Again, let me begin by making a naked assertion: Next to Robin Givens, my central passion is women writers. Put simply, I have an especially warm spot in my heart for books that are written by women. The cold, hard reality is, tomes that are turned out by women have, by and large, a sweetness and a gentleness and a warmth and a lightness of spirit that male-written books, in the main, just do not have. Indeed, two of the best tomes that I have ever, ever read–the renowned actor-comedian Aisha Tyler’s compilation Swerve: Reckless Observations of a Postmodern Girl and ex-baseball-wife-cum-Playboy-babe Jessica Canseco’s memoir Juicy: Confessions of a Former Baseball Wife–are female-penned.   

    All this is a way of introducing the truth that I have recently come across, and, in fact, finished reading, two particularly rousing books, a pair of tomes that are quite, quite stirring, that have prose that leap out of the page and fully grab you. Both books are, of course, written by women. Here they are:   

    .Olympic swimmer Dara Torres’s Age Is Just A Number: Achieve Your Dreams At Any Stage in Your Life (written “with” Elizabeth Weil)–The mature–41–Olympic gold medalist tells of her life, her familial history, and her Olympic return with charm, grace, and, quite often, humor. We begin with her relating her swimming style (”My favorite thing to do is to dive into a pool when no one’s around. A big 50-meter pool, preferably outside, with the late lines in…[T]o me an empty outdoor pool is the most peaceful place in the world. I love diving in, breaking the surface, slipping to the other side…I feel connected to the water. It’s so peaceful and quiet in there”). From there, she tells us of her informing David, her boyfriend and the Dad of their daughter, Tessa, of her comeback plan (he was at first doubtful, but, in time, Dara had him convinced), later candidly admits that the notion of a comeback did not hit her out of the blue (”I’m gutsy, but I’m not that gutsy”), her much-loved father’s unsuccessful struggle with cancer (”As with so much else in my life, the end came slowly for my father, and then it came so fast”), and she also gives us a taste of the playful camaderie she had with her brother and sister swimmers (”‘Hey, D.T.,’ someone would yell, ‘I heard you were going up for Dancing With the Stars.’…’No way!’ I’d say. ‘I can’t dance!’…No one ever tried to argue with that.” This glimpse is especially warming. It is truly dismaying to witness Dara’s sister athlete, race-car driver Danica Patrick, who always, always sports a Red Guard-solemn look upon her face and, despite her recent Style magazine cover layout where she’s in a bikini, conveys that she’s definitely afraid to smile, afraid to laugh, afraid to just let her hair down and be a girl–indeed, to be anything even faintly human). By the time Dara swims her climactic Olympic race–all along there is intensely valuable inside information concerning the details of swimming and of Olympic competition–we’re fiercely warmed that Dara has made the journey and has accomplished her goal. Truly, Dara’s story proves that if you have a dream and are willing to work hard to make it happen, nothing can stop you.   

    .Good Morning America life/family contributor and freelance writer Lee Woodruff’s Perfectly Imperfect: A Life in Progress–The aforementioned gal relates her lives as a wife (to ABC News journalist Bob Woodruff), a mother (she has four offspring–16-year-old son Mack, almost-14-year-old daughter Cathryn, and Cathryn’s seven-year-old twin sisters Nora and Claire), a daughter, a sister, and a friend with unflinching warmth and firmly ingratiating good humor. She leads off by letting us in on a trip she and her family (sans Bob) made to Universal Studios, Orlando (”[A]s the designated pack mule, I’d been lugging the twenty-pound backpack with the camera, extra batteries and chargers, water, fleeces, and enough snacks to outfit an Everest expedition”). And then she, always incisively and still humorously, discourses on such things as her offspring (”They were my babies, to bathe, to tickle toes and blow on tummies…Now my kids grab for towels or throw their arms across their bodies as if they’ve been caught in a Saturday morning walk of shame out of a fraternity house”) and family gift-giving (”Now came the moment of drama [when her husband Bob was finally going to give Lee her gift]. The wife, the mother of his children, the woman who had moved nine times during the first thirteen years of marriage because of his career…I could practically hear the drum roll. This had to be big”). Her final chapter deals with the lessons Lee picked up “through tragedy and recovery.” Here she almost totally eschews light-hearted humor and puts sensitivity and full-on warmth in its place and–happy grin–she’s quite good at it. And she has many effective rules for helping somebody in grief (Rule No. 1: “Don’t Hang Back–Make Contact”). She concludes with this greatly uplifting contention: “We may be messy at the edges some days, but we are a family united at our core. In the end, we are proud to be wonderfully, perfectly imperfect.”   

    Another plus for both books: The cover of Dara’s tome has her in her Speedo, hands on hips, with the top parts of her legs showing, while the cover of Lee’s book shows her decked out in an orange shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, in blue jeans and sneakers, and her sitting upon a table with her feet upon a chair and her right elbow upon her right knee and her right hand positioned against her right cheek. As both girls are sumptuously, enticingly blonde, they come off as mighty hot.   

    Summing up: Neither Dara’s nor Lee’s book are in any sense Great Literature. However, reading each of these tomes is like hanging out with a highly-regarded gal pal in your favorite cafe and engaging in coffee, Danish, and monumentally stimulating conversation.    Duane Brooks    www.yahoo.com