The Friendship Crisis: Finding, Making, and Keeping Friends When You're Not a Kid Anymore

In this genial volume, Chicago Tribune""Friendship"" columnist Paul acknowledges a rarely admitted reality: many adult women lack a circle of friends like those portrayed on sitcoms and wish that they could make and keep more friends than they have. The major problem, Paul and the experts she cites agree, is that""it's damn hard to make new friends in our culture of busyness."" In Part One, The Thieves of Friendship, Paul uses stories from real women to highlight a variety of scenarios (moving, getting married, working crazy hours, having kids, getting divorced, becoming a widow, etc.) in which women lose touch with friends. Then in Part Two, The Tango of Friendship, she explains why friendships are so important, and offers advice and strategies for creating and maintaining them. Practical, realistic tips (such as a series of steps for""how to feed a friendship"") make doing so seem feasible and fun. A good choice for women looking to make new friendships or to strengthen faltering ones, Paul's volume is a valuable addition to the self-help library and will likely receive a fair amount of attention in the author's Chicago area.