REVIEW
The Incredible Shrinking Critic. 75 Pounds and Counting: My Excellent Adventure in Weight-Loss (hardback)

Author: Jami Bernard
Publisher: Avery/$22.95 (304 pages)
Date of Publication: September 7, 2006
Reviewed by: James J. Gormley (member, National Book Critics Circle)

In March 1999, I wrote an article in Better Nutrition magazine called, “Giving Barbie the ‘boot’,” in which I criticized American society’s pressures on young girls to emulate the nearly impossible Barbie body type, an article that I was pleased to see cited by Michelle Varat in her illuminating paper, “Life in Plastic: The Truth Behind Barbie.”

What was the focus of my article? Responsible (and realistic) weight-loss strategies for lasting change. And strategies are exactly what award-winning film critic, author and social commentator, Jami Bernard, focuses on in her wonderful new book, The Incredible Shrinking Critic. She writes: “Lasting weight loss is about strategy, not willpower.”

True enough. Bernard guides us through a deeply personal journey of discovery and body emancipation starting when she opened her eyes to the fact that she weighed 230 pounds and she resolved to lose 100 of them. Originally covering her weight-loss quest in a New York Daily News column called “Our Incredible Shrinking Critic,” she ultimately loses 75—carefully, realistically and consciously.

To lose the unwanted weight, Bernard had to first gain insights (sometimes painfully) into the whys and wherefores of how the extra fat got there in the first place, at one point leading her to write: “I want my body back.” To get it back, Bernard uncovered many of the ways she—and we—often wrongly use food: as a punishment, as a salve for emotional pain and need, as a crutch, as an excuse, and as a way of physically erecting a buffer zone between ourselves and the world which increasingly marginalizes, ignores and resents those of us who are far from the Ken or Barbie physiques.

Ms. Bernard is as generous in sharing her often intimate self-revelations as she is at providing common-sense observations of startling insight and simplicity, such as “To lose weight, you have to cook for yourself.” Although holistic health approaches are not necessarily given their due here, this book is truly a must for anyone who wants to shed not only weight but baggage as well. Uproariously funny and yet also profoundly personal, film guru Bernard has come out with a real-life look at weight goals and how to achieve them, one so fascinating that I’ll buy my own “ticket” right now and suggest you do likewise.

HEALTH BOOKS NAVIGATOR
Greetings fellow consumers, bibliophiles, librarians, publishers, authors' representatives and publicists, health food retailers, book buyers and distributors, and all those whose interest, passion or business (maybe all three) includes health-related books!

Why would one even want help navigating the choppy (sometimes muddy) waters of books that fall in the very general area of health--this includes the health of the body and of the environment (and sometimes of society and its institutions)?

Precisely because health-related books are so important: readers and customers rely on these books to improve their lives, enrich their perspectives, optimize their health and help fend off disease (as part of a larger program of proper eating and exercise), and to improve the health of the planet.

Where does Health Books Navigator come in, then?

Well, I am a published health book author, a former health book editor for such houses as Plenum/Human Sciences Press and Appleton & Lange/Prentice Hall, the former longtime editor-in-chief of Better Nutrition magazine (from 1995 to 2002) and now the editor of an anti-aging medical journal.

A former managing editor of the American Journal of Surgery and the American Journal of Medicine, I'm a health journalist who's been published in a variety of consumer health and natural products industry trade magazines since 2002, and am on the boards of both Citizens for Health and the Natural Health Research Institute (NHRI).

A current member in good standing of the National Book Critics Circle, I was also a book reviewer for Publishers Weekly from 1993 through 1998 (for the Forecasts review section). I have been a member of the Horror Writers Association and helped develop the writers guidebook, Writing Horror for Writer's Digest Books. I am also a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) and the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI).

How Publishers Weekly approaches books is how I and my fellow reviewers will, as well. We will selectively review only those books which we believe are, at minimum, good and noteworthy (and perhaps much better even than that)--meaning that if we don't review a certain book it is because it either did not cross our desks, was not new and noteworthy enough from our perspective or it did not approach health from an especially progressive or enlightened viewpoint. Translation: we will not waste your time (our ours) "trashing" books.

So there you have it--we're off to an exciting start!
Publishers, authors' publicists and representatives: please put me on your lists of reviewers to whom advance copies of books and requests for comment are sent. Please mail advance and/or review copies to:
James J. Gormley
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Thanks!
James J. Gormley