"[Lychak's] pieces cover an impressive range of emotional and imaginative territory... The disciplined storytelling and barbed wit strike a fine balance." -Kirkus Reviews "In this dazzling collection William Lychak moves with equal ease between fabulism and realism as he conjures up his alluring characters, their troubles and delights. The resulting stories are precise, exhilarating, sometimes wonderfully funny and always beautiful. I love being transported to so many different worlds." - Margot Livesey, The House on Fortune Street"The Architect of Flowers is a stunning collection. Each story is like a brilliant dream, evanescent, yet managing to linger in all the senses long after the last page has been turned. It is a poetry of narrative rarely ever found in fiction." - Mary McGarry Morris, The River Queen "Derek Walcott says he writes verse in the hope of writing poetry. Something similar might be said about the fiction in William Lychack's THE ARCHITECT OF FLOWERS. The prose rises to a level of intense lyricism that distinguishes this lovely, artful collection." - Stuart Dybek, Sailed With Magellan "The small failings between parents and children, the long-held secrets in married lives, the darkening of old age interrupted unexpected flashes of hope: with the hand of a master, William Lychack searches out the ignored moments of ordinary life and burnishes them into treasures. This collection is a treasury. I loved it." - Vestal McIntyre, You Are Not The One —

Inspiring new ways to connect with the beauty of flowers in everyday life. Like the author’s exquisite first book, Bringing Nature Home, this much-awaited follow-up title presents stunning arrangements and ideas for interiors inspired by the beauty of flowers. Ngoc Minh Ngo has recorded the work of artists, designers, and tastemakers who demonstrate the many ways that flowers can enhance our homes and work spaces. Each chapter focuses on a unique way to incorporate floral designs into interiors, from flower arrangements made from foraged greenery to wall painting evoking Monet’s water lilies to paper flowers that never lose their vibrancy. Renowned photographer Oberto Gili fills his house in Italy with treasures from his bountiful garden that inspire his work, and landscape designer Miranda Brooks puts to use her passion for all things botanical in the decoration of her beautiful Brooklyn home. With exceptional photography that captures the beauty of these flower-inspired homes and text that shares how these imaginative artists and designers achieved their botanical creations, this is an irresistible book for flower lovers, decorators, and homeowners.

Takes readers on a journey across continents and cultures to discover the endless ways artists and image-makers have employed floral motifs throughout history. Showcasing the diversity of blooms from all over the world, Flower spans a wide range of styles and media - from art, botanical illustrations, and sculptures to floral arrangements, film stills, and textiles - and follows a visually stunning sequence with works, regardless of period, thoughtfully paired to allow interesting and revealing juxtapositions between them.

“Ravishing… as if Saavedra were a modern-day Borges.” —Luis Alberto Urrea, O, The Oprah Magazine A novel of dark obsession, missed connections, and violent love. Marcos has just been through a divorce and moved into a new apartment. He feels alienated from his ex-wife, from his daughter, from society; everything feels flat and fake to him. He begins to receive letters at his new address from an anonymous troubled woman who signs off as A. and who clearly believes she is writing to the former tenant, her ex-lover, in the aftermath of a violent heartbreak. Marcos falls under the spell of the manic, hypnotic missives and for the first time in years, something moves him. Blue Flowers alternates between the letters detailing the dissolution of A.'s relationship, and Marcos' growing fixation with this damaged person. The letters become a kind of exorcism as both A.'s epistolary affair and Marcos' personal life reach a crisis point. Possessed by A., he is driven to discover her true identity. Blue Flowers is a dark portrait of desire, undermining accepted truths about love and sex, violence and fear, men and women.

Winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for Children's Illustrated Book A New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book of the Year In this wordless picture book, a little girl collects wildflowers while her distracted father pays her little attention. Each flower becomes a gift, and whether the gift is noticed or ignored, both giver and recipient are transformed by their encounter. “Written” by award-winning poet JonArno Lawson and brought to life by illustrator Sydney Smith, Sidewalk Flowers is an ode to the importance of small things, small people and small gestures. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.7 Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.

Pamela Robertson, an acknowledged authority on Mackintosh, examines the artist's use of plant forms as decorative and formal sources for his designs in architecture, interiors, textiles, and graphics. She shows the ways in which nature provided lifelong inspiration for his work and analyzes his recurring use of the rose, a design motif which held a special significance as a symbol of art, beauty, and love for both Mackintosh and his artist wife, Margaret Macdonald. In addition, the author looks at Mackintosh's paintings and designs in relation to the work of contemporary symbolists, Japanese floral art, and the European tradition of scientific botanical illustration. Mackintosh's renowned skills as a draftsman are immediately apparent in his flower paintings. The sixty full-page colorplates presented here reveal early pencil sketchbook drawings done while Mackintosh was an apprentice architect and a student at the Glasgow School of Art, watercolors made on England's North Sea coast in 1914-15, and sophisticated still-life compositions of later years. Reproduced as well are striking floral-based textile designs of the 1920s, abstractions that placed him at the forefront of Britain's avant-garde movement. Photographs of his work in architecture and interiors are also included.

An inspiring, practical and gorgeous guide to crafting the most realistic and artful paper flowers for arrangements, art, décor, wearables and more, from San Francisco botanical artist Tiffanie Turner. The Fine Art of Paper Flowers is an elevated art and craft guide that features complete step-by-step instructions for over 30 of Tiffanie Turner’s widely admired, unique, lifelike paper flowers and their foliage, from bougainvillea to English roses to zinnias. In the book, Turner also guides readers through making her signature giant paper peony, shares all of her secrets for special paper treatments, candy-striping, playing with color and creating botanical imperfections, and shows how to turn paper flowers into gorgeous garlands, headdresses, bouquets and more. These stunning creations can be made from simple and inexpensive materials and the book's detailed tutorials and beautiful photography make it easy to achieve dramatic and lifelike results.