Some years ago I could do this diet and losted 14 kgs more and less, but I got them again through the years, because couldn't take care of this.

Jean Harris'"Stranger In Two Worlds" is a remarkable document of an upper middle class woman's experience in a state prison. Her descriptions of the circumstances and characters are colorful and tragic, and yet full of unexpected humor. She describes her fight to retain her dignity and gain dignity for young mothers in prison by founding an in-prison day care center so that inmates may remain connected, in a positive way, with their young children. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the justice system, the prison world, or women's rights.

If anyone is a skeptic of anything quick, easy and effortless when it comes down to losing weight, "it's gotta be me". This book, however, makes the two week plan a breeze to follow, offering options for four variations to the basic plan. I went on the traditional two week plan and lost exactly 20 pounds, as promised. The only thing I wish this book included was sample plans for the follow-up Keep Trim eating weeks. I felt safer when I was told exactly when and what to eat. I looked online and found a support group that was very helpful to chat and share ideas with, at (url). Reading the book is an important part of the process. I highly recommend that anyone interested in jump starting their metabolism and learning balanced nutrition and portion control should order this book.

I could write a book on how much I appreciate this book. I'm somewhat frustrated with people who look at this "diet" as a fad diet. If you read the book, you will realize that is meant to be a lifetime change in eating. I was on the diet some time ago and unfortunately did not remain on the "keep trim" plan, so I did the usual yo-yo thing. Finally, I decided to try it again. I lost over 60 pounds (some yo-yo huh?); my husband lost 45. We are at our goal weights and weigh every day as the book suggests, so that we don't regain more than 5 pounds before getting back on track. It is a low carbohydrate diet (as in "complex" carbs NOT no carbs - a common misconception). Reasons I was successful with the diet: 1) It's real food I can purchase at my local grocery store and feed to my family and guests; 2) It does not involve counting calories or measuring/weighing food; 3) No daily requirement of water to drink, sending you to the bathroom for the duration. The book also contains variations in the two-week program and suggestions, recipes, Q&A, etc. that are very helpful and motivating. If you decide to use Scarsdale, GET THE BOOK!

I purchased this book originally in 1980 for my ex- husband. He was an overweight guy (26years of age) Very unhappy with himself because of his weight. He had tried several diets but to no avail. This book changed his life. He regained his confidence, got back his sex appeal and now 19 years later is still going strong. My new partner needs to trim a little so I am repurchasing the book for him. I will go on the diet with him (not because I need to lose weight- but purely for the fun of going on it with him.) The food variety is great.

Well worth the investment!!!

Shana Alexander's Very Much a Lady and Diana Trilling's Mrs. Harris: The Death of the Scarsdale Diet Doctor are complementary books about a fascinating case: the murder of Dr. Tarnower by his lover Jean Harris.

It is Jean Harris' motive in killing Dr. Tarnower that interests these two writers. Jean Harris was neither psychotic nor particularly violent. In some ways, she seemed the classic example of the woman wronged. In other ways, she seemed the classic example of the 1950s woman coping uneasily and unsuccessfully in the changed world of the 1980s and in still other ways, she seemed the eternal victim of circumstance.

Both writers agree that the punishment did not fit the crime. Mrs. Harris did not intend to kill Dr. Tarnower and in law, intent does matter. Shana Alexander spends more time than Diana Trilling in exploring the mistakes made by the defense (such as their refusal to plead to a lesser charge), and she is more critical of the prosecution. Both writers, however, are primarily interested in Jean Harris' character. Their differing approaches regarding the latter are at the heart of these similar, yet ultimately distinct, books.

Shana Alexander is an objective partisan. She is honest about Jean Harris' flaws, but it is clear both from her tone and the accumulation of biographical information that she considers Jean Harris not as a victim but as a basically sane and not unlikable human being pushed beyond her limits by her culture, her background, her medical history and her own psychology. She doesn't exculpate Jean Harris but neither does she condemn her.

Diana Trilling, on the other hand, is far less partisan and far more critical. She sees in Jean Harris a woman who sacrificed her intellectual integrity for a sordid affair. She is disgusted by Mrs. Harris' behavior during the trial and appalled by the letter written by Mrs. Harris to Dr Tarnower before the killing (and never actually read by him). Shana Alexander, on the other hand, while agreeing that the letter condemned Mrs. Harris in the eyes of the jury (even in the evidence did not) bemoans the lack of prescience by Jean Harris' defense in presenting the letter in court. Her defense, Shana Alexander argues, did not understand Jean Harris and were therefore unable to successfully present the problems of the case both to Jean Harris herself and to the jury.

The similarities and differences between Shana Alexander and Diana Trilling make their two books excellent complements. I recommend reading Diana Trillling's book first since it is the "outsider's" take on the case. Shana Alexander's book then will give the reader a closer look at a troubled woman and a bizarre, perhaps avoidable, tragedy.

Very Much a Lady by Shana Alexander is the immensely readable story of Jean Harris. For anyone who has lost track of yesterday's headlines, Harris is the headmistress of a girls' school who shot and killed her lover, Herman Tarnower, a respected cardiologist who authored the best-selling Complete Scarsdale Diet Book. To this day, Harris maintains that the fatal shooting of Dr. Tarnower was an accident that occurred when the doctor fought with her over the gun she planned to use to kill herself. Alexander traces of the lives of Harris and Tarnower from childhood on and sees the seeds of destruction planted early on. The same character traits which brought them together as lovers doomed them to a terrible ending. Harris's relationship with her impossible-to-please father formed her early identity as a "good girl" and led to her need for a dominant male image to shore up her shaky sense of self. The classic overachiever, Harris had to excel in any project! she tackled. She craved stimulation which she failed to get from her brief first marriage to a decent but unexciting man. Harris divorced him and began a fourteen-year-long love affair with Dr. Tarnower. The latter was a dedicated physician with old-fashioned attitudes toward women. There is one puzzling aspect to the tale that deserves fuller attention than Alexander gives it: Harris's religious background. According to Alexander, Jean Harris's Mom was a devout Christian Scientist. The irony of Jean's passion for a doctor should have been examined in light of the Christian Science beliefs into which she had been indoctrinated during her childhood--but this is ignored by Alexander. The jury rejected Harris's version of events and found her guilty of murder. Alexander, who is unabashadly Harris's partisan, brilliantly dissects the defense errors which led to conviction. Amongst the chief of these were her attorney's misguided interpretation of the explosive Scarsdale ! Letter, the distance between the accused and the jury in cl! a** and background, and the failure of her attorney to understand the personality of this brittle, high-strung "lady." In a story laced with ironies, the greatest is that in the version of events told by the prosecutor and accepted by the jury, Herman Tarnower is just another murder victim whereas according to Harris's defense Tarnower died a heroic death, tragically jeopardizing his life to save hers,