail

A truly remarkable pictorial homage to Howard Finster's spiritual and artistic "garden" outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Finster has been busy for the last 25 years creating a kind of mystical Disney World populated by "found" sculpture, paintings, and writings. It would be easy to dismiss Finster as a "kook," but the contributing photographers ably capture for posterity the man's work with a loving detail that conveys the powerful urgency of his art. The color photographs are accompanied by Finster's own descriptions of how he created the garden, and commentary by fans such as David Byrne. Lacks an index. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

"Walks to the Paradise Garden is the last unpublished manuscript of the late American poet, photographer, publisher and bon viveur Jonathan Williams (1929-2008). This book chronicles Williams' road trips across the Southern United States with photographers Guy Mendes and Roger Manley in search of the most authentic and outlandish artists the South had to offer. Williams describes the project thus: 'The people and places in Walks to the Paradise Garden exist along the blue highways of America.... We have traveled many thousands of miles, together and separately, to document what tickled us, what moved us, and what (sometimes) appalled us.' The majority of these road trips took place in the 1980s, a pivotal decade in the development of Southern 'yard shows' and many of the artists are now featured in major institutions. This book, however, chronicles them at the outset of their careers and provides essential context for their inclusion in the art historical canon"--Back cover.

Once upon a time, and a very good time it was, not in your time, indeed not in my time, but in olden times, when quart bottles held half a gallon and houses were papered with pancakes and pigs run about with forks stuck in their backs seein who wanted a slice o' ham, there were two old people and they never had no children, and they figured they were too old to ever have any. So begins The Queen of Paradise's Garden, a wonderful adaptation of a traditional Newfoundland tale, and the first in an ongoing series that combines the telling wit and resonant language of acclaimed Newfoundland actor, writer and comedian Andy Jones with the charming illustrations of Slovenian-born puppeteer and artist Darka Erdelji. Of course, it's clear from the story's beginning that there are children on the way, and one of those children is Jack, the delightful, mischievous, big-hearted hero of so many Newfoundland tales. Told with the humour, warmth and sly wit that have made Jones one of the Island's finest and best-loved storytellers, The Queen of Paradise's Garden follows Jack on his way to the land of the Queen of Paradise, three miles this side of the end of the world, where he searches for a magic fruit to make his parents young again, and finds quite a few other handy things as well. The story is a free adaptation of a tale told by Albert Heber Keeping of Grand Bank, which he got from Billy Quann of Sagona Island; Keeping's version was published in Herbert Halpert and John Widdowson's seminal collection, Folktales of Newfoundland.

The much-anticipated comprehensive survey of one of the world's most acclaimed landscape garden designers, famous for his extraordinarily sophisticated use of light and geometry in nature. Spanish landscape designer Fernando Caruncho has spent over four decades impressing the world with his breathtaking garden designs, which create a perfect union of architectural design within nature. His sources of inspiration are as diverse as Islamic design, Zen Buddhism, and European Classicism, and the control of light, geometrical scale, and use of local materials are key principles of his design approach. In this book, Caruncho personally curates a selection of twenty-six of his international garden projects ranging from private residences to large agricultural estates and public spaces, including a vineyard in Italy, a private garden in Biarritz, France, and an expansive estate in New Jersey. Caruncho gives readers a glimpse at his creative thought process through inspirational images, ephemera, and selections from his sketches.

Explores the conviction that paradise existed in a precise although unreachable earthly location. Delving into the writings of dozens of medieval and Renaissance thinkers, from Augustine to Dante, this title presents a study of the meaning of Original Sin and the human yearning for paradise.