Life Preservers
Good Advice When You Need It Most
With wit, wisdom and uncommon sense, Dr. Harriet Lerner gives readers the tools to solve problems and create joy, meaning and integrity in their relationships. Women will find Life Preservers (more than 40,000 copies sold in hardcover) to be an invaluable motivational guide that covers the landscape of work and creativity, anger and intimacy, friendship and marriage, children and parents, loss and betrayal, sexuality and health and much more. With new insights and a results-oriented approach, Dr. Lerner answers women's most frequently asked questions and offers the best advice for problems women face today: I always pick the wrong guys. Should I move in with him?I can't stand my boss. Should I leave my marriage? How can I recover from his affair? Is my fantasy abnormal? Is my therapy working? I miss my mother. I can't believe I was fired.
Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Self-Help, Nonfiction, Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.
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What the reading experience may hold
A fuller profile for choosing with more confidence—not just another copy of the preview.
Self-Help · Nonfiction · Fiction
Use these as starting points rather than limits; the most memorable books often stretch beyond their catalog labels.
Catalog signals suggest grief and loss, sexual material. These notes may not be complete; consult a publisher or reader-supplied guide when detailed warnings matter.
These notes are inferred from available catalog information and may not be complete. Check a publisher or reader-supplied guide if you need comprehensive warnings.
Warm tone · Steady pace
A comfortable full-length choice for steady daily reading.
A good fit if…
Readers who want a thoughtful experience and enjoy noticing the connections beneath a book’s surface story.
This book's DNA
A visual estimate based on this edition's categories, description, and length. Select a star to explore the signals.
This signal is descriptive, not a rating. It helps compare the kind of reading experience this edition may offer.
Spoiler-Free Emotional Arc
A broad estimate of the book’s emotional rhythm, shown without story events or outcomes.
This visualization is an interpretive estimate based on catalog description, categories, tone, pace, and content signals. It does not describe specific scenes.
A quick reading snapshot
Edition facts and catalog signals to help you decide whether this book fits what you want to read next.
- ISBN-13
- 978-0-0609-2835-3
- Language
- English
- Edition record
- OL9239566M
A more thoughtful way into this book
This guide uses the edition details and category signals above to help you choose deliberately. It does not replace the author's work or a full review.
A comfortable full-length choice for steady daily reading.
Begin with its place in Self-Help, then notice where the book resists that label.
Read for connection, not completion.
Mark one passage that sharpens the book's central concern and one that complicates it. That tension often reveals more than a quick summary.
Three questions to carry with you
- Which ideas feel usable in your actual circumstances—not only persuasive on the page?
- Where does the author distinguish evidence, experience, and opinion?
- What would a small, humane experiment with one idea look like?
Editorial framework by Wesley Bryan, BookenDeX Founder and Editor.
More Self-Help books
These matches combine shared categories with author, publication-era, and reading-length signals.
The Greatest Miracle in the World
by Og Mandino
Why it fits: shares Self-Help and Nonfiction, a similar publication era.
Game of Life and How to Play It
by Florence Scovel Shinn
Why it fits: shares Self-Help and Nonfiction.
Ignite the Genius Within
by Christine Ranck, Christopher Lee Nutter
Why it fits: shares Self-Help and Nonfiction.
Child Sexual Abuse
by Nigel Parton, Corinne Wattam
Why it fits: shares Self-Help and Nonfiction, a similar publication era.
Living the 7 Habits
by Stephen R. Covey
Why it fits: shares Self-Help and Fiction, a similar publication era.
Self Neglect
by James G. O'Brien
Why it fits: shares Self-Help and Nonfiction, a similar publication era.