But much better written. You won't put this book down, I promise you. Mary Lou Weisman tells a heart-stopping tale of a family pulled into tragedy and that reaches out to touch--quite literally--the pulse of real life. It is hilarious, horrifying, gripping, enlightening, joyful. It is Love Story, ER, and Saturday Night Live rolled into one. You will fall in love with these people, as I did. YOu will learn something important about the meaning of love in the process.

A clever book, one that I often give to aging boomer friends, along with copies of "Dave Barry Turns 50" and "Getting Old Sucks" by Ed Strnad. They all enjoy it.

Why don't middle-aged people have fun? Perhaps because they don't yet have a Middle-Aged Baby Book to put them in the mood.

Almost every parent has filled out one of those baby books that includes birth time, weight, pictures from the hospital, first birthday party, favorite toys, and so on. Why shouldn't the middle aged have one, too? . . . Especially since their memories may be going, and this will be the only way to record their lives to remember what happened.

The satire is quite complete. Almost all of the baby book sections are put into a middle-aged context humorously for this version.

To begin setting the mood, the cover is padded like a baby book often is.

The author's acknowledgments include middle-aged amnesiacs who helped, the editor (Ruth . . . ?), gastroenterologist (Dr. Henry . . . ?), and husband ( . . . ?). If only she could remember their names!

You have a chance to make your own family tree (with humorous asides about the people on it), note your memorable firsts (colonoscopy, reading glasses), tell whether you are a girl or a boy ("Do you spend most of your time in front of the toilet, running water, or naked on the lawn, rolling in snow?"), describe your teething history (which ones are dead, bridges, implants, gold crowns, bonded, capped, and gone?), date important fashion firsts (when you gave up spandex, threw away your bikini, and started wearing shirts out of your pants), and put in samples of your hair (both colored and uncolored versions).

The book also has many humorous essays like the history of solid foods and weight (1993 -- Oprah loses 60 pounds. Pavarotti gains it.), I Forget, and Why? There are also middle-aged versions of many well-known nursery rhymes.

You can also add your favorite expressions (like, Where are my glasses?).

If you give this as a birthday gift, the birthday girl or boy can put in key facts of that day such as the price of a standard facelift in that year.

At the end, you'll find a living will. It gives your relatives authority to plant you when the time comes.

Even if you don't have the nerve to give this to anyone else, you should get a copy for yourself. It's the most humorous thing I've ever read about becoming middle-aged!

Get rid of your misconception stalls about middle age not being funny.

Donald Mitchell

Coauthor of The Irresistible Growth Enterprise (available in August 2000) and The 2,000 Percent Solution

(donmitch@fastforward400.com)

This is the funniest, smartest humor book I've read in ages. I give it to everyone, male or female, for any occasion whatsoever, although it makes a special hit at big 4-0, 5-0 and 6-0 birthday parties where it usually gets read out loud and is better than any entertainment you could hire. All the stuff in it -- middle-aged sex, middle-aged expressions, middle-aged concerns are right on the nose. I can't wait for the author to grow up at little more and see what she does with old age!

This is one of the truest, funniest books I've read on the subject of travelling with one's spouse or significant other.
Weisman writes with insight and humour about the quirks of travelling with someone else. The illustrations are also superb.

I highly recommend this book as a gift for any couple about to embark on a vacation.

A gem of a book that should accompany every couple on vacation. He takes her on a white water rafting trip. ("Larry likes camping. One of the ways I got him to marry me was to pretend I liked it too.") She takes him to a spa, where he tries yoga, which she suggests will make him feel stretchy and catlike. ("If I want to feel catlike, I'll get a litter box," he answered.) And so it goes. From traveling poor as a young couple to a house in Tuscany to Elderhostel. There is practical advice, too, on packing, for example. ("Packing is the original sin of travel. In the beginning there was no packing. There weren't even any clothes.") But really, the dedication says it all: "I, Mary-Lou, take thee, Larry, to be my constant traveling companion, to Hong and to Kong, in Cyclades and in Delft, for deck class and deluxe, so long as we both shall move."

I started reading the essays in this book and found myself interrupting my wife every couple of minutes to read a line out loud. Like this one: "Paris is our all-time favorite place in which to pretend to live....We don't care if the French aren't friendly. When we are French, we won't be friendly either."

This collection of essays is insightful about its subject, but mostly just funny, self-effacing, and full of honest observations about the ways people (especially married couples) tend to act when traveling. It's not a book of tips on travel; it's a book to read out loud on the plane over, or the plane home, or just at home.

If you like to travel and have the ability to laugh at yourself a little--as Weisman can and does--you will love "Traveling While Married" and will probably end up sharing it with people you love and love to travel with.