The Secret History Of The Handbag

From the earliest practical containers to the star handbags of today, this book is a comprehensive gallimaufry of the handbag through the ages.

The Bags and Purses: The Story of Chic and Practicality, is the seventh book in the popular HISTORY OF FASHION ACCESSORIES series. This is the story about handbag, an accessory that is carried and that is worn over the shoulders. Modern day workbags are like jobs, they come with benefits, qualifications, and compensations.

Handbags have never been more important in fashion: the 'must-have' bag of the season is a much-lusted-after designer item that can make or break a fashion house. For women, the handbag is an intimate extension of the body, a kind of mobile home for all the items indispensable for daily life, and at the same time an indicator of her fashionability - be it Prada, Vuitton or Chanel. Here, Caroline Cox tells the intriguing story of the handbag, in fact a relatively recent phenomenon only in general use since the early twentieth century. She traces its development from its origins in the nineteenth century with reticules (essentially pockets with handles) and Louis Vuitton's revolutionary Noe bag for the female traveller, via Art Deco clutch bags moulded in Bakelite and the Hermes Kelly bag endorsed by Princess Grace in the 1950s, right up to the accessory of the moment, the Mulberry Roxanne. Lavishly illustrated throughout with rare and striking images of bags historical and modern, and exquisitely designed, Bags will be the must-have book of the season.

When Janet Rhys Dent is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, she decides to try to be a "good patient". With any luck, this role will give her the best chance of recovery during the six months of medical testing and treatment that she faces. This book reveals her secret dilemmas and discoveries both inside and outside the hospital. It also records her successes and many failures as she becomes seriously involved in the quest to find out what makes a good patient. Her experiences lead her to reflect on her life, to look further into the roles of patients, to join a support group and to seek information and enlightenment on internet sites and in philosophy and popular self-help methods. What she learns brings about a change in her attitudes, not only to being a patient but also to life and living. As to the essence of being a good patient, she discovers that the answer is simpler and more life-affirming than she had ever imagined. 'Though names and personal details have been changed for the sake of others' privacy, all the episodes in the book are true, real-life events. I portray the new world I am thrown into; the search for knowledge about it; the people I meet; my attempts to understand and trust the hospital staff, system and treatment; and my failures and successes in adapting to many other challenges both outside and inside the hospital.' - Janet Rhys Dent, in the Introduction.

"Theroux's best novel in years." CHICAGO TRIBUNE MY SECRET HISTORY is Paul Theroux's tour de force. It is the story of Andre Parent, a writer, a world traveler, a lover of every kind of woman he chances to meet in a life as varied as a man can lead. From his days as an altar boy, to his job as a teenaged lifeguard, and then as a youth caught between the attentions of a beautiful young student and an amorous older woman. And as the boy becomes a man he turns his attention to writing, which brings him fame, and a wife, who may finally bring him to know himself. But not before he sets up his most dangerous secret life, one that any man might envy, but that could cost Andre Parent the delicate balance that makes him who he is....

According to fashion expert Kathryn Eisman, to understand a woman, first understand her purse. In How to Tell a Woman by Her Handbag, Eisman cleverly contends that fashions come and go, but a woman's handbag is eternal, forever revealing her nature--and just maybe her secrets. With forensic precision and cutting wit, Eisman helps women identify their own handbag personas as well as those of family, friends, and foes. Thanks to How to Tell a Woman by Her Handbag, the next time you rub shoulders with Canvas Tote Lady or Decrepit Briefcase Lady or even Bamboo Cane Handle Lady, you'll be able to discern just what makes her tick. But you'll also recognize the bond common to women the world over--we're all bag ladies!

'Glorious . . . anecdote and information accumulate with marvellous abundance and a passionate sense of the fascination of jewels' Spectator Amber is the tears of prehistoric trees. One gem links Queen Victoria and a skeleton. Cleopatra drank a pearl to win a bet. A man turned into a diamond. When we put on jewels, what are we really wearing? Victoria Finlay travels the world to tell the true stories of these miraculous oddities of nature. 'Filled with eye-catching incidents and stories . . . Finlay's evidence glitters from every page' Sunday Telegraph 'A fascinating and exhaustive travelogue' Times Literary Supplement