I Touch the Future: The Story of Christa McAuliffe

Pogrebin's work will help readers appreciate themselves as complex social beings as they learn to analyze the contradictions, crises and rewards of their own friendships. A chapter on ending friendships (""A mature person manages to grow both roots and wings'') is particularly illuminating. Not surprisingly, Pogrebin, one of the founding editors of Ms. magazine, and the author of Growing up Free, a blueprint for nonsexist childrearing, ``welcomes any sign of a breakdown between categories, be they racial or gender categories or the rigid dividing lines between the personal and professional aspects of our lives.'' She devotes the bulk of her book to exploring and encouraging alliances that bridge these gaps, as well as the boundaries of age, sexual preference, socio-economic levels and disability. She comes down hard on male friendship for a lack of intimacy but cautions that women sometimes become ``relationship-junkies.'' Throughout, the provocative thesis is enlivened with anecdotes, perceptively reasoned and well-documented, although some of the research is overwhelming. 50,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo; author tour. (November)