LITERATURE + LECTURES

Blue Willow Bookshop presents Lauren Weisberger, Monday, September 20 at 7pm. We are pleased to welcome Lauren Weisberger for a return visit to Blue Willow Bookshop and to Houston. Lauren, author of The Devil Wears Prada and Chasing Harry Winston, will be in town to discuss her new book, Last Night at Chateau Marmont. Her newest novel details the marriage of Julian and Brooke, particularly the challenges they face when Julian suddenly becomes a hot new musician.

LAST NIGHT AT CHATEAU MARMONT is a rollercoaster ride of sudden fame and fortune that asks the question: What would happen if we got to live the glamorous celebrity lifestyle we idealize from afar? Brooke Alter, a young New York nutritionist struggling to make ends support her musician husband, loves to escape into the dishy tabloid magazine Last Night—until the day her world and the gossip pages collide, challenging everything she thought she knew about her husband, her marriage, and herself.

Lauren was born March 28, 1977, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, a locale recently made even more chic, if possible, by The Office. She was joined four years later by sister Dana, a.k.a. The Family Favorite, and moved to Allentown, Pennsylvania, at age eleven. At Parkland High School, Lauren participated in all sorts of projects, activities, and organizations for the sole purpose of padding her college application, although she did genuinely enjoy playing varsity tennis (especially when the girl who should have played first singles incurred a season-ending injury and Lauren had no choice but to step in for the team).

Once matriculated at Cornell University, all civic-minded extracurriculars fell by the wayside. There, she focused her energy on securing a steady stream of fake IDs and dating boys from the right fraternities. After graduating in 1999 with a BA in English, Lauren moved home for the summer to save money and then traveled all over Europe, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Thailand, India, Nepal, and Hong Kong. She carried a single small backpack and stayed in questionable places, further enriching her authentic cultural experiences by eating only Nutella and drinking Coca-Cola Light.

Lauren's first job after returning to the U.S. and moving to Manhattan was the Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief of Vogue, Anna Wintour. Lauren became proficient in the language of stilettos and Starbucks before moving to Departures magazine, where she wrote 100-word reviews by day and took writing classes at night. The Devil Wears Prada, begun at the Writer's Voice, was published in April 2003, and spent six months on The New York Times Bestseller List. It was sold in thirty-one foreign countries and made into a major motion picture by Fox 2000 starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. Lauren has a half-second cameo in the film that even she is hard-pressed to locate after several viewings. Her second novel, Everyone Worth Knowing, was published in October 2005 and is also a New York Times Bestseller.