Close Modal

Let's Get Physical

How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World

Look inside
Paperback
$18.00 US
5.17"W x 7.98"H x 0.75"D   (13.1 x 20.3 x 1.9 cm) | 9 oz (255 g) | 24 per carton
On sale Jan 03, 2023 | 352 Pages | 9780593188446
Sales rights: US, Canada, Open Mkt
A captivating blend of reportage and personal narrative that explores the untold history of women’s exercise culture--from jogging and Jazzercise to Jane Fonda--and how women have parlayed physical strength into other forms of power.

For much of the twentieth century, sweating was considered “unladylike” and girls grew up believing physical exertion would cause their uterus to “fall out.” It was only in the Sixties that, thanks to a few forward-thinking fitness pioneers, women began to move en masse. In Let's Get Physical, journalist Danielle Friedman reveals the fascinating untold history of contemporary fitness culture, chronicling in vivid, cinematic prose how exercise evolved from a beauty tool pitched almost exclusively as a way to “reduce” into one millions have harnessed as a path to mental, emotional, and physical well-being. 
 
Let’s Get Physical takes us into the workout studios and onto the mats to reclaim these forgotten origin stories—and shine a spotlight on the trailblazers who made it possible for women to move. Each chapter uncovers the birth of an fitness movement that laid the foundation for working out today: the invention of the barre method in the Swinging Sixties, jogging’s path to liberation in the Seventies, the explosion of aerobics and weight-training in the Eighties, the rise of yoga in the Nineties, and the ongoing push for a more socially inclusive fitness culture—one that celebrates every body. Ultimately, it tells the story of how women discovered the joy of physical competence and strength—and how, by moving together to transform fitness from a privilege into a right, we can create a more powerful sisterhood.
Chapter 1

Reduce

Pat: I've been around physical ed for years.

Mike: Physical Ed? Who's he?

-Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in Pat and Mike, 1952

America, manpower conscious, is almost oblivious
of the potential of its neglected womanpower.

-Eugene Register-Guard, 1962

New Yorkers who spotted Bonnie Prudden striding through midtown Manhattan in August 1957 couldn't have known they were glimpsing the future. With the space race revving up and new technological marvels emerging every day-color TV! Teflon pans!-who would give serious consideration to a petite forty-something woman going about her day in a stretchy jumpsuit? She was an anomaly, a head-scratcher. They couldn't have known that someday their city would be filled with Bonnies, sheathed in workout clothes that allowed them to move as they pleased.

But that summer, after weekly appearances on NBC's Home show, she knew she was onto something. The morning show was hosted by Arlene Francis and Hugh Downs, and featured her, America's leading fitness expert, alongside some of the biggest names of the day-Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Dear Abby's Abigail Van Buren. "We are raising a nation of children with muscles of custard," Bonnie told the hosts. She had a gift for dramatic exaggeration that annoyed her critics. The whole country was falling apart, she said.

Now the editors at Sports Illustrated seemed to agree, asking her to appear on the cover of their August 5 issue as both a model of physical fitness and its number one champion. So what if they'd be featuring her during the languid final stretch of summer? A cover was a cover.

It would be the latest in a string of platforms to promote her controversial message: Everyone should exercise. Everyone. Every day. Even the mostly male readers of a magazine devoted largely to golf and baseball highlights-who thumbed through issues while smoking cigarettes and sipping scotch, or grabbing 25-cent burgers at a coffee shop counter on a lunch break, only to commute via train or bus or car home, where they would plop into an easy chair and watch a few hours of television. Even their girlfriends and wives, who were raised to believe ladies should never sweat. (Horses sweat, men perspire, but ladies merely glow, went the old adage.)

For the cover, shot at her "fitness institute" in the suburb of White Plains-a predecessor to the kind of gyms that would become a fixture in this country decades later-Bonnie slipped into her trademark workout uniform, a one-piece wool outfit of her own design called a "leotite," covered in a jaunty star pattern.

It was a novel concept, both the outfit and the notion that a woman would prioritize comfort and flexibility in her wardrobe. After all, it was a moment when most of the decade's fashions were shaped by girdles and petticoats. Once, when Bonnie was late to an appointment, she ran through the streets of Manhattan in one of her leotites covered only by a thin white medical coat. A well-meaning police officer stopped her-Was she okay? he wanted to know. It was highly unusual for a woman to be running in public, especially one so scantily clad.

Sports Illustrated assigned staff photographer Richard Meek, whose previous credits included baseball great Ted Williams and hockey legend Gordie Howe, to her cover shoot. Bonnie styled her close-cropped brown curls into a no-fuss 'doo and wore just a smidge of makeup. Her leotite advertised that her arms, legs, stomach-every inch of her 5-foot-3-inch frame-were harder than those of most women her age (or any age). Her boundless energy belied her forty-three years, the challenges of raising two teen daughters, her chronic loneliness.

For the winning photo, Bonnie got down on the ground, shot a toned leg high into the air, and smiled. Click! The move was so familiar to her, but so exotic to most Americans. Inside the magazine, the reading line accompanying her feature would offer this mantra: Bonnie Prudden says: You are NOT too young, too old, too full of aches, too fat, too thin, too far gone, too lazy, too flabby, too anything to have fun keeping fit. She would devote the next few pages attempting to convince a skeptical nation.

"The secret is simple," she told readers. You "substitute activity for inactivity as much as you can during the course of a normal day and take a few minutes of each day to do some easy exercises." It was straightforward enough. "For more fun and best results do the exercises to music," she added. "Use Leroy Anderson's 'Sleigh Ride' or 'China Doll.'" Women should "never wear girdles while exercising," she warned, "but should wear a brassiere."

She demonstrated four floor exercises to get readers started, the first in a pictorial column that would run in more than forty issues of the magazine.

The secret may have been simple, but it was a tough sell in postwar America. What would daily exercise look like for Americans in the late fifties? For men, it would mean reconsidering the three-martini lunch. For women, it would mean something more profound: taking time out of their day to care for themselves, when nearly every social institution stressed that a woman's sole purpose in life was to care for others.

Unless exercise could be sold as a wifely duty-and a path to winning the Cold War.

***

Americans had long prided themselves on being a hardy people. They were puritans and pioneers and immigrants, tough and industrious. They were can-do workers and strivers. But by the 1950s, they were moving less than ever before, and the lack of activity was taking a toll. Politicians and pundits questioned whether the nation was becoming soft.

Gone were the days when Americans' survival depended on physical competence. As the twentieth century progressed, the growing middle class embraced what it called "our modern way of life." It was a lifestyle defined by ease and abundance, which felt like a balm after the Great Depression and World War II. It prized comfort, convenience, efficiency. It also made Americans' bodies "largely irrelevant," writes historian Shelly McKenzie in Getting Physical: The Rise of Fitness Culture in America.

The rise of the suburbs transformed nearly every aspect of middle-class life, as a single-family home with a yard in a well-groomed neighborhood became the new American dream. From 1950 to 1960, the country's suburban population exploded from 21 million to 37 million. But over time, those living in the new sprawl succumbed to what Bonnie Prudden liked to call "the tyranny of the wheel." Walking was replaced by driving, as cars were now required to get around. Kids who in previous generations had been active since they could scoot were now pushed in strollers, then shuttled to school in buses. (No more walking a mile, uphill both ways, in the snow, to class.) Children also had fewer open spaces for playing and fewer trees for climbing, as land was paved into parking lots. In many towns sidewalks were narrowed or eliminated completely.

Suburban homes themselves were built and furnished to minimize physical exertion. The decade's popular one-story ranch houses eliminated the need to climb stairs. Air-conditioning units and central heating and new push-button appliances required only the touch of a finger. By 1960, three-quarters of families owned cars and washing machines, and 90 percent owned a television, as sitting in front of the small screen became a favorite American pastime.

Women still did plenty of housework, of course-a woman's work truly was never done-but as anyone who has ever cleaned a home knows, the physical labor it requires doesn't always benefit the body. Bonnie Prudden warned as much. "Housework won't raise a bosom to where it belongs or keep it there," she told a reporter in 1956. "Housework is no good for all-round muscular fitness."

Then there was the matter of the dinner table. Americans were eating more, and they were eating worse. In the fifties, the "golden age of food processing," the food industry churned out mass quantities of products rich in sugar, salt, fat, and preservatives. The decade saw the birth of McDonald's, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Dunkin' Donuts. Swanson introduced the "TV dinner" to the masses in 1954, after the company found itself with a surplus of 260 tons of turkey after Thanksgiving, and it sold 10 million in the first year. Supermarkets expanded to house the vast quantities of new, modern cuisine. As Cold War fears grew, the government drilled home the message that democracy was defined by abundance-and communism by scarcity-which turned purchasing into a patriotic act. Madison Avenue admen and -women reinforced these values by linking factory-made food with positive emotions: family, celebration, and love.

When Americans went to work, they sat some more, as desk jobs surged. In many professions, drinking on the job was accepted or encouraged, and considered a necessary lubricant to woo clients and conduct daily business. (The Time & Life Building that housed Sports Illustrated offered staff a dimly lit room where employees could lie down during the day if they overdid it at lunch.) Factory jobs didn't involve as much sitting or imbibing, but they did become more automated.

To top it all off, more Americans were smoking more cigarettes, too. Smoking had gradually increased throughout the century largely thanks to Hollywood, which portrayed cigarettes as sexy, sophisticated, and glamorous. By 1964, when the U.S. Surgeon General first revealed cigarettes could cause lung and laryngeal cancers, 40 percent of adults smoked-not to mention hordes of teen baby boomers.

The "modern way of life" was starting to impact American bodies. While the rise of vaccines and antibiotics had dramatically lowered rates of contagious and infectious diseases, the country now saw a surge in disease borne out of abundance. More Americans began to suffer from hypertension, diabetes, gallbladder disease, and heart attacks. Meanwhile, military generals reported that new recruits were weak, raising fears about America's ability to defend itself. During World War I, the military turned down 37 percent of potential draftees for being physically unfit; by the Korean War, it rejected 52 percent. As Bonnie Prudden was discovering through her own research, even the country's kids had grown weaker and less limber.

But few Americans saw exercise as the solution.

Mid-century Americans loathed exercise. They considered it painfully boring, a silly way to spend one's precious leisure time. "The mere mention of formal exercise is enough to bring a shudder to the average American spine, weak as it is alleged to be at present," Robert H. Boyle wrote in Sports Illustrated in 1955. Besides, few medical experts were telling people they should exercise. Doctors were more concerned about the dangers of over-exertion than under-exertion, believing strenuous exercise could lead to heart attacks in men and reproductive problems in women. "Whenever I get the urge to exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes," University of Chicago president Robert Maynard Hutchins famously quipped, and in the 1950s, he spoke for the mainstream.

Mid-century Americans with the time and means played sports and games, to be sure-tennis and golf, sailing and skiing. Young men played baseball, basketball, and football; young women rode horses, danced, or played volleyball or field hockey or half-court basketball in knee-length skirts. Some people swam, if they had access to a pool. Americans might accidentally break a sweat dancing the jitterbug or hula-hooping. And a few "kept fit" by doing calisthenics-a nineteenth-century term that comes from the Greek for beautiful strength-recognizing that stretching and moving their bodies made them feel good. But for most, exercise was the by-product of sport, not an activity unto itself. Few saw the point of exercising to maintain one's health or quality of life. There was no such thing as training, unless you were an athlete preparing for competition.

American popular culture treated those who did devote significant time to exercising-and particularly to building muscle-as oddities, or worse. Thanks partly to Hollywood's portrayal of muscular men as thickheaded, the public generally believed that brain and brawn were incompatible. Men with big, visible muscles were often cast as villainous henchmen, thugs, or simply dummies. In other cases, men who appeared overly concerned with their physique were viewed with suspicion. In a culture that was deeply homophobic, such behavior was thought to signal homosexuality.

Americans would learn, in time, the power of daily movement. But the summer Bonnie Prudden posed for her Sports Illustrated cover, her suggestion that Americans-men, women, and children-make a regular habit of exercising and strengthening their bodies struck most as ridiculous.

During a 1956 radio interview with journalist Mike Wallace, the future 60 Minutes correspondent asks Bonnie, with a chuckle: "You think that there should be a formal exercise, a kind of 'joy through strength' period for husband, wife, and family when the father gets home from work at six thirty at night, before the martinis? . . . You think that we should have a routine, all of us?" To which she responds without missing a beat: "I'm more convinced of it than you are." For a country bracing for a war against the Soviets, however, becoming a nation of "softies" wasn't acceptable, either. The lady in the leotite was offering a solution.

***

Ruth "Bonnie" Prudden was a descendant of Davy Crockett, the folk hero crowned "King of the Wild Frontier," and she wore her lineage like a badge of honor.

She had been hyperactive as a kid. She never walked anywhere, she liked to say-she ran. In 1918, when she was four years old, she began a habit of climbing out of a second-story window of her family's home at midnight and roaming the streets of their middle-class neighborhood in Mount Vernon, just north of the Bronx. Her father was concerned and suggested her mother take her to the family doctor. Why so much energy? she asked the doctor.

"There is nothing wrong with this child that discipline and exhaustion won't cure," the doctor said. He suggested they enroll Bonnie in a local Russian ballet academy, and it worked. "After my three strenuous dance classes each week, I was much too tired to wander in the night." Her parents would soon supplement her dancing with classes at German and Swedish gymnastics schools as well.

As she grew up, Bonnie became a "scrubby little tomboy." She went bare-legged in the New York winters, her knees covered in cuts and bruises from climbing, exploring, adventuring. "When I wanted to find out if I liked a boy, I'd climb a tree and challenge him to follow me," she would say. "If he couldn't make it, he was out."

Bonnie's life indoors was lonely. Her mother's worsening alcoholism and sharp tongue created constant stress. She could feel her mother's disappointment in having birthed such an aberrant daughter. "I was not frail, not pretty, nor golden haired and blue-eyed. That was my little sister, Jeanne," Bonnie wrote. "My mother's repetitive question, Why can't you be more like your sister?, was a thorn in my heart." Bonnie preferred spending time with her father, who was an outdoorsman, but he worked in newspaper advertising and was rarely home. When he was, he liked to call his eldest daughter his "bonnie lass"-a nickname that stuck.

Bonnie loved to read, to be transported to other worlds through books, but her talent for dance would be the thing that would grant her access to real-life new worlds. After graduating in 1933 from New York City’s Horace Mann High School, she spent a summer working at a ranch in Arizona, where her “well-trained body learned to break horses, brand and castrate cattle, and ride for days.” She returned to New York that fall and took a few college courses before joining a professional dance company. Bonnie loved performing; her mother wondered aloud what would become of her daughter. At twenty-one, she snagged her dream job—a role dancing in a Broadway musical revue called Life Begins at 8:40.
One of The New Yorker's Best Books of 2022
One of Veranda’s Most Anticipated Books of 2022

“Fact-packed but bouncy…Most enjoyable is when Friedman shines light on less hallowed figures, like Judi Sheppard Missett, the relentlessly upbeat founder of Jazzercise, whose classes “changed the rhythm of women’s days”; and Bonnie Prudden, “the lady in the leotite” and a descendant of Davy Crockett…[Friedman’s] book is very much “pro” exercise, but for the right reasons: not slimming down but mood management, community, spirituality in the corporal.” —The New York Times

“Friedman’s engaging stories of the women who created and transformed the fitness industry illustrate an evolution built upon strong female shoulders.” —The Washington Post

“[A] fascinating look at the world of modern exercise and some of the main female players in it.”—New York Post

“Canny and informative.” —The New Yorker

“Fascinating…persuasively encapsulates the relatively recent history of women’s fitness and the wide-reaching impact its trailblazers had. Let’s Get Physical is packed with stories of people who come to classes because of how they want to look, but stay because of how those classes make them feel: strong, supported, engaged, and empowered.” —The Atlantic

"Danielle Friedman's new book, Let's Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World, is basically a perfect book....The book uncovers an important history that was sitting right there in the open but had never been wrapped between covers and contextualized with the fitful fight for women's rights." Alexis Madrigal, Forum (KQUED)

“There are few areas of American culture as complicated—and as understudied—as women's exercise. Which is why I feel like I've been waiting for a book like Let's Get Physical for decades: something that takes the history and importance of fitness seriously, but is also incisive and curious and readable and fun.” —Anne Helen Petersen, author of Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation

“Friedman takes a jaunt through the history of women’s fitness in her astute and entertaining debut...This zippy history is bursting with energy.” —Publishers Weekly

“Fascinating stuff.” —Booklist

“A fascinating and complicated history, masterfully shared. Let's Get Physical made me grateful to the women of the past and hopeful about the future of fitness. My favorite read of the year!” --Kelly McGonigal, author of The Joy of Movement

“It's easy to critique the class, race, and gender stereotypes perpetuated by many fitness industry advertising campaigns, but Friedman reminds us how revolutionary it was, not so long ago, to encourage women to do strenuous physical exercise. An engaging account of the complicated, unconventional individuals who pioneered today's fitness culture for women.” --Stephanie Coontz, author of A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s

“It is all too easy to look at the history of women’s fitness as an unconnected timeline of fads and celebrities. In Let’s Get Physical, Danielle Friedman weaves together the cultural history of a movement that is nothing less than the story of the modern American woman—and she does it with fascinating and fun storytelling that will appeal to anyone who has ever wondered why thighs need to be mastered or buns should be made of steel.” —Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World and Every Minute Is a Day: A Doctor, an Emergency Room, and a City Under Siege

“Don't read this book because it's ‘good for you.’ Read it because it's an eye-opening cultural history of the fitness pioneers who put the ‘move’ into the feminist movement. Let's Get Physical reminded me of why feeling strong feels so good.” --Brooke Hauser, author of Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman

“How did we get from the notion that exercise was unladylike, even dangerous for women, to the 1980s fitness craze and beyond that has totally transformed women’s lives?  In this lively book, Danielle Friedman uses fitness pioneers and icons, from Bonnie Prudden to Jane Fonda to Lilias Folan, to trace how regular exercise became central to millions of women’s pursuit of vitality, confidence, and happiness.  Full of fun and inspiring stories, Let’s Get Physical reminds us that this is not just a history of sports bras or leg warmers, but also of how feminism itself enabled and drew from women finding empowerment in the strength of their own bodies.” —Susan J. Douglas, author of In Our Prime:  How Older Women are Reinventing the Road Ahead

“Danielle Friedman's wildly engaging Let’s Get Physical answered the questions I didn't even know I had about the origins of women's fitness (Jane Fonda sold how many copies of her Workout?!), and left me with a huge debt of gratitude to the trailblazing women who had the foresight to do things like sneak into the Boston Marathon and invent the sports bra so that we could swan into the gym without a second thought. A fascinating, meticulously researched read that left me with a much greater appreciation for the burn of barre class.” —Doree Shafrir, author of Thanks for Waiting and Startup: A Novel

"Friedman's study of modern fitness culture is as illuminating as it is enthralling. She reveals the wild characters, political agendas, and social movements that changed not only our exercise behaviors but our understanding of exercise itself. Behind every workout there is a story, and it's usually a good one." —Kelsey Miller, author of I’ll Be There for You: The One About Friends
 
“With lively writing and compelling storytelling—tales of bamboo swords, spandex, and a sexy gerbil included—Danielle Friedman teases out the complicated relationship between exercise culture and feminism in this engaging exploration of modern fitness history. You'll want to hit the barre afterward.” —Haley Shapley, author of Strong Like Her: A Celebration of Rule Breakers, History Makers, and Unstoppable Athletes

“Delicious…Danielle Friedman tracks exercise culture into the 21st century, debunking myths and delighting readers with diamond-sharp prose, wry humor and rigorous research.” —Sarah Everts, author of The Joy of Sweat: The Strange Science of Perspiration
© Lindsay May for Classic Kids Photography
Danielle Friedman is an award-winning journalist whose feature writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Cut, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Glamour, Health, and other publications. She has worked as a senior editor at NBC News Digital and The Daily Beast, and she began her career as a nonfiction book editor at the Penguin imprints Hudson Street Press and Plume. She lives in New York City with her husband and son.
 
 
  View titles by Danielle Friedman
Available for sale exclusive:
•     Canada
•     Guam
•     Minor Outl.Ins.
•     North Mariana
•     Philippines
•     Puerto Rico
•     Samoa,American
•     US Virgin Is.
•     USA

Available for sale non-exclusive:
•     Afghanistan
•     Aland Islands
•     Albania
•     Algeria
•     Andorra
•     Angola
•     Anguilla
•     Antarctica
•     Argentina
•     Armenia
•     Aruba
•     Austria
•     Azerbaijan
•     Bahrain
•     Belarus
•     Belgium
•     Benin
•     Bhutan
•     Bolivia
•     Bonaire, Saba
•     Bosnia Herzeg.
•     Bouvet Island
•     Brazil
•     Bulgaria
•     Burkina Faso
•     Burundi
•     Cambodia
•     Cameroon
•     Cape Verde
•     Centr.Afr.Rep.
•     Chad
•     Chile
•     China
•     Colombia
•     Comoro Is.
•     Congo
•     Cook Islands
•     Costa Rica
•     Croatia
•     Cuba
•     Curacao
•     Czech Republic
•     Dem. Rep. Congo
•     Denmark
•     Djibouti
•     Dominican Rep.
•     Ecuador
•     Egypt
•     El Salvador
•     Equatorial Gui.
•     Eritrea
•     Estonia
•     Ethiopia
•     Faroe Islands
•     Finland
•     France
•     Fren.Polynesia
•     French Guinea
•     Gabon
•     Georgia
•     Germany
•     Greece
•     Greenland
•     Guadeloupe
•     Guatemala
•     Guinea Republic
•     Guinea-Bissau
•     Haiti
•     Heard/McDon.Isl
•     Honduras
•     Hong Kong
•     Hungary
•     Iceland
•     Indonesia
•     Iran
•     Iraq
•     Israel
•     Italy
•     Ivory Coast
•     Japan
•     Jordan
•     Kazakhstan
•     Kuwait
•     Kyrgyzstan
•     Laos
•     Latvia
•     Lebanon
•     Liberia
•     Libya
•     Liechtenstein
•     Lithuania
•     Luxembourg
•     Macau
•     Macedonia
•     Madagascar
•     Maldives
•     Mali
•     Marshall island
•     Martinique
•     Mauritania
•     Mayotte
•     Mexico
•     Micronesia
•     Moldavia
•     Monaco
•     Mongolia
•     Montenegro
•     Morocco
•     Myanmar
•     Nepal
•     Netherlands
•     New Caledonia
•     Nicaragua
•     Niger
•     Niue
•     Norfolk Island
•     North Korea
•     Norway
•     Oman
•     Palau
•     Palestinian Ter
•     Panama
•     Paraguay
•     Peru
•     Poland
•     Portugal
•     Qatar
•     Reunion Island
•     Romania
•     Russian Fed.
•     Rwanda
•     Saint Martin
•     San Marino
•     SaoTome Princip
•     Saudi Arabia
•     Senegal
•     Serbia
•     Singapore
•     Sint Maarten
•     Slovakia
•     Slovenia
•     South Korea
•     South Sudan
•     Spain
•     St Barthelemy
•     St.Pier,Miquel.
•     Sth Terr. Franc
•     Sudan
•     Suriname
•     Svalbard
•     Sweden
•     Switzerland
•     Syria
•     Tadschikistan
•     Taiwan
•     Thailand
•     Timor-Leste
•     Togo
•     Tokelau Islands
•     Tunisia
•     Turkey
•     Turkmenistan
•     Ukraine
•     Unit.Arab Emir.
•     Uruguay
•     Uzbekistan
•     Vatican City
•     Venezuela
•     Vietnam
•     Wallis,Futuna
•     West Saharan
•     Western Samoa
•     Yemen

Not available for sale:
•     Antigua/Barbuda
•     Australia
•     Bahamas
•     Bangladesh
•     Barbados
•     Belize
•     Bermuda
•     Botswana
•     Brit.Ind.Oc.Ter
•     Brit.Virgin Is.
•     Brunei
•     Cayman Islands
•     Christmas Islnd
•     Cocos Islands
•     Cyprus
•     Dominica
•     Falkland Islnds
•     Fiji
•     Gambia
•     Ghana
•     Gibraltar
•     Grenada
•     Guernsey
•     Guyana
•     India
•     Ireland
•     Isle of Man
•     Jamaica
•     Jersey
•     Kenya
•     Kiribati
•     Lesotho
•     Malawi
•     Malaysia
•     Malta
•     Mauritius
•     Montserrat
•     Mozambique
•     Namibia
•     Nauru
•     New Zealand
•     Nigeria
•     Pakistan
•     PapuaNewGuinea
•     Pitcairn Islnds
•     S. Sandwich Ins
•     Seychelles
•     Sierra Leone
•     Solomon Islands
•     Somalia
•     South Africa
•     Sri Lanka
•     St. Helena
•     St. Lucia
•     St. Vincent
•     St.Chr.,Nevis
•     Swaziland
•     Tanzania
•     Tonga
•     Trinidad,Tobago
•     Turks&Caicos Is
•     Tuvalu
•     Uganda
•     United Kingdom
•     Vanuatu
•     Zambia
•     Zimbabwe

About

A captivating blend of reportage and personal narrative that explores the untold history of women’s exercise culture--from jogging and Jazzercise to Jane Fonda--and how women have parlayed physical strength into other forms of power.

For much of the twentieth century, sweating was considered “unladylike” and girls grew up believing physical exertion would cause their uterus to “fall out.” It was only in the Sixties that, thanks to a few forward-thinking fitness pioneers, women began to move en masse. In Let's Get Physical, journalist Danielle Friedman reveals the fascinating untold history of contemporary fitness culture, chronicling in vivid, cinematic prose how exercise evolved from a beauty tool pitched almost exclusively as a way to “reduce” into one millions have harnessed as a path to mental, emotional, and physical well-being. 
 
Let’s Get Physical takes us into the workout studios and onto the mats to reclaim these forgotten origin stories—and shine a spotlight on the trailblazers who made it possible for women to move. Each chapter uncovers the birth of an fitness movement that laid the foundation for working out today: the invention of the barre method in the Swinging Sixties, jogging’s path to liberation in the Seventies, the explosion of aerobics and weight-training in the Eighties, the rise of yoga in the Nineties, and the ongoing push for a more socially inclusive fitness culture—one that celebrates every body. Ultimately, it tells the story of how women discovered the joy of physical competence and strength—and how, by moving together to transform fitness from a privilege into a right, we can create a more powerful sisterhood.

Excerpt

Chapter 1

Reduce

Pat: I've been around physical ed for years.

Mike: Physical Ed? Who's he?

-Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in Pat and Mike, 1952

America, manpower conscious, is almost oblivious
of the potential of its neglected womanpower.

-Eugene Register-Guard, 1962

New Yorkers who spotted Bonnie Prudden striding through midtown Manhattan in August 1957 couldn't have known they were glimpsing the future. With the space race revving up and new technological marvels emerging every day-color TV! Teflon pans!-who would give serious consideration to a petite forty-something woman going about her day in a stretchy jumpsuit? She was an anomaly, a head-scratcher. They couldn't have known that someday their city would be filled with Bonnies, sheathed in workout clothes that allowed them to move as they pleased.

But that summer, after weekly appearances on NBC's Home show, she knew she was onto something. The morning show was hosted by Arlene Francis and Hugh Downs, and featured her, America's leading fitness expert, alongside some of the biggest names of the day-Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Dear Abby's Abigail Van Buren. "We are raising a nation of children with muscles of custard," Bonnie told the hosts. She had a gift for dramatic exaggeration that annoyed her critics. The whole country was falling apart, she said.

Now the editors at Sports Illustrated seemed to agree, asking her to appear on the cover of their August 5 issue as both a model of physical fitness and its number one champion. So what if they'd be featuring her during the languid final stretch of summer? A cover was a cover.

It would be the latest in a string of platforms to promote her controversial message: Everyone should exercise. Everyone. Every day. Even the mostly male readers of a magazine devoted largely to golf and baseball highlights-who thumbed through issues while smoking cigarettes and sipping scotch, or grabbing 25-cent burgers at a coffee shop counter on a lunch break, only to commute via train or bus or car home, where they would plop into an easy chair and watch a few hours of television. Even their girlfriends and wives, who were raised to believe ladies should never sweat. (Horses sweat, men perspire, but ladies merely glow, went the old adage.)

For the cover, shot at her "fitness institute" in the suburb of White Plains-a predecessor to the kind of gyms that would become a fixture in this country decades later-Bonnie slipped into her trademark workout uniform, a one-piece wool outfit of her own design called a "leotite," covered in a jaunty star pattern.

It was a novel concept, both the outfit and the notion that a woman would prioritize comfort and flexibility in her wardrobe. After all, it was a moment when most of the decade's fashions were shaped by girdles and petticoats. Once, when Bonnie was late to an appointment, she ran through the streets of Manhattan in one of her leotites covered only by a thin white medical coat. A well-meaning police officer stopped her-Was she okay? he wanted to know. It was highly unusual for a woman to be running in public, especially one so scantily clad.

Sports Illustrated assigned staff photographer Richard Meek, whose previous credits included baseball great Ted Williams and hockey legend Gordie Howe, to her cover shoot. Bonnie styled her close-cropped brown curls into a no-fuss 'doo and wore just a smidge of makeup. Her leotite advertised that her arms, legs, stomach-every inch of her 5-foot-3-inch frame-were harder than those of most women her age (or any age). Her boundless energy belied her forty-three years, the challenges of raising two teen daughters, her chronic loneliness.

For the winning photo, Bonnie got down on the ground, shot a toned leg high into the air, and smiled. Click! The move was so familiar to her, but so exotic to most Americans. Inside the magazine, the reading line accompanying her feature would offer this mantra: Bonnie Prudden says: You are NOT too young, too old, too full of aches, too fat, too thin, too far gone, too lazy, too flabby, too anything to have fun keeping fit. She would devote the next few pages attempting to convince a skeptical nation.

"The secret is simple," she told readers. You "substitute activity for inactivity as much as you can during the course of a normal day and take a few minutes of each day to do some easy exercises." It was straightforward enough. "For more fun and best results do the exercises to music," she added. "Use Leroy Anderson's 'Sleigh Ride' or 'China Doll.'" Women should "never wear girdles while exercising," she warned, "but should wear a brassiere."

She demonstrated four floor exercises to get readers started, the first in a pictorial column that would run in more than forty issues of the magazine.

The secret may have been simple, but it was a tough sell in postwar America. What would daily exercise look like for Americans in the late fifties? For men, it would mean reconsidering the three-martini lunch. For women, it would mean something more profound: taking time out of their day to care for themselves, when nearly every social institution stressed that a woman's sole purpose in life was to care for others.

Unless exercise could be sold as a wifely duty-and a path to winning the Cold War.

***

Americans had long prided themselves on being a hardy people. They were puritans and pioneers and immigrants, tough and industrious. They were can-do workers and strivers. But by the 1950s, they were moving less than ever before, and the lack of activity was taking a toll. Politicians and pundits questioned whether the nation was becoming soft.

Gone were the days when Americans' survival depended on physical competence. As the twentieth century progressed, the growing middle class embraced what it called "our modern way of life." It was a lifestyle defined by ease and abundance, which felt like a balm after the Great Depression and World War II. It prized comfort, convenience, efficiency. It also made Americans' bodies "largely irrelevant," writes historian Shelly McKenzie in Getting Physical: The Rise of Fitness Culture in America.

The rise of the suburbs transformed nearly every aspect of middle-class life, as a single-family home with a yard in a well-groomed neighborhood became the new American dream. From 1950 to 1960, the country's suburban population exploded from 21 million to 37 million. But over time, those living in the new sprawl succumbed to what Bonnie Prudden liked to call "the tyranny of the wheel." Walking was replaced by driving, as cars were now required to get around. Kids who in previous generations had been active since they could scoot were now pushed in strollers, then shuttled to school in buses. (No more walking a mile, uphill both ways, in the snow, to class.) Children also had fewer open spaces for playing and fewer trees for climbing, as land was paved into parking lots. In many towns sidewalks were narrowed or eliminated completely.

Suburban homes themselves were built and furnished to minimize physical exertion. The decade's popular one-story ranch houses eliminated the need to climb stairs. Air-conditioning units and central heating and new push-button appliances required only the touch of a finger. By 1960, three-quarters of families owned cars and washing machines, and 90 percent owned a television, as sitting in front of the small screen became a favorite American pastime.

Women still did plenty of housework, of course-a woman's work truly was never done-but as anyone who has ever cleaned a home knows, the physical labor it requires doesn't always benefit the body. Bonnie Prudden warned as much. "Housework won't raise a bosom to where it belongs or keep it there," she told a reporter in 1956. "Housework is no good for all-round muscular fitness."

Then there was the matter of the dinner table. Americans were eating more, and they were eating worse. In the fifties, the "golden age of food processing," the food industry churned out mass quantities of products rich in sugar, salt, fat, and preservatives. The decade saw the birth of McDonald's, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Dunkin' Donuts. Swanson introduced the "TV dinner" to the masses in 1954, after the company found itself with a surplus of 260 tons of turkey after Thanksgiving, and it sold 10 million in the first year. Supermarkets expanded to house the vast quantities of new, modern cuisine. As Cold War fears grew, the government drilled home the message that democracy was defined by abundance-and communism by scarcity-which turned purchasing into a patriotic act. Madison Avenue admen and -women reinforced these values by linking factory-made food with positive emotions: family, celebration, and love.

When Americans went to work, they sat some more, as desk jobs surged. In many professions, drinking on the job was accepted or encouraged, and considered a necessary lubricant to woo clients and conduct daily business. (The Time & Life Building that housed Sports Illustrated offered staff a dimly lit room where employees could lie down during the day if they overdid it at lunch.) Factory jobs didn't involve as much sitting or imbibing, but they did become more automated.

To top it all off, more Americans were smoking more cigarettes, too. Smoking had gradually increased throughout the century largely thanks to Hollywood, which portrayed cigarettes as sexy, sophisticated, and glamorous. By 1964, when the U.S. Surgeon General first revealed cigarettes could cause lung and laryngeal cancers, 40 percent of adults smoked-not to mention hordes of teen baby boomers.

The "modern way of life" was starting to impact American bodies. While the rise of vaccines and antibiotics had dramatically lowered rates of contagious and infectious diseases, the country now saw a surge in disease borne out of abundance. More Americans began to suffer from hypertension, diabetes, gallbladder disease, and heart attacks. Meanwhile, military generals reported that new recruits were weak, raising fears about America's ability to defend itself. During World War I, the military turned down 37 percent of potential draftees for being physically unfit; by the Korean War, it rejected 52 percent. As Bonnie Prudden was discovering through her own research, even the country's kids had grown weaker and less limber.

But few Americans saw exercise as the solution.

Mid-century Americans loathed exercise. They considered it painfully boring, a silly way to spend one's precious leisure time. "The mere mention of formal exercise is enough to bring a shudder to the average American spine, weak as it is alleged to be at present," Robert H. Boyle wrote in Sports Illustrated in 1955. Besides, few medical experts were telling people they should exercise. Doctors were more concerned about the dangers of over-exertion than under-exertion, believing strenuous exercise could lead to heart attacks in men and reproductive problems in women. "Whenever I get the urge to exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes," University of Chicago president Robert Maynard Hutchins famously quipped, and in the 1950s, he spoke for the mainstream.

Mid-century Americans with the time and means played sports and games, to be sure-tennis and golf, sailing and skiing. Young men played baseball, basketball, and football; young women rode horses, danced, or played volleyball or field hockey or half-court basketball in knee-length skirts. Some people swam, if they had access to a pool. Americans might accidentally break a sweat dancing the jitterbug or hula-hooping. And a few "kept fit" by doing calisthenics-a nineteenth-century term that comes from the Greek for beautiful strength-recognizing that stretching and moving their bodies made them feel good. But for most, exercise was the by-product of sport, not an activity unto itself. Few saw the point of exercising to maintain one's health or quality of life. There was no such thing as training, unless you were an athlete preparing for competition.

American popular culture treated those who did devote significant time to exercising-and particularly to building muscle-as oddities, or worse. Thanks partly to Hollywood's portrayal of muscular men as thickheaded, the public generally believed that brain and brawn were incompatible. Men with big, visible muscles were often cast as villainous henchmen, thugs, or simply dummies. In other cases, men who appeared overly concerned with their physique were viewed with suspicion. In a culture that was deeply homophobic, such behavior was thought to signal homosexuality.

Americans would learn, in time, the power of daily movement. But the summer Bonnie Prudden posed for her Sports Illustrated cover, her suggestion that Americans-men, women, and children-make a regular habit of exercising and strengthening their bodies struck most as ridiculous.

During a 1956 radio interview with journalist Mike Wallace, the future 60 Minutes correspondent asks Bonnie, with a chuckle: "You think that there should be a formal exercise, a kind of 'joy through strength' period for husband, wife, and family when the father gets home from work at six thirty at night, before the martinis? . . . You think that we should have a routine, all of us?" To which she responds without missing a beat: "I'm more convinced of it than you are." For a country bracing for a war against the Soviets, however, becoming a nation of "softies" wasn't acceptable, either. The lady in the leotite was offering a solution.

***

Ruth "Bonnie" Prudden was a descendant of Davy Crockett, the folk hero crowned "King of the Wild Frontier," and she wore her lineage like a badge of honor.

She had been hyperactive as a kid. She never walked anywhere, she liked to say-she ran. In 1918, when she was four years old, she began a habit of climbing out of a second-story window of her family's home at midnight and roaming the streets of their middle-class neighborhood in Mount Vernon, just north of the Bronx. Her father was concerned and suggested her mother take her to the family doctor. Why so much energy? she asked the doctor.

"There is nothing wrong with this child that discipline and exhaustion won't cure," the doctor said. He suggested they enroll Bonnie in a local Russian ballet academy, and it worked. "After my three strenuous dance classes each week, I was much too tired to wander in the night." Her parents would soon supplement her dancing with classes at German and Swedish gymnastics schools as well.

As she grew up, Bonnie became a "scrubby little tomboy." She went bare-legged in the New York winters, her knees covered in cuts and bruises from climbing, exploring, adventuring. "When I wanted to find out if I liked a boy, I'd climb a tree and challenge him to follow me," she would say. "If he couldn't make it, he was out."

Bonnie's life indoors was lonely. Her mother's worsening alcoholism and sharp tongue created constant stress. She could feel her mother's disappointment in having birthed such an aberrant daughter. "I was not frail, not pretty, nor golden haired and blue-eyed. That was my little sister, Jeanne," Bonnie wrote. "My mother's repetitive question, Why can't you be more like your sister?, was a thorn in my heart." Bonnie preferred spending time with her father, who was an outdoorsman, but he worked in newspaper advertising and was rarely home. When he was, he liked to call his eldest daughter his "bonnie lass"-a nickname that stuck.

Bonnie loved to read, to be transported to other worlds through books, but her talent for dance would be the thing that would grant her access to real-life new worlds. After graduating in 1933 from New York City’s Horace Mann High School, she spent a summer working at a ranch in Arizona, where her “well-trained body learned to break horses, brand and castrate cattle, and ride for days.” She returned to New York that fall and took a few college courses before joining a professional dance company. Bonnie loved performing; her mother wondered aloud what would become of her daughter. At twenty-one, she snagged her dream job—a role dancing in a Broadway musical revue called Life Begins at 8:40.

Praise

One of The New Yorker's Best Books of 2022
One of Veranda’s Most Anticipated Books of 2022

“Fact-packed but bouncy…Most enjoyable is when Friedman shines light on less hallowed figures, like Judi Sheppard Missett, the relentlessly upbeat founder of Jazzercise, whose classes “changed the rhythm of women’s days”; and Bonnie Prudden, “the lady in the leotite” and a descendant of Davy Crockett…[Friedman’s] book is very much “pro” exercise, but for the right reasons: not slimming down but mood management, community, spirituality in the corporal.” —The New York Times

“Friedman’s engaging stories of the women who created and transformed the fitness industry illustrate an evolution built upon strong female shoulders.” —The Washington Post

“[A] fascinating look at the world of modern exercise and some of the main female players in it.”—New York Post

“Canny and informative.” —The New Yorker

“Fascinating…persuasively encapsulates the relatively recent history of women’s fitness and the wide-reaching impact its trailblazers had. Let’s Get Physical is packed with stories of people who come to classes because of how they want to look, but stay because of how those classes make them feel: strong, supported, engaged, and empowered.” —The Atlantic

"Danielle Friedman's new book, Let's Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World, is basically a perfect book....The book uncovers an important history that was sitting right there in the open but had never been wrapped between covers and contextualized with the fitful fight for women's rights." Alexis Madrigal, Forum (KQUED)

“There are few areas of American culture as complicated—and as understudied—as women's exercise. Which is why I feel like I've been waiting for a book like Let's Get Physical for decades: something that takes the history and importance of fitness seriously, but is also incisive and curious and readable and fun.” —Anne Helen Petersen, author of Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation

“Friedman takes a jaunt through the history of women’s fitness in her astute and entertaining debut...This zippy history is bursting with energy.” —Publishers Weekly

“Fascinating stuff.” —Booklist

“A fascinating and complicated history, masterfully shared. Let's Get Physical made me grateful to the women of the past and hopeful about the future of fitness. My favorite read of the year!” --Kelly McGonigal, author of The Joy of Movement

“It's easy to critique the class, race, and gender stereotypes perpetuated by many fitness industry advertising campaigns, but Friedman reminds us how revolutionary it was, not so long ago, to encourage women to do strenuous physical exercise. An engaging account of the complicated, unconventional individuals who pioneered today's fitness culture for women.” --Stephanie Coontz, author of A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s

“It is all too easy to look at the history of women’s fitness as an unconnected timeline of fads and celebrities. In Let’s Get Physical, Danielle Friedman weaves together the cultural history of a movement that is nothing less than the story of the modern American woman—and she does it with fascinating and fun storytelling that will appeal to anyone who has ever wondered why thighs need to be mastered or buns should be made of steel.” —Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World and Every Minute Is a Day: A Doctor, an Emergency Room, and a City Under Siege

“Don't read this book because it's ‘good for you.’ Read it because it's an eye-opening cultural history of the fitness pioneers who put the ‘move’ into the feminist movement. Let's Get Physical reminded me of why feeling strong feels so good.” --Brooke Hauser, author of Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman

“How did we get from the notion that exercise was unladylike, even dangerous for women, to the 1980s fitness craze and beyond that has totally transformed women’s lives?  In this lively book, Danielle Friedman uses fitness pioneers and icons, from Bonnie Prudden to Jane Fonda to Lilias Folan, to trace how regular exercise became central to millions of women’s pursuit of vitality, confidence, and happiness.  Full of fun and inspiring stories, Let’s Get Physical reminds us that this is not just a history of sports bras or leg warmers, but also of how feminism itself enabled and drew from women finding empowerment in the strength of their own bodies.” —Susan J. Douglas, author of In Our Prime:  How Older Women are Reinventing the Road Ahead

“Danielle Friedman's wildly engaging Let’s Get Physical answered the questions I didn't even know I had about the origins of women's fitness (Jane Fonda sold how many copies of her Workout?!), and left me with a huge debt of gratitude to the trailblazing women who had the foresight to do things like sneak into the Boston Marathon and invent the sports bra so that we could swan into the gym without a second thought. A fascinating, meticulously researched read that left me with a much greater appreciation for the burn of barre class.” —Doree Shafrir, author of Thanks for Waiting and Startup: A Novel

"Friedman's study of modern fitness culture is as illuminating as it is enthralling. She reveals the wild characters, political agendas, and social movements that changed not only our exercise behaviors but our understanding of exercise itself. Behind every workout there is a story, and it's usually a good one." —Kelsey Miller, author of I’ll Be There for You: The One About Friends
 
“With lively writing and compelling storytelling—tales of bamboo swords, spandex, and a sexy gerbil included—Danielle Friedman teases out the complicated relationship between exercise culture and feminism in this engaging exploration of modern fitness history. You'll want to hit the barre afterward.” —Haley Shapley, author of Strong Like Her: A Celebration of Rule Breakers, History Makers, and Unstoppable Athletes

“Delicious…Danielle Friedman tracks exercise culture into the 21st century, debunking myths and delighting readers with diamond-sharp prose, wry humor and rigorous research.” —Sarah Everts, author of The Joy of Sweat: The Strange Science of Perspiration

Author

© Lindsay May for Classic Kids Photography
Danielle Friedman is an award-winning journalist whose feature writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Cut, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Glamour, Health, and other publications. She has worked as a senior editor at NBC News Digital and The Daily Beast, and she began her career as a nonfiction book editor at the Penguin imprints Hudson Street Press and Plume. She lives in New York City with her husband and son.
 
 
  View titles by Danielle Friedman

Rights

Available for sale exclusive:
•     Canada
•     Guam
•     Minor Outl.Ins.
•     North Mariana
•     Philippines
•     Puerto Rico
•     Samoa,American
•     US Virgin Is.
•     USA

Available for sale non-exclusive:
•     Afghanistan
•     Aland Islands
•     Albania
•     Algeria
•     Andorra
•     Angola
•     Anguilla
•     Antarctica
•     Argentina
•     Armenia
•     Aruba
•     Austria
•     Azerbaijan
•     Bahrain
•     Belarus
•     Belgium
•     Benin
•     Bhutan
•     Bolivia
•     Bonaire, Saba
•     Bosnia Herzeg.
•     Bouvet Island
•     Brazil
•     Bulgaria
•     Burkina Faso
•     Burundi
•     Cambodia
•     Cameroon
•     Cape Verde
•     Centr.Afr.Rep.
•     Chad
•     Chile
•     China
•     Colombia
•     Comoro Is.
•     Congo
•     Cook Islands
•     Costa Rica
•     Croatia
•     Cuba
•     Curacao
•     Czech Republic
•     Dem. Rep. Congo
•     Denmark
•     Djibouti
•     Dominican Rep.
•     Ecuador
•     Egypt
•     El Salvador
•     Equatorial Gui.
•     Eritrea
•     Estonia
•     Ethiopia
•     Faroe Islands
•     Finland
•     France
•     Fren.Polynesia
•     French Guinea
•     Gabon
•     Georgia
•     Germany
•     Greece
•     Greenland
•     Guadeloupe
•     Guatemala
•     Guinea Republic
•     Guinea-Bissau
•     Haiti
•     Heard/McDon.Isl
•     Honduras
•     Hong Kong
•     Hungary
•     Iceland
•     Indonesia
•     Iran
•     Iraq
•     Israel
•     Italy
•     Ivory Coast
•     Japan
•     Jordan
•     Kazakhstan
•     Kuwait
•     Kyrgyzstan
•     Laos
•     Latvia
•     Lebanon
•     Liberia
•     Libya
•     Liechtenstein
•     Lithuania
•     Luxembourg
•     Macau
•     Macedonia
•     Madagascar
•     Maldives
•     Mali
•     Marshall island
•     Martinique
•     Mauritania
•     Mayotte
•     Mexico
•     Micronesia
•     Moldavia
•     Monaco
•     Mongolia
•     Montenegro
•     Morocco
•     Myanmar
•     Nepal
•     Netherlands
•     New Caledonia
•     Nicaragua
•     Niger
•     Niue
•     Norfolk Island
•     North Korea
•     Norway
•     Oman
•     Palau
•     Palestinian Ter
•     Panama
•     Paraguay
•     Peru
•     Poland
•     Portugal
•     Qatar
•     Reunion Island
•     Romania
•     Russian Fed.
•     Rwanda
•     Saint Martin
•     San Marino
•     SaoTome Princip
•     Saudi Arabia
•     Senegal
•     Serbia
•     Singapore
•     Sint Maarten
•     Slovakia
•     Slovenia
•     South Korea
•     South Sudan
•     Spain
•     St Barthelemy
•     St.Pier,Miquel.
•     Sth Terr. Franc
•     Sudan
•     Suriname
•     Svalbard
•     Sweden
•     Switzerland
•     Syria
•     Tadschikistan
•     Taiwan
•     Thailand
•     Timor-Leste
•     Togo
•     Tokelau Islands
•     Tunisia
•     Turkey
•     Turkmenistan
•     Ukraine
•     Unit.Arab Emir.
•     Uruguay
•     Uzbekistan
•     Vatican City
•     Venezuela
•     Vietnam
•     Wallis,Futuna
•     West Saharan
•     Western Samoa
•     Yemen

Not available for sale:
•     Antigua/Barbuda
•     Australia
•     Bahamas
•     Bangladesh
•     Barbados
•     Belize
•     Bermuda
•     Botswana
•     Brit.Ind.Oc.Ter
•     Brit.Virgin Is.
•     Brunei
•     Cayman Islands
•     Christmas Islnd
•     Cocos Islands
•     Cyprus
•     Dominica
•     Falkland Islnds
•     Fiji
•     Gambia
•     Ghana
•     Gibraltar
•     Grenada
•     Guernsey
•     Guyana
•     India
•     Ireland
•     Isle of Man
•     Jamaica
•     Jersey
•     Kenya
•     Kiribati
•     Lesotho
•     Malawi
•     Malaysia
•     Malta
•     Mauritius
•     Montserrat
•     Mozambique
•     Namibia
•     Nauru
•     New Zealand
•     Nigeria
•     Pakistan
•     PapuaNewGuinea
•     Pitcairn Islnds
•     S. Sandwich Ins
•     Seychelles
•     Sierra Leone
•     Solomon Islands
•     Somalia
•     South Africa
•     Sri Lanka
•     St. Helena
•     St. Lucia
•     St. Vincent
•     St.Chr.,Nevis
•     Swaziland
•     Tanzania
•     Tonga
•     Trinidad,Tobago
•     Turks&Caicos Is
•     Tuvalu
•     Uganda
•     United Kingdom
•     Vanuatu
•     Zambia
•     Zimbabwe

Ring in the New Year by Taking a Look at Our Newest Releases!

Happy New Year! We are officially a week into the new year, which usually means new goals, new planners, and most importantly… new books! Take a look at our first round of newest releases in 2023 (and maybe spend a little bit of that leftover holiday money while you’re at it). ADULT FICTION: ADULT NON

Read more