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August 10, 2001/Av 21, 5761, Vol. 53, No.44
Cool summer reads can heat up your life
VICKI CABOT
Contributing Editor
Summertime and the livin' is easy," goes the famous song from "Porgy and Bess." And, often, so is the reading. Books of choice are light and fanciful, meant to be savored poolside, on the beach or on a plane escaping to cooler reaches. Even at home, we usually opt for less serious selections to while away a few hours during the hottest months of the year.
Yet the slower pace of the season also allows time for personal assessment and self-reflection.
Why not check out the following recommendations as you ready for fall? A little self-help never hurt anyone and, hey, it might be a cool way to pass a hot afternoon.
Elaine Grudin Denholtz takes on the hot button topic of balance. "Balancing Work and Love, Jewish Women Facing the Family-Career Challenge," (Brandeis University Press, $24.95 hardback) uses a series of interviews with women cutting across generational, lifestyle and professional lines to draw a real-life portrait of the day-to-day juggling of women who meld family, work and communal commitments.
Soccer moms and single moms, professionals and professional volunteers help to tell the story of how women today are achieving success inside their homes - and out. Denholtz weaves in the Jewish perspective, drawing on archetypical Jewish role models and traditional preconceptions about women's roles, which provides a distinctly Jewish take on the subject.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?" Denholtz, a playwright and author of several other self-help books, asks readers in the first chapter.
How we answer the question requires an honest assessment of how work and love play in our lives, she tells us. Denholtz helps readers learn how to weigh the balance in their own lives.
Ever want to chuck it all and move in a new direction? Local writer and motivational speaker Marcia Reyolds offers tips on how to effect positive change in your life. "Capture the Rapture, How to Step Out of Your Head and Leap into Life," (Hathor Hill Press, $16.95 paperback) provides a step-by-step approach for getting in touch with what Reynolds calls "the pleasure of being" and finding ways to live a life reflective of those pleasures.
You need to "step out of your head and leap into life" counsels Reynolds, who began her adult life serving a jail term and went on to earn two masters degrees, work her way up the corporate ladder and then found her own leadership and coaching training organization, Covisioning. Reynolds offers techniques and exercises to help readers inventory their strengths and weaknesses, make the most of their accomplishments and parlay disappointments into positive change.
Creating a clear vision, finding your purpose and working on staying in the present are some of the strategies Reynolds explores. The author likens her book, an easy summer read, to other how-to manuals. "In the vein of 'The Joy of Cooking' and 'The Joy of Sex' ('Capture the Rapture') provides recipes for the joy of living," she promises.
How to have it all - and pay for it too? Richard Mitz has taken on another hot button topic - money - infusing his how-to guide about financial management with a unique spiritual approach. "The Soulful Money Manual, 9 Keys to Being Effective, Happy and at Peace with Money," (Health Communications, Inc., $14.95 hardback) offers a plan for taking control of finances rather than letting them control you.
Money should enhance your life, not complicate it, says Mitz, an oral surgeon cum personal empowerment and financial counselor. Cleverly couching his philosophy in an imaginary conversation with God, Mitz offers tips on how to spend less than you make, visualizing the future, setting goals and practicing acceptance and gratitude.
Mitz tells how he grew up in an upper middle-class home with parents who lived well but were concerned about money.
Mitz says part of his motivation for becoming an oral surgeon came from the earning potential of the field. Yet, he says, worries about money still plagued him, even after he completed his training and began earning a "nice living." He made bad investments, took foolish risks. Soul-searching helped him to change his attitudes and reverse his old patterns. How he did that is the basis for his book.
It's a quick and easy read, and though Mitz says that his approach not only increased his personal happiness but increased his net worth, don't count on it. Still, with the market in a downturn and nest eggs fast eroding, it might make a good choice for a summer afternoon. And Mitz's positive message is one that might benefit all those who watch the permutations of the stock market with trepidation.
"Focus on what you already have," counsels Mitz, not what you don't.
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