The Power of Beauty - Softcover

Friday, Nancy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 009177800X ISBN 13: 9780091778002

Publisher: Harper Collins, 1997

Synopsis

"You've got to love Nancy Friday. She successfully explored mother-daughter envy in My Mother/My Self [and] female sexual fantasy in My Secret Garden " ( People magazine). Now, in The Power of Beauty, she explores a provocative how looks affect our lives, and life affects our looks. Friday traces the past 25 years of changes in women's attitudes about self-esteem, appearance and sexuality. Using her own life as a springboard, she then takes us through the Patriarchal '50s, Revolutionary '60s, Supersexual '70s, Narcissistic '80s, and Empty Package '90s as she explores the possibility of a future free from the twin obsessions of the power of beauty and the beauty of power and offers sparkling commentary on a dazzling array of subjects. From the runways of Paris to the two-parent nursery, from current movies and watershed media events to the timeless wisdom of some of literature's and psychology's most perceptive thinkers, Friday writes large, creating a canvas as complex and richly colored as her subject.

About this title

Review

The whole notion that beauty is somehow politically incorrect is not exactly Nancy Friday's cup of tea. "Beauty is a player," she writes in The Power of Beauty, "Stalking the streets bare-breasted, stiletto heeled, fly unzipped." One of the more successful sex gurus of the last couple decades, Friday believes that the world would be a much better place if women could only stop pretending that beauty isn't important. And of course it wouldn't hurt if they started enjoying sex a little more, too: "It is a terrible waste of natural resources that we don't ... educate women to beam post-orgasmically upon the world."

About the Author

Nancy Friday was raised by a single mother in Charleston, South Carolina, before moving to New York in the early 60s. Since 1988, she has been married to Time Inc. editor-in-chief Norman Pearlstine. They live in Key West and Connecticut, and dream of traveling the world with one small suitcase. Her background in journalism has included work for Cosmopolitan, and she has been Writer in Residence at The Examiner. She is the author of six previous books, including My Secret Garden, Forbidden Flowers, Jealousy, Women on Top, Men in Love, and the international bestseller, My Mother/My Self.

Hailed by the Detroit News as being "Nancy Friday, Unplugged," The Power of Beauty, her seventh book, is this provocative and controversial author's strongest yet.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Collins
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 009177800X
• ISBN 13: 9780091778002
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 488