The launch of ‘Jaipur Splendor’ confirms coffee-table books are here to stay

A recently released coffee-table book brings India’s Pink City to life

Some cities evoke grandeur, others romance, and yet others pulsate with frenzy. Jaipur, the seductive Pink City of India, manages to meld all three with its glorious past and its germane present. Jaipur’s history, culture and people easily make it one of India’s most splendid places.

Luxury publishing house Assouline’s new book Jaipur Splendor, released in March this year—and written by writer and filmmaker Mozez Singh—brings to life the city’s magic in a bright pink, sumptuously designed 300-page coffee-table tome. “Jaipur is one of a kind,” says Singh. “I don't know any other city in India which blends the East and the West in terms of the art, design and culture, food, architecture and hotels, [and one] that gives so much to its people and those who visit it.”

Beginnings of the book

Part of Assouline’s travel series, which brings out books on glamorous cities across the world (think Marrakesh, Capri, Ibiza, Gstaad), Jaipur Splendor’s foreword is written by Sawai Padmanabh Singh of Jaipur, popularly known as Pacho, the scion of the erstwhile royal family of Jaipur. The 23-year-old, polo-playing prince gets tremendous credit in making Jaipur one of the world’s must-visit cities among a younger generation of jet-setting travellers in recent times. In fact, the genesis of the book emerged from the annual three-day Holi extravaganza the young prince holds.

Martine Assouline, who founded the publishing company alongside her husband Prosper in Paris in 1994—and ran it out of the basement of her home for the first few years—says that Jaipur was on their list for some time since their son, Alexandre, was invited for Pacho’s Holi celebration. The celebrations, however, were cancelled, owing to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. “We had done beautiful books on India, but never about a single place. So I started to learn about Jaipur, which is evidently a magical name and has a strong spirit,” she says. It was befitting, then, that after two years since the beginning of the pandemic, Pacho ensured that Jaipur Splendor was launched at the recently reopened Jaigarh Fort–during Holi.

Transporting the reader

Assouline reached out to Singh in February 2021, while he was busy shooting Human, his medical-thriller streaming series. “Suddenly, I was writing this book and working on Human at the same time; it was crazy,” Singh says with a laugh. A young city by Indian standards—only 300 years old—Jaipur is also considered our first planned city. As Singh writes in his essay accompanying the book, “the famed traveler Max Lerner called Jaipur one of the three most beautiful cities in the world, comparing it with Venice and Paris.” Replete with luscious photographs of Jaipur’s architecture, people, palaces, textiles, crafts and royals, which Singh sourced and curated from across the world, Jaipur Splendor beautifully transports a reader into the wonders of the city.

Martine, who describes her company as one founded on “pleasure and passion,” says Assouline was always meant to be a luxury brand setting the tone in culture, not merely a publisher. “We have a strong editorial style and a love of words and images,” she says. The company has published 1700 books since its inception and continues to persevere, despite the proliferation of digital platforms. After all, as the novelist Anthony Powell once wrote, books furnish a room. Print runs may be limited, but price points for lavishly produced books are high, and a publisher can recover costs in less than two years, especially if there is a reprint. When Assouline published social swan (and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s sister) Lee Radziwill’s book Happy Times in 2001, no one expected it to be a bestseller, yet it sold 50,000 copies.

Martine is not worried about the virtual world replacing books. “I use Google a lot for quick information and it is a fantastic tool, but it is like fast food,” she says. “Just like I love to go to a good restaurant and spend good moments, nothing replaces for me the pleasure of discovering a book. It is about a ‘moment’. Libraries are unavoidable in my life; like friends. The smell, sound and touch of paper is irreplaceable for visual books, which are also great ‘accessories’ for homes.” With its colourful, eye-catching cover, rich photos and riveting text, Jaipur Splendor is a welcome addition to any bookshelf around the world.

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