Life Makeovers
by Cheryl Richardson

What do you need to change to make your life work better and make you happier? Top-level personal coach Cheryl Richardson, author of the popular Take Time for Your Life, shows you how to make your life over, one week at a time, using her philosophy of "extreme self-care." The result: you'll reevaluate your life and connect to what matters most to you, improving the quality of your life.

Life Strategies:
Doing What Works, Doing What Matters
by Phillip C. McGraw, Ph.D.

Written in a tough-love, sometimes cantankerous tone, this self-help book is not for those looking to explore their inner child or visualize away negative energy. No, this is pull-yourself-up-by-the- bootstraps advice from someone who's done just that. McGraw opens with a scene describing how he helped Oprah Winfrey survive--and win--the 1998 "Mad Cow" lawsuit in Texas, when she was having difficulty coping with the reality of what was happening to her. He helped her face the facts about the lawsuit, after which she was better able to participate in crafting a strategy to win it.

Back Roads
by Tawni O'Dell

Not since S.E. Hinton (The Outsiders) has a female novelist penned such a tough and titillating portrait of lower-class, crime-ridden manhood. Set in "beautiful, ruined" Western Pennsylvania, amid Eat n' Parks and Lick n' Putts, Tawni O'Dell's Back Roads follows Harley Altmyer as he walks a raging, self-conscious line between crime and innocence. Why is he being held by the authorities, and what's he so mad about? In the recent past, it's his mother, who murdered his father and went to jail for life. Find out more.

Daughter of Fortune
by Isabel Allende, Margaret Sayers Peden

Her sixth work of fiction, Daughter of Fortune, shares some characteristics with her earlier works: the canvas is wide, the characters are multi-generational and multi-ethnic, and the protagonist is an unconventional woman who overcomes enormous obstacles to make her way in the world.

Gap Creek: A Novel
by Robert Morgan

Oprah Book ClubŪ Selection,
January 2000:
Robert Morgan's Gap Creek opens with one wrenching death and ends with another. In between, this novel of turn-of-the-century Appalachian life works in fire, flood, swindlers, sickness, and starvation--a truly biblical assortment of plagues, all visited on the sturdy shoulders of 17-year-old Julie Harmon. "Human life don't mean a thing in this world," she concludes. And who could blame her? "People could be born and they could suffer, and they could die, and it didn't mean a thing.... The world was exactly like it had been and would always be, going on about its business." For Julie, that business is hard physical labor. Fortunately, she's fully capable of working "like a man"--splitting and hauling wood, butchering hogs, rendering lard, planting crops, and taking care of the stock. Even when Julie meets and marries handsome young Hank Richards, there's no happily-ever-after in store. Nothing comes easy in Julie Harmon's world, and their first year together is no exception.

The Reader
by Bernhard Schlink, Carol Brown Janeway

Oprah Book ClubŪ Selection,
February 1999:
A fifteen-year-old boy, Michael Berg becomes embroiled in a passionate, clandestine love affair with an older woman, an event that has a profound impact on his life, especially years later, when he, now a law student, encounters her as a criminal on trial.

Jewel:
A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)
by Bret Lott

Amazon.com Oprah Book ClubŪ Selection, January 1999: The year is 1943 and life is good for Jewel Hilburn, her husband, Leston, and their five children. Although there's a war on, the Mississippi economy is booming, providing plenty of business for the hardworking family. And even the news that eldest son James has enlisted is mitigated by the fact that Jewel, now pushing 40, is pregnant with one last child. Her joy is slightly clouded, however, when her childhood friend Cathedral arrives at the door with a troubling prophecy: "I say unto you that the baby you be carrying be yo' hardship, be yo' test in this world. This be my prophesying unto you, Miss Jewel."

When the child is finally born, it seems that Cathedral's prediction was empty: the baby appears normal in every way. As the months go by, however, Jewel becomes increasingly afraid that something is wrong with little Brenda Kay--she doesn't cry, she doesn't roll over, she's hardly ever awake. Eventually husband and wife take the baby to the doctor and are informed that she is a "Mongolian Idiot," not expected to live past the age of 2. Jewel angrily rebuffs the doctor's suggestion that they institutionalize Brenda Kay. Instead the Hilburns shoulder the burdens--and discover the unexpected joys--of living with a Down's syndrome child.

Oprah Brings Awareness to Menopause
On September 23, 1999 Oprah dedicated an entire show on menopause. Her guests for the full hour are Cybill Sheperd the well known actress and women's activist, along with noted author and physician Dr. Lila Nachtigall, OB/Gyn

Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul:
101 Stories to Open the Hearts and Rekindle the Spirits of Women
by Jack Canfield (Editor), Mark Victor Hansen, Marci Shimoff, Jennifer Hawthorne

Featuring contributions by such authors as Robert Fulghum, Kathy Lee Gifford, and Ann Landers, an addition to the Chicken Soup for the Soul series offers women inspiration on such subjects as love, motherhood, and aging. The #1 New York Times bestseller with definite feminine appeal. This delightful audiobook will light up the spirits of women everywhere- from the career woman to the stay-at-home mom; mothers and grandmothers; the woman of the world and the girl next door.