Authors Susan Shapiro Barash and Michele Kasson, Ph.D, identify ten male personality types that make it easy for women to determine exactly who they are dealing with from the very first date. Although men come in all sizes, ages, and attitudes, the authors find there are recurrent styles of male behavior and have broken it into specific categories. With THE MEN OUT THERE/ A Woman's Little Black Book, women will learn what characteristics are associated with each personality type, what attracts them to it, and how they can succeed with such a partner. Armed with this invaluable knowledge, women can make an educated decision about any relationship they may be entering, foresee potential problems, and determine whether to stay or not. THE MEN OUT THERE is a practical guide for women, encouraging them to ask key questions before beginning a relationship, and to understand their past mistakes in order to sustain a loving relationship with the right partner.

How Apologies Can Help You Move Forward With Your Life "To err is human; to forgive divine." But what if the person who hurt you most refuses to apologize or express any regret? That's the question haunting Manhattan journalist Susan Shapiro when her trusted advisor of fifteen years repeatedly lies to her. Stunned by the betrayal, she can barely eat or sleep. She's always seen herself as big-hearted and benevolent, someone who will forgive anyone anything - as long as they're remorseful. Yet the addiction specialist who helped her quit smoking, drinking and drugs after decades of self-destruction won't explain - or stop - his ongoing deceit, leaving her blindsided. Her crisis management strategy is becoming her crisis. To protect her sanity and sobriety, Shapiro ends their relationship and vows they'll never speak again. Yet ghosting him doesn't end her distress. She has screaming arguments with him in her mind, relives their fallout in panicked nightmares and even lights a candle, chanting a secret Yiddish curse to exact revenge. In her entrancing, heartfelt new memoir The Forgiveness Tour: How to Find the Perfect Apology, Shapiro wrestles with how to exonerate someone who can't cough up a measly "my bad" or mumble "mea culpa." Seeking wisdom, she explores the billion-dollar Forgiveness Industry touting the personal benefits of absolution, where the only choice on every channel is: radical forgiveness. She fears it's all bullshit. Desperate for enlightenment, she surveys her old rabbis, as well as religious leaders from every denomination. Unable to reconcile all the confusing abstractions, she embarks on a cross country journey where she interviews people who suffered unforgivable wrongs that were never atoned: victims of genocides, sexual assault, infidelity, cruelty and racism. A Holocaust survivor in D.C. admits he's thrived from spite. A Michigan man meets with the drunk driver who killed his wife and children. A daughter in Seattle grapples with her mother - who stayed married to the father who raped her. Knowing their estrangement isn't her fault, a Florida mom spends eight years apologizing to her son anyway -with surprising results. Does love mean forever having to say you're sorry? Critics praised Shapiro's previous memoir Lighting Up: How I Stopped Smoking, Drinking and Everything Else I Loved in Life Except Sex as fiercely honest, fascinating, funny and "a mind-bendingly good read." Now the bestselling author and popular writing professor returns with a darker, wiser follow up, addressing the universal enigma of blind forgiving. Shapiro's brilliant new gurus sooth her broken psyche and answer her burning mystery: How can you forgive someone without an apology? Does she? Should you?

From the author of "Toxic Friends"--a groundbreaking look at how to understand your marriage and create a more satisfying relationship

Every marriage goes through nine phases. It is only by understanding the course our marriages run that we can truly begin to craft the perfect relationship. In "The Nine Phases of Marriage, " Susan Shapiro Barash breaks down and analyzes these phases, which are:

• Phase One: Passion and Longing
• Phase Two: Conforming: The Perfect Wife
• Phase Three: Real Life: Child Centricity
• Phase Four: Tension: One Bed: Two Dreams
• Phase Five: Distance: Two Beds: Two Rooms
• Phase Six: Fracturing: Midlife Divorce
• Phase Seven: Second Chances: Remarriage and Renegotiating
• Phase Eight: Balance: Concessions
• Phase Nine: Successful Coupling

With this essential knowledge, spouses can successfully navigate the natural pitfalls and perils of their marriages and embark on a true partnership.

Susan Shapiro Barash's provocative new book examines the most difficult challenges any woman faces when raising daughters: Are we spoiling them or being too rigid? Are we trying to be their friend or are we setting ourselves up as adversaries? Are we setting a good example, or are we a cautionary tale? In short, are we creating our own monsters? This book explores:

* "What color would you like that Prada bag in?" (Material indulgence)

* "Do you need to be eating that?" (Fixations on food and weight)

* "Of course you can drink when you're home with me." (Lacking boundaries and rules)

* "Your closest friends are your biggest rivals." (Underestimating female friendships)

* "I'll just say you aren't feeling well." (Making excuses)

* And much more

A woman can always count on her friends - right? But what if those friendships are hurtful, harmful, even toxic? Susan Shapiro Barash explores the various types of female friends and shows you why and how women get stuck with the worst kinds, the ways to get unstuck, and how to recognize a true friend. For example: The Leader of the Pack - it's all on her terms; The Doormat - and why you're the one paying the price; The Misery Lover - she wants to feel your pain; The User - and why you seldom see her coming; The Frenemy - and the things she's really after; The Trophy Friend - and what you gain from each other; and, The Authentic Friend - the Real Deal, and how to keep her. Provocative and fascinating, Susan Shapiro Barash looks at the bonds (and bondage) of female friendships in a new and intimate light.

Edgy Manhattan shutterbug Rachel Solomon can't wait to escape her difficult Midwestern Jewish family of doctors--and her crazy, condescending WASP friend and photography mentor, Elizabeth Mann. Not so easy when Elizabeth marries Rachel's surgeon-brother, moves to the Midwest, and becomes the daughter Rachel's mother always wanted--one who pops out four babies in a row, who are named after Rachel's dead Yiddish-speaking relatives.

Although Rachel long ago rejected the suburban female role, she's shocked to find she's been replaced. With unsparing candor, sparkling emotional insights, and hilarity, the girl who cut herself out of old photographs now has to fight her way back into the Solomons' photo albums, homes, and hearts.

From the author of the hilarious fictional debut "Speed""Shrinking"--which became an international phenomenon--and the acclaimed memoir of past passion "Five""Men""Who""Broke""My""Heart" comes a new book that blows the lid off of the secrets of female friendship. Based on a true story, Susan Shapiro's darkly comic novel "Overexposed" chronicles the brilliantly twisted tale of two strong women who wind up switching lives.

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"Proust had a cookie. Susan Shapiro has a cupcake--and a really hilarious book."

--Patricia Marx, author of "Him, Her, Him Again, the End of Him"

In Susan Shapiro's laugh-out-loud funny fictional debut "Speed Shrinking," Manhattan self-help author Julia Goodman thinks she's got her addictive personality under control. Then her beloved psychoanalyst moves away at the same time her husband takes off to L.A. and her best friend gets married and moves to Ohio.

Feeling lonely and left out, Julia fills in the void with food, becomes a cupcake addict, and blimps out. This is a huge problem--especially since she's about to go on national television to plug her hot new self-help book about how she conquered her sugar addiction.

Navigating her insurance network, Julia desperately sees eight shrinks in eight days, speed-dating for Dr. Replacement--or any other new guru--to help shrink back her body and anxiety in time for her close-up.

From the bestselling author of "Tripping the Prom Queen" comes a fascinating and provocative look at the reasons behind female deception. "Little White Lies, Deep Dark Secrets" reveals how society doles out mixed messages to women, fostering the lies they tell. Among the liars are:

-A woman who shoplifts, and has it "down to a science"

-A woman who tells her husband she is working late in order to be with her lover

-A woman who lies about her children's achievements to her friends

-A woman who pretends her husband is doing well when they are going broke

-A woman who has covered up her husband's emotional abuse for years

-A woman whose secret is her misery in being a stay-at-home mom in suburbia

-A woman who lies about loving her partner, deciding it's better to stay than be alone

-And many other secrets and deceptions

Honest and even outrageous, Susan Shapiro Barash is fast becoming the author who explores issues that are important to women--issues that they are loath to talk about . . . until now.

In this funny, moving, and revealing ride, Susan Shapiro recounts her obsessive quest for success as a professional writer and the beloved mentors who saved her life--and career--along the way. Growing up in the Midwest, Susan Shapiro knew at a young age that all she wanted in life was to become a writer. And so, as soon as she graduated from college, she headed straight to New York City, determined to break into the biz. A few hard knocks later, she learned that it takes more than being a good writer to make a living at it--the most successful professional writers, she discovered, have great mentors to support, promote, adviser, admonish, inform, infuriate, and sometimes give them a good kick in the pants along the way. Only as Good As Your Word is a rollicking chronicle of Shapiro's coming of age as a journalist and author. It's also a revealing memoir that proves what Shapiro's been saying all along: The most important lessons about writing really are, at heart, important lessons about life. A must-read for all writers in the publishing trenches, from the very green to the veterans.

Heavy Hitting Praise for "Tripping the Prom Queen":
""Tripping the Prom Queen"" is a must read for women who want to reach their full individual potential and form strong relationships with friends, family, and work colleagues. Although it pulls no punches in the ways women can be their own worst enemies, it also shows a way out for any woman wanting to improve her sense of self and her experiences with others."
-Rosalind Wiseman, author of "Queen Bees And Wannabees"
""Tripping The Prom Queen "provides a dramatic, up-close look at the dark world of female envy and competition. Susan Shapiro Barash compellingly dissects the myths and delusions of female friendship, and offers much-needed insights on how we might work to achieve true solidarity among women."
-Judith Warner, author of "Perfect Madness: Motherhood in an Age of Anxiety"
""Tripping the Prom Queen" is a lively, thoughtful reflection on the "Odd Girl Out" all grown up. Barash gracefully interweaves incisive analysis and everyday lessons we could all stand to learn, deepening the conversation about female aggression with an honest voice women will recognize."
-Rachel Simmons, author of "Odd Girl Out"

In the critically acclaimed "Five Men Who Broke My Hear"t, Manhattan journalist Susan Shapiro revisited five self-destructive romances. In her hilarious, illuminating new memoir, Lighting Up, she rejects five self-destructive substances. This difficult quest for clean living starts with Shapiro's shocking revelation that, at forty, her lengthiest, most emotionally satisfying relationship has been with cigarettes.
A two-pack-a-day smoker since the age of thirteen, Susan Shapiro quickly discovers that it's impossible to be a writer, a nonsmoker, sane, and slender in the same year. The last time she tried to quit, she gained twenty-three pounds, couldn't concentrate on work, and wanted to kill herself and her husband, Aaron, a TV comedy writer who hates her penchant for puffing away. Yet just as she's about to choose her vice over her marriage vows, she stumbles upon a secret weapon.
Dr. Winters, "the James Bond of psychotherapy," is a brilliant but unorthodox addiction specialist, a
former chain-smoker himself. Working his weird magic on her psyche, he unravels the roots of her twenty-seven-year compulsion, the same dangerous dependency that has haunted her doctor father, her grandfather, and a pair of eccentric aunts from opposite sides of the family, along with Freud and nearly one in four Americans. Dr. Winters teaches her how to embrace suffering, then proclaims that her months of panic, depression, insecurity, vulnerability, and wild mood swings win her the award for "the worst nicotine withdrawal in the history of the world."
Shapiro finally does kick the habit-while losing weight and finding career and connubial bliss-only to discover that the second she's let go ofher long-term crutch, she's already replaced it with another fixation. After banishing cigarettes, alcohol, dope, gum, and bread from her day-to-day existence, she conquers all her demons and survives deprivation overload. But relying religiously on Dr. Winters, she soon realizes that the only obsession she has left
to quit is him. . . .
Never has the battle to stem substance abuse been captured with such wit, sophisticated insight, and candor. "Lighting Up" is so compulsively readable, it's addictive.

"From the Hardcover edition."

On sale 1/20/04! In this honest, hilarious, fiercely intelligent memoir, journalist Susan Shapiro dares to do what every woman dreams of: track down the five men who'd broken her heart and find out what really went wrong. Between the ages of thirteen and thirty-five, Susan had plunged into love, heart-first, five times. One bad breakup was more hurtful and humiliating than the next.
With insight and daring, Susan chronicles her six-month-long journey back down a road strewn with romantic regret. Although for years she'd blamed her boyfriends for their flagrant infidelity, ludicrous faults, and immature foibles, to her shock she can now suddenly pinpoint the exact moment where she herself screwed up each relationship.
A successful freelance writer living in Manhattan, Susan Shapiro was in the midst of a midlife crisis she called her "no-book-no-baby summer." Married for five years to Aaron, a workaholic TV comedy writer always on the road, she was beginning to wonder if she'd remain book- and babyless forever. Then the phone rang, and it was Brad, a college flame who'd become a Harvard scientist with a book coming out. Susan offers to interview him, and she winds up launching into all the intense, invasive questions she'd always wanted to ask him. To her surprise, he answers them! This ignites a spark that sends her on a cross-country jaunt back through her lust-littered past.
While Brad is still single, she finds that Heartbreaks Number Two, Three, and Four are not. George, a theater professor, and Richard, a music biographer, are happily married with children. Tom, a handsome blond lawyer in L.A., is getting divorced. Just as it's becoming easy to worm her way back into herexes' good graces, she crashes head-on with David, a wry Canadian root canal specialist. ("It's the equivalent of what you did to me emotionally," she tells him.) She then gut-wrenchingly relives the agony of splitting up with her first love all over again. Yet somewhere between the tantalizing what-ifs and bittersweet might-have-beens, she finds what she's been searching for all along.
Part relationship manifesto, part confessional, and part valentine to the males in her life she adores, Five Men Who Broke My Heart is for anyone who has ever wondered what became of their first love. Or second, third, fourth, or fifth...

"From the Hardcover edition.

Authors Susan Shapiro Barash and Michele Kasson, Ph.D, identify ten male personality types that make it easy for women to determine exactly who they are dealing with from the very first date. Although men come in all sizes, ages, and attitudes, the authors find there are recurrent styles of male behavior and have broken it into specific categories. With THE MEN OUT THERE/ A Woman's Little Black Book, women will learn what characteristics are associated with each personality type, what attracts them to it, and how they can succeed with such a partner. Armed with this invaluable knowledge, women can make an educated decision about any relationship they may be entering, foresee potential problems, and determine whether to stay or not. THE MEN OUT THERE is a practical guide for women, encouraging them to ask key questions before beginning a relationship, and to understand their past mistakes in order to sustain a loving relationship with the right partner.

When a savvy Atlanta public defender takes on a client up for first degree murder charges, she not only uncovers a corrupt DA office with connections to an internet child pornography ring, but also the truth about her hidden past.