Self-Help

Don't Miss:

Before you turn
that other cheek . . .

Weather a

master the art of

navigate the perilous world of

conquer

and survey a few

takes on the whole thing.

Parenting

Sleeping Through the Night
. . . and Other Lies
The Mysteries, Marvels, and Mayhem
in the First Three Years
of Parenthood

Irresistible encouragement. If you're a new parent who's reached that stage when every trip in public takes you that much closer to a nervous breakdown, take heart: Sandi Kahn Shelton's goal is to make you laugh at your predicament. Shelton, the humor columnist for Working Mother magazine, lets you know you are not alone in your frustration with that food-wearing, foreign-substance eating, nocturnal air raid siren that you were told is your child. Sleeping through the Night will drastically improve your odds of surviving the first three years of your offspring's life.

Check out: You Might As Well Laugh, Because Crying Will Only Smear Your Mascara

Real Boys
Rescuing Our Sons
from the Myths of Boyhood

Your sweet little boy need not turn into an unsociable poser. William Pollack describes the twenty years of research he's done on the socialization of young American males, and the conclusions he's reached about the unspoken and spoken messages they receive throughout their lives. This boy code, of not expressing emotions or weakness, only increases the feelings of disconnectedness and anger that adolescents have to battle even in the best of circumstances. Real Boys is a timely topic in light of today's really scary events.

Also available:

The Nanny Book
The Smart Parent's Guide
to Hiring, Firing,
and Every Sticky Situation in Between

What does one do when the sitter reads the National Enquirer aloud to the children? For those of you investigating the joys of paying someone else to raise your offspring, The Nanny Book details how to acquire and rid yourself of a nanny, the prescribed duties of au pairs, the vagaries of pay and vacation time, your legal liabilities, and other expected and unexpected aspects of in-home and out-of-home kid care.

Beyond Jennifer & Jason,
Madison & Montana
What to Name Your Baby Now

Good for browsing, and just as good for naming pets as humans. By country, by culture, by celebrity, by TV or film character, by gender identity, by century — Beyond Jennifer & Jason has all sorts of ways to find a suitable moniker for your progeny. Be warned, however, that recent genetic studies indicate that approximately 64% of all American children are predisposed to beat up anyone named Brittany or Taylor they happen to encounter on a playground.

Positive Discipline A-Z
From Toddlers to Teens —
1001 Solutions to Everyday Parenting Problems

A lexicon of effective parenting tips. For each entry in Positive Discipline A-Z — from allowances to materialism to tantrums — Dr. Jane Nelson et al provide ideal reactions, insight into the child's behavior, life skills he or she can learn from the experience, ways to prevent recurrence, and personal anecdotes from other families who've been there. (Would computer hacking fall under the category of "Habits, Annoying"?)

Don't miss the other recent titles in the series:

Positive Discipline: The First Three Years

Positive Discipline for Preschoolers

I'm Not Mad, I Just Hate You
A New Understanding
of Mother-Daughter Conflict

Make the most of those inevitable battles. A clinical psychologist and the senior editor of a teen magazine have combined their experience on that unique hell that bubbles up between teenage and parental females. Brief scenarios illustrate various responses to typical problems — let it slide, seek help, expose her on a hillside — that can not only reduce maternal stress but quite possibly create a positive learning experience for the daughter. It is usually frowned upon to slam your office door and sulk for three days, and the business world, for one, will thank you for reading I'm Not Mad, I Just Hate You.

Relationships

Forgiving and Not Forgiving
A New Approach to Resolving Intimate Betrayal

A wider range of more realistic options than the traditional forgive-and-forget ideal. Psychotherapist Jeanne Safer's ideas on resolving the betrayal of friends, family and loved ones stress deep-hearted, soul-searching reflection on the relationship and what it meant to you. The assertion that some betrayals are unforgivable, and that for others such grace is unlikely, untimely, or bad for the victim's integrity, goes against the majority of current advice mills. In Forgiving and Not Forgiving Dr. Safer demonstrates the weight of this emotional investment, drawing on 50 interviews and twenty years of personal practice.

Respect
An Exploration

Beyond deference or obeisance, Respect is the regard for personal dignity that balances the forces between personalities. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot examines this powerful dynamic in the interactions between photographer and subject, doctor and newborn, social worker and client, and others.

Difficult Conversations
How to Discuss What Matters Most

If the South Africans asked for their help, the authors of Difficult Conversations must know what they're doing. It turns out that a polite tone of voice is not the only requirement for constructive verbal communication. Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen, who have advised world governments and U.S. police departments, teach you to prepare for, introduce, and conduct dreaded conversations at work and at home.

The Color Code
A New Way to See Yourself,
Your Relationships, and Life

A different way to evaluate yourself and others. And lord knows we need all the tools we can get. Taylor Hartman starts out his book with his 45-question Personality Profile, designed to reveal a person's "true" color -- Power-Wielder Red, Do-Gooder Blue, Peacekeeper White, Fun-Lover Yellow, or an equal combination of two. The Color Code will teach you how to identify your best and weakest qualities so as to improve your career choices, relationships, and interpretation of others.

Also see: Color Your Future: Using the Color Code to Strengthen Your Character

Hot Sex
How to Do It

An Aussie talks frankly about whoopee. A former Cosmo editor -- who better qualified? -- has created Hot Sex, a guide to the many splendors of de bang bang. After 100-odd pages of the basics (and not-so-basics), she moves on to discuss monogamy, gay life, myths, the effects of various drugs, and related issues such as traumatic personal histories, assault, and abortion. (Should you wish to read this book on any mode of public transportation, may we recommend purchasing one of the following books, ideally sized for camouflage: Basic DNA and RNA Protocols, Legends of Stock Car Racing, or Applied Chaos Theory. But perhaps this is reinforcing the closed-minded attitude that Ms. Cox is working so hard to combat?)

Or perhaps you'd prefer: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Amazing Sex

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work
A Practical Guide from the Country's
Foremost Relationship Expert

"Most marital arguments cannot be resolved." In The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, John Gottman allays the common fear that compromise means losing influence: rather, he suggests that if you avoid certain habits when problems come up, you'll be able to live with the ones that won't go away. For those just starting out, stuck, or in trouble in a marriage, this book will help identify problem behaviors and choose more efficient coping responses, and lead you on to a more perfect union.

For Fidelity
How Intimacy and Commitment
Enrich Our Lives

Far from insisting on it as a moral imperative, Catherine M. Wallace sees fidelity as something more than monogamy or sexual exclusivity. In For Fidelity, she defines desire as more than just a physical need, and explains why she feels that the many aspects of it are so vitally important to one's health, identity and soul that it must be a basic, unalterable part of a fulfilling marriage.

Divorce

Dear Mom And Dad
What Kids of Divorce
Really Want to Say to Their Parents

Starting out with the Ten Commandments of Divorced Parents, Gillian Rothchild has written a primer for maintaining as stress-free a transition as possible for your children while you yourself stagger shell-shocked through the ordeal. Dear Mom And Dad is to the point, can be read in one shot, and has straightforward suggestions for various situations that can be repeated like a mantra when your brain is swimming in a volatile cocktail of emotions.

Helping Your Kids Cope with Divorce
The Sandcastles Way

The creator of a program mandated by family courts nationwide presents his methods for minimizing the effects of divorce in children's lives. Helping Your Kids Cope with Divorce by marriage counselor and child development expert Gary Neuman, developer of the Sandcastles program, contains his expertise on the many and varied aspects of divorce and custody issues. It also offers age-appropriate script models for discussing these topics and activity ideas for communicating problems.

The New Creative Divorce
How to Create a Happier,
More Rewarding Life
During -- and After -- Your Divorce

First published back in 1973, The New Creative Divorce has been updated to reflect the changes the past twenty years has seen: both partners initiating divorce (rather than the man), maintaining equal roles in parenting the children (rather than sole custody by the mother), and creating independent lives (rather than an alimony-dependent ex-wife). In addition to advising on such topics as children and dating etiquette, authors Mel and Pat Krantzler encourage the reader to see divorce as a learning experience that can lead to a new and better life.

Divorce for Dummies

Before, during, and after a marriage break-up -- as you'd expect, Divorce for Dummies covers it all, mental and physical, financial and legal. From things to try before opting for divorce and checking out the money situation before filing, to prenups and postnups in your next (no doubt wiser) marriage, the Dummies people shed light on yet another potentially bewildering topic.

Also check out these titles:

The Unofficial Guide to Divorce

The Divorce Mediation Answer Book

You Can Get Over Divorce

Substance (and Food) Abuse

Sober . . . and Staying That Way
The Missing Link in the Cure for Alcoholism

A nutritional approach to alcohol abuse. Weight-loss goddess Susan Powter has turned her attention to battling the bottle in her latest book, combining her personal story of abuse with information from latest research. Sober . . . and Staying That Way advocates vitamin and mineral therapy for the addicted brain, a diet of whole, live, unprocessed foods, and a severing of the connection between alcohol and refined sugar and caffeine.

The Hunger Within
A Twelve-Week Self-Guided Journey
from Compulsive Eating to Recovery

A self-guided workbook for yo-yo dieters. Marlin Migliore, who leads eating disorder workshops at St. Luke's-Roosevelt hospital at Columbia University, believes that nutritional information is irrelevant for compulsive eaters. The Hunger Within is the hunger awareness diary she created for the program, and is designed to reveal the emotional responses that such people have to food.

How to Quit Drugs for Good
A Complete Self-Help Guide

Options for fighting one of the hardest battles of your life. Jerry Dorsman has compiled the many approaches to ending drug abuse on your own, so that you can choose one most realistic for you based on your strengths and weaknesses. The questionnaires and diet guidance How to Quit Drugs for Good attack the psychological and physical aspects of addiction.

Women

(Be sure to check out our Gal Stuff page, too.)

Woman: An Intimate Geography

"Woman... is nothing less than liberation biology ... Anyone living in or near a female body should read this book."
— Gloria Steinem

Take a joyous tour of the mind, body, and soul of the human female, led by "one of the strongest and wittiest science writers in the world today." Natalie Angier wrote Woman: An Intimate Geography to celebrate the unique workings of our bodies and biologies, and to put in perspective those aspects of the gender that have been either obsessed about or ignored since people first started drawing on cave walls.

Also available:

The First Sex
The Natural Talents of Women
and How They Are Changing the World

Proving once again that women were created to rule the world, anthropologist Helen Fisher describes how the female (human) brain evolved differently from that of the males, and how those unique strengths translate into a talent for adapting to lightning-fast changes. The First Sex shows how our synthesis thinking (as opposed to lateral thinking) and that good old female intuition are fitting quite nicely with changes in the world economy and society, thank you.

Everyday Naked
Sacred and Profane Morsels of Truth

Balancing work, motherhood, and, on a good day, sanity, Mary Bartnikowski finds the bright side to the unglamorous aspects of surviving the working world and life in general while raising a child in Everyday Naked. A good antidote to exhaustion, frustration, road rage, the dishwasher-dismantling two-year-old, and Martha Stewart.

Women and Love

"Say no to mediocre love." Mira Kirshenbaum leads you on a series of adventures and experiences to attack the biggest challenge of the search for Prince Charming -- figuring out just what exactly you want. Operating on the theory that you won't get it right the first time, the trial scenarios in Women and Love will whittle down that fuzzy concept of The Ideal Romantic Love into a coherent list of requirements. Questions and quizzes lead to further self-discovery, and real-life examples will inspire you to keep plugging away even after the date with a guy who stops at a drugstore before the movie to buy candy and soda pop because the theater prices are criminal.

Contact Books.com There are 1261 booklovers inside our store.
Copyright 1992 - 99 Books.com. All rights reserved.
Books.com is a netmarket store and a Cendant company.