Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature

by Linda Lear

Book Overview

How the courage to give up alcohol transforms the way we look, eat and succeed. Take a journey into candid interviews with eight different people who all live their lives alcohol free. Health and wellness expert coach, Artist, Yogini and Mom of two, Rebecca Sweeney takes you into the private lives of recovered alcoholics, drug abusers and people who simply decided to live a clean life. A sober entrepreneur herself, Rebecca takes and teaches the reader through: -HOW TO LIVE AN EXCITING, MIND BLOWING & FABULOUS LIFE -HOW TO LIVE WITH FABULOUS SUCCESS -HOW TO LOOK FABULOUS -WHY ALCOHOL IS A LIFE NUMB-ER -TOOLS, BREATH WORK AND MEDITATION -THE IMPORTANCE OF FITNESS -FABULOUS FOOD, DIET & NUTRITION -LIFE AFTER ALCOHOL, NOW WHAT? -THE DIVINE INTERVIEWS & TESTIMONIALS (Part 1 & 2) ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rebecca graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia in 2001 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in the Department of Illustration. Along with art, in college, she submerged herself on the crew and rowing team. This was the birth of her passion in fitness. She was selected to study with the college abroad in Provence, France, Florence and Venice, Italy in 1999. There she studied interior and exterior illustration. Immediately after her college graduation, she became a certified Yoga teacher/instructor. Moving from the Yoga mat and professional Illustration world, she found peace in freelance artwork, creating custom art works for clients and constantly developing collections of multiple meaningful art series'. She celebrates her style changing and evolving constantly, which is going against the grain of the typical illustrator. The freedom in her work is inspired from her over twelve years of teaching classic Hatha Yoga worldwide at various Yoga studios. Rebecca's biggest passion in life is to be a motivational speaker, combine art, creativity, wellness and fitness into helping people with their inspiration, health, balance and happiness in their own bodies, spaces and in their lives. She strives to bring the peace she sees through Yoga and meditation to her business. She strives to evoke continually positive reactions to all who view or own her art or to who become a part of her coaching team. She is the creator of TAO Happiness and The Clear & Present Movement, www.taohappiness.com and wwww.clearandpresent.com. Aside from running her at-home Beachbody wellness and coaching business, Rebecca celebrates peace, balance, equality, Motherhood, womanhood, nature, nutrition and diversity in every one of her artistic and business creations. Her passion above all, is to teach people how to love themselves once again, as she feels we tend to lose the self-love we are each born with. Rebecca A. Sweeney felt moved to write a book when she got a hold of her life. She made it through her self-abuse of the twenties, found herself in depression and 60 pounds over weight in her early thirties and decided to change all of that naturally, with vigor, community and entrepreneurial community. Find out how she and several of her mentors achieved their dream life in this compelling tell-all, interview-style and warmly motivational book. Rebecca A. Sweeney Artist, CYT, Wellness/Fitness Expert, Diamond Team Beachbody Coach www.taohappiness.com www.beachbodycoach.com/ZenMamma www.teambeachbodycoach.com/ZenMamma "Becca is a natural teacher who knows how to give clear and down to earth explanations to any level of student without sounding preachy. She is obviously very passionate and knowledgeable about yoga and pulls from a wide variety of styles and influences. Her classes are always varied and interesting with just the right amount of challenge. She was my first yoga teacher and inspired and influenced me so much that I eventually went on to become a yoga teacher myself." -Lauren Lapointe, musician/yoga instructor from, Savannah, GA www.laurenl.com

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312369344
• ISBN13: 9780312369347
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 584 Pages
• Weight: 2.17 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Book for guys.

My wife bought the book and I picked it up by mistake, not intending to read a biography of the woman who gave us Peter Rabbit -and certainly not of Mrs.Tiggy-Winkle--of whom I have never heard (but Google had, a lot). I persevered, however, and soon got caught up in an eye-level account of the customs and mores of life in rural England, Scotland and Wales. I envy Potter her tough life-long struggle with her sheep, her neighbors and fellow farmers and her cottage. She lived among people she admired and respected and in a place she loved and thought was the most beautiful on earth. Buy this book for your wife, but read it first yourself.

Splendid book about an amazing person

Beatrix Potter led a far more interesting life that I could have imagined. Raised as a proper young lady, she was assigned by her parents as the manager of their household. She was in charge of the servants and responsible to be sure that everything was done properly and well. So while she was doing this, she studied (by herself of course, who would let a girl go to school) and became a rather reknown mycologist, making the breakthrough observation that lichens were a symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae. She was proposed to be a member of the student body at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. But, of course, as a mere female she was turned down. So beginning to make some drawings, and writing a few stories she became the J.K. Rowling of her time when she published a book 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit.' She went on to publish another 22 books, and to create a merchandising empire about the characters. Making yet another switch in later life, she became a gentleman farmer, raising prizewinning sheep and cattle. Ms. Lear has not only done a splendid job in writing this book, she deserves our thanks.

Sets a high standard for the biography genre

This is the book we've been waiting for: the definitive chronicle of Beatrix Potter's life. Here we read -- with pleasure -- the details of her life, revealed many times in her own words in letters to friends, relatives, and publishing business associates. The woman who created the tale of Peter Rabbit in an illustrated letter to a favorite child was much more than a children's book author. She grew into a headstrong, independent woman who became a sheep farmer and who fell in love with England's Lake District and helped to save thousands of acres of it in conjunction with the National Trust. Hers is a miraculous story that should be shared, especially with teens who are feeling stifled by controlling parents. This is the sort of book that you almost don't want to finish because you don't want the visit to be over. We are just now realizing what an interesting person Beatrix Potter Heelis was! Thank you, Ms. Lear!

Beatrix Potter by Linda Lear

Excellent!!! From the first page this book grips the reader in the background of England's finest nature illustrator of the nineteenth century. See a new dimension to this famous children's author. Learn about her strong conservation efforts that preserved the English lake district. A must read for all grown-up fans of Peter Rabbit and his friends.

The Real Miss Potter

If you have fond memories of the Tale of Peter Rabbit from your childhood; or if you have an interest in women who bravely challenged a social destiny that seemed foregone and inevitable; or if you are interested in naturalism and the history of preservation, you will enjoy and learn from Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature, by environmental historian Linda Lear. Beatrix Potter was born in London in 1866 to wealthy Victorian parents. From early childhood, she was passionately interested in the natural world and drew what she saw in meticulous, painstaking detail, using as models the many animals that she and her brother collected during family holidays. These animal drawings became increasingly imaginative until they at last came to life in the delightful characters that populate The Tale of Peter Rabbit, The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck and other books, all of which became phenomenal bestsellers. In 1905, after the death of her fiancé and editor, Norman Warne, Potter used the royalties from her books and a small inheritance from an aunt to purchase a farm in the hamlet of Near Sawrey, in the Lake District. There, she met Willie Heelis, a country lawyer who in 1913 became her husband, and together they set about fulfilling a dream they shared: preserving and protecting the Lake District from the despoliation of commercial development. They lived and worked happily together until 1943, when Beatrix Potter Heelis died. Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature is the most exhaustive and rigorous examination of Potter's life to date. Linda Lear skillfully covers the material that's been been made available by earlier biographers, Margaret Lane and Judy Taylor: the solitary childhood, the astonishing literary success, the dutiful attention to elderly parents, the retirement to marriage and rural farming life. But Lear breaks a good deal of new ground, as well, taking us deep into the experience of a gifted but very private woman with a "talent for reinventing herself." She not only tells the riveting story of a woman who seems to have led three lives, but also fully and meticulously documents her sources. Scholars will appreciate the endnotes, sources, references, and lists of primary and secondary material that Lear has provided, for it is the first time in the history of Potter scholarship that such a full and complete documentation has been made. However, Lear never allows her responsibilities as a scholar to overshadow her fascination with the human story of Beatrix Potter. With tact, sensitivity, and a profound respect, she goes deeply within her subject to bring us a woman whose tragedies and triumphs seem very personal, compellingly immediate, and entirely real. Lear demonstrates that throughout Potter's long life, her imagination was fueled by a passion for nature, whether this was expressed in drawings of rabbits in blue coats with brass buttons, or in paintings of fungi, lovingly rendered, or in her love for the tenaci