Cobblestone streets leading to perfectly preserved historic homes. Intricate wrought-iron gates opening to lush, fragrant gardens. A skyline of steeples and a river harbor bustling with schooners and sailboats. Charleston is one of America's most charming cities. In vibrant watercolors and detailed sketches, artist Diana Gessler captures the beauty and riches that make Charleston so unique: White Point Gardens, the Spoleto Festival, Rainbow Row, Waterfront Park, Fort Moultrie, the beaches of Sullivan's Island, sumptuous Lowcountry cuisine, and handmade sweetgrass baskets. Full of fascinating details--on everything from the art of early entertaining, the city's inspired architectural and garden designs, and George Washington's Southern tour to famous Charlestonians and the flags of Sumter--Very Charleston celebrates the city, the Lowcountry, the people, and our history. Hand-lettered and full color throughout, Very Charleston includes maps, an index, and a handy appendix of sites. With her cheerful illustrations and love for discovering little-known facts, Diana Gessler has created both an entertaining guide and an irresistible keepsake for visitors and Charlestonians alike.

A guide book will help natives and visitors alike appreciate the history and residents of the beautiful city of Charleston, South Carolina, one of the South's great cultural destinations, which has endured periods of grandeur, occupation, a devastating earthquake, fires, hurricanes, and the challenges of Reconstruction. Original.

A gifted writer makes her fiction debut with this lyrical and haunting story of missed chances and enduring love, set against the backdrop of high society Charleston, which probes the eternal question: can we ever truly go home again? When Eliza Poinsett left the elegant world of Charleston for college, she never expected it would take her ten years to return. Now almost a decade later, she is an art historian in London with a charming Etonian boyfriend who adores her. But the past catches up with her when she runs into Henry, her childhood love, at a wedding in the English countryside. Already unnerved by the encounter, Eliza’s carefully guarded equilibrium is shattered when she meets Henry again in Charleston, where she’s come for her stepsister’s debut. Set against a backdrop of stately homes, the seductive Lowcountry landscape, and the entangled lives of families who trace their ancestors back for generations, Eliza has to decide if she is willing to risk everything for which she has worked so hard to be with the only man she has ever truly loved. Charleston is an evocative, melancholy novel about one woman’s love—for both a man and an unforgettable city. Emotionally resonant, beguiling in its atmosphere, it illuminates the elusive notion of home, and explores whether we can we truly ever go back to the place—and the people—that indelibly shaped us.

Charleston is one of the most historically significant cities in the United States. One of the prime attractions of Charleston is the spectacular array of historic buildings spanning a wide variety of architectural styles. From simple pre-Revolutionary–era dwellings to spectacular Italianate, Greek Revival, and Victorian homes, to colonial government buildings, to some of the oldest and most beautiful churches, Charleston’s architectural splendor is unparalleled in the United States.

The exquisite antebellum mansions of the Garden District. Giant oaks stretching across boulevards and back in time to before the Civil War. The decadence of Bourbon Street. The vibrant sounds of jazz, blues, and Cajun music coming from every doorway or right from the street. Lacy iron balconies that wrap around the historic buildings of the French Quarter. A leisurely meal under a canopy of wisteria. In vibrant watercolors and detailed sketches, artist Diana Gessler captures the unique charm that makes New Orleans alluring: Mardi Gras, the Cabildo, Jackson Square, the Court of the Two Sisters, St. Louis Cemetery, the Jazz Festival, the River Road Plantations, the Cajun country, sumptuous Creole cuisine, and Audubon’s Aquarium of the Americas. In fascinating detail—on everything from the making of Mardi Gras, Napolean’s death mask, the city’s inspired architectural and garden designs, and favorite author hangouts to famous New Orleanians and Aunt Sally’s Creole pralines—Very New Orleans celebrates the city, the Cajun country, the people, and our history

Charleston's past is full of romance. Does Anne's future hold the same? Beth Webb Hart weaves together the lives of three women from close-knit Southern town as each cope with broken dreams and crumbling relationships. Anne Brumley has long dreamed of love while ringing the bells at St. Michael's, but those dreams are beginning to fade. Her sister Alisha and cousin Della encourage the thirty-six year old to move somewhere new for a fresh start. Meanwhile, Alisha, Anne's sister, has a life that seems perfect: she's a gorgeous pediatrician with two beautiful children, a handsome doctor husband, and another baby on the way. But when the pregnancy takes an unexpected turn, perfection begins to unravel. And Cousin Della's former fiancé has returned to Charleston, making her wonder if she chose the wrong path when she married her gifted but unemployed-artist husband as they struggle to make ends meet. Widower Roy Summerall is new to town. He has happily ministered to the country folks of Church of the Good Shepherd for years. So why would the Lord call him and his daughter away to Charleston—the city that Roy remembers from his childhood as pretentious and superficial? Surely the refined congregation of St. Michael's won't accept a reverend with a red neck and a simple faith. Family, friendship, and faith converge in a beautiful story about how God's transforming love works in the Holy City of Charleston. Uplifting contemporary Southern Christian fiction Includes discussion questions for book clubs Also by Beth Webb Hart: The Wedding Machine and Moon over Edisto

The newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection: this special eBook edition of The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd features exclusive content, including Oprah’s personal notes highlighted within the text, and a reading group guide. Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women. Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love. As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements. Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better. This exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved. Please note there is another digital edition available without Oprah’s notes. Go to Oprah.com/bookclub for more OBC 2.0 content