Have I Got A Book For You
Dear readers: Rarely does a day go by that I don’t receive at least 50 requests to repeat a specific column.
“I should have cut it out,” writes a Philadelphia reader, “but I didn’t realize when I read it that I would be in the exact same spot that Wisconsin Woman was in.”
“Please, Ann,” writes Desperate in Detroit, “run that column about herpes again. For obvious reasons, I can’t talk to anyone I know about this. I need the address of the organization that helps people.”
And here’s another one: “You printed a column about rape last week, and there’s a lot of talk about it in the office. I was away on vacation and didn’t see it. Can you mail that column to me - in a plain envelope, please? I think I was raped by a guy I broke up with recently, but I’m not sure.”
After receiving thousands of letters asking for back columns, it dawned on me that I should gather the ones most frequently requested and put them between hard covers. And that is exactly what I did.
The book is a collection of what I consider the best columns that span my 40 years of writing. If you are a longtime reader, you are sure to recognize some of your favorites - perhaps the very ones you meant to cut out but didn’t. It will be like running into an old friend.
The most frequently requested column in the collection is “Dead at Seventeen,” the essay written from the perspective of a young lad who died in a car crash while driving recklessly and woke up in a morgue. That column first appeared Sept. 13, 1971, and I have repeated it by popular request several times since. “Dead at Seventeen” is in the chapter “Play It Again, Sam.”
Some of the most difficult letters I have had to deal with appear in the chapter, “The Nightmare of Physical Abuse and Rape.” I’ll never forget the letter from the young widowed mother who was beating her 4-year-old son. She wondered whether to give him up for adoption or learn to be a good mother. In “Where in the World Did That Sock Go, and What About My Husband’s Shorts?” you can read about the tissue issue - the debate over how to hang toilet paper - and decide whether or not things are politically correct in your household. You are certain to get a laugh out of letters in the chapter “Pssst! Want to Buy a Porsche for $50?”
The other chapters are:
“Love, Marriage and the In-Laws From Hell,” “Columns from the Bedroom,” “Children: A Mixed Blessing - His, Hers and Ours,” “I Love Pets, but an Iguana in the Bathtub?” “Straight Talk About Cancer, AIDS and Other Health Problems,” “Mental Health: To the Edge and Beyond,” “Addictions: The Wrecking Ball of Love, Health and Careers,” “Age Is Only a Number, Baby,” “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” “Bury Me in My 1937 Dodge” and “No B.S., No M.A., No Ph.D., But I Got the J.O.B.”
The book title is “Wake Up and Smell the Coffee.” The publisher is Villard, a division of Random House. The price is $23 in the United States. If your bookstore doesn’t have it, you can expect it to have it soon after this column appears. If you cannot locate the book in your city, please call 1-800-793-2665 (U.S. only) to order a copy.
I would be remiss, dear readers, if I failed to thank the hundreds of editors and publishers who have given me the opportunity to reach their millions of readers. And my thanks to you, who have given me a place at your breakfast tables and made me the arbiter of your family fights. There were times, I’m sure, when my pronouncements were a headache, but I hope I have never been a bore.