Appropriate Books for Life's Big Events...

My good friend at the office will be turning 40 this week...she only looks about 35 though, so she has nothing to worry about. She and I have a lot in common because we both have air-headed, bass-playing husbands (well, she’s not technically married to her husband). About that…last year she was quite angry with me because I went off and eloped with my boyfriend, and she knew nothing about until after it had happened. I disappointed her a little bit because she thought that I, like she, was going to remain one of the long-term, marriage-hating, shacking-up people. She and her boyfriend have lived together for about 15 years now, and my boyfriend and I had been living together for nearly 4 years before we finally got married…so anyway, at my post-wedding shower, she gave me a copy of the classic 1960’s homemakers’ guide: Heloise All Around the House. So for her 40th birthday, I’m going to give her a book about coping with Menopause. Is that too mean?

UPDATE: Powell's City of Books just happens to be having their Square Deal Book Sale at Pioneer Square (in Portland) this week, so I withstood the malodorous intensity of folks who don’t like to bathe that seems to linger inside that sale tent, and looked long and hard for a book about menopause. It took forever to find one…(20 books about macrobiotic cooking, and only one about menopause…what’s that about?)…but finally I found Menopause: A Guide for Women and the Men Who Love Them.