cover image When You Need a Lift: But Don’t Want to Eat Chocolate, Pay a Shrink, or Drink a Bottle of Gin

When You Need a Lift: But Don’t Want to Eat Chocolate, Pay a Shrink, or Drink a Bottle of Gin

Joy Behar, and Friends. . Crown, $19.95 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-307-35171-5

Behar, cohost of ABC’s The View, doesn’t have any advice of her own to dispense. Instead, she offers brief personal essays from more than 100 of her best friends (children’s author David A. Adler and comedian Anne Meara among them). These mood boosters include “I look at my friend Chip deMatteo’s eighth grade picture” (Bruce Hornsby) and “My remedy is my ukulele. I sit and strum my blues away” (Tony Danza). Danielle Broussard is “a big believer in the idea that there is very little that a new pair of shoes and a Klondike bar can’t fix.” At best, those like Regis Philbin remind us that exercise reduces stress and releases endorphins. In the end, perhaps the best advice comes from actor Richard Anderson, “The world is imperfect. Be cognitive. Work hard. Stay out of politics.” But you might have figured that one out on your own. (Sept.)