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True Prep

TRUE PREP by Lisa Birnbach with Chip Kidd

From the author of The Official Preppy Handbook comes a new take on the old world that Lisa Birnbach turned into an international best-selling phenomenon thirty years ago. True Prep looks at how the old guard of natural-fiber-loving, dog-worshipping, G&T-soaked preppies adapts to the new order of the Internet, cell phones, rehab, political correctness, reality TV and…polar fleece. A small sample:

• Wardrobe: Recent prep brands we are forced to recognize. How to tell Casual Friday from, say, Saturday.
• Money: We never talk about it.
• Food: Does the Food Network mean we’re going to have to cook? Bake? Now you’re going too far.
• Scandals: Poor Mrs. Astor. When Mummy’s plastic surgery goes terribly wrong. Rehab and the slammer: the new prep schools.
• We’re outta here: When to name something after yourself, and when not. The right obituary.
• What to do with your dogs if you predecease them.
• NO TEXTING AT THE TABLE, PLEASE.
True Prep promises to be a whole new old sensation.

Buy the Book

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BORDERS | POWELL’S | INDIEBOUND | RANDOMHOUSE

TRUE PREP in the Press:

Get a Preppy Makeover Segment

Read the New York Times article:

Rejoice, Muffy and Biff: A Preppy Primer Revisited

Again in The New York Times:

J. Crew Helps Preppy Go Euro

From The Huffington Post:

“Preppy Evangelist: The Lisa Birnbach Interview”

TRUE PREP Presents A Preppy Playlist

Track Listing:

1. “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay (Chris Martin: Sherborne School, University College, London)
2. “All That’s Known” from Spring Awakening by Duncan Sheik (Andover, Brown)
3. “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her” by Mary Chapin Carpenter (Taft, Brown)
4. “Long Time Gone” by David Van Cortlandt Crosby (Cate School)
5. “What Can I Say?” by Boz (William Royce) Scaggs (St. Mark’s School of Texas, University of Wisconsin)
6. “I Want a New Drug” by Huey Lewis (a.k.a Hugh Anthony Cregg, III) & the News (Lawrenceville School, Cornell University)
7. “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be” by Carly Simon (Riverdale Country School, Sarah Lawrence College)
8. “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” by Vampire Weekend (Columbia University)


TRUE PREP Trailer: Making the Book


TRUE PREP Sample


ABOUT THE AUTHORS

LISA BIRNBACH is a contributing editor at Parade magazine and the author of more than twenty books, including Lisa Birnbach’s College Book. She lives in New York with her three children.
CHIP KIDD is a designer and writer at Alfred A. Knopf, where he has worked since 1986. In 1980, when he was in the tenth grade, The Official Preppy Handbook changed his life. Now he wants to return the favor.