However, the book needed an[other] editor. Glitches of spelling and grammar are liberally scattered throughout, as well as factual errors. [Guys, Tolstoy wrote "War and Peace" -- Dostoevsky wrote other stuff.] And the text sometimes shows a tendency to leap from one topic to another in unexpected places, making it needlessly scattered and hard to follow. This sort of presentation reflects negatively on the credibility of the ideas it contains... which we can't really afford when there are so few apologists for this alternative lifestyle as it is.

[And the Heinleins quote several times from Robert A. Heinlein, which leaves me wishing they'd said something about their relation to him if any. ;) ]

Most people are curious; what is it like to work as an escort? According to numerous sex surveys, one of women's top fantasies is to be paid for sex. But escort work is not as simple as money for sex. Brooks, a former escort, has written a myth-exploding examination of what escort work requires from the escort while creating an honest and humane vision of a mysterious, maligned business.

The book is not a recruitment tool because the job is not for everyone. The Foundation is a reference written to create a realistic awareness of the pitfalls and bonuses of escort work for current and future escorts, as well as the curious public. Ultimately, safe and sane escort work leads to happier, healthier escorts. (And happy escorts make for happy clients.)

Office Mate teaches readers how to make the most of the office dating pool, offering specific dos and don'ts on what to look for in a potential paramour, how to handle the romance day to day, and how to protect a career if the relationship goes sour. Stephanie Losee and Helaine Olen's practical guide is useful even for those with no eligible candidates in their current nine-to-five gig, with tips for readers on how to expand their professional networks to jumpstart both their love lives and careers. With fun "Instant Messages," fast facts, first-person Water Cooler Confessions, and Famous Dates in Office Mate History, this hip handbook gives singles everywhere the green light to take that office flirtation to the next level.

Studies conservatively estimate, Vaughan reveals, that 60 percent of men and 40 percent of women will have an affair. "These figures are even more significant when we consider the total number of marriages involved, since it's unlikely that all the men and women having affairs happen to be married to each other," she says. "If even half the women having affairs (or 20 percent) are married to men not included in the 60 percent having affairs, then at least one partner will have an affair in approximately 80 percent of all marriages."

Vaughn outlines the societal causes and supporters of affairs, from the commercialization of sex in every visible nook and cranny of our world to our lifelong tendency to surround sex with secrecy. She also lists the common desperate measures that people take when they suspect they're being cheated on, and why they don't work. (Vaughn herself resorted to becoming a gourmet cook, wearing sexy underwear, and acting like a sex fiend in bed, all to no avail.) She also tells what to expect during a confrontation, and includes copious techniques for rebuilding self-esteem. There's also information about how to choose a marriage counselor or group therapist and, even more important, when to stop seeing one. For couples--especially those with children--debating whether to divorce or remain married, there's plenty of proven guidance to be found here. --Erica Jorgensen

Ms. Vaughan has drawn insightfully from her extensive work with her Beyond Affairs Network. Unlike many self-styled or state-sanctioned (i.e., licensed mental health) experts, Ms. Vaughan actually uses more reality than dogma to inform her advice. For instance, her research shows that the leading variable in managing to stay together well after an affair is the willingness and ability to talk (and talk and talk and talk) about the affair for as long as needed to detoxify and demystify it. (Her research also shows that most people trying to deal with the aftermath of an affair find mental health types considerably les than informed or helpful, despite their beliefs in their great expertise. As a trained and experienced psychotherapist, and a well-respected scholar, I can tell you that the mainstream training and professional literature--not to mention self-help--on infidelity is mostly just dogma that mental health types have concocted out of thin air, not anything anyone has actually discovered through research.)

I do find a one thing a bit troubling. As I see it, she does not give due weight to issues of individual moral responsibility. There are two sides to this. First, she generally denies that adultery reflects personal failings, placing far more emphasis on social factors to explain why adultery takes place. She does not produce an argument, so far as I can see, against the idea of personal failings; rather she poses an alternative to that idea. But to pose an alternative to an idea is not to show the idea wrong.

Second, while she is surely right that our culture has come to glamorize affairs rather than condemn them, and while she is certainly right to place more emphasis on this than conventional "wisdom" allows, it is not all that clear just what causal role social factors play, or which is the chicken and which is the egg.

(1) The same social forces act on ALL of us, but only SOME of us cheat. Thus, the social forces cannot explain why cheaters cheat. Differentiating cheaters from others requires looking at variables on which they differ from others, not on forces common to all.

2) Ms. Vaughan's "evidence" that adultery has increased significantly in the last few decades, when sex has become more public and less closeted, depends to a great extent on generally-unrespected researchers like Shere Hite. Her figures on the rate of adultery are higher than others I've seen (and I've read a lot on this subject). So far as I can tell, we do not really know that there has been a meaningful rise in adultery to accompany the rise in glamorized sexuality (including glamorized icons of adultery).

3) Even if there is a rising rate of adultery, and even if it correlates the social forces Ms. Vaughan mentions and a rising rate of adultery, it does not follow that one causes the other. Alternative hypotheses can explain both. One such alternative would be that both are results of increasing egoism and hedonism, which could result from any of a number of factors--consumerism, the decline of Heaven-oriented religious belief, decline of community life, commodity-centered views of the person growing out of capitalist ideology, etc. Another might be that both reflect the decline of patriarchal social structures. Surely others could be framed. The point is that we just don't know.

I nonetheless think that, on balance, she is the wisest person writing on the subject. Ms. Vaughan possesses good data on the effects of adultery, and she possesses good sense. She also possesses a crusader's heart. If, maybe, she goes a bit overboard, as compared to us academic types--well, there never was a successful crusade led by timid generals.

I want to add that several months after I read this book and wrote the first version of this review, I called upon Ms. Vaughan for help in dealing with my own situation in dealing with my wife's adultery with my "best friend" of thirty years. Quite honestly, I believe she saved my marriage. My gratitude to her is beyond words.

And by bizarre coincidences, it turns out that we grew up in the same place, her dad and mine were fishing buddies, I used to buy gasoline at her dad's service station, my dad preached her dad's funeral, and our lives have run eerily parallel courses.

As a result, as you can imagine, I thought about removing from this review any criticism whatsoever. But I decided not to do so. I hope my heartfelt endorsement of this book means all the more precisely because I don't simply find it ratifying my own beliefs.

I am altogether certain that this book and Ms. Vaughan's counsel did more to save my marriage than all the dozens of other things I read in recovering from the most horrific devastation of my life.

A couple of reviewers say Ms. Vaughan puts too much emphasis on social factors. I don't think that's quite fair. Ms. Vaughan does talk insightfully about personal factors that dispose some people to cheat. She talks about "pushes" and pulls" toward infidelity, and all of them are personal factors.

And maybe the academic types haven't nailed down all the causal factors, but common sense says that our society's romanticizing infidelity has to have SOME causal effect. And it certainly doesn't make ANY kind of sense to assume that the effect is to deter infidelity!

It is a little odd that one reviewer praises Ms. Vaughan's common sense, while also chiding her for not meeting the standards of ivory-tower researchers. (And that reviewer makes a logical mistake, himself, in criticizing Ms. Vaughan's logic. While the social changes in our culture may not be appropriate to explain why one person rather than another cheats, they could certainly explain a rising RATE of adultery in society.)

People who agree that the book is great can disagree on particular points. The important thing is that this book will give you sound advice--and no silliness to frustrate you.