Lessons From The Book
In the end, Leamer’s tale reveals a darker strain. As he discovers the desperate hunger a billionaire has for acceptance that may never come, or the aging beauty’s struggle to redefine and keep a place in this society, he also captures a pathos and humanity in many of his subjects. There are characters that range from the doyenne of the modern drawing room who forgoes a marriage with family attending and flies to New Zealand so that Prince Phillip and Prince Edward might be present instead; the skinflint billionaire who kidnaps his first children, rewrites his own history, and then plots spectacularly against his fifth wife with a prenuptial that would have her paying him if she leaves; to the small-town daughter of a cop who becomes the gatekeeper for it all, the society columnist for the local newspaper.
Read more about this topic: Madness Under The Royal Palms
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“That anger can be expressed through words and non-destructive activities; that promises are intended to be kept; that cleanliness and good eating habits are aspects of self-esteem; that compassion is an attribute to be prized—all these lessons are ones children can learn far more readily through the living example of their parents than they ever can through formal instruction.”
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“A healthy man, with steady employment, as wood-chopping at fifty cents a cord, and a camp in the woods, will not be a good subject for Christianity. The New Testament may be a choice book to him on some, but not on all or most of his days. He will rather go a-fishing in his leisure hours. The Apostles, though they were fishers too, were of the solemn race of sea-fishers, and never trolled for pickerel on inland streams.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)