What's it like to go from Waitressing and working at Lululemon to working in the Obama White House at age 26?

Backdory Stein will be here to talk about her new memoir from the corner of the Oval Office.

How did three aristocratic women shape salon culture in fantasy Eccla Paris?

Caroline Weber will be here to tell us about her latest book, Proust's Duchess.

Alexander Alter will give us an update from the publishing world.

Plus we'll talk about what we and the wider world are reading.

This is the Bookerview podcast from the New York Times. I'm Pamela Paul.

Backdory Stein joins us now.

Her memoir is from the corner of the Oval back.

Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me.

All right. So you got a job in the White House.

Recruiseless. I maybe I have like a 2004 conception of Craigslist, but I think it is like a place to sell like a sofa that you just want someone to pick up and get a good toaster from there.

Okay, but you also got a job in the White House. How does that happen?

I did. So in 2012, I was working five part-time jobs. I was working at Lululemon 20 hours a week.

I was waitressing and I was tutoring. And I applied to 10 jobs a day just trying to make rent.

One of the jobs was to be a stenographer in a law firm.

And I actually blew off the interview because my shift at Lululemon ran late.

And I was aspiring to be a manager someday. That was where my life was going to take you.

You wanted to be a manager at Lululemon.

That was sort of like the big goal at the time. Yeah, I was, you know, pacing myself.

And I blew off the interview, wrote an email apologizing with drawing my application.

And this woman actually wrote back, I assume she was going to say, you're a horrible irresponsible person.

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