Posted on Tuesday, 07.01.08
Nonfiction
• I Still Have It . . . I Just Can't Remember Where I Put It: Confessions of a Fiftysomething. Rita Rudner. Harmony. 272 pages. $23.
Rita Rudner is hard to beat for quick takes: ''I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.'' Because of her quick wit on stage, it's difficult to adjust to the slower pace of her book. Tales about dining out in L.A. late at night, driving to Mexico with new (and irresponsible) friends or grappling with computer errors are humorous but lack the punch of her acerbic one-liners.
The exception is the consistently funny chapter ''Ginboree,'' about a psycho-dad. But give me more of this: ``Men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewelry.''
• The Second Journey: The Road Back to Yourself. Joan Anderson. Voice. 224 pages. $24.
The author of A Year by the Sea, with its formula for a midlife reawakening, is wildly successful. With Year and subsequent bestsellers An Unfinished Marriage, A Walk on the Beach and A Weekend to Change Your Life, Anderson travels, speaks, holds workshops and talks to Oprah.
But as her new book attests, the author/teacher/daughter/mom/wife managed to lose sight of her own life in all the hoopla. The Second Journey is a chronicle of Anderson's realization that she's no longer taking her own advice and the subsequent steps she takes to reground herself. First there's a daylong, solo trip in winter to Monomoy Island near her Cape Cod home. More understanding comes when she spends three weeks alone on a remote island off the coast of Scotland in search of new direction and spiritual renewal.
Does she find it? Fans will know that she does, and she translates it beautifully for those of us who treasure her words.
Anne Rodgers reviewed these books for The Palm Beach Post.
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