David Loftus
After months of anticipation, Pippa Middleton's debut book has finally hit the shelves. Celebrate (Michael Joseph, £25) draws on the party planner's time at Party Pieces - the Middleton family's party business - and London-based events company, Table Talk.
Pippa Middleton describes the book as "a comprehensive guide to home entertaining... It is a useful and practical journey into British-themed occasions and I hope it offers welcome inspiration and ideas, most of which needn't leave you alarmingly out of pocket."
Case in point: Pippa's top tip for instant Halloween ghosts. Just blow up white balloons, tie each one to a bamboo cane and drape a white sheet over it. Tie around the 'neck' with string and use a black marker to draw the face. Stick the canes in the ground where you want each ghost to stand. Spookily simple.
Covering a calendar's worth of events from Christmas to more casual affairs like Saturday picnics, the guide will assist you through every step of the party-planning process, complete with inspirational photos, crafts, recipes, and plenty of anecdotes.
No stranger to planning a shindig, Pippa famously helped elder sister the Duchess of Cambridge plan the royal wedding - complete with bacon butties for royal revellers who partied into the wee hours. As Pippa reveals in the book's release:
"Entertaining on any scale can be stressful and daunting so this is all about finding ways to manage and enjoy the process. I hope you will see this as a feel-good book with ideas to look forward to each month, providing threads of lasting, happy memories, be it around a table lit with candles in winter, outside on a rug in summer or in the autumn, perched on a leaf-covered bench, hot drink in hand."
When it comes to retail fashion, 'the Kate effect' has now contributed around £1bn to the British economy. Could Pippa do the same for entertaining? If famous sisters in history are anything to go by, Pippa's going to do just fine...
