The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin

THE STEPFORD WIVES by Ira Levin (1972) is both a satire and a thriller.

Joanna – an avid and more or less successful semi-professional photographer – and her husband Walter move with their children to peaceful Stepford.

Joanna’s only friends there are tomboyish Bobbie and beautiful Charmaine, both are also freshly moved to this place with their husbands. All other wives of Stepford seem to have their only cause for living in making happy and neat homes for their husbands – and Walter spends a lot of his spare time at the men’s club.

After they stayed for four months in Stepford Charmaine and her husband spend a romantic weekend trip together – but when they come back Charmaine has completely changed – she gives up her beloved tennis and starts concentrating in being a perfect housewife.

Same thing happens to Bobbie after she lived four months in Stepford – she no longer takes pride out of her messy kitchen. No, everything is neat now in Bobbie’s house – even Bobbie herself looks like a gorgeous TV-ad-hausfrau…

And Joanna herself is almost four months in Stepford…

This is a very small novel and the tension rises very slowly – but the end is terrific!

Just to make this clear: The horror – at least for me – is that the Stepford wives don’t have a chance to choose wheter to be a devoted housewife or not - and that their men just seem to be such nice guys.

I really loved this book - and I am eager to read more by Ira Levin.

There are two adaptations for the screen of this book one of 1975 with Katharine Ross, which is much truer to the book than the version of 2004 with Nicole Kidman. Read my review of the 1975 film HERE.

THE WIVES OF STEPFORD fits into my FORGOTTEN TREASURES CHALLENGE.

Read about my progress (if I may say so - ahem.. ) here.

Fab in High Heels by Sarah Toner

I am a fan of high heels.

I love to walk barefooted – I also like wearing heels - not on a daily basis though which would be of course unhealthy. . (yeah, I am aware of that, mom, thank you..) - but now and then..

Obviously I am not he only one who does so and due to that there are some books who deal with high heels.

One of these is FABULOUS IN HIGH HEELS : A SHORT SWEET SOLUTION TO THE CRISIS OF WEARING STILETTOES by Sarah Toner (2009) with an intro by fabulous Jennifer Saunders (love her!!)

This book shows some easy exercises to strengthen your feet and legs so you’ll be able to enjoy wearing heels a little more – and these exercises will give your posture a little “uplift”, too.

A very nice gimmick is that this book (at least in the German edition..) can stay up by itself- which is a great help when you’re doing the exercises.

FAB IN HIGH HEELS is quite nice – but don’t buy it, because I think for that small amount of info you’ll pay a bit too much. – It’s like a very long Cosmopolitan article..

So: Make sure you’ll receive it as a gift! That would be perfect.. ;”)

Here we have one lady who for sure could walk and even run in heels:

My heroine - Marilyn Monroe!!