My Life on a Diet: Confessions of a Hollywood Diet Junkie

Readers who are tired of failing on dietsin which they gain more than they losewill find themselves in good company with the mildly witty Taylor. A playwright (Lovers and Other Strangers and actress (The Last of the Red Hot Lovers, she discusses her travails with just about every popular (and unpopular) diet, from one designed for the Boston police to one created by the $3000-a-week Golden Door spa in San Diego. Not only does she relate her problems, say, with the Stillman diet (she became addicted to drinking water), but she also divulges the diets of Hollywood colleagues, from Marilyn Monroe to Morgan Fairchild. Taylor incorporates the various diets into her life story, which is full of little ditties about the frustrations of trying to lose weight, in a style reminiscent of the way Nora Ephron drops recipes in Heartburnbut Ephron is more successful. Yet Taylor's confessional is a breezy romp, an easy placebo for other ""diet-hards.'' And if her humor carries them to the last chapter, they'll learn about the one regimenhigh in complex carbohydrates and low in fatthat worked for Taylor. She calls it the Taylor-Made Diet. (October 27)