Eye for Winners: How I Built America's Greatest Direct-Mail Business

Vernon, one of the nation's best-known merchandisers, here presents an ingenuous self-portrait. Born to wealth in Germany, her family fled Nazi persecution, settling first in Holland, then briefly in Palestine, before arriving in New York City, where they built their fortune anew. After she married, to make extra money for her growing family she began a mail-order business at her home in suburban New York. For many years she ran the entire show, relying on her ""golden gut"" to select the products, which are primarily aimed at the middle-aged wife who works outside the home. Successes include the ""Hurry Door Knocker"" for families with only one bathroom and crocheted snowflakes for a Christmas tree; the average order totals around $50. How does Vernon account for her success? A single-minded devotion to business and a lot of hard work. Unfortunately, the book seems to have been written in haste and includes some confounding contradictions: e.g., she claims alternately two primary residences. Yet as the unselfconscious disclosures of a terribly ambitious woman, the book has the power to absorb readers. (Oct.)