What Smart Women Know

The coauthors of Men Who Can't Love promise women ``wisdom without pain'' in this slick self-help guide to ideal romantic relationships. Describing women caught in various unrewarding relationships with men, Carter and Sokol compile a battery of catchy, puerile aphorisms about men and rules of behavior for dealing with them. Readers are warned to avoid ``any man who wears his napkin like a bib'' as well as one who reads The Satanic Verses on public transportation. Although mixed with some common-sense recommendations, these observations (e.g., ``Unless you have good connections at Interpol, think twice before dating an elusive man'') generally insult the intentions and intelligence of the reader. First serial to Cosmopolitan; paperback rights to Dell; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Clubs featured alternates. (Dec.)