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Self-HelpFamily & RelationshipsBusiness & Finance

Secrets of success for recent grads

Review by Kathleen Smith

Working as a waitress at T.G.I. Friday's, Ann Patchett couldn't help but wonder why she had landed in such a line of work after six years of higher education. Based on the commencement address she gave at her alma mater, Sarah Lawrence College, What now? follows the renowned novelist through college and beyond, with inspiring and humorous anecdotes of the many stops and starts in her career as an award-winning writer. Patchett's essays prove that the greatest life lessons occur at the oddest of times, such as when you're scrubbing dishes with a graduate degree. This gift book is ideal for the anxious college grad who could use a reminder that there is joy to be found in unplanned moments.

HOLLYWOOD DREAMS
Tanner Stransky has found a way to convert those couch potato hours into tools for the young professional. In Find Your Inner Ugly Betty, the Entertainment Weekly writer gleans lessons from popular TV shows like "Ugly Betty," "The Office" and "Grey's Anatomy" for eager grads who want to climb the career ladder those first few years after college. With style lessons from the fabulous Carrie Bradshaw, employer relationship challenges with the grouchy Lou Grant and goal-setting strategies a la Betty Suarez, Stransky has fashioned a humorous yet valuable set of on-the-job tips. Who would have figured that the folks at Dunder-Mifflin held the secrets for career success?

For the L.A.-bound graduate harboring delusions of tabloid grandeur, The Hollywood Assistants Handbook aims to turn blindly optimistic dreams into diligent reality. With the book's 86 insider rules, a new grad can learn how to live for free, pimp her looks and assemble an army of interns at her disposal. Authors and former Hollywood assistants Hillary Stamm and Peter Nowalk dish out advice on all aspects of the job, from striking up the right conversation with George Clooney to turning Target wear into Barneys fashion. For these successful power players, name-dropping, shameless flirting and suck-up strategizing are tools of the trade and not for the weak of heart or stomach. The balance of humor and reverence for old-fashioned hard work make the guide a valuable asset for those headed for the Hills.

THE PERFECT FIT
What's That Job and How the Hell Do I Get It? doesn't waste time with career anecdotes, offering "the inside scoop on more than 50 cool jobs from people who actually have them." David J. Rosen's research provides the honest, and sometimes hard to swallow, truth about achieving success in some of the most envied jobs as well as offering a peek into the daily lives of those who claim them. Also provided are characteristics for the ideal candidate, salary information and ratings on "the ol' stress-o-meter," so eager job hunters can determine whether they really want to get their foot in the door. Whether one hopes to be an actor, a psychologist, a real estate broker or even a headhunter, this lengthy guide may prove helpful to clear confusion about many glamorized careers. Readers can aim high, aim correctly and avoid the career that just will not fit, because you don't want to pursue headhunting only to find, as Rosen quips, that there are no blow darts involved.

For a slightly more serious and comprehensive career guide, look for Michael Gregory's The Career Chronicles, which offers a candid view of what it's really like to work in fields from engineering to health care. More than 750 professionals confess the best, worst and most surprising parts of their jobs, giving graduates an insider's view before they start their own on-the-job training.

Working as a waitress at T.G.I. Friday's, Ann Patchett couldn't help but wonder why she had landed in such a line of work after six years of higher education. Based on the commencement address she gave at her alma mater, Sarah Lawrence College, What now?…

MemoirLifestylesFamily & RelationshipsAging

A little something for mom

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

What happens to a mother when her husband, her children's father, dies? In Designated Daughter: The Bonus Years with Mom, D.G. Fulford steps in as "the sibling who would try to take up the empty space that had always been filled by Dad." (Fulford's brother is author and former Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene.) Each chapter is co-written by Fulford and her mother, Phyllis; they offer stories that are by turns funny and poignant, and familiar in their glimpses of what it's like to be the surviving spouse or child. They're frank about these "bonus years," and how their changed relationship required some rebalancing—of Fulford's own approach to motherhood, Phyllis' ability to be independent and both women's perspective on what matters and what can be laughed off. Designated Daughter offers a hopeful vision of what mother-daughter relationships can be.

MEMORIES, SUPERBLY WRITTEN
Riding Shotgun: Women Write About Their Mothers, edited by Kathryn Kysar, contains 21 thoughtful explorations of memory, discovery and the mother-daughter bond. The writing in this collection is superb, thanks to the skill and thoughtfulness of the contributors, which include accomplished novelists, poets, journalists and essayists such as Jonis Agee and Sandra Ben&and#237;tez. There are photos, too, lovely in both their familiarity awkward poses in dress-up clothes, mom-and-baby candids and diversity. Riding Shotgun is an honest, memorable collection worth savoring and sharing.

POWERFUL POETRY
Frances Richey raised her son, Ben, on her own. He grew up to become an Army captain and Green Beret who served two tours in Iraq, secret missions in a war his mother does not support. Writing poetry helped Richey, a former corporate executive who has been a yoga and meditation instructor for the last 15 years, cope with her fear for her son. Her poems in The Warrior: A Mother's Story of a Son at War are powerful in their evocation of the emotional battles fought every day by the people who are left behind, worrying and wondering: "My son is always leaving. / Sometimes he looks back / and waves good-bye. Sometimes / he just disappears." and "It was easy to think of warrior / as a yoga posture, until my son / became a Green Beret." One Mother's Day, Richey didn't hear from Ben; she writes about it in "Incommunicado." But this mother's story has a happy ending: Ben, who first deployed in 2004, returned home in 2006.

A PRESIDENTIAL TRIBUTE TO MOM
Former president Jimmy Carter is no stranger to author-dom: He's written more than 20 books, including An Hour Before Daylight, Our Endangered Values and Beyond the White House. A Remarkable Mother is both a biography of his mother, the indomitable Miss Lillian, and a memoir of his relationship with her over the course of her life (she died in 1983 at age 85). Lillian was born in Georgia, the fourth of nine children. Carter recounts stories of her formative years in the rural South, her work as a nurse during World War I, and her volunteer work for the Peace Corps. It's interesting to read about Miss Lillian's role as "America's first mama": She visited the White House often, accompanied her son on official state missions and "played a key role in [Carter's] crucial support from African Americans." Photos help tell the story of Miss Lillian, who is shown with family and foreign dignitaries alike. She is talking and smiling in nearly every one.

MOMS IN STYLE
Each of us makes choices about our personal style from how we look and the objects we treasure to the career paths we follow. According to fashion and interior designer Carrie McCarthy, and Danielle LaPorte, a writer and communications strategist, identifying and embracing a particular style philosophy can help us be more mindful of and deliberate with our life choices. In their book Style Statement: Live by Your Own Design, they share their own statements and feature portraits of women who embody various style statements; descriptions of characteristics common to those styles; and questions to help readers determine and interpret their own preferences for certain colors, flowers, foods, art forms and the like. Think Color Me Beautiful, but for your life, not just your makeup colors.

From longtime fans who've seen Breakfast at Tiffany's countless times to those who discovered the gorgeous gamine via a Gap commercial, Audrey Hepburn has seemingly endless appeal. What Would Audrey Do? Timeless Lessons for Living with Grace and Style offers advice for emulating the icon's style and approach to life. Author Pamela Keogh gives oversized sunglasses and ballet flats their due, but she goes beyond signature fashion to ponder whether Audrey would have a MySpace page, sit for an interview with Oprah or admit she learned lessons from her strict mother (no, probably, yes). WWAD? offers thought-provoking and fun anecdotes, quizzes and decorating tips, but it also contains plenty of biographical detail. Keogh also describes Audrey's work with UNICEF, for which she served as an ambassador until her death in 1993 at age 63. WWAD? is a well-rounded read for the Audrey aficionado, or anyone who wants to live life with a bit more panache.

GROAN AND BEAR IT
Any woman who's suffered through a mom-induced blind date will find herself laughing—and cringing—in sympathy with the writers who contributed to Have I Got a Guy for You: What Really Happens When Mom Fixes You Up. The essay collection, edited by Alix Strauss (author of the short story collection The Joy of Funerals), contains 26 stories by women who've experienced some rather interesting fix-ups thanks to their well-meaning, but misguided, mothers. Standouts include "Letters to Gelman," about a mom's sudden and complete obsession with the producer of "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee," and "Dentists + Dragons," in which the writer's suitor, a dentist and screenwriter wannabe, drags her to a Dungeons & Dragons convention and presents her with a skimpy costume. There are positive outcomes here, too. One date becomes a good friend; another becomes a husband; and plenty of women emerge from their dates creeped out but wiser.

What happens to a mother when her husband, her children's father, dies? In Designated Daughter: The Bonus Years with Mom, D.G. Fulford steps in as "the sibling who would try to take up the empty space that had always been filled by Dad." (Fulford's brother…

Family & RelationshipsAging

Navigating the ‘new old age’

Review by Linda Stankard

In his new book, A Place Called Canterbury: Tales of the New Old Age in America, Dudley Clendinen, a former national reporter and editorial writer for the New York Times, chronicles the compelling life stories of the residents at a Life Care center in Tampa Bay. Here his mother, some of her closest friends from the Tampa area and other "sundry folk" have come to live out their final years. Clendinen describes their journey as "an exquisitely poignant and gritty and dear kind of odyssey," and he tells their tales with compassion, honesty and humor.

"No generation before has lived so long, accumulated so much, grown so independent in old age," he writes. Nor has a generation like their children, the baby boomers, "ever been as dazzled and daunted and consumed by the apparently endless old age of parents." As Clendinen navigates the unfamiliar territory of Medicaid, medications and medical staff, he learns a great deal about this "New Old Age." For several years, his mother, (a woman, in her prime, of "seductive charm, a charitable heart, steely determination, and canny intent") enjoys a full schedule, living in her upscale apartment at Canterbury, going out to dinner at the Tampa Yacht and Country Club. But after she suffers a stroke, she is moved to the nursing wing for the care she needs. As the years pass and she slips further away from him, Clendinen struggles to stay connected with her, to communicate with her and to do right by her.

He forms close ties with many of the residents, and over time, their remarkable stories emerge. Through these "Canterbury tales," we come to know "survivors of the Great Depression, D-day, the Holocaust, and of the American civil rights struggle." We come to understand their joys and sorrows as their tales take us back to their childhoods, their first loves, marriages and careers, and we are reminded of their incredible sacrifices and strengths. Now their children, the boomers, must be strong as they face caring for aging parents – while not getting any younger themselves.

Linda Stankard is a former activities director at a nursing home.

In his new book, A Place Called Canterbury: Tales of the New Old Age in America, Dudley Clendinen, a former national reporter and editorial writer for the New York Times, chronicles the compelling life stories of the residents at a Life Care center in Tampa…

Self-HelpFamily & Relationships

A professor’s stirring ‘last lecture’

Review by Deanna Larson

When Randy Pausch learned he was dying of pancreatic cancer, he found himself in quite a dilemma: at the top of his professional game, with a beautiful wife and three young children, how should he check out of life? A computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Pausch is the co-founder of the university's prestigious Entertainment Technology Center and has worked with such companies as Google, Electronic Arts and Walt Disney Imagineering. "I love thinking I might find a way to beat this late-stage cancer," he writes in The Last Lecture. "Because even if I don't, it's a better mindset to help me get through each day."

Using the forum of his university's "Last Lecture" series, the terminally ill Pausch decided to distill his life lessons into a talk for students, friends and colleagues about how to achieve your childhood dreams. When Jeffrey Zaslow of the Wall Street Journal wrote a column about the lecture, and a video of the speech was posted on the Internet, the reaction was overwhelming. To adapt the lecture into a book, Pausch dictated his thoughts to Zaslow while on his daily bike rides – determined to maintain his fitness and minimize his time away from his family during the final months of his life. (Paush has already outlived his doctors' prediction that he had only six healthy months to live.)

The Last Lecture touches on Pausch's upbringing by parents who encouraged creativity and curiosity, as well as the support he received from important professors and mentors. The book gathers momentum with short sections about teamwork and cooperation, dreaming big, not obsessing over what people think, the power of apology and the little touches that mean so much (Pausch handed out Thin Mints with every request to review research papers).

Ultimately, this insightful nerd-optimist-dreamer abandons the idea of a "bucket list," reflecting instead his father's lifelong dedication to sharing intellectual and emotional wealth with others. "Time is all you have," Pausch writes, "And you may find one day that you have less than you think."

When Randy Pausch learned he was dying of pancreatic cancer, he found himself in quite a dilemma: at the top of his professional game, with a beautiful wife and three young children, how should he check out of life? A computer science professor at…

ParentingFamily & Relationships

Wisdom for the ages

Review by bookpagedev

Guidance for a boyish soul can also be found in Hugh Downs’ Letter to a Great Grandson: A Message of Love, Advice, and Hopes for the Future. Shortly after the birth of his great-grandson, Downs began writing a collection of ruminations and advice, spread across 17 “ages” his young descendant could hope to reach. The book is a wonderful mix of biographical tidbits, life experiences and wisdom on everything from family relationships to love. This is not a tale for children, but a man’s philosophy on what it means to live, grow and learn, at every stage of life. Howard Shirley is a writer and father in Nashville.

Guidance for a boyish soul can also be found in Hugh Downs' Letter to a Great Grandson: A Message of Love, Advice, and Hopes for the Future. Shortly after the birth of his great-grandson, Downs began writing a collection of ruminations and advice, spread across…
LifestylesFamily & Relationships

Beauty on a budget

Review by Sarah White

Crafts of all sorts have made a huge resurgence right along with the DIY trend, and women who knit, sew or are otherwise crafty will want to incorporate some of that into their wedding (and save a little money in the process). Khris Cochran's The DIY Bride: 40 Fun Projects for Your Ultimate One-of-a-Kind Wedding provides inspiration and projects for save-the-date cards, invitations, jewelry and accessories, ceremony decorations, programs, favors and more. Cochran, who founded the website DIYBride.com, also provides a cost comparison to show how much a similar item would cost if purchased in a store, allowing busy couples to decide whether it would be better to buy or make certain projects. A hair ornament for a flower girl, for example, costs about $5 to make but would cost about $40 to buy. The DIY Bride provides clear instructions and suggests whether a project could be completed by the couple themselves, with the help of the wedding party or with members of the family, offering clever ideas and the potential for fun invitation-building parties with friends.

It's the money, honey

Bringing all the pieces of a dream wedding together can be difficult no matter how organized a couple is. Staying on budget can be even trickier, as there's always one more detail (and expense) to add. Rich Bride, Poor Bride: Your Ultimate Wedding Planning Guide aims to help couples stick to their priorities and their budgets. Based on the WE television show "Rich Bride, Poor Bride," this general wedding planning guide contains tips from couples and wedding planners who have seen everything. The book emphasizes the importance of having a wedding planner, since their experience with vendors allows couples to stay on budget and keeps them from having to deal with last-minute details. But even for those who don't hire a planner, Rich Bride, Poor Bride offers advice from the pros that will be useful in getting to the ceremony with finances and sanity intact.

Minding p's and q's

There's a lot of tradition behind the wedding ceremony, and while some of that can be tossed aside in favor of what makes the couple happy, it's useful to have a guide to explain how things should be done. Simple Stunning Wedding Etiquette: Traditions, Answers, and Advice from One of Today's Top Wedding Planners by Karen Bussen, follows in the footsteps of Bussen's other books by pairing useful information with beautiful photos. From handling pushy parents to wording the wedding invitation, from talking about prenuptial agreements to canceling the event, this guide covers the basics of etiquette for the modern wedding. It also covers wedding showers, putting together a non-traditional ceremony and planning the reception. Simple Stunning Wedding Etiquette serves as a reminder that the right thing to do in almost any situation is the thing that makes the people who are important to you most comfortable.

Fresh from the oven

Martha Stewart provides some do-it-yourself inspiration in her new book with Wendy Kromer, Martha Stewart's Wedding Cakes: More Than 100 Inspiring Cakes. While there may not be many brides who have both the skills and interest necessary to make their own cakes, all brides will benefit from learning how cakes are put together and what to consider before ordering one. Stewart and Kromer suggest basing your choice on the style of wedding, the season, a stylistic element of the wedding or the wedding's location. Brave souls who do want to go it alone will find recipes for several of the cakes and a section explaining how to bake, decorate and transport them. For everyone else, the 100 color photos and detailed descriptions of fillings, icing and embellishments serve as a great jumping-off point for a discussion with a professional cake baker.

Crafts of all sorts have made a huge resurgence right along with the DIY trend, and women who knit, sew or are otherwise crafty will want to incorporate some of that into their wedding (and save a little money in the process). Khris Cochran's The…

ParentingFamily & Relationships

Fatherhood illustrated

Review by bookpagedev

Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads by Gary Greenberg is a convenient little volume that seeks to answer the question well known to all new fathers: “What do I do with this ?” Combining humor and helpful advice with rich illustrations by Jeannie Hayden, Be Prepared offers welcome relief for the anxious dad. The information is solid and thorough, vetted by pediatricians and parenting experts, as well as experienced fathers. The tone is light and fun, divided like baby food into easily digestible bits, while the topics cover every concern from teething to understanding the difficulties (both physical and emotional) that the new mother is facing. (If only this book had been available nine years ago when this young father needed to be prepared!) Howard Shirley is a writer and father in Nashville.

Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads by Gary Greenberg is a convenient little volume that seeks to answer the question well known to all new fathers: "What do I do with this ?" Combining humor and helpful advice with rich illustrations by Jeannie…
Family & Relationships

Writers dissect the heart’s desire

Review by Katherine Wyrick

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jeffrey Eugenides presents readers with his valentine to the love story in My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead: Great Love Stories, from Chekhov to Munro. In the introduction, he writes, "When it comes to love, there are a million theories to explain it. But when it comes to love stories, things are simpler. A love story can never be about full possession. The happy marriage, the requited love, the desire that never dims—these are lucky eventualities but they aren't love stories. Love stories depend on disappointment, on unequal births and feuding families, on matrimonial boredom and at least one cold heart. Love stories, nearly without exception, give love a bad name."

OK, so maybe love isn't always a bed of roses and a box of chocolates, but what kind of collection would you expect from the author of the acclaimed, offbeat novels The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex? Here, Eugenides chooses disparate stories from an eclectic group of writers, and the result makes for exceptional reading. Some of the pieces are challenging, like Robert Musil's "Tonka," others hilarious like George Saunders' "Jon." These two stories appearing in a collection together is pretty funny in itself, and it's just this sort of pairing that makes this anthology so remarkable. Eugenides also includes "How to Be an Other Woman," a piece by that master of human emotion, Lorrie Moore. Her first directive: "Meet in expensive beige raincoats, on a pea-soupy night." Written when she was a mere 24, the story already demonstrates Moore's expert ability to strike that fine balance between pathos and humor.

What, you ask, does a dead bird have to do with love? The unusual title of this collection comes from a 2,000-year-old poem written by the Latin poet Catullus, who, in Eugenides' words, "did more than anyone to create the form we recognize today as the love story." Inspired, at age 15, to become a writer upon reading Catullus' work for the first time, Eugenides remains besotted with it. The titular phrase refers to the death of a pet bird belonging to Catullus' beloved, a passing the poet both mourns and celebrates. Alas, Catullus' love was doomed from the start, for his tweet-heart was already married to someone else.

The title alone is intriguing enough to lure readers in, but My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead is also a book with a cause: All proceeds from its sale benefit the free youth writing programs offered by 826 Chicago. 826 Chicago is part of the network of seven writing centers across the U.S. affiliated with 826 National, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jeffrey Eugenides presents readers with his valentine to the love story in My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead: Great Love Stories, from Chekhov to Munro. In the introduction, he writes, "When it comes to love, there are a million theories to explain it.…

Family & Relationships

Looking for love?

Review by Katherine Wyrick

Paulette Kouffman Sherman is a dating expert and psychologist with a holistic approach to finding a mate. In her practice, she noticed that her clients' negative thoughts were actually driving away the partners they desired. Therein lies the genesis of Dating from the Inside Out: How to Use the Law of Attraction in Matters of the Heart. In this guide, Sherman claims that the pathway to an enduring, fulfilling relationship begins with "setting clear intentions for love, and learning to be the partner they wish to attract." It's no secret, Sherman insists, that if you live consciously, love will follow. Meaning, know thyself and love thyself before you ask someone else's self to do the same. Anyone who's heard of that not-so-secret book The Secret will find themselves on familiar terrain here.

DESKTOP DATING
According to Leslie Oren, top Hollywood publicist and author of Fine, I'll Go Online!, finding someone you click with might be just a click away. Internet dating is no longer considered a mysterious, shady endeavor; instead it is, in this day and age, an accepted and legitimate way to meet a mate. But there are rules in this ether-world and a certain protocol to follow. Oren intends this guide to be both entertaining and informative. If anyone knows about effective marketing, which she surmises is just what the dating game is all about, it is Oren. Here she shows readers how to create an image, "the best possible version of your authentic self," for online dating. She outlines how to write the perfect online profile, why you must post a photo, what not to write in an e-mail, why the first date should only be meeting for coffee or a drink and what constitutes online dating success. If this book had a theme song, it might be something like "Lookin' for love in all the MySpace pages . . ."

LAUGHING MATTERS
There really is a guide for everything. Having survived the wilds of the dating world, you now need help navigating those early years of matrimony. In There's a Spouse in My House Peter Scott, author of Well Groomed: A Wedding Planner for What's-His-Name (And His Bride), shows us how to achieve and maintain marital bliss—well, if not bliss, at least some semblance of harmony. (If he writes a sequel, may we suggest the title There's a Crib in My Crib?) Chapter topics range from cohabitation to the challenge of staying in shape after the wedding. Scott has clearly learned a thing or two about being a good husband, judging from chapter titles such as "So, These Hand Towels are Merely Decorative and Never to Be Used, Right?" Laughter is key, the author insists, and if you need an infusion of it into your relationship, this book is a good place to start.

STRESS TEST
Now if you really want to shed some light on those issues you've just made light of, John Gray's new book, Why Mars &andamp; Venus Collide: Improving Relationships by Understanding How Men and Women Cope Differently with Stress, is the next stop on the love train. Gray's writing career was launched into the stratosphere with the publication of the original Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus and the follow-up Mars/Venus books. The latest in that galaxy of bestsellers builds on Gray's previous work and examines how traditional male and female roles have evolved and how this evolution contributes to stress, which in turn affects relationships. He explores the different ways men and women approach their problems and then offers a practical program to get those planets aligned. Looking at the science of the sexes, he examines the roles testosterone and oxytocin play in our daily lives and relationships. The information therein is both thought-provoking and illuminating.

DOWN AND OUT
The aforementioned guides are bent on creating lasting partnerships, but, alas, not every love story is a success story. Thankfully, there's Ben Karlin, who offers us Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me, an homage to failed relationships. Karlin, best known as the former executive producer of both "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report," knows what's funny, possibly with the exception of Neal Pollock's off-color essay involving his cat (mee-EWWWW). Here Karlin invites some of today's greatest comedic minds, or dare we say hearts, to pontificate about heartbreak. Not sentimental or touchy-feely (unless by touchy-feely you mean actual groping), this anthology offers insights from the likes of Stephen Colbert, Andy Richter and Nick Hornby.So this year, put on that novelty tee that says "I'm with Cupid" (arrow pointing sideways), and fall in love—with a tall, dark and handsome book.

Paulette Kouffman Sherman is a dating expert and psychologist with a holistic approach to finding a mate. In her practice, she noticed that her clients' negative thoughts were actually driving away the partners they desired. Therein lies the genesis of Dating from the Inside Out:…

ParentingFamily & Relationships

Being Mr. Mom

Review by bookpagedev

Dads of all ages will laugh in agreement at the predicaments in How Tough Could It Be? The Trials and Errors of a Sportswriter Turned Stay-at-Home Dad. With humor in his pen and one hand on a mop, Sports Illustrated writer Austin Murphy shares his experiences as he swaps roles with his wife for six months. How does a man go from interviewing superstar athletes to planning the elementary school talent show? Or more specifically, how does he survive it? There is both insight and laughter in Murphy’s answer, making this book entertaining for both fathers and mothers alike.

Howard Shirley is a writer and father in Nashville.

Dads of all ages will laugh in agreement at the predicaments in How Tough Could It Be? The Trials and Errors of a Sportswriter Turned Stay-at-Home Dad. With humor in his pen and one hand on a mop, Sports Illustrated writer Austin Murphy shares his…
ParentingFamily & Relationships

I need daycare

Review by bookpagedev

Sometimes what ails you at work is what ails you at home. If you have ever worked from home (or thought about it) pick up Life’s Work: Confessions of an Unbalanced Mom by Lisa Belkin. She’ll stop you before you do great damage to yourself. Belkin, the author of the witty weekly Life’s Work column in The New York Times, exposes the myths and joys of work, family and the balancing act that almost every woman tries to perform before realizing that it’s all just too much. With humor and happiness, Belkin describes the exacting way her kids and even her dog took all control from her life. They left her with a little time to work at the computer and a lot of time to clean up and make dinner for them. After Life’s Work you’ll never look at life and work the same way again.

Sometimes what ails you at work is what ails you at home. If you have ever worked from home (or thought about it) pick up Life's Work: Confessions of an Unbalanced Mom by Lisa Belkin. She'll stop you before you do great damage to yourself.…
ParentingFamily & Relationships

What love’s got to do with it

Review by bookpagedev

<B>What love’s got to do with it</B> You might fight like cats and dogs, but where would you be without dear old mom? Without her attention and affection? And endless advice? Sure, her helpful hints are often unasked-for (and sometimes shrilly delivered), but they’re sent with unconditional love the kind only mothers can provide. So take a tip from BookPage and remember mom this month with one of the terrific titles listed below.

Motivational speaker Cherie Carter-Scott, Ph.

D., commemorates the maternal role in <B>The Gift of Motherhood: 10 Truths for Every Mother</B>. Author of the best-selling advice book, <I>f Life is a Game, These are the Rules</I>, Scott, who has worked with Fortune 500 companies like American Express and IBM, offers 10 insights about motherhood that she has gleaned from personal experience and from years of coaching women all over the world. The universals she presents in the book Remembering to care for yourself is essential and Love shows up in many different forms are examined in-depth and illustrated by inspiring anecdotes from real-life moms. <B>The Gift of Motherhood</B> also functions as a how-to guide to parenting, proposing practical strategies for dealing with mother-daughter conflicts, for envisioning the type of mother you want to become and achieving that vision for being both friend and authority figure to your child. Each of Scott’s truths serves to demystify the role of mother, providing support for the struggling parent. Transcending race, religion and nationality, her words of wisdom and humor will energize future and seasoned mothers alike. With <!–BPLINK=–>1930170025<B>Busy Woman’s Cookbook</B><!–ENDBPLINK–>, authors Sharon and Gene McFall share more than 500 recipes that are sure to ease a mother’s greatest domestic burden. For those without the time or inclination to experiment in the kitchen, this back-to-the-basics book offers three- and four-element recipes, composed of easily accessible ingredients, that take the complexity out of cooking. From Old Time Meat Loaf to Skinny Minny Pork Chops, from Cinnamon Coffee Cake to Sopaipillas, creative ideas for appetizers, entrees, salads and desserts are simply and briefly presented. Downhome or exotic, old-fashioned or new-fangled, there’s a dish for every food preference. Amusing anecdotes and fascinating facts (200 to be exact) about famous women enliven the text. A sturdy cover and spiral binding make the book easy to handle in the kitchen. <B>Busy Woman</B> lets the overwhelmed mother put meal planning where it belongs on the back burner.

For moms who are coming-of-age, consider <!–BPLINK=–>0696213907<B>Fifty Celebrate Fifty: Fifty Extraordinary Women Talk About Facing, Turning and Being Fifty</B><!–ENDBPLINK–>, a book of sparkling photos and fabulous interviews from the editors of <I>More</I> magazine. The volume features candid talks with women who are better than ever at mid-life, including Diane Sawyer, Amy Tan, Susan Sarandon and Phylicia Rashad. The book includes a broad range of voices women from various cultures and career arenas who testify with pride about hitting their stride at 50. AIDS activist Beverly Mosley talks about living with HIV. Newscaster Judy Woodruff discusses coping with her son’s brain injury. These honest accounts of juggling family and career, of overcoming obstacles and achieving inner peace will inspire females of any age. Experience is sexy, says Susan Sarandon. And today, women can be sexy and 50. Indeed, the future has never looked brighter for these confident, accomplished women, each of whom combines the poise of youth with the wisdom that only age can bring. A tribute to diversity, beauty and individuality, <B>Fifty Celebrate Fifty</B> is a great way to remind mom that the best really is yet to come. <I> The job of mother most often plays itself out not on the lofty levels of Hallmark splendor but rather in the trenches of day-to-day life. </I> Cherie Carter-Scott <I>The Gift of Motherhood</I>

<B>What love's got to do with it</B> You might fight like cats and dogs, but where would you be without dear old mom? Without her attention and affection? And endless advice? Sure, her helpful hints are often unasked-for (and sometimes shrilly delivered), but they're sent…

Self-HelpFamily & Relationships

Past and present

Review by bookpagedev

Wisdom is now so cheap and abundant that it floods over us from calendar pages, tea bags, bottle caps, and mass e-mail messages asserts social psychologist Jonathan Haidt in The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. Does access to endless streams of information really help with man’s search for life meaning and purpose? Haidt takes a rational approach to too much wisdom by identifying 10 Great Ideas, insights about man, purpose and happiness celebrated through the ages by ancient civilizations. He weaves a story of opposites, of what causes humans to thrive or to wither by exploring ancient wisdom and contrasting it with modern-day psychological research.

Haidt is a fine guide on this journey between past and present, discussing the current complexities of psychological theory with clarity and humor ( The mind is . . . like the rider on the back of an elephant, he writes). He explains how our minds work and how we socialize, grow and develop, while explicating ancient religious, literary and philosophical texts on human happiness, citing authors from Plato, Jesus Christ and the Buddha, to Benjamin Franklin, Proust and Kant. Haidt’s is an open-minded, robust look at philosophy, psychological fact and spiritual mystery, of scientific rationalism and the unknowable ephemeral an honest inquiry that concludes that the best life is, perhaps, one lived in the balance of opposites.

Wisdom is now so cheap and abundant that it floods over us from calendar pages, tea bags, bottle caps, and mass e-mail messages asserts social psychologist Jonathan Haidt in The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. Does access to endless streams of…

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