Travels in Kashmir: A Popular History of Its People, Places and Crafts

The very name Kashmir conjures up magical images, from the real garden paradise of Shalimar to Thomas Moore's fantastic descriptions in "Lalla Rookh." Recounting the story of this colorful and fascinating region as it appears in travel writing, literature, and historical works from ancient times to the present day, Travels in Kashmir offers a lively and comprehensive guide to a land little understood in the West. Beginning with an informal history of Kashmir--from the legends of the twelfth-century Kalhana to the accounts of British colonial rulers--the book brings together a wide variety of engaging travelers tales, reports, and descriptions that vividly illustrate the changing perceptions of the area--both Indian and European--throughout the years. Of particular interest is a section on the arts, crafts, and craftspeople of Kashmir, which focuses specifically on the shawl-weaving, carpet-making, and papier mâché works that have gained international renown. Throughout, Keenan proves a sharp as well as sympathetic observer with an eye for the amusing and the poignant, and the entertaining way she unfolds the story of Kashmir's people, places, and crafts makes this a book that will be enjoyed by tourists, readers of travel writing, and anyone interested in one of the most unusual and beautiful places in the world.

Travels in Kashmir: A Popular History of its People, Places and Crafts

History

Keenan, Brigid

Asia

Oxford University Press

This engaging book recounts the story of Kashmir as it appears in travel literature and historical writings from ancient times to the 20th century. Drawing throughout on colorful accounts by a wide variety of people, the book presents an informal history of Kashmir, the changing perceptions of people living in and visiting the place over the centuries, British perspectives in the 150 years of colonial rule, and the arts, crafts, and craftspeople of the area, particularly such crafts as shawl weaving, carpets, and papier maché. Throughout, Keenan proves a sharp as well as sympathetic observer with an eye for the amusing and the poignant, and the entertaining way she unfolds the story of Kashmir's people, places, and crafts makes this a book that will be enjoyed by tourists, readers of travel writing, Asian specialists, and the general reader.

In this stunning and provocative book, Brigid Keenan captures the essence of the glittering world of high fashion. She examines every aspect of the shift in styles from Paris in the 1920's to Madison Avenue today. The real heroines of this lavishly illustrated book are the beautiful women who wore the beautiful clothes -- whether members of famous families like Baroness Pauline de Rothschild and Jacqueline Kennedy, or models like Twiggy and Verushka who made their names for themselves. In a witty and often irreverent style, the author focuses on the high-powered designers who have influenced fashion -- Pucci, Dior, Quant, Chanel, St. Laurent, to name just a few -- and examines their contribution to the changing scene. Film stars with their own unique auras -- Clara Bow, Greta Garbo, Rita Hayworth, Hedy Lamarr, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor -- each motivated thousands of women to imitate a particular look, to adopt a certain style. The powerful impact of black women on fashion is discussed, as is the importance of the famous beauties of the 20's and 30's like Millicent Rogers and Princess Paley. Debutantes, eccentrics, notorious public figures -- all contributed to the history of fashion and all are depicted here in entertaining detail. The photographers responsible for the strikingly evocative pictures in this book (over 200 photographs, 40 in full color) include such luminaries as Cecil Beaton, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Man Ray.

The women we wanted to look like

St.Martin's Press

Macmillan

Damascus is the oldest continuously occupied city in the world. Hidden away in this ancient town is a treasure of domestic architecture unique in the world. The great houses of Damascus are fairytale palaces built in exotic styles that range from Roman and Mamluk to Ottoman Baroque. Behind the blank mud walls of the alleyways in the old town lie breathtaking interiors seldom visited by the outside world. The entrances of the houses, carefully designed so that no passerby can catch a glimpse inside, conceal courtyards filled with fountains and flowers, exquisite stone work, wall paintings, marble, and mother-of-pearl. This beautifully photographed album of the architectural treasures of old Damascus tells the stories of the palaces, how they were built, and who has lived in them through the centuries. Today old Damascus is at a crossroads: the people who once lived in the great houses have left them for the suburbs, and many buildings are falling into disrepair. The book provides a visual record of their beauty, and serves as a plea for the preservation of the heart of this ancient capital.

Damascus: Hidden Treasures of the Old City

Keenan, Bridget

Beddow, Tim

Middle East

Thames&Hudson

Damascus, reputed to be the world's oldest continually inhabited city, has enjoyed a history of immense grandeur, enormous political and mercantile power, and great cultural and artistic achievement. In addition to some of Islam's most magnificent architecture, such as the Umayyad Mosque, the city boasts a heritage of fairy-tale palaces and sumptuous private houses. Sadly, many of them are in urgent need of restoration. Brigid Keenan and Tim Beddow have set out to record these priceless architectural gems and to reveal them to the world at large. They were given unprecedented access to the inner, "hidden" city, which has resulted in a book that will be of immense importance to all concerned with the heritage of architecture in the Islamic world. The text first sets the historical scene, describing the growth and fortunes of Damascus through the ages. It continues with an account of its architecture and way of life, and concludes with descriptions of individual houses and of the people who built and lived in them. The superb photographs include facades, courtyards, alleyways, and fountains, and the breathtaking interiors that often lie behind the unassuming walls of the old town, with exquisite details in stone, wood, paint, marble, plaster, glass, and mother-of-pearl. The whole forms a convincing and elegiac plea for the preservation of the heart of this historic ancient capital. 214 illustrations, 171 in color.

Travel

Reference

Dior in Vogue is a nice reference book for any Dior enthusiast. Inside is a fabulous collection of photographs, mainly black and white, compiled from the pages of Vogue magazine, between 1947 to 1957. To complete the Dior look, the cover and dust jacket are wrapped in the iconic checkered pattern. The book follows the fashion of Dior, year by year, season by season for a decade.

Dior in Vogue

Octopus Books

When Sunday Times fashion journalist Brigid Keenan married the love of her life in the late Sixties, little idea did she have of the rollercoaster journey they would make around the world together - with most things going horribly awry while being obliged to keep the straightest face and put their best feet forward. 
For he was a diplomat - and Brigid found herself the smiling face of the European Union in locales ranging from Kazakhstan to Trinidad. Finding herself miserable for the first time in a career into which many would have long ago thrown the towel, she found herself asking (during a farewell party for the Papal Nuncio): was it worth it? 
As this stream of it-really-happened-to-me stories shows, it most certainly was - if only for our vicarious bewilderment at how exactly you throw a buffet dinner during a public mourning period in Syria, remain viable as a fashion journalist when taste-wise you are three seasons out of it and geographically a world away, make people believe that there are actually terrible things going on in paradise, be a good mother AND save some of the finest architecture in Damascus and Brussels from demolition - seemingly all simultaneously.

Diplomatic Baggage: The Adventures of a Trailing Spouse

John Murray

Brigid Keenan was a successful young London fashion journalist when she fell in love with a diplomat and left behind the gilt chairs of the Paris salons for a large chicken shed in Nepal. Her bestselling account of life as a “trailing spouse,” Diplomatic Baggage, won the hearts of thousands in countries all over the world. 
 Now, in her further adventures, we find Brigid in Kazakhstan, where AW, her husband, contracts Lyme disease from ticks, the local delicacy is horse meat sausage, and Brigid's visit to a market leads to a full-scale riot from which she requires a police escort. Then, as the prospect of retirement looms, Brigid finds herself on the cusp of a whole new world: shuttling between London, Brussels, and their last posting in Azerbaijan; navigating her daughters' weddings while coping with a cancer diagnosis; and getting a crash course in grandmotherhood as she helps organize a literature festival in Palestine. 
 Along the way, dauntless and wildly funny as ever, Brigid learns that packing up doesn't mean packing in as she discovers that retiring and moving back home could just be her biggest challenge yet.

Packing Up: Further Adventures of a Trailing Spouse

Biographies & Memoirs

Memoirs

Bloomsbury Publishing

Brigid Keenan was never destined to lead a normal life. From her early beginnings--a colorful childhood in India brought to an abrupt end by Independence and Partition, then a return to dreary postwar England and on to a finishing school in Paris with daughters of presidents and princes--ordinary just wasn't for her. When, as a ten-year-old, she overheard her mother describe her as "desperately plain," she decided then and there that she had to rely on something different: glamour, eccentricity, character, a career--anything, so as not to end up at the bottom of the pile. And in classic Brigid style, she somehow ended up with them all. 
Fate often gave Brigid a helping hand: in the late fifties, in her teens, she landed a job as an assistant at the Daily Express in London, and by the tender age of twenty-one she was a fashion editor at the Sunday Times. It was the dawn of the swinging sixties, and London was the place to be. Brigid teamed up with David Bailey and Jean Shrimpton, chatted with Vidal Sassoon, drove around London in a minivan, covered the Paris Collections and was labeled a "Young Meteor" by the press. Though she was always trying to do her best, sometimes her enthusiasm--and naïveté--led to a succession of hilarious misadventures, like the time she turned up to report on the Vietnam war wearing a miniskirt . . .
Candid and wickedly funny, Full Marks for Trying is a coming-of-age memoir that will delight, entertain, and make you cry with laughter.

Full Marks for Trying: An unlikely journey from the Raj to the Rag Trade

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Keenan, Brigid. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Keenan, Brigid

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Keenan, Brigid. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Travels in Kashmir: A Popular History of its People, Places and Crafts

Travels in Kashmir: A Popular History of Its People, Places and Crafts

The women we wanted to look like

The women we wanted to look like

Damascus: Hidden Treasures of the Old City

Damascus: Hidden Treasures of the Old City

Dior in Vogue

Diplomatic Baggage: The Adventures of a Trailing Spouse

Packing Up: Further Adventures of a Trailing Spouse

Full Marks for Trying: An unlikely journey from the Raj to the Rag Trade