100 WAYS TO BEAT THE BLUES

Country star Tucker gathers the tried-and-true techniques for beating passing fits of depression from a passel of her friends, peers and family. Each comes in at a few paragraphs measuring a page or two, and all have a comradely sense of having been down and lived to tell about it. Garth Brooks talks of dialing down his career in order to lift himself up; Brenda Lee finds that "offering a helping hand to another will lift you up faster than anything"; Nashville bootmaker Rodney Ammons notes, "[I]t's against the law for the blues to follow you up on your mother's front porch!" Plenty of other celebs—from Loretta Lynn and Kris Kristofferson to former president George H.W. Bush and wife Barbara—check in, but what they say is less important than the sense of a burden shared and repeatedly overcome. As Kristofferson says, "I don't beat the blues; the blues beats me./ Daily./ Like a drum." Despite a great deal of self-help lite, the cumulative effect is substantive. (Mar. 15)