India, May 5 -- My mission in life is not merely to survive,

but to thrive;

and to do so with some passion,

some compassion,

some humour,

and some style.

These lines by Maya Angelou pretty much sum up British textile historian, Jenny Housego's recently released e-book, A Woven Life . Layered and candid, it is an ordinary memoir of Housego, who as a child in countryside England thought she would grow up to be a spy but life had other plans for her. Along with journalist, researcher and teacher, Maya Mirchandani, she lays bare her idyllic childhood in the aftermath of the second World War; her aspirations of being in the arts and then as a researcher at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

"Life unfolds in mysterious ways. In th...