'Quiet Triumphs'
By Mary Alice WilliamsHarperCollins, $24
The subheading is "Celebrities Share Survival Strategies for Getting Through the Hard Times," and the book discusses experiences of dozens of celebrities and suggests that the ingredient they have in common is their humanity. Williams, a former NBC television news correspondent, notes that these people have had the same troubles as the rest of us, including deaths of children and spouses, battles with poverty and substance abuse, depression and illness and many more examples of pain and disappointment.
Some of the celebrities interviewed are Jack Klugman, Hugh Downs, Sandy Duncan, Suzanne Somers, Polly Bergen, Carroll O'Connor, Neil Simon, Willard Scott, Deborah Norville, F. Murray Abraham, Ed Asner, Morley Safer and Rita Moreno. Betty Rollins admits to fainting when she was told she had breast cancer. Rod Steiger, who has suffered with depression, says that "tears are the instant release, but to cry and not to gain from the combat with pain is a complete defeat."
This is a book about the human spirit fighting its way out of the depths of adversity. -- Dennis Lythgoe
'Been There, Done That'
By Eddie Fisher with David Fisher
Thomas Dunne, $24.95
Fisher's first autobiography, "My Life, My Loves" left too much out, he says. So this is his second autobiography, written with David Fisher, who is not related. The ex-hubby of Debbie Reynolds ("a self-centered, totally driven, insecure, untruthful phony"), Elizabeth Taylor ("the face of an angel and the morals of a truck driver") and Connie Stevens dedicates his autobiography to fourth spouse Betty Lin: "The only wife I've ever had and the most beautiful woman in the world."
So there! Take that, Violet Eyes.
This is a 341 page lip-licking trash read, filled with Hollywood dirt and his own caddish affairs from Ann-Margret and Marlene Dietrich to Judith Exner and Pamela Turner, to name a few. It's a tabloid tale, too, of a celebrity hooked at age 25 on Max Jacobson's speedy chemistry set. His addiction lasted 37 years. Now 71, clean and sober thanks to Betty Ford, he's funny, oddly likable and sad. Just be glad you never had a warm relationship with the crooner they called "The Coca-Cola Kid." -- Jane Sumner, The Dallas Morning News
'Winter Notebook'
By Carolyne Roehm
HarperCollins, $25
Carolyne Roehm, the former fashion designer, made expensive clothes for a limited audience of ladies. She is the girl from the Midwest who always wanted to wear a tiara. She is Oscar de la Renta's enthusiastic assistant. Now she has written a book about parties, planning, gardening and entertaining. She shows us how to throw wonderful Christmas parties and a New Year's Day lunch. She shows us how to set the table and make the place cards and the centerpiece.
Plus she shares her resources.
Entire chapters are devoted to potato and soup recipes, and she shares them like a good neighbor leaning over the backyard fence. She shows us inventive wrappings and gives us a workbook page to list gifts, recipients, mail-order resources, and who gets gratuities and how much. -- Gaile Robinson, Fort Worth Star-Telegram