The Girls' Guide to Power & Su

The Glass ceiling has been broken, right? Wrong!

This may be the 21st century, but the playing field isn't level yet; in general, pay scales are still skewed, stereotypes prevail, and working women of all ages and at every level are still struggling for equality.

"The Girls' Guide to Power and Success" shows you how to become a more formidable competitor in this male-dominated world. Sharply written, always entertaining, and full of real-world advice from successful women in every walk of life, it will help you push past the forces that hold women back.

If you've ever wished you had a mentor in the business world, a seasoned, insightful female colleague who could dole out good advice as well as battle stories, you'll find a friend in Susan Wilson Solovic's The Girls' Guide to Power and Success, a snappy, dead-on look at the ways in which working women devalue themselves and get taken less seriously than men.

Drawing on quotes from successful executives and entrepreneurs, the author addresses issues from leadership style to personal charisma to financial planning. Some of the topics are standard women's magazine fare, such as how to handle sexual harassment, or how to learn to trust your feminine intuition, but some are far less predictable, including how to recognize a glass ceiling, even if your title includes the term vice president.

By far the best material here is on gender differences in communication and body language; Solovic offers concrete advice on avoiding the not-so-subtle signals of weakness that women unintentionally give to their male colleagues and bosses. One executive, Barbara Wilson, for instance, explains how she learned to cut extraneous, chatty detail when she spoke and wrote for men: "You don't want your audience to feel like they're drinking from a fire hose." Solovic's arguments will ring true for women in business, college women, and especially would-be entrepreneurs, who would do well to brace themselves with the savvy Girls' Guide. --Regina Marler