Customer Reviews

The List: 100 Ways to Shake Up Your Life

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I was bored and in desperate need of a little excitement in my life when The List: 100 Ways to Shake Up Your Life by Gail Belsky came along. I couldn't wait to dive right in.

Belsky encourages women to step out of their comfort zone and discover just how liberating it is to try or learn something completely new. She interviewed 82 women "who've pushed past their fears and beyond their expectations to do all kinds of cool things." Most importantly, Belsky states that she realizes not all of her ideas will capture your fancy. It's not a set-in-stone type of list you are supposed to follow from beginning to end with no variation. I'm glad, because some of these ideas are pretty wild!

Here are the top 5 things from the list I'd like to try: write a novel, learn a foreign language, join a relief effort, run for office, hike Machu Picchu.

The top 5 things I'd rather not do: join an ambulance crew, learn trapeze, dive off a cliff, leave my marriage, skydive.

The most outrageous ideas: Take a lover, have nude pictures taken, kiss a total stranger, make a sex tape, sleep with a younger man

The List: 100 Ways to Shake Up Your Life is a fun, fresh book full of ideas to do just that. I'll keep this one as a permanent part of my library and reread it for ideas when I get bored. Perhaps I'll flip it open and do whatever happens to be on that page. That is a sure way to step out of my comfort zone. Maybe I'll even learn to like it.

by Jennifer Melville
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

If you could do one thing in your life that you always wanted to do, what would it be? Write a novel? Skydive? Learn to surf? How about something less risky like go get a haircut that is daring or totally a way you would not normally do your hair? Or how about living with less? At a loss for ideas of things to do to shake things up in your boring life? Here is a great book for you!

Author Gail Belsky says in the first sentence of The List: "I rarely step outside of my comfort zone, so writing a book about shaking things up was a voyeuristic thrill for me." Belsky interviewed 82 women about things they did in their lives to step out of their own comfort zones. Each of the 100 ways is accompanied by a story of a woman who did the activity. Every story is inspiring even if you think there is no way you would try what is being described.

For my full review visit: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art8380.asp

I randomly came across this book at a local bookstore. It's essentially various things that encourage you to do things you might think are risque or you wouldn't consider doing and it gives stories of women that have done them.

I wasn't looking for this book but it was just what I needed as I added various activities to my planner for the year of things I want to do. Some things I'm just not going to do (like sleep with some random or get plastic surgery lol) but other things are stuff that I want to do but wouldn't have popped in my mind like taking a class to learn how to sail or spending 24 hours in bed or even shooting a gun. It's a cute book with great ideas and good stories behind them