Customer Reviews

A Southern Belle Primer: Or Why Paris Hilton Will Never Be a Kappa Kappa Gamma

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I THOUGHT I WAS PURCHASING A NEW RELEASE BOOK. IT IS THE SAME BOOK PUBLISHED AS A SOUTHERN BELLE PRIMER OR WHY PRINCESS MARGARET WILL NEVER BE A KAPPA KAPPA GAMMA. THERE ARE A FEW PARAGRAPHS THAT HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO REFLECT PARIS HILTON RATHER THAN PRINCESS MARGARET. THE ORIGINAL BOOK WAS A "5", BUT I AM DISAPPOINTED THAT I SPENT MONEY FOR THE SAME BOOK.

This is the 5th one I've purchased for my daughters and neices. My mother being a belle herself from New Orleans, I was raised on these principles. What a delightful way to pass down this knowledge to my girls. Its a fast and hysterical read, we laughed so hard on our trip to Atlanta we had to pull over. I recommend this for any lady who lives below the Mason Dixon line.

I loved this book when it came out in 1990 (right?). I see it has been somewhat updated. It contains very helpful, true information. I just wish it wasn't all disguised as humor. Many of my friends didn't like this book because they thought it was making fun of us.

This is the same basic book as, "Why Princess Margaret will never be a Kappa..."
It offers good insight into Southern women/culture in a lighthearted way.
Great for someone moving to the South or a young woman going to college in the South for the first time.
Easy and fun to read.

Not only I, but my daughters and husband have loved and reread this book over the years till it wore out. The thing is, we're from a Southern background but have lived outside the South since childhood. The book was so much fun to read that I left it in the guest room, and very enlightening about our relatives and friends in the South.

It includes plenty of actually useful information, and a lot of fun things about traditions in the South. The good ones, not the bad ones.

So glad there is a new edition! I wish the writer would write one on Southern men now!

I agree with the above reviewer in that this book is just like the first book. It only changes a couple of things, like adding a few comments about Paris Hilton. I do wish it had been a little more up-to-date but it is still a great read.

I have given this book as a gift many times. It is so cute and a fun quick read. I particularly like the writeup on silver patterns!

I loved this book, although I would like to set the record straight as to Mrs.Schwartz assumption that Margaret Mitchell "made up" the names Scarlett and Rhett for her novel Gone With the Wind. Scarlett, is most certainly not a fictional name, my maternal grandfather's family's surname was Scarlett, and we can follow this name back in our genealogy to at least the 1500's, to an English ancestor who was a cloth dealer who dyed and sold, scarlet red cloth, and therefore took his name from his occupation. My maternal ancestors moved to the southern coast of Georgia in the 1700's, and established several prosperous cotton and rice plantations, Fancy Bluff and Oak Grove (on which many of our Scarlett relations are buried). On our branch of the family tree, the surname was married out of the family, because naturally my great great grandmother Annabella "Minnie" Tison Scarlett took her husband's name of Hillsman upon marriage, so the family began using Scarlett as a first and middle name. Furthermore, we know that Mrs. Mitchell knew of our family, and the name of Scarlett, because a cousin of my grandfather's wrote to Mrs. Mitchell inquiring why she felt the need to name "that hussy" Scarlett. Mrs. Mitchell quickly wrote back "apologizing for any embarrassment the choice of name might have caused to a family, 'so well known in the records and old legends of our coast'". I would like to say, that this is a convivial and entertaining coffee table book, but I do find it slightly tacky that Ms. Schwartz did not do more research on the name Scarlett before assuming, and then writing that there are no true blue Scarletts below the Mason-Dixon line, as I am one, as is my aunt, my great-aunt, my second cousin once removed, my second cousin twice removed, my great-grandmother, and so on and so forth. We, daughters of the South, were here long before the War of Northern Aggression, and God willing, will be here for many years to come, as the South is where our hearts are, and will continue to be.

Regards,
Audrey Anne-Scarlett Marrow née Irwin

P.S.- I inherited my silver pattern from my maternal great-grandmother, 1810 International.

I found a reference to this book in the Sweet Potatoe Queens book (hilarious!). I thought this Primer would likewise be funny. Not so. It simply explained all the fluff that southern ladies went through back in the 60's and perhaps still do to some extent. Pretty boring stuff, just explanations of excesses.