A Curious Invitation: The Forty Greatest Parties in Literature - Softcover

Suzette Field

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1447228960 ISBN 13: 9781447228967

Publisher: Picador, 2014

Synopsis

Since ancient times human beings have gathered together for social purposes. And since not very long after that writers have written about these occasions.

The party is a useful literary device, not only for social comment and satire, but as an occasion where characters can meet, fall in love, fall out or even get murdered.

A Curious Invitation features forty of the greatest fictional festivities. Some of these parties are depictions of real events, like the Duchess of Richmond’s Ball on the eve of battle with Napoleon in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair; others draw on the author’s experience of the society they lived in, such as Lady Metroland’s party in Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies; while yet others come straight from the writer’s bizarre imagination, like Douglas Adams’ flying party above an unknown planet from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Suzette Field offers you the chance to gatecrash these parties, spanning most of the history of human civilization, seen through the eyes of the world’s greatest writers.

About this title

Review:

"Suzette Field is a genuinely talented story teller. Her book possess a playful lightness of touch, but is pregnant with fact and meaning. It is both amusing and informative. Never has education been such a pleasure, never reading a learned exposition so delightful."--Dan Cruickshank Art historian, BBC television presenter and author

"It takes a book like Suzette Field's "A Curious Invitation" to remind us of the absolute centrality of social entertainment to the way in which a literary classic works its spell."--"Daily Telegraph" (London)

Holiday hostesses will find much to inspire in London impresario Suzette Field s "A Curious Invitation," from the fancy dress ball at Manderley to Jay Gatsby s Prohibition-era decadence. --Vogue.com"

In A Curious Invitation, Suzette Field collects 40 and dissects them with great wit and insight. . . . Re-living the festivities in well-loved books is part of the charm of this one; even more exhilarating, perhaps, is meeting intriguing new writers. --"Boston Globe""

With panache, attention to arresting details, and a flair for mixing literary classics with pop-culture hits, prominent London event planner Field invites readers to forty fictional parties . . . She quotes lavishly from her sources to splendid effect. --"Publishers Weekly""

Suzette Field is a genuinely talented story teller. Her book possess a playful lightness of touch, but is pregnant with fact and meaning. It is both amusing and informative. Never has education been such a pleasure, never reading a learned exposition so delightful. --Dan Cruickshank Art historian, BBC television presenter and author"

London event planner Field takes us across time and continents to 40 of the best parties in fiction. Like the social pages of a newspaper - but way more entertaining . . . Armchair party-crashing at its finest. --"Cleveland Plain Dealer""

It takes a book like Suzette Field s "A Curious Invitation" to remind us of the absolute centrality of social entertainment to the way in which a literary classic works its spell. --"Daily Telegraph" (London)"

Need a bit of entertaining inspiration? Take a page from a new book on the greatest gatherings that never were. --"Wall Street Journal""

"Holiday hostesses will find much to inspire in London impresario Suzette Field's A Curious Invitation, from the fancy dress ball at Manderley to Jay Gatsby's Prohibition-era decadence."--Vogue.com

Book Description:

A witty and informative guide to literature’s best parties by London’s most brilliant party planner

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1447228960
• ISBN 13: 9781447228967
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256