Class with the Countess: How to Live with Elegance and Flair [Hardcover]

Countess LuAnn de Lesseps (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 16, 2009

The glamorous star of Bravo's hit show The Real Housewives of New York City makes it easy to be elegant, with contemporary etiquette tips and a complete course in the art of sophisticated living

Countess LuAnn de Lesseps knows firsthand that class is a state of mind, not a birthright. Raised in small-town Connecticut-half French Canadian, half Native American-she worked as a registered nurse before she started modeling. On her first trip to Europe, she was awed by the lifestyle of the Italians and stayed, eventually becoming a TV personality. Before long, she began a fairy-tale romance with Alexandre Count de Lesseps, of the Suez Canal dynasty, and married into a world of aristocrats.

She learned during her time in Europe that panache comes from within- not from an antiquated manual. Now she shares her savvy advice and her inspiring story in Class with the Countess, including:

?Elegance can most certainly be acquired.

?All of life is a seduction.

?You don't have to be rich and famous to have an unforgettable presence.

?Being interested is what makes you interesting.

?An alluring woman makes everyone want to be near her.

The twenty-first century's answer to Emily Post, the Countess gives a new generation of women an exuberant and incomparable guide to modern social graces.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Gotham (April 16, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592404685
• ISBN-13: 978-1592404681
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (86 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #927,750 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Editorial Reviews

Review

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review

"Being an extremely low-born and gauche person, I rely heavily on the Countess for tips on good manners and etiquette. She has also taught me how to be more sassy and alluring."
-Simon Doonan, creative director of Barney's New York, author of Eccentric Glamour

"Forget what you think you know from television: this lady walks the walk and talks the talk. She's a real doll, comfortable in her own skin and real, and if you're thinking about buying this book, it's one you will keep for yourself and send to friends who - like you - didn't know they needed it."
-Whoopi Goldberg

"My collections are about giving opportunities to women to express their feminine side. LuAnn understands the importance of femininity and shares her savoir-faire with you in this book."
-Catherine Malandrino, fashion designer --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Gotham (April 16, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592404685
• ISBN-13: 978-1592404681
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (86 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #927,750 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

209 of 222 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars The Declasse Countess March 6, 2010

By Medhbh

Format:Paperback

My problem with Ms. de Lesseps is that she uses etiquette as a weapon. Etiquette has the still-relevant function of making others feel comfortable. Misanthropes such as Ms. de Lesseps are making manners seem to be outdated and pretentious. A good ettiquette book should teach you the opposite. Ms. de Lesseps missed a golden opportunity to make the television-watching public aware of ways to improve their interactions with others. She may be interesting to watch through the declasse lens of a reality television camera, but class she will never possess.

140 of 147 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Yikes! January 7, 2010

By ABM

Format:Hardcover

This book was pretty bad. I cringed (and yawned) while I read it. If you want to know how fabulous "The Countess" thinks she is and how marvelous she thinks her life is, then this is the book for you. Emily Post she is not. I was actually a little embarrassed for her.

181 of 193 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars The nerve March 18, 2010

By H. Erickson-Sander TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Usually I'm very picky about Amazon reviews being on the actual product and nothing else. However, as the Real Housewives of NYC star that she is, I feel Luann's reputation from the show can be fairly included in my review of this book.

So I just have to say, what gave her the nerve to write and have published a book on etiquette, of all things? Watching the Real Housewives is a guilty pleasure of mine, I love to see how ridiculous these women act. It never ceases to amuse me how these women all run around pretending to be classy & ladies when their behavior is atrocious. These girls hardly act like well bred ladies of society. Please.

Luann, while not the worst offender on the show (I'm talking to you, Ramona & Kelly), lacks class and decorum needed to be taken seriously when selling a book such as this. Her regal facade slips quite often. Just today I watched her give a lunch lesson to her daughter's friends (how lucky for them, right?) on etiquette and she chastised a girl for having her elbow on the table. I kid you not, the very next episode Luann has lunch with Bethanny and had her elbow on the table practically the whole time. This book, and her personality, is preachy and condescending. She talks the talk, but she doesn't walk the walk.

Let's face the fact that without the show, no one other than her circle in New York would really know who this lady is. No one would buy this book, she's pulling a profit on this book because of the show. So it's very amusing to read this book, and then sit down and watch her behavior on tv. Calling her friend a "lucky b****" for not having a husband. Calling her friends out on their rude behaviors in public (hardly classy). Talking down to her friends and giving unsolicited advice.... Berating her friends when they don't introduce her as "COUNTESS" when no one even uses titles anymore. How, Luann, do you expect us to take your book seriously?

And don't even get me started on the chapter based around snagging a man and keeping him. Yeah, very proper to use fishing terminology here because you really snagged a good one didn't you - French aristocrat! But he got away, didn't he? So, again, why do we read your advice?

Get over yourself and stop writing books on topics you clearly know very little about. Luann is bringing the real experts like Emily Post down by adding her "two cents" to the etiquette industry. We have enough etiquette books, Countess, so please keep your pretend rules and pretend class advice to yourself. No one is fooled. Read more ›

110 of 117 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Really? January 15, 2010

By T. King

Format:Hardcover

After reading the book and watching her show, I find Luann a huge disappointment. No where in her book was the part about offering advice when not asked for it, speaking in condescending ways to those around you, and correcting everyone around you as much as possible. As a Native American, as she admits to being, I was raised that to speak too much was to make a fool of yourself. Perhaps she needs to go back to those childhood lessons.

71 of 74 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Unpleasantly Surprised September 9, 2009

By S. Ly

Format:Hardcover

This is not so much a "how to" or an etiquette book, it is, like everyone else has stated, a book about her fabulous life as the Countess.

Unless you want to learn how to transform yourself from a nurse into a Countess into a reality TV personality, or you are genuinely interested in her from the Real Housewives show, I would highly not recommend this book.

82 of 87 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Skip This Class April 2, 2010

By Arabella Lafitte

Format:Hardcover

A most basic distinction in regards to class is between the powerful and the powerless. I do think LuAnn attempted to make this point painfully clear when she 'bestowed' her presence and so called 'instructions' (on class-if this wasn't so ironically awful, it would be funny), to those young girls at the inner city school. BTW LuAnn, there is this quality called humility, something perhaps you could explore, and these girls gracefully radiated it as they sat there having to politely and painfully tolerate the embarrassing, condescending performance you subjected them to. Personally, I was mortified.

Who would purchase this book? Certainly not those of the upper classes, b/c they obstensibly would not find it necessary. So LuAnn is doing the rest of the common masses a favor, n'est pas?, with her 'teachings'-----if only they buy her book and fall for her fantasy facade/overblown grandiose idea of who she thinks she is.

So LuAnn seems to have the intent to make money off of those she thinks need her instruction to live like her, and also those who have not been as 'privileged' as she seems to think she is. This is not 'class' LuAnn, this is classism. Class is elegant and classism, is vulgar for your information. Class, by its own nature is generous, the other, exploitably greedy. One is grand, the other, petty and small. 'Class' that is inherent is expansive/enlightens and informs by 'being', not by dogmatic pedantry.

Classism by definition Lu, is prejudice/discrimination on the basis of social class. "It includes individual attitudes that are set up to benefit the upper classes at the expense of the lower classes". Clearly the selling of your book fits in neatly here and and who profits?... After all Lu, if there were no lower/middle classes you could not hawk your wares and make your almighty buck.

My southern grandmother had one word for women like LuAnn and their antics: TACKY. And my other, French grandmother would have said one is either born with class or not. Class certainly is not a set of rules and it is infinitely more than simply possessing good manners. Additionally, IMNSHO, a person of class would never lower themselves to contrived tactics and schemes to 'hold' onto a man or 'keep' another in a relationship with themselves.

Maybe a more apt title for this book would be: "You Too Can Catch a Count!: a primer on gold digging, purchasing a meaningless title, presuming to tell everyone else how to live just like you do, and making bucks off of no class fools while you're at it".

Fortunately I did not buy the book. The title and what I have seen of Lu, speaks volumes. Read more ›