The beloved Sunday Times bestseller - a touching, hilarious, often outrageous memoir of home-making and family adventures in the world's furthest outposts 'Hilarious, and utterly beguiling - it's a complete treat to be in Keenan's witty and open-hearted company' Esther Freud 'Deliciously effervescent' Sunday Times 'Brigid writes like a dream ... fabulous' Joanna Lumley 'Irresistible' Mail on Sunday When Sunday Times fashion journalist Brigid Keenan married the love of her life in the late Sixties, she had little idea of the rollercoaster journey they would make around the world together. For he was a diplomat - and Brigid found herself the smiling face of the European Union in locales ranging from Kazakhstan to Trinidad, and asking herself questions she never thought she'd have to ask. How do you throw a buffet dinner during a public mourning period in Syria? Where do you track down dog fat in Almaty? And how do you entertain guests in a Nepalese chicken shed? Negotiating diplomatic protocol, difficult teenagers, homesickness, frustrated career aspirations, witch doctors, and giant jumping spiders, Brigid muddles determinedly through - with no shortage of mishaps on the way. 'There are not many books that have actually made me cry from laughing, but this is one of them' Sunday Times

Brigid Keenan was never destined to lead a normal life. From her early beginnings - a colourful childhood in India brought to an abrupt end by independence and partition, then a return to dreary post-war England and on to a finishing school in Paris with daughters of presidents and princes - ordinary didn't seem to be her fate. When, as a ten-year-old, she overheard her mother describe her as 'desperately plain', she decided then and there that she had to rely on something different: glamour, eccentricity, character, a career - anything, so as not to end up at the bottom of the pile. And in classic Brigid style, she somehow ended up with them all. Fate often gave Brigid a helping hand - in the late fifties, in her teens, she landed a job as an assistant at the Daily Express in London, and by the tender age of twenty-one she was a Fashion Editor at the Sunday Times. It was the dawn of the swinging sixties, and London was the place to be. Brigid worked with David Bailey and Jean Shrimpton, had her hair cut by Vidal Sassoon, drove around London in a mini-van, covered the Paris Collections and was labelled a 'Young Meteor' by the press. Despite always trying her hardest, Brigid's enthusiasm - and occasional naivete - could lead to embarrassing moments, such as when she turned up to report on the Vietnam war in a mini skirt ... Candid, wickedly funny and surprisingly touching, Full Marks for Trying is a coming-of-age memoir that will delight, entertain, and make you cry with laughter.

______________________ The hilarious, outrageously witty, and surprisingly touching memoir about growing up in India and coming of age in sixties London, by the author of Diplomatic Baggage ______________________ 'Charming' - The Times 'Magical and stylish' - Daily Mail 'Wherever in the world she is writing from, her warmth and her sharp observations won't fail to delight' - Financial Times ______________________ Brigid Keenan was never destined to lead a normal life. From her early beginnings - a colourful childhood in India brought to an abrupt end by independence and partition, then a return to dreary post-war England and on to a finishing school in Paris with daughters of presidents and princes - ordinary didn't seem to be her fate. When, as a ten-year-old, she overheard her mother describe her as 'desperately plain', she decided then and there that she had to rely on something different: glamour, eccentricity, character, a career - anything, so as not to end up at the bottom of the pile. And in classic Brigid style, she somehow ended up with them all. Fate often gave Brigid a helping hand - in the late fifties, in her teens, she landed a job as an assistant at the Daily Express in London, and by the tender age of twenty-one she was a Fashion Editor at the Sunday Times. It was the dawn of the swinging sixties, and London was the place to be. Brigid worked with David Bailey and Jean Shrimpton, had her hair cut by Vidal Sassoon, drove around London in a mini-van, covered the Paris Collections and was labelled a 'Young Meteor' by the press. Despite always trying her hardest, Brigid's enthusiasm - and occasional naivete - could lead to embarrassing moments, such as when she turned up to report on the Vietnam war in a mini skirt ... Candid, wickedly funny and surprisingly touching, Full Marks for Trying is a coming-of-age memoir that will delight, entertain, and make you cry with laughter. ______________________ 'So funny and frank and moving' - Deborah Moggach 'Brightly funny ... adorably different, and memory-sharp' - Saga