"Skinnygirl Solutions: Your Straight-Up Guide to Home, Health, Family, Career, Style, and Sex" (Touchstone), by Bethenny Frankel
Many women ask if they can have it all. In her new book, "Skinnygirl Solutions: Your Straight-Up Guide to Home, Health, Family, Career, Style, and Sex," Bethenny Frankel says you can, just not all at once.
Frankel has been a Hollywood assistant, event planner, professional chef and reality TV star, making her experienced in many areas. She'll soon launch a national talk show and is a notable entrepreneur, with multimillion-dollar businesses from pre-made cocktails and nutritional foods to shapewear and workout equipment — all aimed at women. She knows exactly who her customers are, and attributes her success to understanding what women want and how to solve their problems.
The hundreds of fan questions Frankel receives via social media and personal appearances inspired many topics in the book. In the wellness chapters, she advises readers to dump the diets, focus on making good food choices and not deprive themselves. Refuting every excuse for not maintaining a healthy eating plan, she gets extremely specific, from what to order at a Chinese restaurant to the best snacks for premenstrual syndrome.
Frankel writes frankly about how women see their bodies and what head games they play when it comes to food and exercise. While she admits she's not a dietitian, her plan is reasonable and forgiving.
The lifestyle section promotes time management, keeping order at home, travel and entertaining. Some readers may find the detailed instructions on how to use a smartphone micromanaging. Many of the tips on vacation and party planning seem obvious, but may be aimed at younger fans with less life experience.
The chapters on work are beneficial for women interested in rejuvenating their careers or starting a business. Frankel tells fascinating behind-the-scenes stories about her business deals, showcasing successes and admitting failures. She offers advice to moguls-in-the-making, including a checklist to determine if you and your idea have the right stuff, and lists of pros and cons of quitting your job and becoming self-employed. Frankel also emphasizes the importance of managing money as a form of self-empowerment.
The voice is classic Bethenny: candid, sassy and opinionated, punctuated with self-deprecating humor. She writes like she's talking to her girlfriends — unedited and not afraid to show a vulnerable side in the brief mentions of her painful divorce. With hundreds of self-help books, Frankel's connection with her fans sets this one apart. Her ability to tap into how women think and feel creates an intimacy with readers.
The book reveals aspects of Frankel's personality that hint at how she's become so accomplished. She's not exaggerating when she calls herself neurotic about cleaning and organizing her home. Her attention to detail seems to translate from the bathroom to the boardroom, as she says she's "obsessive" about getting her products right and keeping her hand in every part of her businesses.
Critics are likely to point out the shameless marketing throughout the book, as Frankel sings the praises of seemingly every Skinnygirl product available. But that in itself is a lesson to never miss an opportunity at self-promotion.
"Skinnygirl Solutions" is written from the heart. The book is lovingly dedicated to women and it's clear Frankel genuinely cares about making life better for them, whether it's sharing a low-fat recipe or creating a business plan. Her pluck and unrelenting work ethic will inspire fans and will probably be responsible for a new generation of female entrepreneurs who are healthy, organized and impeccably dressed.
an?1ea?SHi}self told The New York Times in 1974 that he wrote daily, though only for himself.
"There is a marvelous peace in not publishing," he said at the time.
But there is no consensus on what he was writing and no physical evidence of what Salinger had reportedly stashed in a safe in his home in Cornish, New Hampshire. The Salinger estate, run partly by Matt Salinger and Salinger's widow, Colleen O'Neill, has remained silent on the subject since the author's death in January 2010. The two did not cooperate with Salerno and Shields.
Until now, neither Salerno nor Shields has been defined by his expertise on Salinger. Salerno is a Hollywood screenwriter whose credits include "Armageddon," the Oliver Stone film "Savages" and a planned sequel to James Cameron's blockbuster "Avatar." Shields is an award-winning author whose books include the novel "Dead Languages"; a nonfiction work on pro basketball that was a National Book Critics Circle prize finalist; and "Reality Hunger," a self-described "manifesto" for modern literature.
Their 700-page Salinger biography has new information well beyond any possible posthumous fiction. Nine years in the making and thoroughly documented, "Salinger" features many rare photographs and letters; unprecedented detail about the author's World War II years and brief first marriage; a revelatory interview with the former teenage girl, Jean Miller, who inspired his classic story "For Esme — With Love and Squalor"; and an account of how Salinger, who supposedly shunned Hollywood for much of his life, nearly agreed to allow "Esme" to be adapted into a feature film.
"Salinger" both fleshes out and challenges aspects of the author's legend. He is portrayed as deeply traumatized by his war experiences and stunned by his post-"Catcher" fame. But he also comes off as far less reclusive and detached than long believed. He does agree to the occasional interview, even initiating discussion with The New York Times, and appears sensitive to his public image. His affinity for young people is not confined to his books, and Salinger's biographers closely track his history of intense attachments to teens, from Oona O'Neill in the 1940s to Joyce Maynard in the 1970s.
The book is structured as an oral history, featuring hundreds of new and old interviews, excerpts from newspaper accounts and previous biographies and commentary from Shields and Salerno. Those quoted range from Salinger's children to authors Tom Wolfe and Gore Vidal to Mark David Chapman, who cited "Catcher" as a reason he murdered John Lennon in 1980.
Salerno has been promising to make headlines ever since announcing the biography and film shortly after Salinger's death. Earlier this year, he quickly arranged lucrative deals with the Weinstein Co. for a feature film, the producers of "American Masters" for TV rights and Simon & Schuster for the book. The filmmaker himself has proved as effective as Salinger at keeping a secret, with only a handful of people even knowing of the project's existence during Salinger's lifetime. Salerno spent some $2 million of his own money and traveled throughout the U.S. and Europe in search of material. He is also adept at revealing secrets, with recent stories by The Associated Press and other media outlets, featuring photographs never previously published.
Salinger never authorized a biography, but several unauthorized books have come out over the past 30 years.