Marci Shimoff

From the Garment District’s fashionable 34th Street address in New York City, to the sewer-infested manufacturing sweatshops of Asia, the author recalls almost 50 years of professional achievement, counterbalanced by personal trauma at the hands of the men she trusted. For nearly half a century, Darlene Parris Young had a successful career in the modeling industry, gracing the covers of magazines and walking the runways. It was the glamour days of New York City’s Garment District, where the crime families battled for business; $20,000 fur coats and designer dresses traveled the streets on racks, propelled by the garmento’s trustees and, at the same time, buyers from the national department store chains were writing orders, crafted over champagne, cigars and beautiful models in the showroom. It is during these glory years of Chanel, Ralph Lauren, Diane von Furstenberg, and Gloria Vanderbilt, that this penetrating look into New York’s fashion industry is seen through the eyes of the little known, but highly paid, “fashion fit model” – the behind the scenes living mannequin who used her body as a template for the designers’ fashions. Constantly in demand, working ten to twelve hours per day, Darlene became known as “The Coat Hanger with a Mouth” for her outspoken interactions with designers, explaining to these fashion “icons” what women truly wanted in clothes, with the result of increasing the “bosses’” revenue for whom she worked, year after year. Yet, Darlene would return home at night, longing to be a mother and a wife, yet finding conflict with her husband and too exhausted to be a mother. Her children would grow and leave, while she learned that marriages were hardly a sanctuary from disappointment. Unzipped is not merely a story about modeling and NYC’s garment industry, though exciting as it may be. Unzipped is written for all women who have faced abuse and trauma; women who have encountered harassment in the workplace; women who have felt the resulting despair and loneliness of long, solitary nights, and who have worried whether the future holds any hope for happiness and love. Unzipped is a story of human trials, beginning with a highly decorated World War II father who equated discipline with physical abuse; through a series of failed marriages and, finally, the object of an unspeakable act of violence that no woman should endure. Speaking for all women who have been told what to wear, what to say, what to believe and how to act, Unzipped will have you laughing and crying, opening your heart to long-forgotten emotions and strengthening your resolve to prevail. As you witness Darlene learning to become a voice, not a victim, you will drop your jaw with disbelief on each new page; you will be left with a determination to put the past behind and you will find comfort – as well as a renewed strength - in knowing with certainty that you are not alone!

The Harvard-educated physician and New York Times bestselling author of The Hormone Cure shows you how to grow new receptors for your seven metabolic hormones, making you lose weight and feel great fast! When it comes to weight loss, most people don’t think about hormones. But when you develop resistance to your seven major metabolic hormones—cortisol, thyroid, testosterone, growth hormone, leptin, insulin, and estrogen—your body adjusts by increasingly raising your hormone levels and ultimately slowing down your metabolism. And a slower metabolism leads to weight gain and difficulty losing weight. The solution, Dr. Sara Gottfried contends, is to reset the efficiency of your hormones by repairing and growing new hormone receptors. Based on leading scientific research, The Hormone Reset Diet is her proven weight loss and energy program to reverse hormone resistance in just three weeks. It will help you: Boost your metabolism and calorie burning by growing new and fresh thyroid receptors; Increase your weight loss by re-balancing estrogen and progesterone receptors; Reverse your aging by resetting glucocorticoid receptors (for better processing cortisol).For the last twenty years, this Harvard-MIT educated physician has helped thousands of women address the root hormonal causes of what bothers them most: excess weight, lack of energy, aging, and illness. Going beyond her bestselling The Hormone Cure, this program is the next generation of her deep understanding of hormonal optimization for rapid weight loss.

Invite gratitude and well-being into your life with short, daily writing prompts Happiness begins with gratitude―the feeling of appreciation for the people and experiences in our lives that have helped or supported us in some way. This gratitude journal makes it easy and enjoyable to develop a daily practice through insightful prompts that only take a few minutes to complete. You'll feel inspired to notice things―big and small―that you might otherwise take for granted and pause to feel grateful for them. Build a better habit―Make gratitude a daily practice through mindfulness-based exercises, powerful quotes, positive affirmations, and recurring themes that reinforce what you're thankful for. Develop a grateful attitude―Discover the psychological and emotional benefits of gratitude, like how it can help you feel happier and more optimistic. Find gratitude fast―No matter how jam-packed your day is, these short journal prompts allow you to reap the rewards of gratitude. With this 5-minute positivity journal, you can bring more gratitude and happiness into your life each and every day.

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A roadmap on the journey to truth and authenticity… [The Way of Integrity] is filled with aha moments and practical exercises that can guide us as we seek enlightenment.” –Oprah Winfrey Bestselling author, life coach, and sociologist Martha Beck explains why “integrity”—needed now more than ever in these tumultuous times—is the key to a meaningful and joyful life AN OPEN FIELD PUBLICATION FROM MARIA SHRIVER As Martha Beck says in her book, “Integrity is the cure for psychological suffering. Period.” In The Way of Integrity, Beck presents a four-stage process that anyone can use to find integrity, and with it, a sense of purpose, emotional healing, and a life free of mental suffering. Much of what plagues us—people pleasing, staying in stale relationships, negative habits—all point to what happens when we are out of touch with what truly makes us feel whole. Inspired by The Divine Comedy, Beck uses Dante’s classic hero’s journey as a framework to break down the process of attaining personal integrity into small, manageable steps. She shows how to read our internal signals that lead us towards our true path, and to recognize what we actually yearn for versus what our culture sells us. With techniques tested on hundreds of her clients, Beck brings her expertise as a social scientist, life coach and human being to help readers to uncover what integrity looks like in their own lives. She takes us on a spiritual adventure that not only will change the direction of our lives, but also bring us to a place of genuine happiness.

Ken Honda—Japan’s #1 bestselling personal development guru—teaches you how to achieve peace of mind when it comes to money with this instant national bestseller. Too often, money is a source of fear, stress, and anger, often breaking apart relationships and even ruining lives. We like to think money is just a number or a piece of paper, but it is so much more than that. Money has the ability to smile, it changes when it is given with a certain feeling, and the energy with which it imbues us impacts not only ourselves, but others as well. Although Ken Honda is often called a “money guru,” his real job over the past decade has been to help others discover the tools they already possess to heal their own lives and relationships with money. Learn how to treat money as a welcome guest, allowing it to come and go with respect and without resentment; understand and improve your money EQ; unpack the myth of scarcity; and embrace the process of giving money, not just receiving it. This book isn’t to fix you, because as Ken Honda says, you’re already okay!