From British interior designer Nicholas Haslam, a dazzling and witty account of a frenetic and full life—from the 1940s to the present—in Europe and America, in a crowd of friends and acquaintances that includes virtually all of the cultural icons of our time.Haslam has found himself at the center of some of the most interesting circles wherever he is—at parties, opening nights, royal weddings. In London in the late 1950s he crossed paths—and more—with Cecil Beaton, Francis Bacon, ...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • AN O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE #1 TERRIFIC READ • In an age of bolters—women who broke the rules and fled their marriages—one woman was the most celebrated of them all.• “Even today Lady Idina Sackville could get tongues wagging."—NPR"Taylor Swift might count Lady Sackville among her muses. Swift’s fans...have linked Idina to The Bolter, a song on the record-breaking album, The Tortured Poets Department...

In 1957, when a young Midwestern woman landed a job at The New Yorker, she didn’t expect to stay long at the reception desk. But stay she did, and for twenty-one years she had the best seat in the house. In addition to taking messages, she ran interference for jealous wives checking on adulterous husbands, drank with famous writers at famous watering holes throughout bohemian Greenwich Village, and was seduced, two-timed, and proposed to by a few of the magazine’s eccentric luminaries. Thi...

A family memoir that traces the myths, legends, and secrets of seven generations of remarkable womenAll families have their myths and legends. For many years Juliet Nicolson accepted hers--the dangerous beauty of her flamenco dancing great-great-grandmother Pepita, the flirty manipulation of her great-grandmother Victoria, the infamous eccentricity of her grandmother Vita Sackville-West, her mother's Tory-conventional background. But then Juliet, a distinguished his...

This account of British life in the wake of World War I is "social history at its very best . . . insightful and utterly absorbing" ( Minneapolis Star-Tribune).As the euphoria of Armistice Day in 1918 quickly subsided, there was no denying the carnage that the Great War had left in its wake. Grief and shock overwhelmed the psyche of the British people—but from their despair, new life would slowly emerge.For veterans with faces demolished in the tre...

FERGIE CONFIDENTIAL*The Duchess of York’s true storyIT SEEMS that almost every week Sarah Ferguson - the Duchess of York, known to one and all as Fergie - makes headlines with her efforts to re-brand herself and explain her troubles. There are the weight-loss problems, the ongoing differences with the Royal Family and her financial difficulties. But how did it all start? It seemed like a fairy-tale come true when Sarah married the Queen’s favourite son, Prince Andrew, and be...

Anna Quindlen first visited London from a chair in her suburban Philadelphia home—in one of her beloved childhood mystery novels. She has been back to London countless times since, through the pages of books and in person, and now, in Imagined London, she takes her own readers on a tour of this greatest of literary cities. While New York, Paris, and Dublin are also vividly portrayed in fiction, it is London, Quindlen argues, that has always been the star, both because of the primacy of Eng...

This deluxe edition of Helen ONeills award-winning book is a must for lovers of design. With stunning full-page prints of Florence Broadhursts distinctive fabric and wallpaper designs, together with gorgeous photographs of interiors from around the world using her amazing patterns, this is a beautiful book you will want to treasure. Florence Broadhurst led an extraordinary and eccentric life. She was born in 1899 to a farming family in rural Queensland and by 25 she had toured across Asia wit...

A New York Times Notable Book: The "wise and haunting" memoir from one of England's most witty and beloved writers is "from first to last a wonder" (Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post).From life as a poor unwed mother in London to becoming one of England's bestselling authors, Fay Weldon has crammed more than most into her years. Wife, lover, playwright, novelist, feminist, antifeminist, winer and diner—Fay leads us through her peripatetic life...

One of the best-loved stars of classic American cinema tells all in this wry, funny, and poignant memoirLeslie Caron is one of the most cherished and admired international film stars of our time. She made her film debut with Gene Kelly in the classic MGM musical An American in Paris, created one of the most enduring roles in American musicals as Gigi, danced with Fred Astaire in Daddy Long Legs, and starred with Cary Grant in Father G...

The name Chanel brings immediately to mind the signature scent of No. 5 and the understated but sophisticated glamour of a simple black dress and pearls. But to consider Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel (1883–1971) as simply a fashion designer fails to capture her social and cultural significance. As Linda Simon reveals in this biography, Chanel was an iconoclastic entrepreneur who rebelled against and manipulated gender expectations of her time. With her menswear-inspired designs, her loose jersey...

Florence Broadhurst, the one-time chanteuse of Shanghai, Bond Street salon owner, world-renowned wallpaper designer and Sydney socialite lived a life steeped in subterfuge and deception. Here for the first time we get a glimpse at the fascinating woman behind the hand-printed brocades.Late in the afternoon of 16 October 1977, seventy-eight year-old Florence Broadhurst was brutally murdered. Her killer was never found.The mystery surrounding Florence's death...