Book of the week: Noble Ambitions by Adrian Tinniswood

Tinniswood’s exploration of the country pile and its place in society

Inveraray Castle
Inveraray Castle
(Image credit: Jim Dyson/Getty Images)

In 1989, the year these superbly catty diaries begin, Joan Collins was cruelly forced “back to the greasepaint grindstone”, said Sarah Ditum in The Times. Dynasty, the Atlanta-set “oil and opulence soap opera” which had made her a TV icon, was wrapping up its final season. Suddenly, the 45-year-old actress was unemployed, without obvious means to “fund her appetite for caviar and world-class shopping trips”.

And so begins a frenetic whirl of socialising and self-promotion, said Camilla Long in The Sunday Times. “I have read many memoirs by celebs about parties, but in terms of sheer ability to scrape back the jowls and snap on the wig, Collins takes the trophy.”

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