In no particular order, here’s our private library of books and DVDs dealing with WASPs, mayonnaise, British wit, Clubs, The Family, monograms, Triscuits …
Books
Living Well is the Best Revenge by Calvin Tomkins
The Two Mrs. Grenvilles and A Season in Purgatory, both by Dominick Dunne
Blood and Money by Thomas Thompson
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Tea and Sympathy by Robert Anderson
Poolside with Slim Aarons, A Place in the Sun and Once Upon a Time, all by Slim Aarons
740 Park: The Story of the World’s Richest Apartment Building by Michael Gross
Philistines at the Hedgerow: Passion and Property in the Hamptons by Steven Gaines
Social Crimes by Jane Stanton Hitchcock
The Importance of Being Kennedy by Laurie Graham
Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir by Christopher Buckley
Capote: A Biography by Gerald Clarke
Truman Capote by George Plimpton
Wry Martinis by Christopher Buckley
This Side of Paradise, The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night, all by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Genuine Authentic: The Real Life of Ralph Lauren by Michael Gross
Family Fortunes by Louis Auchincloss
Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy: A Lost Generation by Amanda Vaill
Happy Times by Brendan Gill and Jerome Zerbe
Happy Times by Lee Radziwell
Answered Prayers by Truman Capote
Edie: American Girl by Jean Stein and George Plimpton
The Way We Lived Then by Dominick Dunne
Oh The Glory of It All by Sean Wilsey
Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of Wasp Splendor by Ted Friend
True Prep: It’s a Whole New Old World by Lisa Birnbach and Chip Kidd, available September
Take Ivy by Shosoke Ishizu, et al., available August 31
Class: A Guide Through the American Class System by Paul Fussell
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
The Official Preppy Handbook, edited by Lisa Birnbach
A Bit of British
Chatsworth: the House, Round and About Chatsworth and Counting My Chickens …: and Other Home Thoughts, all by the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, née Deborah Mitford
Anything by P.G. Wodehouse
E. F. Benson’s Mapp & Lucia books
A Much Married Man by Nicholas Coleridge
Hons & Rebes by Jessica Mitford
The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, both by Nancy Mitford
The Glass of Fashion by Cecil Beaton
All the Cecil Beaton diaries
Mr. Classic by Jeremy Hackett
DVDs
Reversal of Fortune
Trading Places
The Ice Storm
The War of the Roses
The Graduate
Ordinary People (WASP-a-palooza!)
Dead Poets Society
The Talented Mr. Ripley
The Philadelphia Story
Sabrina (the 1995 remake)
Grey Gardens
Barcelona
All Nick and Nora movies
Annie Hall (Woody Allen)
Interiors (Woody Allen)
On Golden Pond
Metropolitan
Blogs