Syd Arthur [Paperback]

Ellen Frankel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2011

Prince Siddhartha, raised behind palace walls and showered with every extravagance, abandoned his protected life to embark on a spiritual journey. He ultimately reached enlightenment and became known as the Buddha, which means "one who is awake." He then spent his life teaching that all have the potential to awaken...

Meet Syd Arthur! Living in the cloistered world of suburbia, Syd is a middle-aged Jewish woman who is potentially awake, but likes to start her day with a strong cup of coffee, just in case. Her daughter has just left for college and her diet is once again off track. While for most of her life she's been convinced that happiness can be attained by a magic number on the bathroom scale — or a really great shopping day at Bloomingdale's — she finds herself in the grocery store with an empty cart wondering if there just might be something more.

When East unexpectedly meets West, Syd embarks on a journey as a spiritual seeker. Soon she's in over her chakras as her search takes her from yoga studio to meditation hall to ashram gift store to the pages of Zensational catalogue. Her Mah Jongg group insists it's merely a midlife crisis. But nothing's going to stop Syd's journey toward Nirvana — not even the hottest sale at Nordstrom's. Follow Syd as she finds her bliss and discovers a richness that rivals a Godiva truffle, making for one delicious enlightenment.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Written with wit, wisdom and compassion, Syd Arthur invites us to discover the spiritual opportunity beneath our obsessive relationship with food and our bodies. Syd's journey illustrates how the process of opening your heart is much more satisfying than the project of controlling your body." --Dr. Michelle Lelwica, author of The Religion of Thinness

"...a truly touching book with great spiritual insights to carry you long after the last page has been read." --Rabbi Baruch HaLevi, Congregation Shirat Hayam

"Every once in a while you read a book that provides you with such a deep connection to the story's heroine that you wish she would simply step out of the pages and become your best friend (think Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones, or Jennifer Weiner's Cannie Shapiro). Ellen Frankel's Syd Arthur joins their leagues with her warm sense of humor, acute eye for social nuance, and infinitely relatable search for meaning in her life. Buy a few copies -- I guarantee you'll want to share 'Syd' with the readers in your life!" --Wendy Shanker, author of Are You My Guru? How Medicine, Meditation & Madonna Saved My Life

"A tour de force! This remarkable novel is full of humor, Buddhist wisdom, and Yiddishkeit. Art awakens us to new ways of seeing and being, and this novel is like an alarm clock." --Lama Surya Das, author of the New York Times bestseller Awakening the Buddha Within

"Syd Arthur's journey toward enlightenment is a laugh-out-loud adventure full of wisdom and wit. This book will touch your spirit and funny bone, awaken your senses, and nourish your soul." --Joan Borysenko, author of the New York Times bestseller Minding the Body, Mending the Mind

From the Publisher

Syd Arthur is available in original trade paperback & ebook format.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 364 pages
• Publisher: Pearlsong Press (April 15, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597190268
• ISBN-13: 978-1597190268
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #699,271 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ellen Frankel, LCSW worked in the field of eating disorder treatment and prevention for over fifteen years. She has been interviewed on topics related to eating issues, body image,and heightism by national newspapers, traditional and online magazines, as well as national radio programs across the country, and has appeared on local and national television including NBC's Today Show, CBS's Early Show, CNN's Paula Zahn Show, Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto and The Dr. Phil Show. Ellen is a dynamic speaker and frequent presenter at national conferences on a variety of topics including eating disorders, spirituality and heightism.

In addition to her latest book, Syd Arthur, Ellen is the author of Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature and Inner Growth (Pearlsong Press 2006) and is the co-author of The Diet Survivor's Handbook: 60 Lessons in Eating, Acceptance and Self-Care (Sourcebooks 2006) and Beyond A Shadow of a Diet: The Therapist's Guide to Treating Compulsive Eating (Brunner-Routledge 2004). She has also published in professional journals and has been featured in local newspapers including The Boston Globe, The Jewish Journal North of Boston and The Jewish Advocate. Ellen lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts with her husband, Steve, and dog, Karma. She has recently experienced the empty nest first hand as both her daughter and son are currently in college.

Happily for her, they both accepted her friend request on Facebook.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Move over EAT PRAY LOVE, April 22, 2011

By 

Karen Blomain - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Syd Arthur (Paperback)

For those who came away from EAT PRAY LOVE with indigestion and an itch for something more substantial than a fluffernutter, I prescribe SYD ARTHUR. This too is the story of a woman who loves food, has all the accoutrements of a completely pampered American life and embarks on a quest for self-knowledge and nirvana. This story does not end with a new man in New Jersey. The protagonist, Syd Arthur's funny, touching, and completely credible quest has more chutzpah and panache and less self-importance that EPL and others of the memoir/novel/spiritual quest genre. Frankel does a great job weaving philosophy into the action of the book. One comes away feeling the story is grounded in reality. Although this reader questions the docility of the husband (I kept thinking that she was going to find out that he was off having an affair while she was off finding herself) and the somewhat shallow portrayals of the friends, but all in all this is a very satisfying read.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kugel & Karma, July 18, 2011

By 

Phyllis GE - See all my reviews

This review is from: Syd Arthur (Paperback)

For Jewish, suburban moms like myself, finally a book with characters we can relate to! The friends who go from one diet to the next, sipping their diet cokes while they munch on Godiva chocolates. The Mah Jongg junkies who pass the night away eating, "craking" and gossiping. But if you scratch their surface, there's more! Watching Syd's layers get peeled away chapter by chapter, I invested in her well-being. I worried about her as though I were her mother!

If you have ever questioned your own spiritual journey in life, while yearning to still fit into your high school jeans, then Syd Arthur is a book for you! It is a fabulous summer read I enjoyed at the beach under an umbrella! I hope Ellen Frankel will revisit these characters in a sequel!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More Satisfying Than A Cheese Blintz, June 3, 2011

By 

Fanny Bergman Danesh - See all my reviews

This review is from: Syd Arthur (Paperback)

What can I say. This girl's got writing chops! Syd Arthur is a book about a woman's lifelong spiritual journey and desire to find balance in a world of material enticements. Syd was born into a Jewish upper middle class family and lived a life of comfortable trappings, even after she married. When her daughter goes away to college and she feels the sting of the empty nest she begins her quest for enlightenment with a great deal of verve and commitment against many struggles along the way. Ellen Frankel writes with humor, eloquence, poetry and exquisite visualizations. The story is absorbing and the characters are flesh and blood relatable. Ellen has the talent to take you to an ashram and have you experience every ritual as if you were sitting in a lotus position yourself and chanting OM with all the other yogis. She has a way of explaining every Buddhist practice and every Sanskrit phrase so the reader is never lost in a strange and unfamiliar situation. Neither is the reader ever lost in a Jewish holiday ritual because Ellen explains the reasons for certain traditional foods and for the holiday itself. And how many writers do you know who are fluent in Jimmy Choo, Gucci and Buddhism? Not one, I bet! That's because Ellen has a facility for living in both worlds and teaches us how to live the Middle Way with compassion and grace.

Kudos to this author for showing us that religion is only efficacious if it reminds us to live an authentic and compassionate life.