Search results for ""Author Imogen Taylor""

If John Fowler was – in the words of the late Duchess of Devonshire – the Prince of Decorators, and Nancy Lancaster undoubted doyenne of English country house style, Imogen Taylor was their crown princess. She joined Colefax and Fowler in 1949 and was for many years John Fowler’s trusted assistant. John – and Nancy – had total faith in Imogen’s ‘perfect taste’, and when John retired in 1971 he passed on to her all his clients – who ranged from HM The Queen, through duchesses and film stars, to ladies of the night. From this time until she retired in 1999 she was, along with Tom Parr, the firm’s principal decorator. Over the years she extended the clientele she had inherited from John and developed her own subtle, comfortable and charming version of English country house style. In this unique combination of social history and style bible, Imogen Taylor brings a sharp eye and ready wit not only to decorating style but also to the social history of the latter part of the twentieth century. Here you will learn about how fabric walling was done, how the famous ‘twelve different whites’ were applied, how to oil gild, how the passementerie was made for Buckingham Palace and Windsor, about Bessarabian carpets and trompe l’oeil painting and Nancy Lancaster’s broderie anglaise lamp shades, ‘like a child’s skirt or a ball dress’. You will also find the Duchess of Windsor dismissing the Duke (‘David, you’re not needed − go and buy some brushes or something’), Dolly Rothschild’s iron bed (‘like a school or hospital bedstead’), Harry Hyams’ reluctance to sign cheques (‘It’s like spilling my own blood!’), John Fowler in a tantrum yelling at the Duchess of Cornwall (she was a girl assistant at the time, not a client), Imogen being summoned to Howletts because ‘a young Siberian tiger, who had been in bed with Aspinall and his wife, had ripped down the silk hangings on the inside of their canopy bed.’

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What did the disintegration of the Soviet Union feel like for the people who lived through it? Award-winning writer Sasha Salzmann tells this story in a remarkable novel about two women in extraordinary times As a child, Lena longs to pick hazelnuts in the woods with her grandmother. Instead, she is raised to be a good socialist: sent to Pioneer summer camps where she's taught to worship Lenin and sing songs in praise of the glorious Soviet Union. But perestroika is coming. Lena's corner of the USSR is now Ukraine, and corruption and patronage are the only ways to get by - to secure a place at university, an apartment, treatment for a sick baby. For Tatjana, the shock of the new means the first McDonald's in the Soviet Union and certified foreign whisky, but no food in the shops; it means terrible choices about how to love. Eventually both women must decide whether to stay or to emigrate, but the trauma they carry is handed down to their daughters, who struggle to make sense of their own identities. Glorious People is a vivid depiction of how the collapse of the Soviet Union reverberated through the lives of ordinary people. Engrossing, rich in detail and unforgettable characters, this is a captivating love letter to mothers and daughters.

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In post-Communist Romania, on the border with Transylvania, the sleepy little town of B. is losing its young people to the West. A young painter returned from Paris and her eccentric great-aunt seem unconcerned with the decline of the town, until a mutilated corpse is found in the family crypt of Prince Vlad the Impaler, better known as Dracula. As the world’s attention turns to B., the mayor and his son take advantage and turn the town into a vampire-inspired theme park. Tourists flock, but beneath the surface ancient horrors live on. Dracula Park by Dana Grigorcea is a breathtaking, atmospheric tale of revenge, extremism and the longing for a strong leader, for a strict, cruel judge - like Dracula.

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From Melanie Raabe, the author of The Trap, The Stranger Upstairs is another dazzling, dizzying psychological thriller guaranteed to keep you guessing until the very last page.Several years ago, your husband, and the father of your young son, disappeared. Since then, you’ve dreamed of his return; railed against him for leaving you alone; grieved for your marriage; and, finally, vowed to move on.One morning, the phone rings. When you answer, a voice at the other end tells you your husband’s on a plane bound for home, and that you’ll see him tomorrow.You’ve imagined this reunion countless times. Of course you have. But nothing has prepared you for the reality. For you realize you don’t know this man. Because he isn’t your husband, he’s a complete stranger – and he’s coming home with you.Even worse, he seems to know about something very bad you once did, something no one else could possibly know about . . . Could they?

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