A Curious Invitation: The Forty Greatest Parties in Fiction
“Holiday hostesses will find much to inspire in London impresario Suzette Field’sA 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’sA Curious Invitationto 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)