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New Year's Makeovers and One-Year Experiments - Books like Living Oprah

The New Year is a time when I and millions of others take stock and often make a resolution to do a personal make-over of some kind or another. Often we take the advice of some role model we admire; but rarely does anyone do as Robyn Okrant did and spend one year following every piece of Oprah Winfrey's advice on how to 'live your best life.' She devoted 2008 to adhering to all of Oprah's suggestions and guidance delivered via her television show, her website and her magazine. Living Oprah (Find this book in our catalog) is a month-by-month account of that year.

Read the book to find out if the author had bitten off more than she could chew. Some of Okrant's challenges included enrolment in Oprah's Best Life Challenge for physical fitness and weight control, living vegan and participating in Oprah's Book Club. "After 365 days of LIVING OPRAH, Okrant reflects on the rewards won and lessons learned as well as the tolls exacted by the experiment." (catalog summary)

Other books about year-long challenges in our library:

The Year of Eating Dangerously : a global adventure in search of culinary extremes by Tom Parker Bowles. "Intrigued by the food phobias of two friends, Parker Bowles became inspired to examine the cultural divides that make some foods verboten or 'dangerous' in the culture he grew up with while being seen as lip-smacking delicacies in others. So began a year-long odyssey through Asia, Europe and America in search of the world's most thrilling, terrifying and odd foods."

Odd Man Out : a year on the mound with a minor league misfit by Matt McCarthy. "McCarthy tells the captivating and hilarious story of his year with as a Minor League baseball pitcher. McCarthy takes readers through the ups and downs of a grueling season filled with players competing with cutthroat intensity for the ultimate prize--a call up to the majors."

Surviving Paradise : one year on a disappearing island by Peter Rudiak-Gould. "Just one month after his 21st birthday, Peter Rudiak-Gould moved to Ujae, a remote atoll in the Marshall Islands located 70 miles from the nearest telephone, car, store, or tourist, and 2,000 miles from the closest continent. He spent the next year there, living among its 450 inhabitants and teaching English to its schoolchildren. At first blush,Surviving Paradiseis a thoughtful and laugh-out-loud hilarious documentation of Rudiak-Gould’s efforts to cope with daily life on Ujae as his idealistic expectations of a tropical paradise confront harsh reality. But Rudiak-Gould goes beyond the personal, interweaving his own story with fascinating political, linguistic, and ecological digressions about the Marshall Islands."

Eat, Pray, Love : one woman's search for everything across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert. "Plagued with despair after a nasty divorce, the author, in her early 30s, divides a year equally among three dissimilar countries, exploring her competing urges for earthly delights and divine transcendence."

The Year of Living Biblically : one man's humble quest to follow the Bible as literally as possible by A.J. Jacobs. "Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year."

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posted by Elizabeth on 1/08/2010

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