Guest Blogger—Lauren Cerand

Guest Blogger Lauren Cerand writes about art, politics and style at LuxLotus.com.

Summer in the City with Lauren Cerand

The Happy Booker is headed off to the South of France and I am on my way to the South... side of Canal Street, because that's where my favorite bodega is. Ah, summer in the city! Where does a gal begin?

Right now I am pretty excited about my current projects as an independent publicist, which include getting the word out about the novel Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee and the story collection Throw Like a Girl by Jean Thompson, as well as "Upstairs at the Square" , plus gearing up for an exciting fall that includes the anticipated new novels from Dallas Hudgens and Anne Landsman . I'm also rather jazzed to have attended my first official board of directors' meeting since agreeing to join the board of Girls Write Now, "a nonprofit volunteer mentoring organization that has been matching bright, creative teenage girls from New York City's public high schools with professional women writers in the community since 1998." (Notes on my "subtle as a sea breeze" fundraising strategy here ).

I thought I'd spend August traveling abroad (sublet and a bicycle in Antwerp? Dublin? Berlin? sure), but lately I've been becoming a bit of a homebody and enjoying a Manhattan moment. Sure, a little country house-hopping is always welcome when friends extend an invitation (what else are you keeping that big ol' house for, except little ol' me?), but I am feeling sort of 'over' Europe right now (that crush on I had on London? It burned bright, and then right out) and well, I think I just might be falling in love with New York. This week.

My NYC summertime essentials: Chet Baker (any album, really), a Netflix queue stocked with questionable classics (start with "Houseboat," hands down, a Mason jar of sweet tea (I know Maud knows what I'm talking about)— make your own or hit Daisy May's, and an oversize magazine that can double as a fan (I recommend the grossly unportable, and therefore terribly luxe, WWD Scoop), preferably to cool off while a handsome companion reads you some poems on a blanket in the park. Any old kind will do.

Comments

[Lauren Cerand]

Hi Ms. THB:

Thanks so much for having me come 'round for a mo' while you're off gallivanting in style!

As a postscript, there's one more book I'm going to be getting the word out about this summer that I believe would be of particular interest to your readers--

Trudy Hopedale by Jeffrey Frank (Simon & Schuster, July 17)... Noted, "On the eve of the 2000 election, the charmed life of Washington hostess Trudy Hopedale is quietly falling apart. Her daytime talk show is about to be hijacked by a younger, prettier assistant, and then there is the horrifying novel that her husband has written in secret, which contains some rather troubling
implications for a former Foreign Service colleague. And what is her mother-in-law telling everyone?"

It's pretty dishy (as are you!)

XX LC

[Sharon]

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