A Woman's Worth

Williamson ( A Return to Love ) here tells women that they are goddesses with cosmic functions. A weakness: she often lets women hear what they want to hear--how ``special'' they are, how beautiful, how close to nature. When she draws from her own experience, Williamson gives sound, empowering advice on relationships, work, love, sex and childrearing. Still, her soft focus on the so-called feminine virtues, including that of assuming the submissive role during sex, often seems reactionary and contradictory, as when she argues that women were meant to be passive, but later claims that woman should assert their power. This mix of the mystical, the modern (Williamson says one of her old boyfriends left her for a ``bimbo'') and the Christian could be called visionary--but the combination doesn't always make sense, as in this statement: ``Our Kingdom is our life and our life is our Kingdom. And we are all meant to rule from a glorious place.'' Author tour. (May)