Lisa Birnbach

I bought this book back when it was first published; I was young and impressionable and soaked it up like a sponge. I recently picked this book up and read it again. I realized, from the perspective of 30 years later, how much this book influenced me.

I need to buy a new kilt for my daughter because she has now outgrown the one I bought her when she was 3 (what practical garments they are, no other item from her wardrobe at age 3 still fits her now at almost 7) and told her that she can't get show more her ears pierced until she is 16. I have done online searches of local training facilities that offer riding lessons in hopes that she will soon enter her horsey phase (which I have never outgrown and am really looking forward to shopping for a pony).

I own an old house (historic restoration is such a rewarding hobby) and have priced documented William Morris wallpapers and haunted the second hand furniture stores and auctions (for those items that look like they've been in the family forever). I garden. My job title is one the list of acceptable prep careers. Although my dogs were not specifically mentioned as an acceptable breed, they are rather rare, (meaning that none of the rednecks around here would ever own these dogs) esoteric and I have 3 of them, which counts as a pack.....always desirable. The car I drive is preppy and it is a preppy color.

So I have to wonder if this book had a subliminal effect that influenced me over the years,or if my own personal inclinations have always been like this and the book just clarified it? Either way I've got to say that this book might actually be a better, more reliable guide to living than the bible. show less

I find this book almost as useful as 1980s social history as I do an interesting post-mortem, as it were, of the WASP élite. Most social commentators have noted that the rise of the "bourgeois Bohemian", to use David Brooks' term, began its ascendancy in the early 1990s.

Thus, while much of the book is useless as a social guide, there's also the fact that the world it was written for no longer exists. It's rather a Götterdämmerung, so to speak. It's rare that a social class loses show more ascendancy in a single blow (Paris in 1789 excepted, of course) and thus, watching a way of life in its obvious twilight is extremely interesting, as the participants are always oblivious.

There is, of course, the argument that the way of life still exists, but it is my opinion that if it does, it has changed into something that the class celebrated in this book (which was a parody upon publication) ... well, they wouldn't recognise it, that's for certain. show less

Because I am a Jen Lancaster fan, I was OBLIGATED to find this book so I could read it and finally get her references to it. I had to go online and purchase a copy, and it was totally worth it. This satire is so funny, especially if you grew up in a Preppy infested area like I did in the Northeast. This is a really funny piece of social satire, very MAD magazine by way of Connecticut circa 1982.

True Prep is Lisa Birnbach's follow-up to 1980's The Official Preppy Handbook. It's a sort of mirror volume to the original -- Preppy seemed written from a twentysomething's perspective about childhood, private school/prep school/proper college, and young adulthood; True Prep looks through a middle-aged lens at house, fashion, work and leisure, re-marriage, legacy ... and (always) one's alma mater, which attaches to a prep for life.

It's also a sequel of sorts, applying the prep perspective show more to societal changes since 1980 (including the "Interthingy") and providing an expanded collection of all-star prep mini-biographies -- a "Pantheon" from Anderson Cooper to Edith Wharton (whose quotes begin each chapter) that focuses on boomers and even gen-x, some of whom are the children of those featured in the original Preppy's Pantheon.

I loved Preppy and remember the tone as humorous satire. True Prep is fun too, and wry. But overall, I expected more material devoted to preps in 21st-century culture -- much is mentioned but little is developed (preps’ love of Polartec fleece is a terrific exception). Possibly, it's not there because they don't much engage in it, but then I wanted to see that. The omission reduces the fun; it combines with the middle-aged perspective to lend a reflective tone to this volume, and makes preps seem more enigmatic here than in the previous volume.

(Review based on an advance reading copy provided by the publisher.) show less