Goat: A Story of Kashmir & Notting Hill by Justine Hardy (John Murray, £16.99).

this book review appeared in WEXAS Traveller magazine, Spring 2001

Justine Hardy’s third book tells the story of how she set up a business importing pashmina shawls to raise money for a slums education project in New Delhi. Sounds too worthy to be readable? Think again. Hardy writes like a dream, seamlessly blending her own experiences with the history of the Kashmiri conflict. Throughout, the story of setting up the business and dealing with the ladies of Notting Hill in their determined quest for quality pashminas is told with humour and a sharp eye for the absurd. Hardy’s tale, straddling two continents and two very different cultures, is vividly retold, happily without any of the egotism that can so irritate in the travel writing genre. Her passion for justice, compassion for lives torn by conflict and poverty, and her obvious love for the places she visits informs her writing. Very funny, inspirational and containing just about all you ever wanted to know about pashmina.

© Kamin Mohammadi, January 1999